With a view to examining the cultural traits of a nation it is imperative to acquire a perspective through a window of its language and script. Language and script faction as a threshold leading human beings from ignorance to civilization. The language and script of every nation are not moulded at random, but hinge on the features and patterns of thinking of that nation, and carry its rich cultural contents.
The Chinese Han characters , are neat in appearance and all occupy the same spacing in printing , whether the characters are written with only one or two strokes , such as “一 ”(one) , “二” (two) , “了” (already) and “又” (again), or with over ten strokes , such as “骤” (sudden) and “罐” (jar) , or in square forms , such as “田” (fields) and “非” (not) or in crooked forms , such as “戈” (dagger-axe) “夕” (night) and “瓦” (tile) in crooked and askew form , therefore , Chinese Han characters are figuratively referred to as “square script”.
Since the olden days, there have been controversies regarding the origin of the Han characters. A legend goes that Cang Ji invented the characters. Cang Ji was allegedly a deity with four eyes. He was wise and divine. Enlightened by the beauty in nature, he invented the Chinese characters. At the advent of the characters, the secrets and law of 
Heaven and Earth were disclosed. Even the invisible spirits and demons could not hide themselves. The Heaven poured down rain of grains, and ghosts and demons cried at night. The legend served to describe the significance of this great invention. Actually, the Han characters were not the invention of any deity, but were developed over a long course of history.
Compared with other scripts in the world, Chinese characters appeared earlier with a history of over 4,000 years. According to the archaeological finding, in the Banpo-Yangshao cultural ruins in Xi’an of Shaanxi Province were discovered 113 specimens of different simple signs carved on the outer rim of vertical-triangle patterns. The more than thirty signs have simple strokes and regular shapes, including the horizontal stroke, the vertical stroke, the bevel stroke and the angular stroke. According to the researches of the archaeologists, these carved signs could be the relics of primitive Chinese Ruins dated back 5,000 years were found some carved pictographic signs. In fact, these signs 
became the later pictograms.
. Since their appearance, the Chinese characters developed along different ways, such as the pictographic, indicative, associative, pictographic-phonetic, referential and synonymic ways. What is meant by pictographic? The pictograms are the basic Chinese characters, which originated the earliest and developed from pictures. They are characterized by having meanings expressed through the images of things. Such characters base themselves on pictures formed by dots and strokes. The following five characters “水” (water) “月”( the Moon) “目”(eyes) “车”(chariot) “马”(horse) are pictograms based on visible objects . Indicative characters are formed with marks or with marks and pictograms. For instance , the small-seal script “上” (up) and “下” (down) , were written as“┴” “┬” . In a way the indicative character is similar to the pictographic character, but, as was distinguished by Zhen Qiao, “the indicative portrays the matters, while the pictographic portrays the shapes”; “pictograms are used for things with shapes. The indicative characters are used for matters that do not have shapes”. An instance of the associative characters is “武” (armed force) . It is formed with “止” ( halt) and “戈” (dagger-axe) . Some philologists annotated these characters as meaning “to march with dagger-axes to show force.” So it could mean “pledging the resolution before going to war”. The pictographic-phonetic characters are combination of two segments, one graphic, and the other phonetic. For instance , the character “江” . The three dots of it represent a big river. The “工” of it represents the sound of a flowing river . The referential characters are borrowed homophones , such as “西” that resembled a swarm o birds perching in trees , and meant previously the same as “栖” ( the behavior of birds perching in trees) . It was used later to express “west” in direction. The synonymic characters refer to pair of characters that have interrelated meanings and have cross reference to each other , such as “考” (examination , deceased father) and “老”(old).
