The world’s major writing systems have tended to simplify over time, with a notable exception: new research shows that the Chinese writing system has become increasingly complex over the course of its 3000-year history.
The finding, made by an international team of scholars based at the University of Melbourne, the University of New England and Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Morocco, challenges an opposing centuries-old view that Chinese signs have simplified over time.
“We’ve all seen those historical charts that show Chinese characters go from pictures of things to very basic sets of strokes” says lead author Simon J Han who first began working on the problem as an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne. “The reality is much more interesting.”
Using sophisticated computational methods the team measured the visual complexity of more than 750,000 Chinese characters across five historical phases, from 1600 BC to the present day. What they found is that the overall trend is for the signs to become increasingly complex with time.
