A Chinese script of one from or another has been in existence for over 5,000 years. The origins of Chinese script are shrouded in mystery, and various legends exist to explain its creation. One such legends tells how Cang Jie (仓颉), a minister of the Emperor Huang Di (黄帝), observed the footprints of birds and animals. He noticed that each one was distinct and recognizable. Inspire by this, Cang Jie drew pictures of objects, simplifying them by reducing the number of lines. These were the first pictographs, called xiang xing (象形) by the Han lexicographer Xu shén (许慎).
象形
Pictographs
Certain items could be represented very well by pictographs. For example: animals, plants, parts of the body and so on. We can see that over the time some of the characters tend to lose some of their resemblance from the original during the development.
表意
Ideographs
These are characters which represent abstract concepts. Xu shén (许慎) call them zhi shi (指事)。
形声
Determinative-phonetic characters
As civilization grew, so did the demand for new characters. To this end, a new type of character was invented and called determinative- phonetic, or xingsheng (形声). These characters have a determinative part, to convey the meaning, and a phonetic part to show pronunciation.