Graceful Olympic Symbols and Chinese words

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The 2008 Olympics Games has adopted a set of symbols to represent the beauty of Chinese calligraphy.By combining certain features of different traditional forms of Chinese characters，the symbols appear both lively and highly representative of the sports they stand for. Although Chinese is a pictographic language，it does not consist of language pictures.Early pictographic languages were mostly represented by language pictures，which imitated the external characteristics of things.For these languages，language symbols were not much different from pictures，as with the pictographic hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. At its beginning, Chinese also included language pictures, which became fewer and fewer during the period of the oracle- bone inscriptions. Most symbols were made up of simple lines.

For example, the oracle-bone inscription for”dog”was written as . Instead of a drawing,a few simple yet highly symbolic lines were used to depict the image of a dog. The calligraphic symbols for the Beijing Olympics were designed to represent the”Beauty of Seal Characters.”A”seal character”is a type of Chinese calligraphy often carved on seals. There are two types of seal characters: the dazhuan, or greater seal, and the xiaozhuan, or lesser seal. The greater seal is also known as bronze inscription, because it was often used for carving inscriptions on bronzeware in ancient times. The lesser seal was the script the First Emperor of Qin(r.246-210 BC) adopted for the whole country, when he united China in 221 BC. Based on and developed from the oracle-bone inscriptions, the seal characters feature smoother and rhythmic lines, and thus have a more appealing appearance.

This is the symbol for“swimming”：Swimming The upper part is a symbol for”person，”while the lower part is a symbol for “water.”The swimmer strokes the water with vigor，imparting a strong sense of motion.If we take a look at the seal character for”walk，”，we make out a clear connection between the Olympic symbol and the character:the upper part for“swinging arms”and the lower part for”walking legs.”

The gentle and flowing lines in the lower part of the Olympic symbol are similar to the seal character for“water”：（mi）. This is the symbol for“track and field”：Athletics This symbol is aptly taken from the seal character for“dance”：犬.The dancer slightly tilts his head to one side，leans his body forward，swings his arms back and forth，and lifts his legs in a running fashion.The symbol，athletic yet graceful，has also been adopted for the“triathlon”and“football.” These symbols demonstrate how modern Olympics have revitalized the charm of the ancient Chinese language.