Cursive script (East Asia)

The character 草 cǎo primarily means "grass", which has led to the semantically inappropriate calque of 草書, "grass script". 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][2] "quick script" or "rough script" (the character 書 shū means script in this context). The character 草 appears in this sense, for example, in 草稿 (Modern Mandarin cǎogǎo, "rough draft") and 草擬 (cǎonǐ, "to draft [a document or plan]").

Cursive script originated in China through two phases during the period from the Han to Jin dynasties. Firstly, an early form of cursive developed as a cursory way to write the popular but hitherto immature clerical 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 extant bamboo 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 called zhāngcǎo (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 the Wei Kingdom to Jin dynasty with influence from the semi-cursive and standard styles.

Besides zhāngcǎo and "modern cursive," there is also "wild cursive" (Chinese and Japanese: 狂草; pinyin: kuángcǎo; rōmaji: kyōsō) which is even more cursive and difficult to read. When it was developed by Zhang Xu and Huaisu in the Tang dynasty, they were called Diān 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.

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.

Many simplified 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 Japanese hiragana script. Specifically, hiragana developed from cursive forms of the man'yōgana script, called sōgana (草仮名). In Japan, the sōgana 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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  Cursive script in Sun Guoting's Treatise on Calligraphy.
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  Chinese characters of "Cursive Script" in regular script (left) and cursive script (right). Notice that for the cursive form, there is only a total of 3 strokes, 17 strokes less than its regular counterpart.
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  8 different cursive representations of the character 龍 (dragon), from Compilation of Cursive Characters (《草字彙》), authored by Shi Liang (石梁) of the Qing dynasty. The artists are: 1 Sun Guoting; 2, 3 Huaisu; 4 Yan Zhenqing; 5 Zhao Mengfu; 6, 7 Zhu Zhishan; 8 anonymous.

• The Art of Japanese Calligraphy, 1973, author Yujiro Nakata, publisher Weatherhill/Heibonsha, ISBN 0-8348-1013-1.
• Qiu Xigui Chinese Writing (2000). Translation of 文字學概要 by Gilbert L. Mattos and Jerry Norman. Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-071-7.

• Cursive script/grass script calligraphy generator