The earliest document that can be seen now reflecting Chinese vocabulary is Oracle bone inscriptions in Yin Dynasty. There are about 1000 Oracle characters known from it. As can be seen from these words, many words belonging to basic vocabulary have appeared at that time. As far as part of speech is concerned, most of them are content words, among which nouns are the most, verbs are the second, and adjectives are few. As far as semantic content is concerned, they cover a wide range, involving natural phenomena, productive labor, material culture, social relations, daily life, ideology and so on. Take some nouns as examples, such as the names of nature: sky, sun, moon, star, wind, cloud, rain, snow, fog, hail, rainbow, mountain, hill, mausoleum, earth, rock, yue, river, Sichuan, spring, state, stream, valley and earth. Names of seasons and times: year, year, spring, autumn, hour, ten-day, present, past, next year, morning, Dan, morning, dusk and evening; Direction name: up, down, right, middle, left, inside, outside, east, west, south and north; Names of animals and plants: horse, ox, sheep, tapir, dolphin, swimming, dog, rabbit, elephant, wolf, fox, tiger, deer, elk, roe, fish, turtle, snake, bird, chicken, sparrow, elk. Names of human body and organs: human body, head, face, eyebrows, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, elbows, toes, heart, abdomen and bones; Names of means of production and living: fields, fields, gardens, caves, palaces, rooms, houses, bedrooms, doors, households, warehouses, prisons, caves, wells, boats, cars, places, knives, axes, gold, thunder, etc. Name of weapon: Ge, spear, graupel, medium and shield; Names of interpersonal relationship and status: ancestor, Yan, father, mother, brother, brother, wife, woman, concubine, son, nephew, grandson, guest, minister, butcher, citizen, slave, prisoner, numerous, worker, nephew, monarch, etc. The name of heavenly stems and earthly branches; A, B, C, D, E, Ji, G, Xin, Ren, Gui, Zi, Ugly, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu and Hai.

There are few polyphonic combinations in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, but there are many polyphonic combinations in Shangshu handed down from ancient times, and the formal and juxtaposition forms are the main ones. Such as: destiny, fortune, Wang Ting, Shao Shi, Chongren, Shu Ren, teacher, Benbo, ordinary man, slanderers, gods, traitors, testimonies, confidants, fields, fields, life, age, reverence, inheritance, distance, stability, shock and upheaval. Some of them can be regarded as compound words. Especially in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, great and rapid social changes, such as the improvement of productivity, the change of economic base, the evolution of political system and the progress of academic culture, have promoted the rapid development of Chinese vocabulary, mainly manifested in the emergence of a large number of new words and the trend of disyllabic. This period initially formed the basic scale of ancient Chinese vocabulary.

During this period, all kinds of nouns, verbs and adjectives in notional words increased greatly. Take some words that reflect material culture as examples, such as the names of crops: valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, valley, hemp; Name of farm tool:? ，sm，sm，？ , money, shovel, cangue; Names of fields and farming: plow, town, plow, pan, plow, plow, she, Ken, plow, crop, seed, harvest, plow, plow; Names of metals and metallurgy: gold, iron, lead, praseodymium, forging, praseodymium, metallurgy, casting; Clothing name: Shang, Zhou, Yi, Zhou, Zhou, robe, Zhou, Brown, Zhou, Jin, Zhou, Mei, Guan, Guan and Zhu; Qin, Qin, Sound, Fu, Xiao, Guan, Quan, Fu, Chi, Zhong, Yong, Yun, Fu, Fu. In reflecting the superstructure, there are many words about politics, officials, etiquette, military and criminal law; There are more and more words about ethics, such as filial piety, younger brother, virtue, loyalty, faithfulness, benevolence, righteousness, knowledge, courage, honesty and shame.

Other parts of speech have also developed more fully. Such as demonstrative pronouns, personal pronouns and interrogative pronouns, adverbs indicating time, scope, degree, mode, state and mood, conjunctions indicating juxtaposition, commitment, turning, choice, cause and effect, hypothesis and concession, and various prepositions, modal particles and exclamations. Later, a set of "function words in classical Chinese" in written language basically took shape.

