Why did ancient Chinese people write from top to bottom?

I wrote an article earlier titled "Were Chinese Characters Created by Right-Handers?" which discussed the reasons behind right-handed individuals creating Chinese characters. Today, I'd like to discuss another well-known but seldom explored topic: why did ancient people write from top to bottom? Some may ask, "What about writing from right to left?" Today, I'll address this question.

Before delving into this, I'd like to touch on Shell Bone Script.

The earliest form of Chinese characters was Shell Bone Script, which dates back over 3500 years. There's a common misconception that ancient people wrote characters on Shell bones, which is why we refer to it as Shell Bone Script. However, this is not entirely accurate. During the Shell Bone Script period, people primarily wrote characters on bamboo slips, not on Shell bones. Only during divination ceremonies were characters inscribed on Shell bones, which were then placed in a fire and cracked to predict fortunes.

Divination was conducted for predicting major events and was very rare. Moreover, the turtle shells and cattle bones used for divination were carefully selected and meticulously processed, making them scarce materials affordable only to emperors or tribal leaders.

So, why do we call it Shell Bone Script? The earliest Shell Bone Script bamboo slips, over 3500 years old, have already decayed and didn't survive. However, Shell bones, which can endure over 3500 years without decay, were discovered, so what we find are inscriptions on Shell bones. Originally, it was not called Shell Bone Script, but rather "Yinxu Script" because it was mostly discovered in the Yinxu site in Henan. However, it was later found in other places, and in great quantity. It became evident that "Yinxu Script" was not accurate, so it was changed to "Shell Bone Script."

Ancient bamboo slips were generally 6-8 millimeters in width, roughly the width of a small finger, and up to 45 centimeters long. Writing on such bamboo slips greatly restricted horizontal writing. Therefore, many Shell Bone Script characters are vertical, as horizontal writing was impractical, but vertical writing allowed for extension.

 

 

The Shell Bone Script characters above (from left to right): Dog, Pig, Tiger, Horse, Elephant, Bed. 

All of them are written vertically. Thus, writing from top to bottom on bamboo slips became the only viable option.

 

 

In the Shell Bone Script era, due to the constraints of bamboo slips, it was impossible to write horizontally, whether from left to right or from right to left.

Ancient people did not write just one bamboo slip at a time, but rather many. Since one bamboo slip could only accommodate a few characters, writing an article required dozens or even hundreds of slips. If it was a book, it could be over a thousand slips, or even more, bundled together. If someone had read more than a dozen books, they would have to use a cart to carry them.

 

 

So, how did ancient people write on bamboo slips? As I demonstrated in my earlier article, ancient people wrote with their right hands. Therefore, the right hand would hold the brush while the left hand held or supported the bamboo slip. After finishing writing on one bamboo slip from top to bottom, the left hand would move it away, and then a blank bamboo slip would be picked up to continue writing. This process would be repeated until finished. Afterwards, the written bamboo slips were strung together with fine strings, rolled up into a bundle, and became an article or a book.

Now, there's a question: Were the blank bamboo slips placed to the left or the right of the writer? And where were the completed slips placed?

If the blank bamboo slips were placed on the left, then the left hand would conveniently pick them up, and after writing, push them to the right (they couldn't be placed back on the left, as they would mix with the completed slips).

If the blank bamboo slips were placed on the right, the left hand would need to reach over the right hand holding the brush or reach underneath it to get a blank bamboo slip. This would be an awkward and difficult motion. Of course, the right hand could move closer to the body or be lifted higher to make way for the left hand. However, it would be inconvenient with a brush in the right hand dipped in ink.

You might say, placing the blank bamboo slips on the left also has the problem of where to put the completed slips, isn't that also awkward? However, after a completed slip is pushed to the right, it only needs to be pushed towards the right. But the hand picking up the blank slips must accurately pick out one from the stack of blank slips and hold it. It's very easy to take a blank bamboo slip if they are on the left. This is much easier than placing the blank bamboo slips on the right and reaching over with the left hand from the right side to get a blank slip. It can be imagined that the ancients placed the blank bamboo slips on the left and pushed the completed slips to the right.

In this case, the second completed bamboo slip would be pushed to the left of the first completed bamboo slip, the third to the left of the second, and so on. Ultimately, the completed slips would be arranged with the first completed slip on the far right and the last completed slip on the far left. They would then be strung together with string. When reading, one would start with the first slip on the far right and read from top to bottom. Once at the bottom, the eyes would move up and continue reading the second slip on the left. This process would repeat until finishing the last slip on the far left.

