Template:Chinese characters naming

Pri.	Type	Minimal definition	Dominant objective	Time period	Old convention	New convention	Example	Coverage
Images showing writing styles
••	金文 jīnwén>Shang	Casted bronze scripts, Shang period		1300 BCE – 1046 BCE	馬-s.svg	馬-bronze-shang.svg		210
••••	甲骨文 jiǎgǔwén	Knife carved oracle scripts		1300 BCE – 1046 BCE	馬-oracle.svg	馬-oracle.svg		4,836
•	甲骨文 jiǎgǔwén>Western Zhou	Knife carved oracle scripts, Western Zhou period		1046 BCE – 771 BCE	—	馬-oracle-zhouyuan.svg	N/A	13
••••	金文 jīnwén	Casted bronze scripts, Western Zhou period		1046 BCE – 771 BCE	馬-bronze.svg	馬-bronze.svg		1,432
••	金文 jīnwén>Spring and Autumn	Casted bronze scripts, Spring and Autumn period		771 BCE – 476 BCE	馬-sa.svg	馬-bronze-spring.svg		374
••	金文 jīnwén>Warring States	Casted bronze scripts, Warring States period		476 BCE – 221 BCE	馬-w.svg	馬-bronze-warring.svg		318
•••	簡帛文字 jiǎnbówénzì	Brush on slip or silk scripts by Chu state		476 BCE – 221 BCE	—	馬-silk.svg		220 + 63
•••	簡牘文字 jiǎndúwénzì	Brush on slip scripts by Qin state		476 BCE – 221 BCE	—	馬-slip.svg		258
•	傳抄古文字 Chuánchāo gǔwénzì	Transcribed various ancient Guwen scripts before Qin dynasty, collected by Hanjian		—	—	馬-hanjian.svg		7
•	傳抄古文字 Chuánchāo gǔwénzì	Transcribed various ancient Guwen scripts before Qin dynasty, collected by Sishengyun		—	—	馬-GWSSY.svg		7
•	傳抄古文字 Chuánchāo gǔwénzì	Transcribed various ancient Guwen scripts before Qin dynasty, collected by Jizhuan Yunhai		—	—	馬-JZGWYH.svg		12
•	傳抄古文字 Chuánchāo gǔwénzì	Transcribed ancient Guwen big seal script before Qin dynasty, collected by Liushutong		221 BCE – 1644 CE	馬-bigseal.svg	馬-bigseal.svg		3,628
••	隸書 / 隶书 lìshū	Early ancient clerical script to be specific, collected by Libian		221 BCE – 134 BCE	—	馬-clerical.svg		29
••	隸書 / 隶书 lìshū	[Temporary category under discussion] Early ancient clerical script to be specific, collected by Libian	historical	221 BCE – 134 BCE (actual)	—	馬-clerical-han.svg		51
••	隸書 / 隶书 lìshū	[Temporary category under discussion] Modern stylisation of early ancient clerical script	teaching	221 BCE – 134 BCE (fake)	—	馬-clerical-qing.svg		36
•	奇字 qízì	Similar to variants, collected by Shuowen		221 BCE – 220 CE	—	馬-odd.svg	N/A	2
••	古文 gǔwén	Script from Zuo zhuan by Warring States, collected by Shuowen		221 BCE – 220 CE	馬-ancient.svg	馬-ancient.svg		100
••	籀文 zhòuwén	Script from Shizhoupian by late Western Zhou, collected by Shuowen		221 BCE – 220 CE	馬-zhou.svg	馬-zhou.svg		16
••••	篆 > 小篆 xiǎo zhuàn	Normalized zhuan scripts by Qin dynasty and some Han dynasty zhuan scripts, collected by Shuowen		221 BCE – 220 CE	馬-seal.svg	馬-seal.svg		3,276
New Modern Chinese Characters **
••	草書 / 草书 cǎoshū	Brush on paper's fast script, aka Cursive.	teaching	43 BCE – present	— (font available)	馬-caoshu.svg		1
••	行書 / 行书 xíngshū	Brush on paper's fluid writing, aka Semi-cursive.	teaching	ca. 100 CE – present	— (font available)	馬-xingshu.svg		3
••	楷書 / 楷书 kǎishū	Brush on paper since Han dynasty, aka Regular scripts	teaching	ca. 200 CE – present	— (font available)	馬-kaishu.svg		10
••	宋體 / 宋体 sòngtǐ, 明體 / 明体 míngtǐ	Printing-blocks scripts. Aka Songti, Mingti.	teaching	1368 CE – present	— (font available)	馬-songti.svg		4
•	明體 / 明体 míngtǐ > 康熙 kāngxī	Printing-blocks scripts in Kangxi dictionary	historical	1716 CE – present	— (font available)	馬-mingti-kangxi.svg		215
Images showing stroke order
•	楷書 / 楷书 kǎishū	Animated by stroke	teaching	web era	馬-sbs.gif	馬-sbs.gif **		4
••	楷書 / 楷书 kǎishū	Black to red progression	teaching	web era	馬-red.png	馬-[tj]red.svg **		247 + 17 + 28
••	黑體 / 黑体 hēitǐ	Animated with directional arrows, on hēitǐ (Sans-serif) characters	teaching	web era	—	馬-[tj]order (Sans-serif).gif **		12 + 0 + 0
••••	楷書 / 楷书 kǎishū	Animated calligraphy	teaching	web era	馬-order.gif	馬-[tj]order.gif **		591 + 7 + 27
••••	楷書 / 楷书 kǎishū	Row of grey to black chars with directional hints	teaching	web era	馬-bw.png	馬-[tj]bw.svg **		1,066 + 10 + 102
** Do not use “m”, “t”, or “j” freely in filenames above. We use them such: “m” for modern, “t” for traditional, “j” for Japanese, etc. ed

