There are various legends about the origin of Chinese characters. Ancient Chinese books all say that writing was created by Cangjie. It is said that Cangjie saw a god with a strange appearance. His face looked like a painting with words on it, so Cangjie traced his image and created words. Please take a look with me below!
Picture of the handwritten newspaper about the origin of Chinese characters 1
Picture of the handwritten newspaper about the origin of Chinese characters 2
Picture of the handwritten newspaper about the origin of Chinese characters 3
Picture of the handwritten report on the origin of Chinese characters 4 Handwritten report on the origin of Chinese characters 1
According to legend, a long time ago, Cangjie was the emperor's historian, and he had an appearance like a dragon. He especially likes to observe things around him and around him, and he also likes to use his brain or think about problems. He looked up every day to observe the changes in the stars in the sky, the patterns on the backs of turtles, the colors of bird feathers, and the shapes and images of the undulating mountains and rivers. He often painted the shapes and characteristics of things with his hands. Over time, Ding characters were created. When Cangjie was creating writing, he was afraid that people would patronize his writing. People will be hungry in the future. Ghosts cry secretly in the dark night, and dragons hide, because they are afraid that words will record their ugly behavior and tell the world, making them infamy for thousands of years. From the ancient legend of Cangjie's creation of characters to the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions more than 100 years ago, Chinese scholars of all ages have been dedicated to uncovering the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters. The origin, evolution, origin and development history of Chinese characters. Regarding the origin of Chinese characters, there are various theories in ancient Chinese literature, such as knotting, gossip, pictures, written contracts, etc. Ancient books also generally record the legend of the creation of characters by Cangjie, the historian of the Yellow Emperor. Modern scholars believe that a systematic writing tool cannot be completely created by one person. If Cangjie does exist, he should be the organizer or promulgator of writing. [The origin, evolution, origin and development history of Chinese characters. In recent decades, the Chinese archaeological community has released a series of unearthed materials that are earlier than the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin Ruins and related to the origin of Chinese characters. These materials mainly refer to the late primitive society and historical records. Wang Yunzhi believes that the formal formation of the Chinese character system should be in the Central Plains region. Chinese characters are a writing system with independent origin. It does not depend on any foreign characters for its existence. However, its origin is not single. It has gone through multiple and long-term development. About the time of entering the Xia Dynasty, the ancestors began to write Chinese characters. Based on the extensive experience of absorbing and using early symbols, he creatively invented a text symbol system for recording language. At that time, the Chinese character system matured relatively quickly.
It is reported that, judging from the written materials unearthed from archaeological excavations, China already had formal writing at least during the Yu and Xia Dynasties. For example, in recent years, archaeologists have discovered writings written in calligraphy on a flat pottery pot from the Tao Temple site in Xiangfen, Shanxi. These symbols all belong to the basic configuration of early writing systems. Unfortunately, such unearthed writing information is still scarce.
Writing first matured in the Shang Dynasty
As far as the Yin and Shang written materials currently known and seen, there are many categories of writing carriers. In addition to writing on slips with brushes, the other main means of writing at that time were inscriptions on tortoise shells and animal bones, pottery, jade, and pottery casting on bronzes. The written materials of the Shang Dynasty are mainly based on the oracle bones and bronze ritual vessels used for divination in the Yin Ruins. They are the earliest mature texts discovered in China so far. The characters of the Shang Dynasty reflected in the Yinxu period are not only reflected in the large number of characters and rich materials, but also in the way of character creation that has formed its own characteristics and rules. The structural characteristics of the basic characters of the Shang Dynasty can be divided into four categories: taking the physical characteristics of the human body and a certain part of the human body as the basis for character construction; taking the creations and objects of labor as the basis for character construction; taking the images of animals and livestock as the basis for character construction; take natural objects as the basis for character construction. From the perspective of the cultural connotation of the configuration, we can see that the objects chosen by these earlier and more mature glyphs are quite close to the social life of our ancestors, and have strong realistic characteristics. At the same time, the content described by these glyphs involves all aspects of human and nature, so it also has the characteristics of a wide range of sources of configuration.
