Small Seal Script

Small Seal Script (Chinese: 小篆, xiǎozhuàn), formerly romanized as Hsiao-chuan and also known as Seal Script, Lesser Seal Script and Qin Script (秦篆, Qínzhuàn), is an archaic form of Chinese calligraphy. It was standardized and promulgated as a national standard by Li Si, prime minister under Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor of Qin.

Before the Qin conquest of the last six of the Warring States of Zhou China, local styles of characters evolved independently of one another for centuries, producing what are called the "Scripts of the Six States" (六國文字) or "Great Seal Script". Under one unified government however, the diversity was deemed undesirable as it hindered timely communication, trade, taxation, and transportation and as independent scripts might represent dissenting political ideas.

Hence coaches, roads, currency, laws, weights, measures, and writing were to be unified systematically. Characters which were different from those found in Qin were discarded and Li Si's small seal characters became the standard for all regions within the empire. This policy came in about 220 BC, the year after Qin's unification of the Chinese states, and was introduced by Li Si and two ministers. The small cursive form clerical script came after the small script.

Seal script

Seal script (simplified Chinese: 篆书; traditional Chinese: 篆書; pinyin: zhuànshū) is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhou dynasty script, arising in the Warring State of Qin. The Qin variant of seal script became the standard and was adopted as the formal script for all of China in the Qin dynasty, and was still widely used for decorative engraving and seals (name chops, or signets) in the Han dynasty. The literal translation of its Chinese name 篆書 (zhuànshū) is decorative engraving script, because by the time this name was coined in the Han dynasty, its role had been reduced to ceremonial inscriptions rather than as a standardized script.

Large seal scripts

There are two uses of the word seal script, the Large or Great Seal script (大篆 Dàzhuàn; Japanese daiten; Korean daejeon) and the lesser or Small Seal Script (小篆 Xiǎozhuàn; Japanese shōten; Korean sojeon), the latter is also called simply seal script. The Large Seal script was originally a later, vague Han dynasty reference to writing of the Qin system similar to but earlier than Small Seal. It has also been used to refer to Western Zhou forms or even oracle bones as well. Since the term is an imprecise one, not clearly referring to any specific historical script and not used with any consensus in meaning, modern scholars tend to avoid it, and when referring to seal script, generally mean the (small) seal script of the Qin system, that is, the lineage which evolved in the state of Qin during the Spring and Autumn to Warring States periods and which was standardized under the First Emperor.