Stroke order
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 Stroke order (Chinese: 筆順 bǐshùn; Japanese: 筆順 hitsujun or 書き順 kaki-jun; Korean: 필순 筆順 "pilsun" or 획순 畫順 "hoeksun") refers to the correct order in which the strokes of a Chinese character are written. A stroke is a movement of a writing instrument. Chinese characters are used in various forms in the modern Chinese, Japanese, and in Korean. They are known as hanzi in Chinese, kanji in Japanese, and hanja in Korean languages. While these languages all utilize a common set of characters, the rules governing stroke order may differ in each language. The number of strokes per character for most characters is between one and thirty, but the number of strokes in some obscure characters can reach as many as seventy. In the twentieth century, simplification of Chinese characters took place in mainland China, greatly reducing the number of strokes in some characters, and a similar but more moderate simplification also took place in Japan. The basic rules of stroke order within each language, however, remained the same.
Development of rulesThe rules for stroke order evolved to facilitate vertical writing, to maximize ease of writing and reading, to aid in producing uniform characters, and – since a person who has learned the rules can infer the stroke order of most characters – to ease the process of learning to write. They were also influenced by the highly cursive Grass Script style of calligraphy. Because writing characters in the normalised stroke order can greatly facilitate learning and memorization, children are required to learn and use correct stroke order in school; adults, however, may ignore or forget the normalised stroke order for certain characters, or develop idiosyncratic ways of writing. While this is rarely a problem in day-to-day writing, in calligraphy, stroke order is vital; incorrectly ordered or written strokes can produce a visually unappealing or, occasionally, incorrect character, particularly in styles such as Grass Script, in which individual strokes are often combined in fluid motions without lifting the brush from the paper. Also, the accuracy of handwriting recognition software may be reduced when entering strokes out of order. The Eight Principles of Yong (永字八法 Pinyin: yǒngzì bā fǎ; Japanese: eiji happō; Korean: 영자팔법, yeongjapalbeop, yŏngjap'albŏp) uses the single character 永, meaning "eternity", to teach the eight most basic strokes. Stroke order per style
Ancient ChinaIn ancient China, the Jiǎgǔwén characters carved on ox scapula and tortoise plastrons showed no indication of stroke order. The characters show huge variations from piece to piece, sometimes even within one piece. During the divination ceremony, after the cracks were made, the characters were written with a brush on the shell or bone (to be carved in a workshop later). Although the brush-written stroke order is not discernable after carving, there exists some evidence that it was not entirely idiosyncratic: a few of the characters, often marginal administrative notations recording the provenance of the shells or bones, were not later recarved, and the stroke order of these characters tends to resemble traditional and modern stroke order (Keightley 1978). For those characters (the vast majority) which were later engraved into the hard surface using a knife, perhaps by a separate individual, there is evidence (from incompletely engraved pieces) that in at least some cases all the strokes running one way were carved, then the piece was turned, and strokes running another way were then carved (Keightley). With the development of Jīnwén (Bronzeware script) and Dàzhuàn (Large Seal Script) we continue to see "cursive" signs which also do not indicate a clear stroke order. Moreover, it is evident that each archaic kingdom of current China had its own set of characters. Imperial ChinaIn Imperial China, the graphs on old steles — some dating from 200 BCE, and in Xiaozhuan style — start to reveal tiny indications of the stroke order of the time. About 220 BCE, the emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first to conquer all China, imposed several reforms, among them Li Si's character uniformisation, which created a set of 3300 standardized Xiǎozhuàn characters[1]. However, stroke order could still not yet be ascertained from the steles, and no paper from that time is extant. The true starting point of stroke order is the Lìshū style (clerical script) which is more regularized, and in some ways similar to modern text. In theory, by looking the Lìshū style steles' graphs and the placement of each stroke, we can see hierarchical priority between the strokes, which indicates the stroke order used by the calligrapher or stele sculptors.[citation needed] Kǎishū style (regular script) — still in use today — is more regularized, allowing clearly to guess the stroke order used to write on the steles. It can be seen that the stroke order 1000 years ago was similar as that at the end of Imperial China.[citation needed] By example, the stroke order of 广 is clear in the Kangxi dictionary of 1716; but in a modern book, the official stroke order (the same) will not appear clearly. The Kangxi and current shapes have tiny differences, while current stroke order is still the same, according to old style[2]. Cursive styles and hand-written stylesCursive styles such as Xíngshū (semi-cursive or running script) and Cǎoshū (cursive or grass script) show stroke order very clearly, as each move made by the writing tool is visible. However, calligraphic stroke order does not always follow standard stroke order. Native writers, moreover, create their own stroke order rules for their own use, with some tiny differences with the official stroke order taught in school.[citation needed] Stroke order per polityWhile the majority of characters are written in exactly the same stroke order everywhere, the "official" stroke order of Chinese characters varies from country to country because calligraphic styles evolved differently in Imperial China, Modern and Communist China, Japan, and Korea.[citation needed]
Basic rules1. Write from left to right, and from top to bottom As a general rule, characters are written from left to right, and from top to bottom. For example, among the first characters usually learned is the number one, which is written with a single horizontal line: 一. This character has one stroke which is written from left to right. The character for "two" has two strokes: 二. In this case, both are written from left to right, but the top stroke is written first. The character for "three" has three strokes: 三. Each stroke is written from left to right, starting with the uppermost stroke: Image:人-red.png
The Chinese character meaning "person" (Image:人-order.gif, Chinese: rén, Korean: in, Japanese: hito, nin; jin). The character has two strokes, the first shown here in dark, and the second in red. The black area represents the starting position of the writing instrument.
This rule applies also to more complex characters. For example, 校 can be divided into two. The entire left side (木) is written before the right side (交). There are some exceptions to this rule, mainly occurring when the right side of a character has a lower enclosure (see below), for example 誕 and 健. In this case, the left side is written first, followed by the right side, and finally the lower enclosure. When there are upper and lower components, the upper components are written first, then the lower components, as in 品 and 襲. 2. Horizontal before vertical When strokes cross, horizontal strokes are usually written before vertical strokes: the character for "ten," 十, has two strokes. The horizontal stroke 一 is written first, followed by the vertical stroke → 十. 3. Cutting strokes last Image:扌-order.gif Vertical strokes that "cut" through a character are written after the horizontal strokes they cut through, as in 書 and 筆. Horizontal strokes that cut through a character are written last, as in 母 and 海. 4. Diagonals right-to-left before diagonals left-to-right Right-to-left diagonals (ノ) are written before left-to-right diagonals (乀): 文. 5. Centre verticals before outside "wings" Vertical centre strokes are written before vertical or diagonal outside strokes; left outside strokes are written before right outside strokes: 小 and 水. 6. Outside before inside Outside enclosing strokes are written before inside strokes; bottom strokes are written last: 日 and 口. This applies also to characters that have no bottom stroke, such as 同 and 月. 7. Left vertical before enclosing Image:口-order.gif Left vertical strokes are written before enclosing strokes. In the following two examples, the leftmost vertical stroke (|) is written first, followed by the uppermost and rightmost lines (┐) (which are written as one stroke): 日 and 口. 8. Bottom enclosing strokes last Image:这-order.gif Bottom enclosing strokes are always written last: 道, 週, 画. 9. Dots and minor strokes last Minor strokes are usually written last, as the small "dot" in the following: 玉. See also Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Notes
ReferencesTraditional Chinese stroke order
Japanese stroke order
Archaic characters
External linksModern Chinese
Japanese Kanji and Korean Hanja
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