Chinese characters have undergone changes for more than 6,000 years. The evolution process is: oracle bone inscriptions → bronze inscriptions → small seal script → official script → regular script → running script and cursive script. Handwritten report on the origin of Chinese characters 2
There are various legends about the origin of Chinese characters. Ancient Chinese books say that writing was created by Cangjie. It is said that Cangjie saw a god with a strange appearance. His face looked like a painting with words on it, so Cangjie traced his image and created words. Some ancient books say that after Cangjie created writing, millet fell from the sky and ghosts and gods cried every night because he leaked the secret of heaven. There is also a legend that Cangjie observed the footprints of birds and animals on the soil, which inspired him to invent writing. All these legends are unreliable. Writing is slowly enriched and developed by the working people based on the needs of real life and after long-term social practice.
From the autumn of 1954 to the summer of 1957, Chinese archaeologists excavated the Banpo site (today's north of Banpo Village in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an City) many times and discovered that the Banpo people lived in the Banpo for a long time as early as around 6000 years ago. In his life and production practice, he created literal symbols and artistic works such as paintings, sculptures, and decorations. Banpo people's engraved symbols are mostly preserved on painted pottery, which can be regarded as original Chinese characters.
In recent years, China has discovered a number of tombs (more than 4,500 years ago) at a site of the late Dawenkou Culture on the Lingyang River in Ju County, Shandong Province, and a large number of cultural relics have been unearthed. Some pottery statues are each engraved with an image and text, and *** discovered more than 10 single characters. These characters are drawn according to the shape of real objects, so they are called "pictographs". The structure of the font is very similar to the hieroglyphs on Oracle, but it is more than 1,000 years older than Oracle. Therefore, "pictographs" are the earliest writing in China, and they already have the characteristics of writing. Handwritten report on the origin of Chinese characters 3
What, Chinese characters can be eaten? Stop talking nonsense!
If you don’t believe it, listen to me. Chinese characters are not only edible, but can also cure diseases.
It is said that more than a hundred years ago, there was a shaver named Li Mingcheng in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan. Probably because of poverty and lack of hygiene, I got scabies all over my body. The sore is very itchy. One day, he accidentally found some tortoise shells by the river in the village. He picked up a piece and crushed it with his hands. The loose tortoise shells were crushed to pieces. At this time, he felt extremely itchy all over his body, and he applied the tortoise shell powder to the itchy area. Strangely, the itchy areas coated with tortoise shell powder no longer itch, and the pus has been absorbed by the tortoise shell powder. Li Cheng jumped up with joy. He picked up the tortoise shell bones by the river and took them back as if he had discovered a treasure. Soon, Li Cheng's scabies was cured. Li Cheng thought, since bone powder can reduce inflammation and relieve itching, it must also be able to stop bleeding. He cut his hand and applied bone powder, and sure enough, the bleeding stopped. After research, Li Cheng discovered that these tortoise-shell animal bones had been buried underground for thousands of years.
These strange phenomena of oracle bones soon spread throughout the village. The old people said it was a manifestation of gods; the scholars said it was a dragon bone.
From then on, Li Cheng went to the river beach and the fields every day, crushed the dragon bones he picked up and sold them to Chinese medicine shops. Farmers in the village also sell the dug-out dragon bones to Chinese medicine shops. Since then, dragon bones have become a traditional Chinese medicine in traditional Chinese medicine shops.
The autumn of 1899. There was an official in Beijing, Wang Yi, who contracted malaria. After diagnosis and treatment, the doctor wrote a prescription; one of the traditional Chinese medicines on it was dragon bone. Wang Yirong sent someone to buy medicine from Darentang, an old traditional Chinese medicine store in Caishikou outside Xuanwumen. After buying the medicine, Wu Yirong inspected it personally. He found that there were artificial notches on the keel. Wang Yirong is a famous epigrapher. He is keenly aware that the carvings on the dragon bone may be a very ancient writing. He immediately sent someone to buy back all the scored dragon bones from Darentang Chinese Medicine Store. After careful identification and research, Wang Yirong confirmed that the inscriptions on the dragon bones were the characters used in the Shang Dynasty of my country - oracle bone inscriptions. He became the father of oracle bone inscriptions. The dragon bones were originally used as traditional Chinese medicine to treat diseases. From then on, they also became a symbol of the study of Chinese characters in my country. of treasures. Handwritten newspaper on the origin of Chinese characters 4
During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the commonly used writing was oracle bone inscriptions. This is a mature and systematic writing that laid the foundation for the development of Chinese characters in later generations.
