The origin of Chinese characters
In the early days of human society, productivity was extremely low. For the sake of survival, people have to unite and use primitive and crude production tools to fight against nature. In the struggle, language was born in order to exchange ideas and transmit information. But language is fleeting, and it can neither be preserved nor spread to distant places, and some information that needs to be preserved and spread to distant places can not be preserved only by the memory of the human brain. As a result, the most primitive methods of writing notes-"structured notes" and "engraved notes" came into being.
Jieshengshi
Before writing appeared, people used various methods to remember things, among which knotting and lettering were the most commonly used. In China's ancient books, there are many records about tying ropes. The Book of Changes and Biography of Knoting Ropes in the Warring States Period BC said: "There was a rule of knotting rope in ancient times, and later saints used books easily." Zheng Xuan, a native of the Han Dynasty, also said in the Book of Changes: "The ancients had no words, and tying a rope was a promise, a big event, and a big knot; Things are small, sum up the rope. " The left Book of Changes quoted from Jiu Jia Yi also said: "The ancients had no words, but vows, big events, big ropes, small things, small ropes and knots. It is enough to treat each other. " This is about making promises, which is quite clear and specific.
Skeleton map of Yangshao site
Carving notes
The main purpose of lettering is to record numbers. Liu Xi of the Han Dynasty said in "Notes on the Deeds of the Famous Book": "When deeds are engraved, their numbers are also engraved." It is clearly stated that the deed is lettering, and the purpose of lettering is to help mark. Because when people conclude a contractual relationship, quantity is the most important and the most likely factor to cause disputes. Therefore, people use lettering to mark numbers with certain lines and engrave them on bamboo or wood chips as a "contract" between the two parties. This is an ancient "deed" Later, people separated the deed from the middle and divided it into two halves, each holding half, based on the coincidence of the two. Ancient contracts are engraved with numbers, which are mainly used as proof of debt. The picture on the right shows the skeleton of Yangshao site unearthed in Zhoujiazhai, Xining County, Gansu Province.
Knotting notes, carving notes and other similar notes can be found in different ethnic groups all over the world. China until after the Song Dynasty, there were knots in the south. Peru in South America is especially famous. Some ethnic groups can also use the color and knot of the rope to write down something accurately.
As an original note-taking method, knotting notes, whether tied with a rope or crossed with multiple ropes, is only a simple concept in the final analysis, which is used to express and record numbers or directions and is an ideographic form. This can be regarded as a brewing stage before the appearance of words, but it can't evolve into words, let alone the appearance of words. Because it can only help people remember something, but it can't exchange ideas, and it doesn't have the attributes of language exchange and recording. So it is impossible for knotted notes to develop into words.
The use of hieroglyphics
The use of hieroglyphics
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Due to the shortage of knotting notes and lettering notes, people have to use some other methods, such as pictures, to help them remember and express their thoughts. Painting has led to the emergence of words. Mr. Tang Lan said in China Philology: "It's natural for words to come into being. Tens of thousands of years ago, Paleolithic people had good paintings. Most of these paintings are animals and portraits, which are the predecessors of characters. " However, only after "a more universal and extensive language" can pictures play the role of words and be transformed into words. For example, if someone draws a tiger, everyone will call it "tiger" when they see it; Draw an elephant and everyone will call it "elephant" when they see it. Over time, people habitually use pictures like "tiger" and "elephant" mentioned above, which are between pictures and words. As time goes on, there are more and more such pictures, and the paintings are not so realistic. Such a picture gradually shifts to the direction of words, which eventually leads to the separation of words and pictures. In this way, the picture is divided into the original realistic picture and the picture text that has become a text symbol. The hieroglyphics further developed into hieroglyphics. As "China Philology" said: "Words are based on pictures, and the original words are pictures that can be read, but not all pictures can be read. Later, the difference between words and pictures gradually became obvious. Words are no longer pictures, but words. Writing skills don't need realistic descriptions. As long as the characteristics are written, they are generally good and can be understood by people. " This is the original text.
