The diversity of Chinese Characters (AKA "hanzi")

A Western dilettante approching Chinese culture can be easily overwhelmed by this huge universe, not so much for the differences with its own culture, as for the diversity in most aspects. One of these aspects is writing: a great variety of forms can be distinguished, from shop signs to handwriting, showing that Chinese can be written in an outstanding number of different ways. First of all, it is necessary to distinguish at least three concepts: writing systems, scripts, and writing styles.

1. Simplified vs. traditional: two (not so different) writing systems

You probably know about the two versions of Chinese script: simplified, in the one hand, in use in continental China and Singapur, and traditional, employed in the two territories which were not under China's government during the simplification in the 50s-60s: Hong Kong and Taiwan. Note that Japanese kanji were derived from Chinese hanzi around 500 AD, and some of them were also simplified in 1946 and are for this reason called shinjitai (new shapes). But the relationship between Chinese hanzi and Japanese kanji is, like most things regarding Japanese writing, not straightforward.

Not all characters are simplified, and those who are, often have just one portion simplified: the key. Authors of the quora website compare traditional and simplified to two scripts of the latin alphabet: gothic vs. sans-serif fonts (like arial or calibri) respectively.

Since Chinese characters, known in the West as sinogrammes, have been used by some of its neighbours, this writing system receive different names according to the language. Of course, they derive from the traditional writing system:

Vietnam writing systems

• In China, hanzi, that is, Han characters.
• In Japan, kanji.
• In Korea, hanja, used from the 4th to the creation of Hangul in the end 19th century.
• In Vietnam, several writing systems have been used:
• Chữ Hán = Hán tự = Hán văn = Chữ nho: Chinese system, used 111 BC – 1919 AD.
• Chữ Nôm = Quốc Âm: recreation of hanzi chracters with additions for native words, used in by the elites in 5th – 19th C. AD.
• Chữ Quốc ngữmade from Latin script and 9 diacritics , used from 16th C. by Jesuit missionaries and imposed in 1910 by French colonial administration.

2. Chinese scripts 

Note that the history of latin alphabet has also brought us two scripts that we learn at the same time: majuscules and minuscules. We may not realise, but they are quite different indeed. Imagine having learnt one one of them. Would you be able to read it? How similar is the word "agile" to "AGILE"? Imagine you have only learnt majuscules. It seems easier to understand the cyrillic equivalent "АГИЛЕ", or the Greek one "ΑΓΙΛΕ" than latin minuscules . Curiously, unlike latin and greek minuscules ("αγιλε"), cyrillic ones ("агиле") are very similar to majuscules.

It is interesting to note that we use capital letters to mark grammatical features (proper nouns in most languages; the pronoun "I" in English, common nouns in German, etc.) and textual features like beginning of sentence and titles. Not all writing systems have two scripts; in fact, according to the linguist and contributor to the onmiglote website Adam Reisman, only Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Armenian distinguish two cases. Nevertheless, don't forget that other writing systems distinguish three scripts according to the position of a letter in a word (initial, medial or final), like Arabic and Mongol.

Capital letters make your like easier, since it explicits one essential unit of information and intonation: the sentence. Capital letters show you when to breath, when to have an intonation ending (just like interrogation and exclation marks), when to end processing a unit of information, etc. To see what happens in chinese, imagine you start reading the bottom part of this sign:

Before 1955, you would lead your eyes to the character in the top right angle, and start reading from top to bottom, and, if this made no sense, from right to left. Today, unless you are looking at one of the rare remaining old street signs in a city like Hong Kong, you would try to read from the top left caracter downwards or rightwards. The existence of these two possibilities make the reading process slower to start, and all, because Chinese does not have capital letters.

But Chinese actually can mark different textual parts like titles. Yes, Chinese indeed has a several scripts that are often combined. The site from the Columbia University presents the five more widespread types: 

Regular vs. cursive script

• Seal: commonly used from 500 BC, and restricted to decorative purposes from 3rd C. 
• Clerical: Created in the 3rd C. (Han dinasty).
• Cursive: Derived from the latter, it is faster but difficult to read and has an artistic scope. Cursive scripts can be divided into two kinds: connected, where characters are connected (striving not to raise the writing brush) and not connected. 
• Running (also called semi-cursive) transforms from clerical script as a compromise between art and utility, since it can be read by those able to read regular script.
• Regular scripts: common in modern writings and publications, mostly in one of these two tyfaces: ming (avec serif) or gothic (without serif)

           Regular                        semicursive                         cursive                                 seal                               clerical             

In the southern city of Quanzhou, Fujian, I found tomb inscriptions where the body was written with regular script (or clerical -I cannot distinguish them), and the title with seal scripts. I also found there some poems where a central part, written in seal script, is developped in cursive or running script (again, sorry I am not able to distinguish them). 

Byodoin temple (Quanzhou, Fujian)

Poem from Quanzhou

Appart from these five scripts or "lettering styles", some others have been developed outside China:

• Edomoji, used in Japan from the Edo period for adverstising, with many varieties.
• Kaō, or signature writing, used in different Asian countries.
• Munjado, a decorative version of hanzi used in Korea.

3. Typography: Chinese writing styles 

Even if you have no idea of Chinese, you will undoubtedly feel the difference between the way shop signs are written in Hong Kong and in continental China. The elegant minimalism of mainland China's modern typography contrasts with the old handwritten-style of Hong Kong's streeet signs, and this difference is due to the different typographic styles, sometimes calles substyles, to distinguish them from the five scripts mentioned above. 

A beautiful example of writing styles can be found in Hong Kong neon signs. The website neonsigns.hk presents a typology of the writing styles found in Hong Kong. As the author Keith tamm puts it:

"Typography (broadly defined as the style and arrangement of lettering) is perhaps less about pictorially expressing the nature or type of business than it is about the clarity of a written message and the atmosphere or ambiance that it evokes. The qualities that can be associated with different styles of typography may include reliability, tradition, distinction or formality, for example. Typography is never a pure form of artistic expression; it is influenced by technical factors such as production methods and materiality; pragmatic concerns such as legibility, scale and viewing distance; as well as prevailing aesthetic trends and the inheritance of visual traditions."

According to this website, the preferred style for neon signs is kaishu (standard script), created in the 3rd C, and coexists with other ones, less formal looking, and more adapted to the leisure feeling they strive to convey, like lishu. In Hong Kong, local sign-writer Kin Kung (1887–1971) developped a particular form of kaishu called beiwei, particularly lively, rustic and dynamic, yet easily legible. You can see the difference between some of these typographic varieties: from left to right, kaishu, beiwei kaishu, lishu, and songti: 

You will find more pictures of this style so common in Hong Kong street signs in this flickr page, and some history in this article of the meedium.com web.