Template:Chinese characters naming
| Pri. | Type | Minimal definition | Dominant objective | Time period | Old convention | New convention | Example | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Images showing writing styles | ||||||||
| •• | 金文 jīnwén>Shang | Casted bronze scripts, Shang period | 1300 BCE – 1046 BCE | 馬-s.svg | 馬-bronze-shang.svg |  |
1 | |
| •••• | 甲骨文 jiǎgǔwén | Knife carved oracle scripts | 1300 BCE – 1046 BCE | 馬-oracle.svg | 馬-oracle.svg |  |
8 | |
| • | 甲骨文 jiǎgǔwén>Western Zhou | Knife carved oracle scripts, Western Zhou period | 1046 BCE – 771 BCE | — | 馬-oracle-zhouyuan.svg | N/A | 3 | |
| •••• | 金文 jīnwén | Casted bronze scripts, Western Zhou period | 1046 BCE – 771 BCE | 馬-bronze.svg | 馬-bronze.svg |  |
8 | |
| •• | 金文 jīnwén>Spring and Autumn | Casted bronze scripts, Spring and Autumn period | 771 BCE – 476 BCE | 馬-sa.svg | 馬-bronze-spring.svg |  |
1 | |
| •• | 金文 jīnwén>Warring States | Casted bronze scripts, Warring States period | 476 BCE – 221 BCE | 馬-w.svg | 馬-bronze-warring.svg |  |
7 | |
| ••• | 簡帛文字 jiǎnbówénzì | Brush on slip or silk scripts by Chu state | 476 BCE – 221 BCE | — | 馬-silk.svg |  |
3 + 1 | |
| ••• | 簡牘文字 jiǎndúwénzì | Brush on slip scripts by Qin state | 476 BCE – 221 BCE | — | 馬-slip.svg |  |
16 | |
| • | 傳抄古文字 Chuánchāo gǔwénzì | Transcribed various ancient Guwen scripts before Qin dynasty, collected by Hanjian | — | — | 馬-hanjian.svg | 0 | ||
| • | 傳抄古文字 Chuánchāo gǔwénzì | Transcribed various ancient Guwen scripts before Qin dynasty, collected by Sishengyun | — | — | 馬-GWSSY.svg | 0 | ||
| • | 傳抄古文字 Chuánchāo gǔwénzì | Transcribed various ancient Guwen scripts before Qin dynasty, collected by Jizhuan Yunhai | — | — | 馬-JZGWYH.svg | 0 | ||
| • | 傳抄古文字 Chuánchāo gǔwénzì | Transcribed ancient Guwen big seal script before Qin dynasty, collected by Liushutong | 221 BCE – 1644 CE | 馬-bigseal.svg | 馬-bigseal.svg |  |
4 | |
| •• | 隸書 / 隶书 lìshū | Early ancient clerical script to be specific, collected by Libian | 221 BCE – 134 BCE | — | 馬-clerical.svg |  |
24 | |
| •• | 隸書 / 隶书 lìshū | [Temporary category under discussion] Early ancient clerical script to be specific, collected by Libian | historical | 221 BCE – 134 BCE (actual) | — | 馬-clerical-han.svg |  |
5 |
| •• | 隸書 / 隶书 lìshū | [Temporary category under discussion] Modern stylisation of early ancient clerical script | teaching | 221 BCE – 134 BCE (fake) | — | 馬-clerical-qing.svg | 0 | |
| • | 奇字 qízì | Similar to variants, collected by Shuowen | 221 BCE – 220 CE | — | 馬-odd.svg | N/A | 0 | |
| •• | 古文 gǔwén | Script from Zuo zhuan by Warring States, collected by Shuowen | 221 BCE – 220 CE | 馬-ancient.svg | 馬-ancient.svg |  |
42 | |
| •• | 籀文 zhòuwén | Script from Shizhoupian by late Western Zhou, collected by Shuowen | 221 BCE – 220 CE | 馬-zhou.svg | 馬-zhou.svg |  |
0 | |
| •••• | 篆 > 小篆 xiǎo zhuàn | Normalized zhuan scripts by Qin dynasty and some Han dynasty zhuan scripts, collected by Shuowen | 221 BCE – 220 CE | 馬-seal.svg | 馬-seal.svg |  |
109 | |
| New Modern Chinese Characters ** | ||||||||
| •• | 草書 / 草书 cǎoshū | Brush on paper's fast script, aka Cursive. | teaching | 43 BCE – present | — (font available) | 馬-caoshu.svg |  |
55 |
| •• | 行書 / 行书 xíngshū | Brush on paper's fluid writing, aka Semi-cursive. | teaching | ca. 100 CE – present | — (font available) | 馬-xingshu.svg |  |
199 |
| •• | 楷書 / 楷书 kǎishū | Brush on paper since Han dynasty, aka Regular scripts | teaching | ca. 200 CE – present | — (font available) | 馬-kaishu.svg |  |
728 |
| •• | 宋體 / 宋体 sòngtǐ, 明體 / 明体 míngtǐ | Printing-blocks scripts. Aka Songti, Mingti. | teaching | 1368 CE – present | — (font available) | 馬-songti.svg |  |
417 |
| • | 明體 / 明体 míngtǐ > 康熙 kāngxī | Printing-blocks scripts in Kangxi dictionary | historical | 1716 CE – present | — (font available) | 馬-mingti-kangxi.svg |  |
219 |
| Images showing stroke order | ||||||||
| • | 楷書 / 楷书 kǎishū | Animated by stroke | teaching | web era | 馬-sbs.gif | 馬-sbs.gif ** |  |
5 |
| •• | 楷書 / 楷书 kǎishū | Black to red progression | teaching | web era | 馬-red.png | 馬-[tj]red.svg ** |  |
257 + 18 + 29 |
