Clerical script

The clerical script or chancery script (simplified Chinese: 隶书; traditional Chinese: 隸書; pinyin: lìshu; Japanese: 隸書体, Reishotai;) 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.

File:Clerical Eg.png

Chinese characters of "Clerical Script" in regular script (left) and clerical script (right).

Highly angular, it was developed from the small seal script and is the precursor to the regular script that Chinese is usually written in today. In summary, it is considered the prototype of various Chinese scripts used for 2000 years to the present^[1]. The script was adopted to facilitate the drafting of multitude of prisoners at the time^[1]. A character written in clerical script is often wider than it is tall.

References

^ ^a ^b Diringer, David. [1982] (1982). The Book Before Printing: Ancient, Medieval, and Oriental. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0486242439.

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[Diringer-1] Diringer, David. [1982] (1982). The Book Before Printing: Ancient, Medieval, and Oriental. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0486242439.

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