Editing Oracle bone script (section)

== Structure and function ==
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[[File:Chinese character Shang oracle 豕 shi3 swine.svg|upright=0.2|thumb|{{zhi|c=豕}} 'swine']]
[[File:Chinese character Shang oracle 犬 quan3 dog.svg|upright=0.2|thumb|{{zhi|c=犬}} 'dog']]
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Despite the pictorial nature of the oracle bone script, it was a fully functional and mature writing system by the time of the Shang dynasty,{{sfnm|Boltz|1994|1p=31|Qiu|2000|2p=29}} meaning it was able to record the [[Old Chinese]] language, and not merely fragments of ideas or words. This level of maturity clearly implies an earlier period of development of at least several hundred years.{{efn|Boltz surmises that the Chinese script was invented around the middle of the 2nd millennium BC during the early Shang, and based on the currently available evidence declares attempts to push this date earlier "unsubstantiated speculation and wishful thinking". {{harvnb|Boltz|1994|p=39}}}} From their presumed origins as pictographs and signs, by the Shang dynasty, most graphs were already conventionalized{{sfn|Boltz|1994|p=55}} in such a simplified fashion that the meanings of many of the pictographs are not immediately apparent. Without careful research to compare these to later forms, one would probably not know that these represented {{zhi|c=豕}} 'swine' and {{zhi|c=犬}} 'dog' respectively. As William G. Boltz notes, most of the oracle bone graphs are not depicted realistically enough for those who do not already know the script to recognize what they stand for; although pictographic in origin, they are no longer pictographs in function. Boltz instead calls them ''zodiographs'', emphasizing their function as representing concepts exclusively through words.{{sfn|Boltz|1994|pp=31–33}} Similarly, Qiu labels them ''semantographs''.{{sfn|Qiu|2000|p=63}}

By the late Shang, oracle bone graphs had already evolved into mostly non-pictographic forms,{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} including all the [[Chinese character classification|major types of Chinese characters]] now in use. Loangraphs, phono-semantic compounds, and associative compounds were already common. One structural and functional analysis of the oracle bone characters found that they were 23% pictographs, 2% simple indicatives, 32% associative compounds, 11% phonetic loans, 27% phono-semantic compounds, and 6% undetermined.{{efn|{{harvnb|Li|1968|p=95}}, cited in {{harvnb|Woon|1987}}; the percentages do not add up to 100% due to rounding; see [[Chinese character classification]] for explanations of the various types listed here.}}

[[File:Comparison of Chinese characters for autumn.svg|thumb|left|upright=0.6|Comparison of oracle bone script, large and small [[seal scripts]], and [[regular script]] characters for {{zhi|c=秋}} 'autumn']]
Although it was a fully functional writing system, the oracle bone script was not fully standardized. By the early [[Western Zhou]] period, these traits had vanished, but in both periods, the script was not highly regular or standardized; variant forms of graphs abound, and the size and orientation of graphs is also irregular. A graph when inverted horizontally generally refers to the same word, and additional components are sometimes present without changing the meaning. These irregularities persisted until the standardization of the [[seal script]] during the [[Qin dynasty]].

There are over 30,000 distinct characters found from all the bone fragments so far, which may represent around 4,000 individual characters in their various forms. The majority of these still remain undeciphered, although scholars believe they can decipher between 1,500 and 2,000 of these characters.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}} One reason for the difficulty in decipherment is that components of certain oracle bone script characters may differ in later script forms. Such differences may be accounted for by character simplification and/or by later generations misunderstanding the original graph, which had evolved beyond recognition. For instance, the standard character {{zhi|c=秋}} 'autumn' now appears with the components {{zhi|c=禾}} 'plant stalk' and {{zhi|c=火}} 'fire', whereas the oracle bone form depicts an insect-like figure with [[Antenna (biology)|antennae]] – either a [[Cricket (insect)|cricket]]<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=秋 |encyclopedia=Multi-function Chinese Character Database |url=http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=%E7%A7%8B |lang=zh}}</ref> or a [[locust]] – with a variant depicting fire [[File:火-oracle.svg|13px]] below said figure. In this case, the modern character is a simplification of an archaic variant {{lang|zh|𪛁}} (or {{lang|zh|𥤚}})<ref>''[[Shuowen Jiezi]]'' entry for [http://www.shuowen.org/view/4430 秋 (秌)]: 从禾，省聲。𪛁，籒文不省。</ref> which is closer to the oracle bone script form – albeit with the insect figure being confused with the similar-looking character for {{zhi|c=龜}} 'turtle' and the addition of the {{zhi|c=禾}} component.

[[File:OracleSpring.jpg|thumb|upright=0.5|Oracle bone script fragment featuring a character for 'spring' in the top-left which has no known modern descendant]]
Some characters are only attested in the oracle bone script, dropping out of later usage and usually being replaced by newer characters. An example is a fragment bearing character for 'spring' that has no known modern  counterpart. In such cases, available context may be used to determine the possible meaning of the character. In other cases, the character may be assumed to be a [[phono-semantic compound]], and a rough meaning can be inferred based on the semantic component. For instance, an oracle bone character was recently found which consists of {{zhi|c=礻}} on the left and {{zhi|c=升}} on the right ([{{zhi|c=礻升}}] when converted from oracle bone forms to their modern printed equivalents). This character may reasonably be guessed to a compound with {{zhi|c=示}} 'altar'  as the semantic and {{zhi|c=升}} (modern reading ''sheng'') as the phonetic.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wang |first=Entian |date=2015-08-27 |title=王恩田：王獻唐先生征集甲骨文考釋 |url=http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn/Web/Show/2582 |website=Online Journal of the Fudan University Center for Unearthed Texts and Paleography (复旦大学出土文献与古文字研究中心 |language=zh}}</ref> Though no modern character consists of these two components, it likely refers to a type of Shang dynasty ritual with a name similar to the pronunciation of {{zhi|c=升}} in Old Chinese.{{efn|This character was found on one of nine oracle bone fragments in the Shandong Provincial Museum's collection. The full inscription reads:

{{blockquote|{{lang|zh|丁未卜，王[礻升]叀父戊？}}}}

This was the first time that the graph {{angbr|{{lang|zh|礻升}}}} had been attested attested in oracle bone inscriptions. Wang translated the sentence as: "Prognostication on the day ''dingwei'': if the king performs the ''sheng'' sacrifice, will it benefit Ancestor Wu?" The newly found graph was tentatively assigned the same modern reading as the phonetic component {{zhi|c=升}}.}} In the same collection of fragments, the character {{angbr|阝心}} was surmised to be a place name, since the semantic component {{zhi|c=阜}} means 'mound', 'hill', and the divination concerned the king traveling for a [[royal hunt]].{{efn|The full inscription: {{lang|zh|戊寅卜，旅貞：王其于[阝心]，亡災？}}

Translation: Prognostication on the day ''wuyin'' by Diviner Lü: if the king travels to [placename, possibly read ''xin''], will there be harm?}}

[[File:Oracle bone graphs rotated 90 degrees.svg|center|frame|Oracle bone script forms, from the left: {{lang|zh|馬}} 'horse', {{lang|zh|虎}} 'tiger', {{lang|zh|豕}} 'swine', {{lang|zh|犬}} 'dog', {{lang|zh|鼠}} 'rat', {{lang|zh|象}} 'elephant', {{lang|zh|豸}} 'beasts of prey', {{lang|zh|龜}} 'turtle', {{lang|zh|爿}} 'low table', {{lang|zh|為}} 'to lead', and {{lang|zh|疾}} 'illness']]