2. Information about the origin of Chinese characters, to understand the origin of Chinese characters.
There are various opinions about the origin of Chinese characters in China ancient literature, such as "knot rope", "gossip", "picture" and "calligraphy contract". Ancient books also generally recorded the legend that Cang Xie, the historian of the Yellow Emperor, created Chinese characters.
Modern scholars believe that systematic writing tools cannot be completely created by one person. If Cang Xie really exists, he should be a text organizer or publisher. In recent decades, Chinese archaeologists have published a series of unearthed materials about the origin of Chinese characters earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins.
These materials mainly refer to the carved or painted symbols that appeared on pottery in the late primitive society and early historical society, and also include a few symbols engraved on Oracle Bone Inscriptions, jade and stone tools. Since Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Chinese characters have developed for more than 3,000 years, and their forms have been simplified. With the evolution of China's history, they have experienced font changes of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, big seal script, small seal script, official script and regular script, and become the characters we use today.
Chinese mainland usually uses standardized simplified Chinese characters. Among the Chinese characters with extended information, ideographic characters are the earliest characters in the history of Chinese character formation in China. Chinese characters have gone through three stages: ideographic writing, ideographic writing and phonography and phonography.
Among them, ideographic characters refer to characters created according to the meaning of summarized content. In the initial stage of Chinese characters, there are no strokes and letters, which are gradually developed from pictures and physical records, so it is natural to incorporate the most dependent meaning into the font first. Ideographic characters come from picture characters, but they weaken the nature of pictures and enhance the symbolism. Is the most primitive word formation.
It has great limitations, because some physical abstract things can't be drawn. Therefore, on the basis of hieroglyphics, Chinese characters have developed into ideographic characters, and other word-forming methods have been added, such as understanding, referring to things, pictophonetic characters and so on.
However, these new word-making methods still need to be based on the original hieroglyphics, based on hieroglyphics, by splicing, omitting or adding or deleting symbols. Reference source: Baidu Encyclopedia-People in China.
3. Short stories about Chinese characters should not exceed 30 words.
On one occasion, the Xiongnu in the north wanted to attack the Central Plains, and sent someone to send a "battle table" first. When the emperor opened it, it turned out to be "heavenly heart takes rice". None of the ministers of the Qing Dynasty can solve this mystery. The emperor couldn't take it easy, so he had to post a list to recruit talents. At this time, an official named He Tang in the palace said in vain that he had plans to retreat, and the emperor urgently declared He Tang to go to the temple.
He Tang pointed to the four words on the "battle table" and said to the emperor: "God, my country is also; Heart, Central Plains also: rice, holy also. Taking rice from the heart is to seize the country and take the position of king. " The emperor said urgently, "What about Du?" He Tang said, "Nothing, I have my own way out." He said, holding a pen in his hand and adding a pen to each of the four words. The original letter was returned to the person who came to seek wisdom.
Marshal Xiongnu, who led the troops, thought that the Central Plains did not dare to fight. When he opened it, he was shocked and retreated urgently.
It turns out that after Tao and He Tang added a stroke to the word "heavenly heart takes rice", it became "not necessarily dare to come".
4. Know little about Chinese characters
The origin of Chinese characters is handed down from generation to generation. Long ago, Cang Xie was the historian of the emperor. He has a face like a dragon and four bright eyes.
He especially likes to observe things around him and also likes to think or think about problems. Every day, he looks up to observe the changes of the stars in the sky, the patterns on the turtle's back, the colors of bird feathers and the ups and downs of mountains and rivers, and often draws the shapes and characteristics of things on his hands.
Over time, the T-shape was created. When Cang Xie created characters, he began to eat corn like fish in the world, for fear that people would be too busy writing.
People will starve in the future. Ghosts secretly cry in the dark, and dragons hide, because they are afraid that words will record their ugly behavior, let the world know and make them immortal.
This is the origin of writing. A great man, I especially admire him.
