Study On The Printed Chinese Characters Of Successive Dynasties And Related Standardization

The printed character belongs to the regular script category, and it is an important part of modern Chinese characters. The most important value of it is the role it played in the field of standardization of Chinese characters, which is general conceited as "Printed characters probably can be used as the standardization of Chinese characters". This concept is subjective. Only if put the printed characters into the vision of standardization of Chinese characters, analyze the relationship of them, and clarify the problems of them, the value of printed characters can be fully exploited and made modern Chinese characters research system completely.The standardization of Chinese characters must have official backgrounds. According to this standard, the standardization of Tang Dynasty is scriptures on rocks of Kaicheng; and so is the period of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms; and the system of the books of Songben Yupian, Leipian, Jiyun, Guangyun of Song dynasty; and Hongwu Zhengyun of Ming dynasty; Kangxi Zidian of Qing Dynasty.According to them, we can determine whether the font of characters is standard or vulgar. Then analyze the relationship between the standardization and the printed characters based on the vulgar characters rates of each dynasty. Finally, two main conclusions can be drawn:First, strictly speaking, only the characters of printed Jiujing in the period of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms and the printed characters after promulgation of the table of standard printed characters can probably be used as standard characters. If not strictly speaking, the rates of vulgar characters of Jianben books of Northern and Southern Song dynasty which were printed by the country’s highest educational institutions are very low. The characters of those books can represent the standard characters, but the Jianben books of Ming and Qing dynasty arc not in the same condition. The rates of vulgar characters of the ancient typography were uneven, so it can not be used as standardization. But on the level of technical method, it promoted the unification of the printed Chinese characters and standardization of Chinese characters.Second, the printed characters played a significated role in the process of the communication and stereotype of standardization of chinese characters. Printing Jiujing in the period of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms caused the stereotypes of the standardization formed in the Tang dynasty, which established the main content of the standardization of chinese characters of each dynasty after it. As the standardization of Chinese characters of Ming dynasty, Hongwu Zhengyun chose some fonts suiting for printing as the standard fonts. Then those fonts were blended with the Song typeface formed in the middle of Ming dynasty. This situation is received by Kangxi Zidian of Qing dynasty, which caused the transformation of the Chinese characters system:from one writing characters system to the two coexisting system of printing characters system and writing characters system. And this transformation brought some influences to standardization of Chinese characters and the development of Chinese characters.