Living Tradition: the Calligraphy of Chen Wei-Teh June 15, 2010

The Chinese writing system is the oldest written language in continual use anywhere in the world, with origins dating back more than three thousand years. According to ancient legend, Chinese characters were invented by the great sage Cang Jie (an official in the court of the mythical Yellow Emperor) after he was inspired by bird footprints. While even in their earliest known form Chinese characters achieved a complexity far beyond mere pictographs, many Chinese words in use today still resemble the objects to which they refer; for example, "tree" shows the trunk and branches of a tree, while the modern compound for "forest" consists of two words made up of three and two trees, respectively.