The history of writing China characters-Chinese characters is well documented. It was in the late Shang Dynasty, about14th century BC, that stereotyped writing, namely Oracle Bone Inscriptions, was initially formed. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is both a hieroglyph and a phonography. Until now, there are still some pictographs in Chinese characters, which are very vivid.
In the late Western Zhou Dynasty, Chinese characters developed into Da Zhuan. The development of seal script has produced two characteristics: first, the lines with uneven thickness in the early days became uniform and soft, and the lines they drew with utensils were very concise and vivid; Second, standardization, the glyph structure tends to be neat, and gradually deviates from the original shape of the picture, laying the foundation for the square characters.
Later, Li Si, the prime minister of Qin Dynasty, simplified Da Zhuan and changed it to Xiao Zhuan. Small seal script not only simplifies the shape of big seal script, but also achieves the perfection of lineation and standardization, almost completely divorced from pictures and characters, and has become a neat, harmonious and very beautiful square font which is basically rectangular.
However, Xiao Zhuan also has its own fundamental shortcoming, that is, its lines are very inconvenient to write with a pen, so almost at the same time, a kind of official script with flat sides was produced. By the Han Dynasty, the official script had developed to a mature stage, and the readability and writing speed of Chinese characters had been greatly improved.
After Li Shu, it evolved into Cao Zhang, and now it is grass. In the Tang dynasty, there was Weeds, which expressed the writer's thoughts and feelings with a pen. Subsequently, regular script (also known as original script), a combination of official script and cursive script, became popular in the Tang Dynasty.
The print we use today evolved from regular script. Between regular script and cursive script is a running script, which is fluent in writing and flexible in using a pen. It is said that it was invented by Liu Desheng in Han Dynasty, and it is still the font used in our daily writing today.
In the Song Dynasty, with the development of printing, block printing was widely used, and Chinese characters were further improved and developed, resulting in a new type of calligraphy-Songti printing font. After the invention of printing, the carving knife used for lettering had a far-reaching influence on the glyph of Chinese characters, resulting in a kind of printing font with fine horizontal and thick vertical, which was eye-catching and easy to read, and was later called Song Style.
There are two kinds of fonts for the moment: fat imitation face, Liu style, thin imitation European style and dangerous style. Among them, the strokes of Yan and Liu are towering, with some characteristics of horizontal, thin and vertical.
In the Ming Dynasty, between Qin Long and Wanli, it changed from Song style to Ming style, with fine strokes and square fonts. It turned out that at that time, a kind of Hongwu style with thin horizontal and thick vertical was popular among the people, and this font was used for the title cards of official posts, lanterns, notices, private stones, ancestral halls and other gods.
Later, some book carvers created a non-face and non-European skin silhouette in the process of imitating Hongwu's style. Especially because the strokes of this font are horizontal and vertical, it is really easy to engrave. It is different from seal script, official script, original script and cursive script, unique, fresh and pleasing to the eye. Therefore, it has been widely used since16th century and has become a very popular main printing font. It's also called Song Style, and it's also called lead font.
The origin of Chinese characters, from the ancient legend of Cangjie word-making, to the discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions more than 100 years ago. China scholars have been trying to uncover the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters. On the origin of Chinese characters, there are many sayings in China ancient literature, such as "knot rope theory", "gossip theory", "picture theory" and "calligraphy contract theory". Ancient books also generally recorded the legend of Cang Xie, the historian of the Yellow Emperor who created Chinese characters.
Modern scholars believe that systematic writing tools cannot be completely created by one person. If Cang Xie really exists, he should be a text organizer or publisher. The earliest symbols were carved more than 8000 years ago. In recent decades, Chinese archaeologists have published a series of unearthed materials about the origin of Chinese characters earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins.
These materials mainly refer to the carved or painted symbols that appeared on pottery in the late primitive society and early historical society, and also include a few symbols engraved on Oracle Bone Inscriptions, jade and stone tools. It can be said that they provide a new basis for explaining the origin of Chinese characters.
