source 22

1. http://www.arthistoryclub.com/art_history/Calligraphy
2. N/A
3. N/A
4. the source says, "Calligraphy is an art dating back to the earliest day of history, and widely practiced throughout China to this day. Although it uses Chinese words as its vehicle of expression, one does not have to know Chinese to appreciate its beauty. Because in essence, Calligraphy is an abstract art.
   
   East Asian calligraphy typically uses ink brushes to write Chinese characters (called Hanzi in Chinese, Kanji in Japanese, and Hanja in Korean). Calligraphy (in Chinese, Shufa 書法, in Japanese Shodō 書道, in Korean, Seoyae 書藝, all meaning "the way of writing") is considered an important art in East Asia and the most refined form of East Asian painting.
   
   The style of Chinese calligraphy has evolved continually for thousands of years. About 213 B.C., under the famous Qin Shi Huangdi, who perpetrated the 'burning of the books', the Prime Minister Li Si drew up an official index of characters and unified the written form for the use of scholars. This is chuan-shu and contained more than 3,000 characters. From that time to the present, there have been five major styles of calligraphy. Using their Japanese names, they are tensho (seal style), reisho (scribe's style), kaisho (block style), gyosho (semi-cursive style), and sosho (cursive style, literally "grass writingstyles"). All five styles of writing are still in use today.
   In addition to these, the Japanese developed the kana characters during the eighth century. In contrast to Chinese characters, which express both sound and meaning ideographically, kana express only sound without regard to meaning. Three types of kana have been developed, manyogana, hiragana, and katakana. The manyogana are a subset of the Chinese characters used phonetically to represent the syllables of Japanese, and are named after the eighth century poetry collection Manyoshu. Manyogana is now obsolete.
   
   At the time this collection was compiled the Japanese had no writing system of their own. Some of the Japanese poems were rendered in Chinese characters used phonetically, and in others the Chinese characters were used sometimes phonetically and sometimes ideographically. Using the kanji manyogana as a guide, hiragana and katakana were developed from simplified cursive versions of characters. In the hands of Japanese noblewomen, hiragana developed into a beautiful script which is the unique calligraphic style of Japan. In contrast to the loops and curves of hiragana, katakana is more angular and relies on sharp angles. Written Japanese uses both scripts along with Chinese characters, and basic calligraphy instruction is still common in Japanese lower education.
   Calligraphy has influenced most major art styles in East Asia, including sumi-e, a style of Japanese painting using indian ink.
   
   East Asian calligraphy typically uses ink brushes to write Chinese characters (called Hanzi in Chinese, Kanji in Japanese, and Hanja in Korean). Calligraphy (in Chinese, Shufa 書法, in Japanese Shodō 書道, or "the way of writing") is considered an important art in East Asia and the most refined form of East Asian painting.
   Calligraphy has influenced most major art styles in East Asia, including sumi-e, a style of Chinese and Japanese painting based entirely on calligraphy."
5. somewhat
6. the information seems logical but there were no credentials to sway my thought to believe this site