Seal (East Asia)

Seal
A Baiwen name seal, read up-down-right-left: 葉昊旻印 (pinyin: Ye Hao Min Yin, lit. "Seal of Ye Haomin")
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	印鑑 or 圖章 or 印章
Simplified Chinese	印鉴 or 图章 or 印章
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin yìnjiàn or túzhāng or yìnzhāng Gan Romanization ingan or inzong
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese	ấn giám or đồ chương or ấn chương
Korean name
Hangul	인감 or 도장 or 인장
Hanja	印鑑 or 圖章 or 印章
Transcriptions Revised Romanization ingam or dojang or injang
Japanese name
Kanji	印鑑 or 印章 or 判子
Transcriptions Romanization inkan or inshō or hanko

A seal, in an East Asian context, is a general name for printing stamps and impressions thereof which are used in lieu of signatures in personal documents, office paperwork, contracts, art, or any item requiring acknowledgement or authorship. China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea currently use a mixture of seals and hand signatures, and increasingly, electronic signatures. It is used to a lesser extent in Vietnam by authorised organisations and businesses, and also traditional Vietnamese artists. It was more common in Vietnam prior to French rule, when thereafter the practice of signature became a commonality, although western-like signatures are usually seen as having less authority in a company situation.

Chinese seals are typically made of stone, sometimes of metals, wood, bamboo, plastic, or ivory, and are typically used with red ink or cinnabar paste (Chinese: 朱砂; pinyin: zhūshā). The word 印 ("yìn" in Mandarin, "in" in Japanese and Korean, pronounced the same) specifically refers to the imprint created by the seal, as well as appearing in combination with other ideographs in words related to any printing, as in the word "印刷", "printing", pronounced "yìnshuā" in Mandarin, "insatsu" in Japanese. The colloquial name chop, when referring to these kinds of seals, was adapted from the Hindi word chapa and from the Malay word cap meaning stamp or rubber stamps.

In the past, fingerprints and handprints were used in East Asia for this function, being first impressed in clay, then printed on paper. This has been recorded since the 3rd century BCE in China – continuing for at least a millennium, and by the 8th century CE had spread to Japan. See history of fingerprints for details and reference. An important contrast with seals is that fingerprints and handprints are associated with a person, while seals are often associated with an office or family, though personal seals are also very common. Earlier similar devices are the cylinder seals used in Babylonia to make impressions on clay tablets.