Wang, a doctoral supervisor of Zhengzhou University, made a systematic investigation and comparison of the carving symbols on pottery pieces unearthed from more than 100 archaeological sites in China, and thought that the earliest carving symbols in China appeared in Jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan Province, with a history of more than 8,000 years. As a professional worker, he tried to comprehensively sort out these original materials by comprehensively using scientific methods such as archaeology, ancient Chinese character configuration, comparative philology, scientific archaeology and high-tech means, so as to compare some clues about the occurrence and development of Chinese characters before Shang Dynasty.
However, the situation is not so simple. In addition to the existing small-scale data of Zhengzhou Shangcheng site and Xiaoshuangqiao site (in recent years, more than 10 cases of Zhu Shutao's early characters of Shang Dynasty have been found), other symbols before Shang Dynasty are scattered and lack of contact with each other, and most of them are out of touch with Shang Dynasty characters. There are also some symbols with heavy regional colors and complex backgrounds.
The Chinese character system was formally formed in the Central Plains. Wang believes that the formal formation of the Chinese character system should be in the Central Plains. Chinese characters are a writing system of independent origin, independent of any foreign language. However, its origin is not single. After many times and long-term running-in, probably in the early summer, our ancestors creatively invented the writing symbol system of recording language on the basis of extensively absorbing and using early symbols. At that time, the Chinese character system matured rapidly.
5. Know little about Chinese characters
I. crossword puzzles
According to legend, in the Northern Song Dynasty, Su Dongpo, a famous poet and one of the "Eight Masters of Tang and Song Dynasties", visited his brother-in-law's house. My brother-in-law, Qin Shaoyou, gave a banquet, raised a glass and made a toast at the banquet, and blurted out a quatrain. In fact, this is a crossword puzzle: "I have a clever thing, half scales, half hair, half water, and half water." Su Dongpo laughed and said, "I have something on both sides. While eating grass on the mountain, I hide myself in the sea. It smells delicious." At this moment, the quick-thinking Su Xiaomei blurted out: "I have a strange thing, half-length with wings and half-length with four hooves. Long hooves can't run fast and long wings can't fly. " All three of them said the same word.
The answer is fresh.
a two-part allegorical saying
Nephew plays lanterns-as usual (uncle)
Break the sand pot-ask (tattoo) to the end.
Onion mixed with tofu-one green and two white >
Three. The origin of Chinese characters
Chinese characters originated from reproductive worship culture, invented in Taiji culture of Yin and Yang Codes, and created in painting, tying, carving, shell editing and so on.
Chinese characters are hieroglyphs. In the process of its development and evolution, it changes according to related things, writing methods and pronunciation. Unlike most western Chinese characters, it is only from pronunciation.
For example, "Zi" originally meant "nose". Zi wrote a bridge of the nose and two nostrils in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which is obviously like a human nose. Later, the bridge of the nose was shortened, the nostrils were close together, and the bottom of the nose became a horizontal painting. Later, the difference between fonts and noses became bigger and bigger. Because of this change, the word gradually extends to himself, himself, his family and himself, and the meaning of "nose" is less and less used. Therefore, people add a phonetic "fu" under the "zi" that is no longer like the nose and write it as "nose".
Four. catastrophe
The origin of "untidiness":
In the Song Dynasty, there was a painter in Beijing who often painted at will, and he didn't know anything. Once, he had just finished drawing a tiger's head, and someone asked him to draw a horse, so he drew the horse's body behind the tiger's head. Someone asked him whether he painted a horse or a tiger, and he replied, "So so!" " "When others don't want it, he hangs it in the hall. The eldest son saw it and asked him what it was. He said it was a tiger, and the second son asked him if it was a horse.
Soon, the eldest son went out hunting and shot someone else's horse into a tiger. The painter had to pay the master. His youngest son met a tiger when he went out, but thought it was a horse he wanted to ride, and he was killed by the tiger. The painter was so sad that he burned the painting and wrote a poem blaming himself: "If you have no intention of painting, you are like a horse and a tiger. The eldest son shoots the dead horse according to the painting, and the second son feeds the tiger according to the painting." The burning of the thatched cottage has no intention. I advise you not to imitate me. "
Since then, the word "sloppy" has spread.