During this period, many simple words with two syllables (reduplicated words and conjunctions) and a large number of compound words appeared. The former is more common in the rhyme works such as The Book of Songs and Songs of the South, such as Yaoyao, Jingjing, Ran Ran, Gege, Bayi, Kan Kan, Mix, Whispering, Miaomian, Accidental Meeting, Li Lie, Graceful and Delicate, etc. The latter is common in all kinds of ancient books, such as: Horn Bow, Golden Bow, Lamb, Silkworm Fish, Rising Sun, Bedding, Moths, Ladders, Lovers, Chickens, Xuanniao, Imperata, Ermao, Samsung, Hayes, Gu Wu, Jiuyou, Wanwu, Chu Shi, Xunfu, Zhijie, Caochuang and Xunfu. The extensive application of compound words in Zhou and Qin Dynasties opened up a broad road for Chinese to create new words to meet the needs of social life. In this long period, with the social and economic progress, cultural and academic development, frequent ethnic exchanges and the prosperity of Chinese and foreign transportation, Chinese vocabulary has changed greatly accordingly. The main situation is that new words are constantly emerging, the differences between written and spoken languages are gradually increasing, the word-formation formats of disyllabic words are diversified, and foreign words appear in batches.

There are also many monosyllabic words in the neologisms produced in this period, taking those that appeared after Wei and Jin Dynasties as examples, such as: shop,? The beach, find, use, pass, don't, work hard, stand, , ya, afraid, noisy, sticky, leftover, lazy, blind, grandpa, mom, brother, Nong, this. But there are many disyllabic words, especially those expressing abstract concepts, such as situation, meaning, conduct, air, manners, mood, nature, prestige, power, skills, behavior, similarities and differences, boundaries, metaphor, testing, guessing, consulting, accommodation, awakening, difference, equality, confusion, prosperity, stability and glory. At the same time, there are more disyllabic function words, such as: often, often, often, gradually, repeatedly, always, always, immediately, place, detention, at any time, after all, eventually, forever, primitive, together, very, extremely, openly, definitely, not necessarily, 10 million, mutual (adverb above), if, if. These are obvious signs of further enrichment of Chinese vocabulary.

As far as word formation is concerned, the disyllabic words produced in this period are mainly compound words with parallel forms, but the predicate-object type and predicate-complement type also appear, such as: efforts, attention, intimacy, despair, laying hands on him, blocking mud, next door, temporality, difficulty, correction, unity and harmony. In addition, after Wei and Jin Dynasties, some affix-like elements appeared, such as "A" and "Lao" in front and "Zi", "Er" and "Tou" behind, thus forming a number of additional disyllabic words. For example: Ada, Awu, Ana, mouse, old crow, brother, sister, old slave, old man, rabbit, kite, swallow, ant, fruit, bamboo, knife, pavilion, boat, bag, towel, crown, hat, shoes and eyes. Head, knee, tongue, bone, hand, heart, field, sun, east and front. The written language and spoken language are gradually out of touch, and the vocabulary difference is getting bigger and bigger. Some documents of the Six Dynasties have more or less revealed this news. In the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, Zen quotations (such as Six Ancestors Tanjing and Zutang Collection) and popular literary works (such as Dunhuang Bianwen) fully reflected the face of spoken language at that time, in which a large number of words appeared that were not found in Orthodox Classical Chinese, which was an important material for studying the early vocabulary development of modern Chinese.

