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Style of writing Chinese characters

Semi cursive script, also known as running script, is a style of Chinese calligraphy that emerged during the Han dynasty (202 BC220 AD). The style is used to write Chinese characters and is abbreviated slightly where a character's strokes are permitted to be visibly connected as the writer writes, but not to the extent of the cursive style. This makes the style easily readable by readers who can read regular script and quickly writable by calligraphers who require ideas to be written down quickly. Semi cursive script is prominent in modern Chinese society despite the lack of official education for it, a status aided by the introduction of fountain pens.

The Chinese writing system has been borrowed and used in East Asian countries, including Japan, Korea and Vietnam for thousands of years due to China's extensive influence, technology and large territory. As a result, the culture of calligraphy and its various styles spread across the region, including semi cursive script.

The semi cursive style was developed in the Han dynasty. In the digital age, it has been proposed to encode Chinese characters using the "track and point set" method, which allows users to make their own personalized semi cursive fonts. In the Edo period, general trends have been noticed where semi cursive was used with hiragana in mixed script for "native" literature and books translated for commoners, while regular script kanji was used alongside katakana for Classical Chinese works meant to be read by scholars.

Chinese calligraphy appeared in Korea at around 2nd or 3rd century AD. Korea also used Chinese characters (called hanja in Korean) until the invention of the Korean alphabet, hangul, in 1443. Even then, many calligraphers did not choose to use the newly created hangul writing system and continued to write calligraphy and its various styles using Chinese characters. In this environment, semi cursive script started seeing use in Korea during the Joseon dynasty.

Semi cursive script aims for an informal, natural movement from one stroke to the next. Another distinct feature of this style is being able to pinpoint where each stroke originates and which stroke is it followed by. In order to be able to write in the semi cursive style, the calligrapher should be able to write in the regular script and know the order the strokes should be written in. Many calligraphers choose to use this style when they need to write things down quickly, but still require the characters to be readable. In Japan, most calligraphy works are done in this style due to its ability to create a style unique to the calligrapher in a small timeframe.

The semi cursive style is practiced for aesthetic purposes, and a calligrapher may choose to specialize in any script of their preference. The smooth transition and omission of some strokes of the semi cursive style had also contributed to the simplification of Chinese characters by the People's Republic of China.

One of the characteristics of semi cursive script is the joining of consecutive strokes. To execute this, one must write a character in an uninterrupted manner and only stop the brush movement when required. In some scenarios, the strokes may not be visibly linked, but it is possible to grasp the direction which each stroke is drawn.

The fast brush movement needed for the semi cursive style allows a decrease in the number of strokes needed to produce a character. However, this is done in a way to preserve readability by considering the stroke order of each Chinese character in most cases. There are no solid rules to the way in which characters are simplified, and it is up to the calligrapher to display their personal style and preferences.

With the intention to prioritise speed, calligraphers may choose to make subtle changes to the stroke order of the written character. They may choose to reverse the direction of the stroke or write the strokes out of order compared to how they are written in the regular script.

In works written using semi cursive script, the size of each character can vary greatly with each other. Where works of the regular script are usually written in the same size, semi cursive characters can be arranged to achieve “rhythm and balance” artistically. To preserve this rhythm and balance, most semi cursive and cursive works are written in vertical columns from right to left, despite the adoption of the Western standard in Chinese texts, writing in rows from left to right.