6. Know little about Chinese characters
Knowledge about Chinese characters
A piece of history
Chinese characters in Oracle Bone Inscriptions are one of the three oldest Chinese character systems in the world. Among them, the sacred script of ancient Egypt and the cuneiform script of Sumerians in the two river basins have been lost, and only China's Chinese characters are still in use today.
According to legend, Chinese characters originated from the creation of characters in Cangjie. Cang Xie, a historian of the Yellow Emperor, created Chinese characters according to the shapes of the sun and the moon and the footprints of birds and animals. When he created characters, the world was shocked-"When it rains, ghosts cry at night". From a historical point of view, the complicated Chinese character system can't be invented by one person. More likely, Cang Xie has made outstanding contributions to the collection, arrangement and unification of Chinese characters. Therefore, Xunzi Jiemu records that "there are many good books, but one is Cang Xie's solo biography".
Some people think that the Eight Diagrams in Zhouyi have a great influence on the formation of Chinese characters, but there are few supporters.
2. Original script
Before the invention of writing, oral knowledge had obvious shortcomings in dissemination and accumulation. Primitive people used knotting, carving and drawing to assist in taking notes, and later simplified and replaced pictures with characteristic graphics. When the graphic symbols are simplified to a certain extent and form a specific corresponding relationship with the language, the original text is formed.
1994, a large number of pottery were unearthed at the Daxi cultural site in Yangjiawan, Hubei Province. Among the symbols of 170, some features are quite similar to those of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. This discovery infers the formation process of the original Chinese characters to 6000 years ago. In addition, pictographic symbols on pottery unearthed in Dawenkou, Shandong Province, geometric symbols on painted pottery in Banpo, Xi, etc. , may be in the process of forming the original text (or before) at different stages of performance.
However, after the Shang Dynasty, are Chinese characters and these geometric symbols in the same strain? This issue is still controversial. Many scholars have suggested that these symbols are not necessarily the precursors of Chinese characters, or even the writing symbols.
From hieroglyphics to ideographs
Stone Carving on Mount Tai is said to have been written by Li Si. From Oracle Bone Inscriptions to Xiao Zhuan, Chinese characters have experienced the development process from pictograph to ideograph, and the glyphs have gradually separated from the concrete images of things. Chinese characters in this period are called ancient Chinese characters.
Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang and Zhou Dynasties was a relatively complete writing system. Among the more than 4,500 Oracle characters found, nearly 2,000 can be recognized at present. At the same time when Oracle Bone Inscriptions appeared, the words cast on bronze ware were called inscriptions on bronze or Zhong Dingwen. Pan and Mao in the Western Zhou Dynasty have high historical and artistic value.
After Qin Shihuang unified China, Lisi standardized and sorted out the big seal script and the ancient prose of six countries, formulated the small seal script as the standard writing font of the Qin Dynasty, and unified the characters of China. The seal script is rectangular, and the strokes are round and smooth.
Small seal script solved the problem of a large number of variant characters between languages of various countries, and the history of "the same book" began. The unification of written language has effectively promoted the spread of inter-ethnic culture and played an important role in the identification of the Chinese nation and the unification of China, which is rare in the history of written language in the world.
The development of Chinese characters has undergone many different evolutions. In the early Chinese character system, the number of words was insufficient, and a large number of things were represented by interchangeable words, which made the expression of words vague. In order to improve the clarity of expression, Chinese characters have gone through a stage of gradual complexity and a large number of words. But there are so many things that it is impossible to express them in one Chinese character. The excessive increase in the number of Chinese characters has also made it difficult to learn Chinese characters. Chinese has gradually evolved from ideographic words to ideographic words.
Four word-making and composition
After Qin Shihuang unified Chinese characters, the number of Chinese characters also increased, and many new words appeared constantly:
Emperor Wendi of the Sui Dynasty was originally a vassal, but because the word "Sui" meant instability, the word "Sui" was removed and created as the national title.
