The so-called ancient and modern characters are a phenomenon that different languages have the same characters, that is, recording the same word (actually a certain meaning of the word), and the words used in different times are different. The characters used in the previous era are called ancient Chinese characters, while those used in the latter era are called modern Chinese characters. Zheng Xuan, a master of Confucian classics in Han Dynasty, used the term ancient and modern characters for the first time when commenting on "Three Rites". Such as the Book of Rites? Qu Lixia: "For the princes of the DPRK, they were granted political power in different positions, saying: they were given to one person." Zheng Note: "The ceremony says,' When my uncle comes, the rest will respect him.' The words Yu, Yu and Yu are found in ancient and modern Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and are used as the first person pronoun in the inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The word Yu first appeared in the Warring States script, and as the first generation of appellation words, it was later than the residual words. Therefore, these two words constitute ancient and modern words when used as first person pronouns. "Yu" used in the front is an ancient word, and "Yu" used in the back is a modern word. The ancient and modern characters mentioned here are relative. Duan Yucai made it very clear in a sentence under the meaning of Shuowen Jiezi Note:
People who read biographies must know ancient and modern people. There is no time in ancient and modern times. If Zhou is ancient, Han is today, Han is ancient, Jin and Song are today. People who use it at any time call it ancient and modern characters, instead of ancient Chinese characters and Shu characters, which people say today.
Ancient and modern characters record the historical phenomenon caused by the differences in the usage of the same word in ancient and modern times, that is, "using the past for the present". There are many examples of using ancient Chinese characters in ancient books, such as:
(1) Chu Cao and new faint in wei. ("The Battle of Chengpu")
(2) Join the Jinshi Division and vote for the people and birds. (The Battle of Cases)
3 so it is hair. ("docile subjects")
I was wrong. (Biography of Chao Cuo)
⑤ vigorous pulse, strong external force and dry internal force. (Korean War)
The words recorded in the words marked ""have the meanings of marriage, capture, severance, grass introduction and strength in every sentence. Later generations, when recording the same words, they no longer use faint, bird, headland, cave and strong, but use marriage, cutting, grass and strong (except for deliberately archaized articles). Therefore, faint marriage, bird catching, hole cutting, hole grass, and strength constitute ancient and modern figures.
(B) the source of ancient and modern characters
There are three main sources of ancient and modern characters, namely: ancient and modern characters composed of mother characters and characters later differentiated by Chinese characters; Homophonic loanwords are ancient and modern words composed of loanwords and loanwords; Ancient and modern characters formed by different usages of ancient and modern variant forms. The following are examples.
1. Due to the differentiation of Chinese characters, ancient and modern characters are composed of mother characters and later differentiated characters. The so-called differentiation of Chinese characters here refers to the gain of Chinese characters due to the differentiation of Chinese character memory tasks. In ancient times, there were few words, and a word often had to bear many responsibilities of memorizing words. Later generations created new words to share it in order to reduce its part-time job. For example, in ancient times, the word * * had the same function of remembering words, representing different meanings:
(1) the father's revenge, and * * *. (The Book of Rites? Qu Li ")
(2) luggage, * * * it is sleepy. (Candle by Candle)
(3) For moral politics, such as Beichen, Home and Stars. (Politics)
(4) people don't know the ceremony, not its * * *. ("The Battle of Chengpu")
Example 1 stands for * * *, example 2 stands for supply, example 3 stands for bowing, and example 4 stands for obedience. A person has four roles, that is, recording four different words respectively. This is economical for the use of words, but too many part-time words are easy to cause ambiguity and ambiguity in meaning. In order to enhance the clarity of ideographic meaning, later generations created three new words: Gong, Gong and Gong, who held part-time jobs respectively, and the word * * * itself will be used to express the meaning of * * * and * *. In this way, we call the word "* * *", which was originally set to be multi-purpose, as the mother word, and the words such as dedication, arch and ceremony that were specially made later to share the part-time job of the mother word as the differentiation word. Judging from the time of recording the words used in the same word (such as confession), the ancient word "* * *" is used now, so "* * *" and "confession" constitute ancient and modern characters. Similarly, "* *" and "arch", "* *" and "arch" are ancient and modern characters. The vast majority of ancient and modern characters are composed of mother characters and their differentiated characters. This ancient and modern figure can be divided into several situations according to the division of labor in later generations:
(1) The ancient word indicates the extended meaning, and the present word indicates the original meaning. Such as "profit" and "overflow". Yi seal script is like water overflowing from a container. The original meaning is that water overflows, which means gain, benefit and equality. Later, the word "overflow" was newly created by adding water to express the original meaning, while "benefit" only expressed the extended meaning. When overflow characters are recorded in ancient books, benefit and overflow form ancient and modern characters. "Lu Chunqiu? Cha Jin: "Ji Zhou profiteering" is an ancient word. There are also similarities: country-continent, stop-toe, want-waist, responsibility-debt, supervision-new-salary, leisure-time, scenery-shadow, and so on.