To summarize, traditional Chinese writing only involved writing from top to bottom and did not include horizontal writing from right to left.

 

Now, let's discuss the impact of the invention of paper on the structure and writing of Chinese characters.

It is commonly acknowledged that Cai Lun of the Eastern Han Dynasty invented papermaking. However, many signs suggest that papermaking workshops existed among the common people before Cai Lun. Cai Lun, commissioned by the court, collected and refined the folk papermaking techniques, making significant improvements and creating large-scale papermaking. This industrialized papermaking and turned paper into an affordable commodity for ordinary people. Since then, paper replaced bamboo slips, greatly enhancing social communication, productivity, and the evolution of Chinese characters themselves.

As mentioned earlier, bamboo slips severely limited horizontal writing. However, with the advent of paper, writing transformed from one-dimensional vertical to two-dimensional. "The sky's the limit" – people finally got the opportunity to spread out horizontally. Initially, people straightened out the inward-curving lines of Seal Script, creating horizontal strokes known as "Heng" or "Na." The slender Seal Script became the short and wide Clerical Script.

 

From top to bottom: wood, dragon, water, enter.

 

The images above show the impact of paper on the structure of Chinese characters: Long and narrow characters (Shell Bone Script, Seal Script, Large Seal Script, Small Seal Script) evolved into short and wide characters (Clerical Script). The inward curves of Seal Script became outward straight lines in Clerical Script. This change was a form of rebellion after enduring long-term suppression of horizontal writing in Chinese characters.

 

 

Liqi Stele – Han Dynasty

 

Following Clerical Script, the structure of Chinese characters did not change. Regular Script and Song Typeface maintain the same structure as Clerical Script; only the brush strokes' pressure and lifting differ. However, Regular Script and Song Typeface's horizontal expansion is not as pronounced as Clerical Script, appearing more balanced in both vertical and horizontal aspects. This was a return to balance after the emotional release following the suppression.

Now, let's look at the influence of the advent of paper on the way Chinese characters are written.

As mentioned earlier, during the Shell Bone Script era, people were accustomed to writing from top to bottom and then moving left one line, continuing from top to bottom. This eventually led to a format similar to bamboo slips. This was a result of habitual inertia, not necessarily a more natural way of writing.

 

 

Jiucheng Palace – Tang Dynasty

 

The emergence of paper gave rise to running and cursive scripts, as it allowed for more expressive and free-flowing strokes to convey the emotions of the writer.

 

 

Lantingxu – Sui Dynasty

 

Regardless of the font style, writing always goes from top to bottom, with vertical columns arranged from right to left. This is also the format used in traditional thread-bound printed books.

Shiji (史記), or Historical Records

After the advent of paper, the habit persisted, and people began writing from the upper-right corner, moving from top to bottom. Then, they would shift one line to the left and continue from top to bottom. This final format was consistent with the previous method of writing on bamboo slips. This was a matter of upholding the same format as bamboo slips out of habit.

In conclusion, traditional Chinese calligraphy has never involved writing horizontally from right to left. There are very few instances where Song Typeface characters are printed in a horizontal format from right to left. This is due to a lack of understanding of traditional Chinese character writing on the part of publishers, rather than an authentic historical practice. Ancient people did not write in this manner.

Conclusion: In the history of Chinese calligraphy, there has never been a practice of writing horizontally from right to left. The few instances of Song Typeface characters being printed horizontally from right to left are a result of publishers' ignorance of traditional Chinese character writing. Ancient people did not write this way.

 

Note: Update information

1, Amazing Chinese Characters blog has changed name to Learn Chinese with Pictography, and changed its URL address too, the new URL is

Learn Chinese with Pictography.blogspot.com/

2, Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy blog has changed name to Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy, and the new URL is

Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy.blogspot.com/

You are welcome to access the new sites for Chinese learning. Please update your bookmarks.

Why Chinese Characters Do Not Need Constant Creation of New Characters?

After the appearance of Chinese characters in the form of shell bone script, they continued to develop and have now formed approximately 90,000 characters. However, since the Han Dynasty, very few new characters have been added to the Chinese character dictionary. In contrast, English has approximately 600,000 defined words and continues to add 800-1000 new words each year. It is said that among the texts of various languages in the United Nations, Chinese text uses the fewest characters.

Why is it that only a few Chinese characters can express all meanings, while English requires tens of thousands of words? Why have Chinese doesn’t need to create new characters? 

