Radical Orientation Changes In Ancient Chinese Characters

Throughout the development of character formations, significant changes mainly happened in the period of the Ancient Character Phase. Radical Orientation Changes is a basic nature of ancient characters. To understand characters and their development laws completely, we can't evade their basic nature. Through the study on features and development laws of Radical Orientation Changes, we can find out and grasp the composition rules of ancient characters. The study can also help us to sort out the trail of ancient characters and to provide a practical basis for studies on ancient character formations.At the beginning of the paper is an introduction of previous studies on character formations, radical systems, orientations and positions, etc. Then I define the concept of Radical Orientation Change, and describe the way how I choose materials and methods and principles of my study.Next, with the help of computer database, I adopt the quantitative and qualitative analysis to split 738 characters with the same radical in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Bronzeinschriften. Simultaneously I compare their radical orientations with Seal Script in Shuowen Jiezi (An Analytical Dictionary of Characters). I analyze the characters in an objective and quantized way. I find features of Radical Orientation Changes in the three different phases.At the end of the essay, I analyze the diachronic change of Radical Orientation Changes in ancient characters, seeking laws and origins of Radical Orientation Changes.From my study, there are many factors that affect Radical Orientation Changes, including original structures, radical positions, handwriting, social culture, aesthetic mentality and pictograph-phonetic relationships, etc. Some factors exist through the whole development of ancient characters, but some only exist in a special phase or in special types of characters. These factors influence each other, codetermining the final orientations of character radicals.