Large seal script
Large seal script | |
---|---|
Logographic
| |
Time period | Bronze script
|
Child systems | Small seal script |
Large seal script | |
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Hanyu Pinyin | dàzhuàn |
Bopomofo | ㄉㄚˋ ㄓㄨㄢˋ |
Wade–Giles | ta4-chuan4 |
Tongyong Pinyin | dà-jhuàn |
IPA | [tâ.ʈʂwân] |
The term large seal script traditionally refers to written Chinese dating from before the Qin dynasty—now used either narrowly to the writing of the Western and early Eastern Zhou dynasty (c. 1046 – 403 BCE), or more broadly to also include the oracle bone script (c. 1250 – c. 1000 BCE). The term deliberately contrasts the small seal script, the official script standardized throughout China during the Qin dynasty, often called merely 'seal script'. Due to the term's lack of precision, scholars often prefer more specific references regarding the provenance of whichever written samples are being discussed.
During the
It is only more recently that 'large seal script' has been extended to refer to Western Zhou forms, or even oracle bone script, of which people living during the Han were unaware. 'Large seal script' is sometimes traditionally identified with a group of characters from the Shizhoupian (c. 800 BCE), preserved by their inclusion in turn within the Han dynasty lexicon known as the Shuowen Jiezi. Xu Shen, the latter text's author, included the variants differing from the structures of small seal script, and labelled the examples as zhòuwén (籀文), referring to the name of the original book, not the name of the dynasty or of a script
See also
References
Citations
Works cited
- Chen Zhaorong (陳昭容) (2003), 秦系文字研究﹕从漢字史的角度考察 [Research on the Qín Lineage of Writing: An Examination from the Perspective of the History of Chinese Writing], Institute of History and Philology Monograph (in Chinese), Academia Sinica, ISBN 957-6-71995-X
- ISBN 978-1-557-29071-7