Some may say, "What about new Chinese vocabulary such as tanks, lasers, and the Internet? These are new words, but they are all made up of existing Chinese characters. What I am referring to are the smallest units of the Chinese language: the characters.

So how did Chinese characters manage to avoid the need for new characters? Let's take a look at the development of Chinese characters and the Chinese language.

The development of Chinese characters can be roughly divided into three stages: pictograms-象形字, ideograms – 会意字 (associative compounds), and phrases – 词组 (including idioms).

For example, the character for fire (pictogram) evolved into characters such as 火-flame, 焚-burn, and 灾- disaster (ideograms), and then into compound words like 火苗- flame, 火柴 - match, and 火车- train, as well as phrases like 炎热- hot, 焚烧- burn, and 水灾-flood (phrases composed of individual and combined characters).

Pictograms (which are similar to Indicative character - 指事字) generally represent objects with a specific shape, such as fire – 火 (which has a visible flame), mountains – 山, trees – 木, cars – 车, earth – 土, water – 水, horses – 马, and cows – 牛.

Ideograms (which are similar to phonograms and semantic-phonetic compounds) are made up of two or more pictograms and are used to express adjectives and verbs without shape. For example, the ideograms mentioned earlier, such as hot – 热, burn – 焚, and disaster – 灾, as well as many others like red – 红, good – 好, smell – 闻, open – 张, run – 驰, drunk – 醉, and dizzy – 晕.

The transition from pictograms to ideograms was the first leap in the development of Chinese characters, expanding them from being able to only represent concrete nouns with a specific shape to being able to represent verbs and adjectives without shape, greatly enriching their expressive ability. Ancient Chinese was composed of Chinese characters and was very concise and refined.

However, Chinese characters have too many homophones, which can easily cause misunderstandings in spoken language contexts. Furthermore, some things require very detailed distinctions, such as big horse/small horse, red cloth/blue cloth, planting melons/planting vegetables, etc. It is not feasible to create a new character for every meaning, which would be difficult and time-consuming. Thus, phrases were created: two or more characters combined to express complex meanings. Phrases with more than two characters also greatly reduce the misunderstandings caused by homophones. For example, the character for rat – 鼠might be heard as 数 - count，暑 - heat，蜀 (ancient state in Sichuan)，黍 - broomcorn millet，沭 – A river name，叔 – uncle，曙 - dawn, while the phrase for mouse – 老鼠immediately eliminates any misunderstandings. This also explains why phrases in vernacular Chinese far outnumber those in classical Chinese, as vernacular Chinese originates from spoken language and phrases can reduce misunderstandings in spoken language.

The entry of Chinese characters into phrase expression marks the second leap in the expression of Chinese characters. It enables Chinese characters to cover the vast majority of meanings and express even the smallest differences in a very precise way, such as deep red – 深红, light red – 浅红, dark red – 暗红, and so on.

The other advantage of phrases is that they can be assembled. When new things appear, people can assemble phrases based on their meaning to express them. For example, in ancient times, there were no trains. When trains appeared, people added the character for "vehicle"- 车 behind "fire" – 火 to create the new word "train" – 火车 without the need to create a new character specifically for "train." Lighters – 打火机did not exist in ancient times, but they can be assembled 打，火，机 into 打火机- "lighter" to express them. Modern new nouns are all formed by assembling existing Chinese characters into phrases to express them, such as computer – 计算机, refrigerator – 电冰箱, airplane – 飞机, satellite – 卫星, laser – 激光, email – 电邮, car – 汽车, cancer – 癌症, diabetes – 糖尿病, insulin – 胰岛素, insecticide – 杀虫剂, and so on. No matter what new thing it is, Chinese characters are sufficient to assemble new phrases to express it based on its meaning. English, on the other hand, has some combined words to express new things, such as Wash-machine, Super-market, High-way, etc. but it also has to create new words to express new stuffs, which results in the need for English to constantly expand its vocabulary, especially in the fields of medicine, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Chinese characters, on the other hand, are sufficient to assemble phrases by using the Chinese characters left by the ancestors.

How many pictographic independent characters are there in Chinese? There are about more than 400, and there are probably only dozens of indicative characters. Therefore, all Chinese characters are composed of these approximately 500 characters. First, about 90,000 associative and phonetic characters were formed, and then words were composed using them. By being unchanging and adapting to everything, they can fully cope with the constantly emerging new world.