The appearance of a large number of loanwords is a remarkable feature of the development of Chinese vocabulary in this period. As early as the pre-Qin period, there were foreign elements absorbed from kinship languages and non-kinship languages in Chinese vocabulary, but most of them were integrated with inherent elements, making it difficult to distinguish them. Since the Western Han Dynasty, due to the close ethnic relations and frequent international exchanges, some easily recognizable foreign words have been added to Chinese, mainly the names of things from the South China Sea in the Western Regions, such as grapes, alfalfa, soil forests, nuts, betel nuts, cigarettes, jasmine, glass, amber and tamarisk. , hey? , white stack, slim, slim, teacher ratio, Guo Luo, Through the translation of Buddhist scriptures in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Chinese has absorbed a large number of foreign words related to Buddhism from ancient Indian languages (Sanskrit, Pali and ancient Central Asian languages (such as Yanqi and Qiuci), such as Prajna, Bodhi, Nanwu, Jiatuo, karma, Nirvana, Yamaraja, Bodhisattva, Lohan, Bhikkhu, etc. Some of them are widely used and have entered the common vocabulary of Chinese. Some polysyllabic words are often abbreviated to monosyllabic words, such as: Sangha/Monk, Moro (M ╣ Ra)/Magic, ta po(th pa)/ta, kalpa)/robbing, Mamo (k▄ama)/. In addition, in the translation of Buddhist scriptures, Some words have extended meanings and become common words in Chinese. After the Song Dynasty, China's social economy continued to progress, agricultural and sideline products, handicrafts, commerce and trade all developed greatly, and academics, literature and art (including natural science and popular literature) were also quite developed. With the development of economy and culture, many changes and innovations have taken place in Chinese vocabulary. Mainly manifested in: the number of new words reflecting the art of production, life and study has increased greatly; Spoken words are more abundant, and a large number of them enter vernacular literary works; Among the newly generated words, disyllabic words have obvious advantages, and trisyllabic words have also increased.

In terms of reflecting production and life, due to the prosperity of industry and commerce and urban life in the Song Dynasty, the words about workshops, markets, businesses and shops have increased unprecedentedly. For example: wood, bamboo, oil, brick, tailor, jade mill, rice market, meat market, flower market, gold and silver market, fish shop, vegetable shop, fruit shop, hemp shop, bone shop, noodle shop, hotel, tea shop, wonton shop, needle shop, lacquer shop, drugstore and wool shop. At the same time, the names of various consumer goods have also increased greatly. Take noodles, cakes, cakes and sugar in food as examples, such as: Sanxian noodles, shredded chicken noodles, fried eel noodles, bamboo shoots noodles, noodles, sesame cakes, honey cakes, bean cakes, jade chips cakes, mirror cakes, Chongyang cakes, sesame cakes, stir-fried cakes, moon cakes, lotus leaf cakes, chrysanthemum cakes and hibiscus cakes. Due to the progress of agricultural production, there are more words about crop varieties. Take the name of rice as an example. In the Song Dynasty, there were dozens of varieties such as early rice, upland rice, Redmi, small fragrant rice, Dunuo, Norman, glutinous rice, japonica rice, Redmi, yellow rice, yellow indica rice, arrowhead rice, Huangmang, Shangcao, Dong Zhong and Zaozhancheng. Another example is the words about sericulture accumulated in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, such as: mulberry, mulberry cage, mulberry net, silkworm house, silkworm foil, silkworm hammer, silkworm rafter, silkworm rack, cocoon can, cocoon cage, fire barn, furnace lift, hot kettle, cold basin, silk grate, cotton moment and winding car.

In Song Dynasty, natural science and applied technology (such as celestial calculation, calendar, civil construction, irrigation and water conservancy) developed greatly, with many inventions and works. During the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, some scientific and technological knowledge and observation instruments were introduced from the Islamic world in the Near East. Therefore, many new words have appeared in Chinese. In the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, Jesuits from Europe cooperated with intellectuals from China and translated many western scientific and technological books (including mathematics, astronomy, calendars, music, geography, water conservancy, machinery manufacturing, etc.). ), thus adding a number of modern scientific and technological terms to Chinese, such as zenith, solar sphere, moon, earth, longitude, latitude, instruments, telescopes, calculation, measurement and so on.

From the Song Dynasty to the early Ming Dynasty, due to the development of foreign trade, some foreign words absorbed from Arabic, Malay and other languages appeared in Chinese, most of which were the names of overseas specialties, such as La (giraffe), Hua Fulu (zebra), Maha beast (antelope), Jin, Ma, Jade and so on. But only a small part has passed.

In the Yuan Dynasty, due to the close contact between Han and Mongolian, many Mongolian words infiltrated into Chinese, which were found in zaju and other works, such as: rubbing neighbors (horses), biting red (grooms), sweating rice (meat), biting sun (wine), tieliwen (head), whispering (good), toothless (walking) and Yueerchi (going). Among them, with few exceptions, such as "station" and "good or bad" in a post station, not many loanwords have been consolidated in Chinese vocabulary. In addition, the words "Bashi", "Hutong", "Mushroom" and "Wallet" still in use today are also foreign words absorbed from Mongolian after the Yuan Dynasty.

