Small seal script: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:10, 23 September 2022

Revision as of 07:28, 5 November 2022

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{{Table Hanzi}}

The '''Smallsmall Sealseal Scriptscript''' ({{zh|s={{linktext|小篆}}|p=xiǎozhuàn}}), or '''Qin Scriptscript''' ({{lang|zh|秦篆}}, ''Qínzhuàn''), is an archaic form of [[Chinese calligraphy]]. It was standardized and promulgated as a national standard by the government of [[Qin Shi Huang]], the founder of the Chinese [[Qin dynasty]].

== Name ==

Xiaozhuan, [[Wade-Giles|formerly]] [[romanization of Chinese|romanized]] as '''Hsiao-chuan,''', is also known as the '''Sealseal Scriptscript''', or '''Lesserlesser Sealseal Scriptscript.'''

== History ==

Before the [[Qin's wars of unification|Qin conquest of the six other major]] [[Warring States period|warring states]] of [[Zhou dynasty|Zhou China]], local styles of [[Chinese character|characters]] had evolved independently of one another for centuries, producing what are called the "Scripts of the Six States" ({{lang|zh|六國文字}}), all of which are included under the general term "[[Largegreat Sealseal Script|Great Seal Scriptscript]]"."

However, under one unified government, the diversity was deemed undesirable as it hindered timely communication, trade, taxation, and transportation, and as independent scripts might be used to represent dissenting political ideas.

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== Standardization ==

The standardized use of small seal characters was promulgated via the ''[[Cangjiepian]]'', a primer compiled by Qin Shi Huang's ministers. This compilation, stated to contain 3,300 characters, is no longer extant, and is known only through Chinese commentaries through the centuries. Several hundred characters from fragmented commentaries were collected during the Qing period, and recent archeological excavations in [[Anhui]], China, have uncovered several hundred more on bamboo strips, showing the order of the characters. However, the script found is not the small seal script, as the discovery dates from Han times.

==Unicode==

SmallThe Sealsmall Scriptseal script has been proposed for inclusion in [[Unicode]]. The 723-page proposal from 2015 lists much of the then-known examples of Qing dynasty commentary images.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15281-n4688-small-seal.pdf|title=L2/15-281: Proposal to encode Small Seal Script in UCS | publisher=Working Group Document, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC|date=2015-10-20|access-date=2016-01-23}}</ref> This topic remains under discussion by Unicode's working group as of April 2020.

==See also==