| •• | 黑體 / 黑体 hēitǐ | Animated with directional arrows, on hēitǐ (Sans-serif) characters | teaching | web era | — | 馬-[tj]order (Sans-serif).gif ** | 12 + 0 + 0 | |
| •••• | 楷書 / 楷书 kǎishū | Animated calligraphy | teaching | web era | 馬-order.gif | 馬-[tj]order.gif ** |  |
593 + 7 + 27 |
| •••• | 楷書 / 楷书 kǎishū | Row of grey to black chars with directional hints | teaching | web era | 馬-bw.png | 馬-[tj]bw.svg ** |  |
1,066 + 10 + 102 |
| ** Do not use “m”, “t”, or “j” freely in filenames above. We use them such: “m” for modern, “t” for traditional, “j” for Japanese, etc. ed | ||||||||
Comments
On advancements
"How to" pages should contain both process (or reference to it), and sources for accurate glyphs.See Commons:Ancient Chinese characters project/Tutorial and {{ACClicense/doc}} for more information.- For Modern Chinese Characters (MCC), automatic conversion, see User:Yug and his an opensource JS / NodeJS script.
- SVG animation while technically possible and demoed, has been dropped.
- Stroke order information is not necessary for ancient characters. It might be vaguely helpful to have it for the clerical script, but not very, as it would probably be the same as for the standard script. For oracle script, bronze script and seal script, I don't believe we really know what the order was, or if there even was a fixed order.
On naming conventions
{zi}-{locale}{style}.ext,{zi}-{style}-{precision}.ext, or{zi}-{style}-{precision}-{ID}.extzi: 'n' Chinese characters, the one(s) the image depictslocale[t, j, s, k, h]: default is '?', then 't' for traditional (Taiwan ROC), 'j' for Japanese, 's' for simplified (China PRC), 'k' for Korean, 'h' for Hongkongese.style[oracle, bronze, bigseal, silk, slip, seal, clerical, kaishu, xingshu, caoshu, songti|bw,red,order,order heiti, sbs]: English hint or pinyin word indicating the type of image/character. For stroke order, it specify the infographic approach.precision[dynasty, school, book, calligrapher, artwork]: English hint indicating the historical period or source of the glyphID[versionNum,glyphId]: numeral version or glyph id code.ext[gif,png,svg]: SVG should be used for all new images except for animations.
On variability
- For ancient scripts (大篆文 dàzhuànwén, 金文 jīnwén and 甲骨文 jiǎgǔwén), a single character has dozens of variants. A selection of these should be uploaded, with the following naming scheme: Image:馬-oracle.svg, Image:馬-oracle-2.svg, Image:馬-oracle-3.svg...
On rationale and selection
- Images files are helpful for books and web{sites|pages|apps} (wp & wiktionary), so they don't have to fight on both battlefronts, images and fonts.
- The first column express the priority of the style.
- For ancient styles where many variants are actually available, we select the ones being « the missing links between the picture and the traditional character », so it serves has elegant educational material. While we are aware of this being an a posteriori biases selection, it does have teaching and memorization benefits.
On coverage
- We want to consistently cover the Kangxi radicals and their supplement in all these Ancient (ACC) and Modern (MCC) styles. Indeed, for teaching purposes, they carry the core of the meaningful cases.
- Ancient Chinese Characters were in daily usage in BC: oracles, bronze, [silk, slip,] seal, lishu and sub-variants.
- Modern Chinese Characters are in daily usage in AD: kaishu, xingshu, caoshu, songti and sub-variants.
NEW! On dominant objective
- Styles are artificial groupings along a spectrum of writings. Outside Wikimedia, each style actually gather endless variations by its writers.
- Two opposite objectives are therefor possible on that spectrum:
historical accurate: documents the exact glyph as done by the writers of that time. Various glyph representations of a same character may be uploaded. This is what history, calligraphy enthusiasts, academics look for.teaching principles: represents the implicitly agreed, canonical, idealized, shape-simplified, smoothed principle of a style. This is what fonts do and propagate, and what teachers looks for.
- ACC categories are on this spectrum. Those who do and upload, decide where their category stands.