The Writing System of Scribe Zhou

This book investigates the nature of regional variation in the early Chinese writing system through bamboo manuscripts and inscriptions dating from the late pre-imperial China (5th-3rd centuries BCE). Diachronic and synchronic comparisons of graphic details show that none of the well-recognized regional varieties developed independently from one another. Furthermore, differences in graphic components can be accounted for as alternations of graphs that are compatible in their semantic or phonetic