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| Cursive script | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Mi Fu'sOn Calligraphy, a written discourse about the cursive style | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 草書 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 草书 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | draft script | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vietnamese | thảo thư, chữ thảo | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hán-Nôm | 草書, 𡨸草 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Korean name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hangul | 초서 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hanja | 草書 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kanji | 草書体 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kana | そうしょたい | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Cursive script | |
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| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Oracle bone script
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| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
| Chinese characters |
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Collation and standards
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Homographs and readings |
Cursive script (simplified Chinese:草书;traditional Chinese:草書;pinyin:cǎoshū;Japanese:草書体,sōshotai;Korean:초서,choseo;Vietnamese:thảo thư), often referred to asgrass script, is ascript style used inChinese andEast Asiancalligraphy. It is an umbrella term for the cursive variants of theclerical script and theregular script.[1]
The cursive script functions primarily as a kind ofshorthand script or calligraphic style and is faster to write than other styles, but it can be difficult to read for those unfamiliar with it because of its abstraction and alteration of character structures. People who can read onlystandard or printed forms of Chinese orrelated scripts may have difficulty reading the cursive script.
The character草cǎo primarily means "grass", and the character書shū means script in this context, which has led to the literalcalque for草書 as "grass script".[2] However,草 can be extended to mean "hurried" or "rough", from which the name草書 came. Thus, the name of this script is literally "draft script",[1][3] "quick script" or "rough script". The character草 appears in this sense, for example, in草稿 (Modern Mandarincǎogǎo, "rough draft") and草擬 (cǎonǐ, "to draft [a document or plan]"). The use of "cursive script" as the English translation was adopted in the early 20th century, and has become the mainstream translation, being widely used in academia and also by theBritish Museum in London and theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York.[2]
Cursive script originated in China through two phases during the period from theHan toJin dynasties. Firstly, an early form of cursive developed as a cursory way to write the popular but hitherto immatureclerical script. Faster ways to write characters developed through four mechanisms: omitting part of a graph, merging strokes together, replacing portions with abbreviated forms (such as one stroke to replace four dots), or modifying stroke styles. This evolution can best be seen on extantbamboo and wooden slats from the period, on which the use of early cursive and immature clerical forms is intermingled. This early form of cursive script, based on clerical script, is now calledzhāngcǎo (章草), and variously also termed ancient cursive, draft cursive or clerical cursive in English, to differentiate it from modern cursive (今草jīncǎo). Modern cursive evolved from this older cursive in theWei Kingdom to Jin dynasty with influence from thesemi-cursive andstandard styles.
Besideszhāngcǎo and "modern cursive", there is also "wild cursive" (Chinese andJapanese:狂草; pinyin:kuángcǎo; rōmaji:kyōsō) which is even more cursive and difficult to read. When it was developed byZhang Xu andHuaisu in theTang dynasty, they were calledDiān Zhāng Zuì Sù (crazy Zhang and drunk Su, 顛張醉素). Cursive, in this style, is no longer significant in legibility but rather in artistry.[citation needed]
Cursive scripts can be divided into the unconnected style (Chinese:獨草; pinyin:dúcǎo; Japanese:独草; rōmaji:dokusō) where each character is separate, and the connected style (Chinese:連綿; pinyin:liánmián; Japanese:連綿体; rōmaji:renmentai) where each character is connected to the succeeding one.
Manysimplified Chinese characters are derived from the standard script rendition of their corresponding cursive form (Chinese:草書楷化;pinyin:cǎoshūkǎihuà), e.g. 书, 东.
Cursive script forms of Chinese characters are also the origin of the Japanesehiragana script. Specifically, hiragana developed from cursive forms of theman'yōgana script, calledsōgana (草仮名). In Japan, thesōgana cursive script was considered to be suitable for women's writing, and thus came to be referred to as women’s script (女手,onnade).Onnade was later applied to hiragana as well. In contrast, kanji was referred to as men’s script (男手,otokode).
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