Although the number of characters in the later popular bronze inscriptions (golden inscriptions) increased, the shape did not change significantly.
After the Spring and Autumn Period, due to the separatist rule of the princes, "writing became alien." After the unification of the Qin Dynasty, in order to consolidate the rule, the First Emperor ordered Prime Minister Li Si, Zhongche Fu Ling Zhao Gao, Taishi Ling Hu Wujing and others to organize the writing, and developed Xiaozhuan based on the original Qin characters, which was used as a standard font for use throughout the country. Later, Cheng Ben compiled a simpler clerical script based on the popular fonts at that time, and it was widely circulated across the country as a daily script.
During the Cao and Wei Dynasties, Zhong Yao founded Zhenshu (regular script). At this point, the evolution of Chinese characters has been perfected. Not only that, but since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the writing of Chinese characters has become a specialized art, namely calligraphy.
A common saying in Chinese history circles is that the origin of Chinese writing began in the Yin and Shang Dynasties. In fact, the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin and Shang Dynasties are already very mature. Before that, there should be a process from emergence, development to gradual maturity. Therefore, some people advocate pushing it to the end of summer; others advocate pushing it to before Xia, each holding their own opinions. Guo Moruo pointed out in "The Dialectical Development of Ancient Writing": "When did the origin of Chinese characters begin? I think this can be measured from the age of the Banpo Village site in Xi'an." "The age of the Banpo site is about About six thousand years ago. "The Banpo site is a typical example of Yangshao culture in the Neolithic Age." "There are often simple carvings similar to words on the Banpo painted pottery, which are completely different from the patterns on the vessels." "Although the meaning of the carvings is very different. It has not yet been clarified, but it is undoubtedly a symbol with a textual nature. "It can be said with certainty that it is the origin of Chinese writing, or the remnant of Chinese original writing." According to this, Chinese civilization should be counted as nearly six years old. millennium. When did the Chinese writing originate? When was the oldest writing produced? What do they mean? It is still being debated by a hundred schools of thought, and it seems that a large amount of materials are needed to prove it! The earliest recognized writing in the world is cuneiform writing that appeared in the ancient Middle East and dates back to 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. However, some symbols carved on tortoise shells found in Jiahu, Henan, date back to 8,000 years ago.
Chinese characters are morpheme characters, and the total number is very large. How many Chinese characters are there in total? I'm afraid no one can answer the exact number.
As for the number of Chinese characters, its development can be seen based on the records in ancient calligraphy books and Ci books.
The three chapters of "Cangjie", "Boxue" and "Yanli" in the Qin Dynasty have 3300 words each. The "Exuns and Compilations" written by Yang Xiong in the Han Dynasty has 5340 words. By the time Xu Shen wrote "Shuowen" "Jiezi" has 9353 characters. After the Jin and Song Dynasties, the number of characters became increasingly complex. According to the Tang Dynasty Feng Yan's "Wen Jian Ji·Zi Zi Pian", Jin Lu Chen wrote "Zi Lin" with 12,824 words, Yang Chengqing of the later Wei Dynasty wrote "Zi Tong" with 13,734 words, and Liang Guye Wang wrote "Yu Pian" There are 16917 words. "Yupian" written by Sun Qiangzeng of the Tang Dynasty has 22,561 words. By the Song Dynasty, Sima Guang's "Leipian" had 31,319 words, and by the Qing Dynasty, the "Kangxi Dictionary" had more than 47,000 words. The "Chinese Dictionary" written by Ouyang Bocun and others in 1915 has more than 48,000 words. In 1959, Japan's "Dahanwa Dictionary" by Morohashi Tetsuji contained 49,964 characters. The "Chinese Dictionary" edited by Zhang Qiyun in 1971 has 49,888 words.
