Any language in the world is used to record vocal language. The character is produced by the language, and develops with the language. Chinese characters are the symbol system of recording Chinese.

Different civilizations have different choices on how to use the characters to record the language.Generally speaking, there are two camps, phonetic and ideological. The Chinese characters are prominent representatives of the ideographic system.

Our Chinese has a long and glorious civilization. Chinese characters are the most important carrier of Chinese civilization. Without Chinese characters, there is no Chinese civilization yet.

So, who on earth created the Chinese characters?

According to legend, Cang Jie is the creator of the Chinese characters. The book *Chun Qiu Yuan Zao Bao* said Cang Jie "born to be able to read and write". The book *Huainanzi* said when Cang Jie created the characters "rain millet, ghost night crying."

Cang Jie, whose real name is Hou Gang, is a tribal leader in the tribal alliance of the Yellow Emperor. Sima Qian think he is the Yellow Emperor's official.

![Cangjie2.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmURPLX1YifrgE1yMCEPVDGQpvVCEwYVzSXyq6mLLcFRVu/Cangjie2.jpg)
*Cang Jie, pictures from wikipedia*



In fact, it doesn't matter whether Cang Jie is real or not. He is an outstanding representative and incarnation of our ancestors. Modern archeology has found that as early as the Neolithic Chinese characters embryonic form has emerged. Generally believed that dating back more than 6000 years, the depicting symbols unearthed from Xi'an Banpo mark the production of Chinese characters.

![刻画符号2.JPG](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmc2LA8grjtJG17MDSXsCAHCriUr3Vc12DWjNANL8ZtjAk/%E5%88%BB%E7%94%BB%E7%AC%A6%E5%8F%B72.JPG)
*the depicting symbols, photos from Xi'an Banpo Museum*



From these depicting symbols, we come to the conclusion:

> - They are relatively independent individuals;

> - They all have similar strokes.

And this is exactly the two most important features that the Chinese characters keep ever since.

Therefore, it is an unbelievable miracle that Chinese characters have a history of at least 6,000 years and are the earliest and most used script in the world.



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