中国语言的发展(全英文翻译)

Evolution of Chinese characters
Hieroglyphics (5000 B.C.)
Pictures of nature are found on ceramics dating from this period. For example: river is three wavy lines, horse has mane and four legs, etc. These pictures would later be a basis for the construction of more complex ideas. In fact, many modern characters still resemble their ancestral forms, thereby connecting China's present to its past.

Preclassical (1500 to 500 B.C.) Oracle bone divination introduced. Tortoise shells and oxen shoulder blades are
engraved with important questions and their possible answers. Bones then heated by fire, and predictions made based on crack patterns. Divination process elevates Chinese characters and calligraphy to sacred status. Any paper with writing on it was not thrown away, but burned in a “Pagoda of Compassionating the Characters.”

Classical (Bronze Age to Han Dynasty)
Transition from pictures to stylized symbols. I