Libian

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Qin-era seal script (c. 200 BC)

Han-era clerical script (c. 200 AD)

Comparison of historical forms for 馬 'horse'. The clerical form more closely resembles modern regular script.

Chinese characters
Chinese family of scripts Written Chinese Kanji Hanja Chữ Hán
Historical forms and styles Neolithic symbols in China Oracle bone Bronze Seal (Bird-worm Large Small) Clerical Cursive Semi-cursive Regular Flat brush Typefaces Fangsong Ming Sans-serif
Properties and classification Components Strokes (order) Radical
Collation and standards Character-form standards Jiu zixing Xin zixing Kangxi Dictionary forms (1716) General Standard Chinese Characters (mainland China, 2013) Graphemes of Commonly-used Chinese characters (Hong Kong, 2007) Standard Form of National Characters (Taiwan, 1982) Grapheme-usage standards General Standard Characters (PRC, 2013) Jōyō kanji (Japan, 2010) Other standards Standardized Forms of Words with Variant Forms (PRC, 2002) Nan Min Recommended Characters (Taiwan, 2009) Previous standards Commonly-used Characters (PRC, 1988) Tōyō kanji (Japan, 1946)
Reforms China Clerical reforms Traditional characters Simplified characters (first round second round) Debate Japan Kyūjitai Shinjitai Ryakuji Korea Yakja Singapore Table of Simplified Characters
Homographs and readings Literary and colloquial readings
Variants Graphemic variants Zetian characters
Derived systems Slavonic transcription Nüshu Kana ( Man'yōgana Hiragana Katakana ) Jurchen script Khitan ( Large Small ) Idu script Bopomofo Sawndip Chữ Nôm
Transliteration of Chinese
v t e

Libian refers to the gradual, systematic simplification of Chinese character forms during the 2nd century BC, by which the Chinese writing system transitioned from the seal script character forms to clerical script characters during the early Han dynasty period, through the process of making omissions, additions, or transmutations of the graphical form of a character to make it easier to write. Libian was one of two conversion processes towards the new clerical script character forms, with the other being liding, which involved the regularisation and linearisation of character shapes.