In the Tang Dynasty, Wu Zetian created the word "Qi" (the same as "Zhao") as her name according to the meaning of "the sun and the moon are in the sky".
In the Five Dynasties, the word "Chen" was created in its name, taking the meaning of "flying dragon in the sky".
In modern times, due to the influx of western knowledge, many words have also been created. For example, when beer was introduced into China, how to express it in Chinese characters was a problem. At first, it was translated into skin wine, but later it was inappropriate. About 19 10, the word "beer" was created-translated as "beer". In order to express English units, some disyllabic words have been created, such as Li (nautical mile), Kui (gallon), Kui (kilowatt) and Chi (ruler). However, these disyllabic words have been eliminated in the Notice on the Unified Use of Chinese Characters in the Names of Some Units of Measurement issued by the China Character Reform Commission and the National Bureau of Standards and Metrology on June 20th 1977, and are no longer used in Chinese mainland, but they can still be seen in Taiwan Province Province and other places.
At present, due to the informationization and standardization of Chinese characters, Chinese characters no longer add new words at will. The only exceptions are various elements in the periodic table, such as helium, chlorine, radon, germanium, chromium and uranium. This word-making method is still used to name new elements. Word-formation rules of chemical elements can be found in Elements.
Liu Shu analyzed the composition of Chinese characters. Zhou Li mentioned Liu Shu, but did not specify the specific content. In Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty elaborated in detail the rules of Chinese character construction of Liushu: pictographic, referential, comprehending, pictophonetic, transliteration and borrowing. Among them, pictographic characters, fingering, knowing characters and pictophonetic characters are the principles of word formation, which is the "word formation method"; Annotation and borrowing are the rules of using words, and they are "methods of using words". However, it should be noted that the "six books" are the arrangement and classification of Chinese characters, not the rules of word formation.
7. Know little about Chinese characters
1. Chinese characters have been used for the longest time so far, and they are also the only characters in various ghost writing systems in ancient times. Chinese characters have always been the main official language in China.
All East Asian countries have created their own Chinese characters to some extent. In the non-Chinese character system, the Japanese themselves simplified Chinese characters and formulated new Japanese fonts; Vietnam, North Korea, Mongolia and other countries that used Chinese characters in history have now abandoned Chinese characters.
2. Description: Mr. Guo Moruo, on the basis of a comparative study of Banpo pottery symbols in Shang Dynasty and Oracle Bone Inscriptions, thinks that early characters can be divided into two systems: description and drawing. "Description system is the evolution of tying rope and tying wood, rarely. Judging from the descriptive symbols found in Banpo and Jiangzhai, there are some numbers and some words. Many modern scholars believe that it has a fixed sound, form and meaning and should be the source of Chinese characters.
3. Bronze inscriptions refer to words carved on bronzes, also known as Zhong Dingwen, which began in Shang Dynasty. Shang and Zhou Dynasties were the bronze age, with the tripod as the representative ritual vessel and the bell as the representative musical instrument. "Zhong Ding" was synonymous with bronze ware. Therefore, Zhong Dingwen or inscriptions on bronze refers to inscriptions cast or carved on bronzes.
4. Chinese characters are a combination of form, sound and meaning, and most Chinese characters are composed of form and sound. Liu Shu is the basic principle of Chinese character formation. There are six books mentioned in Zhou Li.
Just didn't specify the specific content. In Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty expounded the structural principles of "Six Books": pictographic, referential, comprehending, pictophonetic, phonetic and borrowing.
Chinese characters are written Chinese characters, and each word represents a syllable. Now, Mandarin is used as the standard pronunciation in Chinese mainland. The syllables of Putonghua are determined by one initial, one vowel and tone, and there are more than 65,438+0,300 syllables actually used.
Because of the huge number of Chinese characters, there are obvious homophones; At the same time, it also exists in the case that the same word has multiple tones, which is called polyphonic words. This situation is very common in various dialects of Chinese.