This is the power and charm of Chinese characters. Our ancestors created pictographic characters for us, and characters are just pictures. They are the most interesting and easiest characters in the world. Then, by composing phrases, any needed meaning can be expressed by phrases, and new characters are basically unnecessary, keeping the total number of characters from increasing. In addition, Chinese grammar is very simple. There are no nominative case, accusative case, no verb tense in Chinese, and there is no effect of verb inflection on singular or plural, which is simple to the extreme.

Let us take an example. In English, the modal verb "be" group have "am," "is," "are," "was," "were," "will be," "have been," etc. However Chinese has only one word "是" (shi), which can mean "I am"- 我是， "you are"- 你是， "he is" – 他是， "we are" – 我们是， "it was" – 它过去是， "it is" – 它现在是， "it will be" – 它将是， and so on. Why don't we feel confused? Because we add an adverbial phrase, such as "I was there yesterday," "you will be there tomorrow," or "we will be there next week." English also adds adverbial phrases, but it changes the modal verb and tense, which is clearly a bit redundant. In Chinese, however, we only need to add adverbial phrases without changing the tense, making it very concise.

This design is so good that Chinese should have become the most interesting, simple, and easy language in the world. So, why has it become the most difficult and boring language to learn? Where did the problem occur?

First of all, we do not teach or study Chinese characters in their pictorial form. This means that we are giving up our strengths and abandoning our own martial arts, which results in only being able to memorize characters without truly understanding them. The harm of this disadvantage has not been recognized on the mainland and Taiwan because students there have not been greatly affected by this method of learning. Although memorizing characters by rote is not very effective, the Chinese language is reinforced constantly in the Chinese-speaking environment of the mainland and Taiwan through advertisements, TV shows, movies, slogans, novels, and magazines, so students are able to memorize the characters easily. However, the situation is different overseas, where there is not the same kind of consistent exposure to the Chinese language. Children who rely solely on rote memorization will struggle to learn Chinese characters. Even adults who were born in China but have been living abroad for a long time find that they are increasingly unable to write certain characters, and when they do manage to write them, they often doubt whether they have written them correctly.

Secondly, our Chinese language teaching begins with pinyin, and students quickly learn to say 你好！- hello, 谢谢你！ - thank you, and 再见！- goodbye. Parents are pleased, teachers are happy, and children feel proud. However, they soon encounter the problem of homophones in Chinese, which can make dictation an impossible task if the teacher doesn't limit the scope to the few characters that the students have just learned. For example, when dictating the character 写 - write, a child may hear it like 斜 – incline, 鞋 - shoe, 邪 – evil, 协 - help, 歇 – rest, 胁 – threat, etc. because the all pronounced Xie. 

Students may be able to write within the limited scope of characters they know, but in reality, they will encounter Chinese characters without a specific scope, making it difficult for them to distinguish which character is which.

Not teaching Chinese characters in their pictorial form is akin to giving up one's strengths, and teaching Chinese language through pinyin from the beginning is only emphasizing its shortcomings. The only advantage left is the simplicity of Chinese grammar. However, since second-generation overseas Chinese are deeply influenced by English grammar, they may find it difficult to adapt to Chinese grammar, and this advantage is not so obvious.

Therefore, Chinese language education should focus on teaching single-body pictorial characters, making learning Chinese characters like learning to draw. This is "emphasizing our strengths," which are the pictorial characters of Chinese. Once you understand the meaning of each stroke, there is no problem with forgetting characters. Can anyone forget how to draw something they have learned? No. Once students have learned pictorial characters (which means understanding them, not just memorizing them), they can understand compound characters made up of these characters. 

This approach avoids the problem of homophones because each character's strokes or drawings are unique, and there is no problem of multiple characters sharing the same sound. Of course, pronunciation should be learned, but once you have learned the characters and, more importantly, understood them, when you pronounce a character, the image of the character will come to mind, and you will be less likely to make mistakes. Once you have mastered Chinese characters, learning words and phrases will be a breeze. Only then can the advantages of Chinese pictorial characters be fully utilized, combined with the simplicity of Chinese grammar and words and phrases, making Chinese possibly the most unique, interesting, and easiest language to learn in the world.

Note: Update information

1, Amazing Chinese Characters blog has changed name to Learn Chinese with Pictography, and changed its URL address too, the new URL is

Learn Chinese with Pictography.blogspot.com/

2, Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy blog has changed name to Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy, and the new URL is

Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy.blogspot.com/

You are welcome to access the new sites for Chinese learning. Please update your bookmarks.