This period is a period of great development of spoken Chinese vocabulary, and it is also a period of continuous entry into stylistic literature. From the Southern Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, various genres of vernacular works (such as Southern Opera, Zhugongdiao, Zaju, Pinghua, novels, etc.) are increasing day by day, which fully shows the lexical characteristics of modern Chinese at all stages of development. We can clearly see the historical process of Chinese vocabulary approaching its present situation step by step from the contemporary oral situation reflected in the Song and Yuan scripts and novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Since 1840 Opium War, China society has undergone drastic changes, and new things and new ideas in politics, economy and culture have emerged one after another. Great and profound changes in social life and people's thoughts have promoted the rapid development and continuous innovation of Chinese vocabulary.

During the 50 years from the Reform Movement of 1898 (1898) to the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC) (1949), many new words have been added to Chinese, most of which are disyllabic words, a few are trisyllabic words and a few are more than three syllables. The main sources of vocabulary supplement are: ① self-made words. For example: President, Congress, courts, companies, trains, ships, airplanes, bombs, cement, cigarettes, cans, movies, pianos, stamps, licenses, auctions, remittances, migrant workers, locomotives, posters, scripts, pens, movies, departments, institutions, collectives, backbones, stages, functions and factors. ② Borrow Japanese characters. For example: prime minister, parliament, political party, socialism, representatives, cadres, agreements, elections, veto, organs, courts, police, propaganda, speeches, information, slogans, current affairs, banks, enterprises, markets, degrees, authorities, courses, fine arts, lectures, talks, discussions, performances, comedies, specimens and models. ③ Absorb Indo-European vocabulary. For example: sofa, poker, coffee, cocoa, soda, toast, guitar, nylon, tank, radar, bandage, etc. Modern, vitamins, models, trust, bourgeoisie, hysteria, cards, cigars, flannel, jeep and honeymoon. Superman (╇bermensch), hidden rules, blitzkrieg, zeitgeist, hacker. Since the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the social and political situation has changed at an unprecedented speed in history, such as the establishment of the socialist system, the spread of Marxism–Leninism, the development of economic construction, the popularization of culture and education, the progress of science and technology, frequent international exchanges, the improvement of people's living standards, and the change of mental outlook, all of which have prompted various changes in Chinese vocabulary. These changes are manifested in various aspects, such as: ① Political and philosophical terms are widely used, and some have become common words. Such as: policy, strategy, guideline, slogan, class, composition, party, democracy, consultation, negotiation, position, viewpoint, thought, consciousness, theory, practice, phenomenon, essence, abstraction, concreteness, subjectivity, objectivity, relative, absolute, quantitative change, qualitative change, sensibility, rationality and opposition. (2) With the development of science and technology and healthy language, some of them have entered the common vocabulary. Such as: macroscopic, microscopic, plastic, magnetic tape, computer, software, channel, laser, scanning, remote control, microform, copying, video recording, semiconductor, kinescope, ulcer, thrombus, inflammation, shock, antibody, vaccine, microscope, infusion, radiography, immunity, qigong, physiotherapy, antibiotics and electrocardiogram. The meaning or usage of many words has been expanded. For example, "revolution" can refer to any work under the leadership of * * * that is beneficial to the people of the country; "Struggle" can refer to solving problems or overcoming difficulties with physical or mental strength; "Comrade" can refer to any member of the people; "The masses" can refer to everyone among the people, and it is also the symmetry of "leadership" or "party member"; "Collective" can refer to the sum of several people to which everyone belongs, and it is also the symmetry of "the whole people" or "individuals"; "Unit" can refer to organs and organizations, and can also refer to the departments to which organs and organizations belong; "Uncle" can refer to any man of the same generation as his parents; Attitude can refer to a person's views and actions on anything; The spirit can refer to the main points of important documents or advanced speeches.