(2) The ancient words indicate the original meaning, while the modern words indicate the original meaning. For example, Mo and Twilight. The original meaning of the ancient ink image is twilight, because it is often borrowed as "unwarranted" ink, and later a new word named sunset was added to express the original meaning. Ink and sunset constitute ancient and modern characters. The Book of Songs? Qi Feng? "The East is unclear" and "Don't forget, don't forget", as the old saying goes. There are also similarities: familiarity, nature, burning, decline, north back, original source, afternoon pestle, county suspension, it- snake, and so on.
(3) Ancient Chinese characters indicate the original meaning and some extended meanings, while modern Chinese characters indicate certain extended meanings. Such as "solution" and "slack". Xie Zi understands from the perspective of cattle leaving the knife that the original meaning is dissection, which means slacking off. Later, Xiezi added a new word beside the heart to express its extended meaning, while the original meaning and other extended meanings (such as liberalization and liberation) were still borne by Jiezi. Ancient books have recorded slack and slack, and interpretation and slack form ancient and modern characters. Historical records? Biography of General Li: "It is beneficial to understanding" and Biography of Zhang Shizhi: "The old man said,' My socks are the solution'." It's all in ancient Chinese characters. Similarly, there are: knowing wisdom, being covered, sitting, not drowning, returning, feeding, waiting, boosting, drowning, Zhang Zhang, and so on.
(4) The ancient word means the original meaning, and the present word means the borrowed meaning. For example, innovation and avoidance, innovation, analogy and eccentricity. How long does it take to comment on harmony, from (children's colleagues) to Xin, the original meaning is law. In ancient times, words such as avoidance and openness, for example, eccentricity were often used as excuses. Later, form was added to these meanings to create new special words. When these words were recorded in ancient books, Bizi and Avoidance, Bizi, Bixing and Singularity respectively formed ancient and modern words with different meanings. Zheng Houke Duan Yanyu: "What harm does Jiang want?" "Duke Ling of Jin is not a gentleman": "In the morning, the bedroom door opened." Shake the wrong story: "Let the Lord die of internal evil, there is no name for external evil." Book of rites? The golden mean: "If you are far away, you must be self-sufficient." It's all in ancient Chinese characters. Similar ancient and modern characters are: chestnut, letter extension, stomach meaning, shed, sorrow, color picking, eye seeking, lion learning, plodding-falling, lotus branch, mother without and so on.
(5) The ideographic concretization of ancient and modern characters. Such as "receiving" and "granting". The word "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" is in the shape of a van (plate) handed over by both parties, and Shuowen is taught as "photograph". Giving and receiving on the other side are two sides of the same coin. In ancient times, giving and receiving were the same word, and both giving and receiving were expressed by receiving. New Tang book? Gao Jian praised: "The ancients gave their surnames to the people and made contributions. "Acceptance here is giving (giving), which is an ancient word. The new creation of later generations shows the meaning of giving, and the words of receiving show the meaning of receiving. Teaching-learning and watching-watching are the same. The wishing spell is also an ancient and modern word. May Oracle Bone Inscriptions make a speech like a man kneeling before the throne. To pray to God, you can ask for charity or disaster, which means that the word "wish" contains both blessings and curses. The Book of Songs? Daya？ He waved and said, "I am frustrated." Shu: "Good wishes to the ancestors." Later generations created new curse words to express the meaning of curse, while wish words to express the meaning of blessing. Hunting animals is also an ancient and modern word. The word "beast" written by Oracle Bone Inscriptions, from single (hunting weapon) to dog, is the original word of hunting. In ancient times, "names are related to verbs", and every object involved in behavior and action is represented by the same name, so the beast in ancient times means both beast and hunting. Later generations coined the word hunting (verb), while the word beast (noun) specifically refers to the beast. Ancient and modern characters like this, their modern characters are special words made to express their meaning concretely and appropriately.
