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{{Short description|Form of Chinese characters from the Qin dynasty}}

factoids

|fam1=(Proto-writing)|fam2=Oracle bone script|fam3=Bronze script|fam4=Large seal script|children=Clerical script|sample=XiaozhuanQinquan.jpg|note=none}}

factoids

{{Table Hanzi}}The small seal script is an archaic script style of written Chinese. It developed within the state of Qin during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771–256 BC), and was then promulgated across China in order to replace script varieties used in other ancient Chinese states following Qin's wars of unification and establishment of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) under Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.

History

During the Eastern Zhou dynasty ({{circa|771}}{{snd}}256 BC), local varieties of Chinese character forms had developed across the country, producing the 'scripts of the six states' ()—which were later collectively referred to as large seal script.WEB, Seal Script,weblink 2023-09-28, This variance was considered unacceptable by the nascent Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), who saw it as a hindrance to timely communication, trade, taxation, and transportation, as well as being a potential vector for fomenting political dissent.JOURNAL, Galambos, Imre, 2004, The Myth of the Qin Unification of Writing in Han Sources, 23658631, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 57, 2, 181–203, 10.1556/AOrient.57.2004.2.2, 0001-6446, Around 220 BC, Qin Shi Huang ordered a systematic standardization of the country's weights, measures, and currency, as well as its writing system. Character forms which differed from those used by Qin scribes were discarded, with the Qin forms becoming standard across the entire empire.BOOK, Diringer, David, The book before printing: Ancient, Medieval and Oriental, Dover, 1982, 978-0-486-24243-9, New York,

Standardization

The standardized use of small seal characters was promulgated via the Cangjiepian primer compiled by Qin Shi Huang's ministers—namely his chancellor Li Si. This compilation, which was claimed to include 3,300 characters, is no longer extant, and is known only through Chinese commentaries over the centuries. Several hundred characters from fragmented commentaries were collected during the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), and recent archeological excavations in Anhui have uncovered several hundred more on bamboo strips, showing the order of the characters.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}} However, the script found was not the small seal script, as the discovery dates back to the Han period.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}

Encoding

The small seal script was initially proposed for inclusion in Unicode in 2015. The 723-page proposal lists many of the best-known examples of Qing-era commentary images.WEB,weblink Proposal to encode Small Seal Script in UCS, Working Group, 2015-10-20, 2016-01-23, {{As of|April 2020}}, the proposal remains under discussion.

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

• Topical Document List: Seal Script, Unicode
• Lookup of seal script is available through some online dictionaries. See the KU libraries guide for examples.

{{Chinese Calligraphies}}{{list of writing systems}}