A little knowledge about Chinese characters 1. 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 the rules of Chinese character construction of Liushu: pictograph, reference, knowing, 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 sorting and classification of Chinese characters, not the rules of word formation.

2. 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.

3. Little knowledge of words

1, common sense of Chinese characters

(1) Chinese character configuration method

Generally speaking, the methods of creating Chinese characters are pictographic method, indicating method, knowing method and pictophonetic method. In ancient China, there was a word formation of "Liushu", which included "seal script" and "borrowing" in addition to the above four words. But strictly speaking, these two methods should belong to the use of words.

(2) Morphology and evolution of Chinese characters.

Each Chinese character is an independent form, and the smallest unit that constitutes the form of Chinese characters is the stroke. The basic strokes of Chinese characters are dot, vertical, left, press, lift, fold and hook.

Chinese characters have been produced for thousands of years, and their forms are constantly evolving. Mainly experienced a process from Oracle Bone Inscriptions (Zhong Dingwen), seal script, official script, regular script, cursive script and running script to the simplified characters used now.

2. Write Chinese characters correctly

(1) Pay attention to the standardization of the word rest.

(2) Don't write typos

3. Be familiar with the radicals, radicals, strokes and order of Chinese characters, and master the method of looking up the dictionary.

4. Six methods of matching Chinese pictophonetic characters with phonetic symbols.

(1) Left-shaped right sound (2) Right-shaped left sound (3) Upper-shaped lower sound (4) Lower-shaped upper sound (5) Inner-shaped external sound (6) External sound.

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 even 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. Regarding 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. A little knowledge of Chinese characters (urgently needed)

1. It is said that Su Dongpo, a famous poet and one of the "Eight Masters of Tang and Song Dynasties", visited his brother-in-law's house in the Northern Song Dynasty.

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, and the answer was Xian Er. Two-part allegorical saying: My nephew plays lanterns-as usual (Uncle) breaks the casserole-Ask (Tattoo) what is the bean curd mixed with onion-clear (green) and white > 3. The origin of Chinese characters Chinese characters originated from the culture of reproductive worship, invented in the Tai Chi culture of Yin and Yang coding, and created in painting, knotting, lettering, shell weaving 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". 4. The origin of the catastrophe is "carelessness": In the Song Dynasty, there was a painter in Beijing who often painted at will and couldn't figure out what he was painting.

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: "Careless painting, careless painting, like a horse like a tiger, the eldest son shot the horse according to the painting, and the second son fed the tiger according to the painting."

The thatched cottage was burned carelessly. I advise you not to imitate me. "Since then, the word" sloppy "has spread.

6. How much do you know about Chinese characters?

1. Representing human body parts From the shapes and meanings of some Chinese characters representing human body parts, it can be seen that people in ancient China knew themselves, which also reflected the culture and thoughts of * * *.

The word "person" is similar to Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Xiao Zhuan. Shuowen said that the word "looks like the shape of arms and calves".

The writing of the word "corpse" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is like the posture of people sitting on stools or chairs now, which is a typical sitting posture of Dongyi people at that time. At that time, the sitting posture of the Han people was reflected in Oracle Bone Inscriptions's words, just like a person kneeling.

These words all embody a complete person. The word "tou" is written in traditional Chinese characters, and the right half of the word is the ancient word "page" of the head. The seal script is written like a body attached to the head.

There are many words with "page" as the radical, such as "skull, beard, neck, neck" and so on, all of which are related to the head. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's word "eye" is a human eye, and the bronze inscription is simplified to some extent.

After the bronze inscription, people set up the "mu" again, and finally formed the writing method of Xiao Zhuan. The word "Er", namely Xiao Zhuan, evolved gradually from Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and its pictographic features can be clearly seen from the glyph.

The word "hand" is a hieroglyph. In ancient times, the word "you" was also used to represent the hand. From Oracle Bone Inscriptions to Xiao Zhuan, it's like three fingers and wrists.

The word "foot" means that there are three toes under a circle. The word "waist" looks like a human head above, a human foot below and a "waist" in the middle.

The word "back" in ancient times was "north", much like two people standing back to back. The word "heart" is like the longitudinal section of a heart. Oracle Bone Inscriptions clearly shows the left atrium, left ventricle, right atrium and right ventricle.

It can be seen that the ancients had a fairly accurate understanding of the structure of the heart as early as the Yin and Shang Dynasties.