Talk:Clerical script

Removal
This article contained the line:

"It is possible that the Japanese writing system of katakana originated from the clerical script."

I removed this since there is no evidence I can find that the man'yōgana which formed the basis of katakana were either definitely clerical script or definitely regular script. Man'yōgana developed while regular script was in its infancy, but it is known that man'yōgana were written in all the forms of calligraphy including cursive script which definitely was the basis of hiragana; and that by the time katakana was developed, the regular script was already widely in use. Modern katakana has the roughly square character shapes of regular script. AKADriver 22:10, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

"Name" section
This section is just completely wrong. "隸" (li) does not mean either "slave" or "prisoner". It means a person with low social status, or low ranks in case of a government employee (see [] and []). The cited source in this secion (ref 12) probably made the wrong asciation between "隸" and "slave" due to the modern Chinese word "奴隸" (slave), where the "slave" part is actually "奴", while "隸" just means a worker/laborer. In fact, in older texts when "隸" is used by itself as a noun, it's most often referring to a low ranking personel in some goverment agency doing daily chores--such as handling paperworks, hence "clerical". "Clerical script" is an apt translation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.148.60.130 (talk) 03:48, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Expansion
I have modified, expanded and in part rewritten this article. Most of the article is based on Qiu (2000), so any content from newer materials and/or non-Mandarin materials would be a great addition.

Re the problem regarding "name" section as raised by the user above: the person who wrote it based the section on Qiu (2000), which is a reliable source. I have checked the original source and did not find any obvious misreading. "Slave" and "convict" were among the character's earliest meanings. 漢書 says "是時、始造隸書矣. 起於官獄多事、苟趨省易、施之於徒隸也", where 徒隸 is pretty unambiguously "prisoner-in-servitude" (cf. 徒虜 and 徒孥).

-- always summer, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper 16:37, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Relationship with regular script and semi-cursive script
"The script, for convenience, abandoned the heavy tails present in the bafen script, while taking influence from the contemporaneous cursive script. Influenced by this new script style, the semi-cursive script would then arise, which would in turn give rise to the regular script."

This is inconsistent with what's on the regular script and semi-cursive script pages. On the regular script page, it is said that regular script is derived from the clerical script. On the semi-cursive script page, it is said that semi-cursive script is derived from the regular script.

However, since I'm not a professional, I cannot verify what is correct. MichaelKim0407 (talk) 19:05, 18 July 2024 (UTC)


 * The first description is correct: the regular script was influenced by aspects of the semi-cursive script. However, on a broader level, I do not see why the second is also correct, as the semi-cursive script is itself derived from the clerical script, while both clerical and regular script are themselves non-cursive styles. Remsense 诉  20:43, 18 July 2024 (UTC)