Chinese characters of "Cursive Script" in regular script (left) and cursive script (right).

Cursive script (Traditional Chinese: 草書; pinyin: cǎoshū), also known as the Grass script (an overly literal translation), is a style of Chinese calligraphy. The name originates because the Chinese character for "grass" (草 cǎo) also means loose and sketchy. Cursive script is faster to write than other styles, but also harder to read. It is quite often the case that persons who are capable of reading printed Chinese find themselves completely illiterate when confronted with this particular style of writing. Image File history File links Cur_Eg. ... Image File history File links Cur_Eg. ... Sheng Jiao Xu by Chu Suiliang: calligraphy of the Kaishu style The Regular Script, or in Chinese Kaishu (楷書 Pinyin: kÇŽishÅ«) and Japanese Kaisho, also commonly known as Standard Regular (正楷), is the newest of the Chinese calligraphy styles (peaked at the 7th century), hence most common in modern writings and... Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets. ... Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means spell and yin means sound. The most common variant of pinyin in use is called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: , Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme... The word calligraphy means good writing. The art of calligraphy is widely practiced and revered in the East Asian civilizations that uses Chinese characters. ... 漢字 Chinese character in hànzì, hanja, kanji. ...

Cursive script in Sun Guoting's Treatise on Calligraphy.

Cursive script originated in China during the Han dynasty through Jin Dynasty period, in two phases. First, an early form of cursive developed as a cursory way to write the popular and not yet mature clerical script. Faster ways to write characters developed through four mechanisms: omitting part of a graph, merging strokes together, replacing portions with abbreviated forms (such as one stroke to replace four dots), or modifying stroke styles. This evolution can best be seen on extant bamboo and wooden slats from the period, on which the use of early cursive and immature clerical forms is intermingled. This early form of cursive script, based on clerical script, is now called zhāngcǎo (章草), and variously also termed ancient cursive, draft cursive or clerical cursive in English, to differentiate it from modern cursive (今草 jīncǎo). Modern cursive evolved from this older cursive in the Wei Kingdom to Jin dynasty with influence from the semi-cursive and standard styles. Image File history File links CaoshuShupu. ... Image File history File links CaoshuShupu. ... Part of the Treatise on Calligraphy Sun Guoting (Traditional Chinese: 孫過庭), or Sun Qianli (孫虔禮)[1]was a Chinese calligrapher of the early Tang Dynasty, remembered for his cursive calligraphy and his Treatise on Calligraphy (書譜). The work was the first important theoretical work on Chinese calligraphy, and has remained important ever since... The Han Dynasty (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Han Chau; 206 BC–AD 220) followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. ... Jin may refer to: Jin Dynasty (265-420) Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) (Jinn) Jin, a state in China during the Spring and Autumn Period Later Jin Dynasty, founded in 1616 by Nurhaci Jin, a ruler of the Xia dynasty The Jin state of late Bronze Age Korea Jin, Chinese American... The clerical script (traditional Chinese 隷書, simplified Chinese 隶书) is an archaic style of Chinese calligraphy which, due to its high legibility to modern readers, is still being used for artistic flavor in a variety of functional applications such as headlines, signboards and advertisements. ... This article is about the Three Kingdoms state. ...

8 different cursive representations of the character 龍 (dragon), from Compilation of Cursive Characters (《草字彙》), authored by Shi Liang (石梁) of the Qing Dynasty. The artists are: 1 Sun Guoting; 2, 3 Huai Su; 4 Yan Zhenqing; 5 Zhao Mengfu; 6, 7 Zhu Zhisan; 8 anonymous.

Beside zhāngcǎo and the "modern cursive", there is the "wild cursive" (狂草, pinyin kuángcǎo, Japanese kyōsō) which is even more cursive and illegible. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1512x1102, 425 KB) [edit] Summary 8 different cursive representations of the character 龍 (dragon), scanned from the book Compilation of Cursive Characters (《草字彙》), authored by Shi Liang (石梁) of the Qing Dynasty. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1512x1102, 425 KB) [edit] Summary 8 different cursive representations of the character 龍 (dragon), scanned from the book Compilation of Cursive Characters (《草字彙》), authored by Shi Liang (石梁) of the Qing Dynasty. ... The Qing Dynasty (Chinese: ; Pinyin: QÄ«ng cháo; Wade-Giles: Ching chao; Manchu: daicing gurun), occasionally known as the Manchu Dynasty, is a Chinese term for the Empire of the Great Qing (Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: dàqÄ«ngguó), founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what... Huai Su was one of the two great Kuangcao calligraphers of the Tang Dynasty, a native of Tanzhou (present-day Changsha, Hunan Province). ... Yan Zhenqing (Simplified Chinese: 顏真卿; Traditional Chinese: 顏真卿; pinyin: ) (709 – 785) was a leading Chinese calligrapher and a loyal governor of the Tang Dynasty. ... Categories: Artist stubs | Calligraphers | Chinese painters ...

Curive scripts can be divided into the unconnected style (Chinese (S) and Japanese 独草, Chinese (T) 獨草, pinyin dúcǎo, Japanese dokusō) where each character is separate, and the connected style (Chinese (S) 连绵, Chinese (T) 連綿, Japanese 連綿体, pinyin liánmián, Japanese renmentai) where each character is connected to the succeeding one.

Many of the simplified Chinese characters are modeled on the cursive forms of the corresponding characters. Cursive script forms of Chinese characters are also the origin of the Japanese script hiragana, which developed from cursive script via a form of writing called man'yōgana. In Japan, cursive script was considered to be suitable for women, whereas the clerical style was considered to be suitable for men. Simplified Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese: 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: jiǎntǐzì; also called 简化字/簡化字, jiǎnhuàzì) are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Hiragana ) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems, along with katakana, kanji and rōmaji (i. ... Manyōgana (万葉仮名) is an ancient form of Japanese kana based on kanji (Chinese characters). ...

References

• The Art of Japanese Calligraphy, 1973, author Yujiro Nakata, publisher Weatherhill/Heibonsha, ISBN 0-8348-1013-1.
• Qiú Xīguī (裘錫圭, 2000). Chinese Writing. English translation of his 文字學概論 (1988 PRC edition is in simplified Chinese; 1993 Taiwan edition is in traditional Chinese) by the late Gilbert L. Mattos (Chairman, Dept. of Asian Studies, Seton Hall University) and Jerry Norman (Professor Emeritus, Asian Languages & Literature Dept., Univ. of Washington). Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-071-7.