"Chancery script" redirects here. For the European style of writing, see Chancery hand.
Clerical script
Stele of Huashan Temple, written in the clerical script from the late Eastern Han dynasty
Script type
Logographic
Time period
Bronze Age China, Iron Age China
Direction
Top-to-bottom
Languages
Old Chinese, Eastern Han Chinese
Related scripts
Parent systems
Oracle bone script
Seal script
Clerical script
Child systems
Regular script
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Clerical script
Chinese characters for 'clerical script' in regular (left) and clerical script (right).
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese
隸書
Simplified Chinese
隶书
Literal meaning
clerical script
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin
lìshū
Bopomofo
ㄌㄧˋ ㄕㄨ
Wade–Giles
li4-shu1
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet
lệ thư
chữ lệ
Hán-Nôm
隸書
𡨸隸
Korean name
Hangul
예서
Alternative Japanese name
Kanji
隷書体
Transcriptions
Romanization
reishotai
Chinese characters
Chinese family of scripts
Written Chinese
Kanji
Hanja
Chữ Hán
Historical forms and styles
Neolithic symbols in China
Oracle bone
Bronze
Seal (Bird-worm
Large
Small)
Clerical
Cursive
Semi-cursive
Regular
Flat brush
Typefaces
Fangsong
Ming
Sans-serif
Properties and classification
Components
Strokes (order)
Radical
Collation and standards
Character-form standards
Jiu zixing
Xin zixing
Kangxi Dictionary forms (1716)
General Standard Chinese Characters (mainland China, 2013)
Graphemes of Commonly-used Chinese characters (Hong Kong, 2007)
Standard Form of National Characters (Taiwan, 1982)
Grapheme-usage standards
General Standard Characters (PRC, 2013)
Jōyō kanji (Japan, 2010)
Other standards
Standardized Forms of Words with Variant Forms (PRC, 2002)
Nan Min Recommended Characters (Taiwan, 2009)
Previous standards
Commonly-used Characters (PRC, 1988)
Tōyō kanji (Japan, 1946)
Reforms
China
Clerical reforms
Traditional characters
Simplified characters
(first round
second round)
Debate
Japan
Kyūjitai
Shinjitai
Ryakuji
Korea
Yakja
Singapore
Table of Simplified Characters
Homographs and readings
Literary and colloquial readings
Variants
Graphemic variants
Zetian characters
Derived systems
Slavonic transcription
Nüshu
Kana (
Man'yōgana
Hiragana
Katakana
)
Jurchen script
Khitan (
Large
Small
)
Idu script
Bopomofo
Sawndip
Chữ Nôm
Transliteration of Chinese
v
t
e
The clerical script (traditional Chinese: 隸書; simplified Chinese: 隶书; pinyin: lìshū), sometimes also chancery script, is a style of Chinese writing that evolved from the late Warring States period to the Qin dynasty. It matured and became dominant in the Han dynasty, and remained in active use through the Six Dynasties period.[1][2][3] In its development, it departed significantly from the earlier scripts in terms of graphic structures (a process known as libian),[4] and was characterized by its rectilinearity, a trait shared with the later regular script.
Although it was succeeded by the later scripts, including the regular script, the clerical script is preserved as a calligraphic practice. In Chinese calligraphy, the term clerical often refers to a specific calligraphic style that is typical of a subtype of the clerical script, the Han clerical (汉隶; 漢隸) or bafen (八分) script. This style is characterized by the squat character shapes, and its "wavy" appearance due to the thick, pronounced and slightly downward tails that are up-tilted at the ends.
^Xigui, Qiu (2000). Chinese writing. Society for the study of Early China. pp. 103–112, 118–126, 138–147. ISBN 1-55729-071-7. OCLC 470162569.
^"Clerical Script (隸書) · Chinese Calligraphy". learning.hku.hk. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
^"Categories of Calligraphy - Clerical Script". www.cityu.edu.hk. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
^Zhao, Ping'an; 赵平安 (1993). 隸變研究 [Studies on Libian] (in Chinese) (1 ed.). Baoding: 河北大學出版社. p. 8. ISBN 7-81028-118-6. OCLC 36942746.
The clericalscript (traditional Chinese: 隸書; simplified Chinese: 隶书; pinyin: lìshū), sometimes also chancery script, is a style of Chinese writing that...
dynasty—which then developed into clericalscript during the early Han, and matured stylistically thereafter. Clericalscript characters are often "flat" in...
Shūpǔ) credits Wang Cizhong [zh] with creating the regular script, based on the clericalscript of the early Han dynasty. It became popular during the Eastern...
of semi-cursive script (行书; 行書; xíngshū; 'running script') had developed from a cursive form of neo-clericalscript. Semi-cursive script was traditionally...
Look up clerical in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Clerical may refer to: Pertaining to the clergy Pertaining to a clerical worker Clericalscript, a style...
in various styles, principally seal script, clericalscript, regular script, semi-cursive script, and cursive script. Adaptations range from the conservative...
graphic forms written in a mature clericalscript closely resemble those written in standard script. The clericalscript is still used for artistic flavor...
the Chinese writing system transitioned from the seal script character forms to clericalscript characters during the early Han dynasty period, through...
Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), when clericalscript became the popular form of writing, the small seal script was relegated to limited, formal usage...
mix of the clericalscript of the Han dynasty and the regular script of the Wei dynasty; these two writing styles make the Flat Brush script a unique writing...
calligraphic writing styles, such as: regular script, seal script, clericalscript, running script, and cursive script as well as Japanese styles like Edomoji...
traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clericalscript during the Han dynasty c. 200 BCE, with the sets of forms and norms...
period were written primarily in Literary Chinese using Hanja as its primary script. Therefore, a good working knowledge of Chinese characters is still important...
early clerical (or proto-clerical) in the late Warring States to Qin dynasty period, which would then evolve further into the clericalscript used in...
The small seal script is an archaic script style of written Chinese. It developed within the state of Qin during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771–256 BC)...
old-fashioned iroha ordering and the more prevalent gojūon ordering. After the 1900 script reform, which deemed hundreds of characters hentaigana, the hiragana syllabary...
orthography used prior to the reforms of the clericalscript. Hence, they were called "Ancient Script texts". Current Script Texts Confucian classics that were...
Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana...
The Khitan small script (Chinese: 契丹小字; pinyin: qìdān xiǎozì) was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language (the other was the...
it is wide. Compared with the seal script, clericalscript characters are strikingly rectilinear. In running script, a semi-cursive form, the character...
The Jurchen script (Jurchen: /dʒu ʃə bitxə/ ；Chinese: 女真文 ) was the writing system used to write the Jurchen language, the language of the Jurchen people...
this article correctly. The Yi scripts (Yi: ꆈꌠꁱꂷ nuosu bburma [nɔ̄sβ̩ bβ̠̩mā]; Chinese: 彝文; pinyin: Yí wén) are two scripts used to write the Yi languages;...
The Khitan large script (Chinese: 契丹大字; pinyin: qìdān dàzì) was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language (the other was the...
whole, such as the process of libian and liding that resulted in the clericalscript. According to the palaeographer Qiu Xigui, the broadest trend in the...
discretized strokes first came into being with the clericalscript during the Han dynasty. In the regular script that emerged during the Tang dynasty—the most...
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