With the passage of time, the number of words in dictionaries is increasing. The "Chinese Dictionary" edited by Xu Zhongshu in 1990 contained 54,678 words. In 1994, "Chinese Character Ocean" by Leng Yulong and others contained an astonishing number of words, as many as 85,000 words. The fifth edition of the "Various Character Dictionary" compiled by Taiwan's education authorities contains both orthographic and variant characters, with a total of 106,230 characters --- undoubtedly the dictionary that contains the most Chinese characters.
If you learn and use it If Chinese characters really need to master the sounds, shapes, and meanings of the 70,000 to 80,000 Chinese characters, then Chinese characters will be a script that no one in the world can and no one is willing to learn and use. However, most of the Chinese characters included in calligraphy books such as "Chinese Character Ocean" are "dead characters", that is, characters that existed in history but are no longer used in today's written language.
Some people have counted the Thirteen Classics (13 classics such as "Book of Changes", "Shang Shu", "Gongyang Zhuan", "The Analects of Confucius", and "Mencius"). The total number of words is 589,283 words, of which The number of different single words is 6544. Therefore, in fact, there are only six to seven thousand Chinese characters used by people in daily life. Handwritten report on the origin of Chinese characters 5
In addition to the shape of Chinese characters, there is also a problem of pronunciation. At some point, the pronunciation of a word becomes the only means of expressing the meaning of the word. In addition, there are many homophones in Chinese, with the same pronunciation but different glyphs and meanings. Chinese homophony is the clever application of these Chinese characters with the same pronunciation but different glyphs and meanings, expressing intriguing meanings.
In the past, people were oppressed, bullied, and felt pain and confrontation, but they did not dare to speak out directly, so they often used the homophones of Chinese characters to write many ballads related to current affairs. For example, a popular ballad in the Song Dynasty:
Break the tube and spill the vegetables, and you will have a good world on earth.
Killed, cut the vegetables, and ate the lamb with lotus leaves.
The song uses homophones to curse the treacherous officials and thieves Dang Tongguan, Cai Jing, Gao Qiu, He Zhizhong and others at that time. The pronunciations of "tong" and "tong" are homophonic, "cai" and "cai" are homophonic, "lamb" and "gao" are homophonic, and "he" and "he" are homophonic. They are respectively used to beat, splash, kill, eat, etc. Express their irresistible emotions.
After repeated use of the homophony of Chinese characters, a rhetorical method is formed called homophony. It has been used continuously since the Midnight Song. For example: "I first wanted to know my husband's heart, and the two hearts were in the same place, and I couldn't understand why I couldn't be a match." This song describes the twists and turns of love. When you start to fall in love, you hope that the two hearts can become one and concentrate on each other. They fell in love, but the situation changed later, just like the well-arranged silk entering the broken loom, it became neither silk nor piece. The pronunciation of "Si" and "Si" are harmonious, and the pronunciation of "Si" is harmonious with "Si", and "PI" is harmonious with the matching "PI", which means they cannot be paired. Commonly used in love songs are "furong" as "husband's appearance", "lotus" as "pity" or "connection", "lotus root" as "even", "silk" as "thinking", and "pear" as "pity". "" means "living", "Qing" means "love", etc.
Homophony is not only reflected in folk songs, but also widely used in people's daily life and folk life.
For example, among the people, since happiness is regarded as good luck and happiness is regarded as the goal pursued by the family or the individual, the word "福" will be posted on the door during the Chinese New Year. Sometimes the word "福" is deliberately pasted upside down to give the impression of "luck has arrived". The words "to" and "inverted" here are homophonic. For another example, fish is the most popular theme in folk New Year pictures, usually a naked little fat doll holding a big fish in both hands, and there are lotus ponds, lotus flowers, etc. The word "fish" is used to express "abundance" (abundance), and the word "lotus" is used to express "connection". The theme of this painting is "abundance year after year", which means: I hope that I can live in abundance every year. Abundance.