There are also some new trends in word formation: ① compound words are still formal and juxtaposed, such as: construction site, workshop, energy, overseas Chinese, nationality, rookie, census, expansion, credit sale, airdrop, screening, project, link, interest, hard work and retirement. However, there are also developments in the forms of object, complement and subject-predicate, especially the object-predicate, such as power supply, flood diversion, interception, threshing, feeding, unemployment, winning the championship, bidding, joint venture, earning foreign exchange, hooking up, taking the lead, health care, retreat and encountering difficulties. (2) Adding some word-building elements, the number of additional disyllabic words gradually increased. Take the words "sex, culture, workers" and "home" as examples, such as: planned, skilled, interesting, knowledgeable, popular, comprehensive, feasible, subjective, green, aging, popular, absolute, unified, young, professional, institutionalized, chef, breeder, postman. (3) Abbreviations appear constantly, and many abbreviations are converted into words because of their common use. Such as: United Front/United Front, Armed Police/Armed Police, Chemical Fiber/Chemical Fiber, Civil Aviation/Civil Aviation, RTVU/RTVU, Physical Examination/Physical Examination, Air Conditioning/Air Conditioning, Exhibition/Exhibition, Tourism/Tourism, Attitude/Attitude, Energy Saving/Energy Saving, Out of Control/Out of Control, Young Pioneers/Olympics/Tourism.

Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, China society has made great progress, and a large number of new words reflecting new things and new features have emerged in the language, such as "bursting, repeating, tutor, military wife, alternative, chief executive, sports lottery, foreign enterprises, knowledge families, go on road trip, public figures, sightseeing agriculture, distance education" and so on. Of course, there will be decadent ideas, and some words will appear in the language, such as "mistress, human snake, pervert, bloody head, one-night stand and black-box operation"

Nowadays, the rapid development of globalization and informatization has completely changed people's way of life, communication, thinking and language, among which the most typical ones are the "new and new mankind" and "E generation" among teenagers. If the rapidity of network communication accelerates the development of neologisms, it is the concealment of network interaction that breeds the germination of neologisms. Under the trend of global cultural convergence, unwilling to be mediocre, "new and new human beings" tamper with our standard vocabulary and spread it on the internet in order to highlight their unique personality, pursue novelty or attract others' attention. Another kind of people, for the sake of privacy protection, improvised a symbol to identify each other, such as a symbol for chatting between classmates. There is also a group of people who use these well-known and recognized new words for simple and convenient purposes in the process of chatting. "This kind of language is not easy to be pure because of the historical accumulation of language, the influence of contact between languages, the impulse of language element innovation, the diversity of language users and language use occasions and other factors. But language life should be healthy or healthy. " This is a multicultural phenomenon, so the multicultural trend of thought may provide a new perspective for us to look at and properly handle this problem scientifically.

New words "invaded" the traditional media. If the word "PK" (the abbreviation of English words or phrases, which is often called Player Kill, one of the internet terms, meaning a duel between two people) appeared in the mass media five years ago, all the audience would feel confused. However, with the popularity of Hunan Satellite TV's "Super Girl" program in 2005, a link called "PK" made the word "PK" appear frequently in the mass media, and gradually evolved into a new word with multiple extended meanings, including one-on-one hit, one-on-one deal, and final elimination. If we add the endless network languages such as Xiu, Rest, Fans, Lei and so on, the new words such as being employed, oral donation, fishing law enforcement, foreign words such as WTO "and" CEO ",and other dialects, and the traditional media outside the paper media use a large number of new words, it can be said that the new word" invasion "in news reports has become an indisputable fact. This gives journalists a difficult problem: how to make rational choices with an objective and scientific attitude. The identification and application scope of these new words, which are based on the dynamic language system and take the network as the main carrier, are not specified by the State Language Committee or the National General Language Law. However, as an objective language phenomenon, many experts and scholars have conducted in-depth discussion and research on it. The use of neologisms by journalists in news reports is still inconclusive, but most of the opinions are: those typical, convenient, vivid, humorous and irreplaceable neologisms are more in line with the laws and norms of language development and the needs of society, can be recognized and absorbed by the mainstream language system, and can be used for news reports. On the contrary, they can only be circulated in a short time and will be abandoned by the mass media. Get rid of bad new words.

This is the requirement of social development, and new words appear in waves in our language life. It is precisely because of this life rhythm of vocabulary that our language has achieved new development in the response society.

Since written records, Chinese vocabulary has developed into a brand-new and extremely rich vocabulary after more than 3000 years of historical process. With the development of China's socialist material civilization and spiritual civilization, Chinese vocabulary will become more and more abundant.