Chinese script evolved like a living organism driven by natural selection: study

Research shows a small set of high-frequency building blocks shaped the writing system through a principle of economy

“Chinese characters evolve like living organisms,” lecturer Xie Yonghui of Shanghai Normal University said on August 24.

The research into the evolution of Chinese writing over thousands of years, led by Huang Wei, of Beijing Language and Culture University and Xie, was published in the peer-reviewed journal Digital Scholarship in the Humanities in January.

Their study of “the structural formation system of modern simplified Chinese characters from a complex network perspective” reveals that a small number of core components – such as 日 (sun), 月 (moon) and 人 (human) – are repeatedly combined to create new characters.

When existing elements were insufficient, entirely new components were invented.

“From ancient times to the present, Chinese characters have evolved from complex to simplified forms, such as the shift from traditional to simplified characters, partly to make writing easier and partly through natural selection driven by usage frequency,” Xie said.

The researchers said this evolutionary pressure produced a system in which a minority of high-frequency components dominated, while less-central elements remained on the margins.

The pattern followed a principle of economy, mirroring the linguistic tendency towards greater output with less effort.