Comments

On advancements

• "How to" pages should contain both process (or reference to it), and sources for accurate glyphs. See Commons:Ancient Chinese characters project/Tutorial and {{ACClicense/doc}} for more information.
• For Modern Chinese Characters (MCC), automatic conversion, see User:Yug and his an opensource JS / NodeJS script.
• SVG animation while technically possible and demoed, has been dropped.
• Stroke order information is not necessary for ancient characters. It might be vaguely helpful to have it for the clerical script, but not very, as it would probably be the same as for the standard script. For oracle script, bronze script and seal script, I don't believe we really know what the order was, or if there even was a fixed order.

On naming conventions

• {zi}-{locale}{style}.ext, {zi}-{style}-{precision}.ext, or {zi}-{style}-{precision}-{ID}.ext
  • zi: 'n' Chinese characters, the one(s) the image depicts
  • locale [t, j, s, k, h]: default is '?', then 't' for traditional (Taiwan ROC), 'j' for Japanese, 's' for simplified (China PRC), 'k' for Korean, 'h' for Hongkongese.
  • style [oracle, bronze, bigseal, silk, slip, seal, clerical, kaishu, xingshu, caoshu, songti|bw,red,order,order heiti, sbs]: English hint or pinyin word indicating the type of image/character. For stroke order, it specify the infographic approach.
  • precision [dynasty, school, book, calligrapher, artwork]: English hint indicating the historical period or source of the glyph
  • ID [versionNum,glyphId]: numeral version or glyph id code.
  • ext [gif,png,svg]: SVG should be used for all new images except for animations.

On variability

• For ancient scripts (大篆文 dàzhuànwén, 金文 jīnwén and 甲骨文 jiǎgǔwén), a single character has dozens of variants. A selection of these should be uploaded, with the following naming scheme: Image:馬-oracle.svg, Image:馬-oracle-2.svg, Image:馬-oracle-3.svg...

On rationale and selection

• Images files are helpful for books and web{sites|pages|apps} (wp & wiktionary), so they don't have to fight on both battlefronts, images and fonts.
• The first column express the priority of the style.
• For ancient styles where many variants are actually available, we select the ones being « the missing links between the picture and the traditional character », so it serves has elegant educational material. While we are aware of this being an a posteriori biases selection, it does have teaching and memorization benefits.

On coverage

• We want to consistently cover the Kangxi radicals and their supplement in all these Ancient (ACC) and Modern (MCC) styles. Indeed, for teaching purposes, they carry the core of the meaningful cases.
• Ancient Chinese Characters were in daily usage in BC: oracles, bronze, [silk, slip,] seal, lishu and sub-variants.
• Modern Chinese Characters are in daily usage in AD: kaishu, xingshu, caoshu, songti and sub-variants.

NEW! On dominant objective

• Styles are artificial groupings along a spectrum of writings. Outside Wikimedia, each style actually gather endless variations by its writers.
• Two opposite objectives are therefor possible on that spectrum:
  • historical accurate: documents the exact glyph as done by the writers of that time. Various glyph representations of a same character may be uploaded. This is what history, calligraphy enthusiasts, academics look for.
  • teaching principles: represents the implicitly agreed, canonical, idealized, shape-simplified, smoothed principle of a style. This is what fonts do and propagate, and what teachers looks for.
• ACC categories are on this spectrum. Those who do and upload, decide where their category stands.