2. Due to homophonic borrowing, loanwords and loanwords form ancient and modern characters. In the development of Chinese written language, homophones are often used to adjust the memory function of Chinese characters. At a certain historical stage, due to various reasons, the task of memorizing words originally undertaken by one word was replaced by another word with similar pronunciation. And it is often inherited and becomes the orthography of written records. Therefore, the two words before and after constitute ancient and modern characters in the sense of mutual handover, that is, borrowing words and borrowing words should become ancient and modern characters. For example, the word "Bo" is based on "Chang" (the eldest son), and its extended subject can specifically refer to "the leader of a vassal". The overlord of "Five Overlords in the Spring and Autumn Period" was originally named "Bo" and "Han Shu". Wen Tiji: "The master of the fifth uncle is also diligent and caressed." Bob and Ba have different meanings. Later, the uncle of the fifth uncle borrowed the word "ba" to act as. Under the hegemony of Shuo Wen Jie Zi Zhu, Duan Yucai said: "Folk characters are Wang Ba, and real characters are borrowed." However, the word "no return" became orthography in the Tang Dynasty, and it has remained so far. Therefore, "Boba" constitutes an ancient and modern word in the sense of "the length of a vassal".
There are two common situations in ancient and modern characters composed of loanwords. One is that ancient Chinese characters (borrowed words) only transfer part of the function of remembering words to modern Chinese characters (borrowed words), while they still bear the rest of their responsibilities. For example, "he-he" is like this. What word did Oracle Bone Inscriptions write? It seems that a person is carrying a heavy burden. Said: "What a pity." That's the word. Because He Zi often takes the responsibility of recording the interrogative pronoun "he", the original meaning is borrowed from the word Lian, and other responsibilities except the original meaning are still undertaken by He Zi himself. Similar ancient and modern characters are: Nai Nai, Jianxian, Nvru, Xianxian, Chuncai, etc. This kind of ancient and modern characters, after the ancient Chinese characters transferred some functions to the present text, the words recorded in the ancient Chinese characters and the present text are often words with different meanings, so the pronunciation is often slightly poor.
The other is that ancient Chinese characters (borrowed words) completely transferred the work of memorizing words to the current words (borrowed words). After the current characters become orthography, ancient characters are often abandoned. For example, "strong-strong" is like this. The word "Qiang" comes from the sound of a bow, which originally meant "strong bow" and was extended to the name of "strong bow". This word has existed for a long time, and it is often used to express strength in bronze inscriptions in the Western Zhou Dynasty. The original meaning of the strong word is a kind of insect "midge", which came into being after the Warring States Period. Because Qiang and Xinjiang are easily confused, Qiang and Qiang are homophonic, and the original meaning of Qiang is rarely used, so later generations borrowed "Qiang" as "Qiang" and soon it was not repaid, so Qiang characters were completely replaced by Qiang characters and died out. Similar ancient and modern figures include: sin, displacement, once, drowning and so on. This kind of ancient and modern characters often have a single meaning, while modern characters have less meaning and less original meaning. Therefore, after the elimination of ancient Chinese characters, modern Chinese characters will not only affect the clarity of meaning, but also reduce the number of commonly used Chinese characters. This is the correct choice of words by society.
3. Different applications of ancient and modern variant characters constitute ancient and modern characters. Variant characters are words with the same sound and meaning and the same function of remembering words, but with the development and change of Chinese and social characters, some variant characters will also change. Different applications of variant characters in different times often form ancient and modern characters. There are roughly two situations: one is the division of two different responsibilities for memorizing words due to the differentiation of word meanings, in which one entity is responsible for recording the meaning of one development and the other entity is responsible for recording the rest. Therefore, these two variants have formed ancient and modern characters in a sense in different times. For example, "Chang Shang" is a pair of variant characters, the original meaning is "Xia Si", which is the so-called clothes. In addition to the original meaning, "Chang" is also borrowed to mean often, once, etc. Therefore, the word "clothes" became an ancient and modern word in different periods before and after the differentiation of meaning. For another example, "crow-crow" is a pair of variant characters, meaning that the name of a bird is crow. Elegance is also borrowed for elegance and upright elegance. After the differentiation of meaning, crow refers to the original meaning of bird names, while elegance only refers to elegance and elegance under the guise of meaning. So elegance and crows formed ancient and modern characters in the name of birds. This ancient and modern Chinese character is actually divided into two characters with different meanings and usages by two variants, and then forms the same word and different characters in ancient and modern times. There is no essential difference between the function of differentiated entities and the function of differentiated words. This kind of ancient and modern characters also include: evil-yeah, gathering-righteousness, jade-jade, official-thing, god-god, literature-philosophy and so on.
On the other hand, there is a big time gap between the two variants, which can be divided into modern prose and ancient prose. Modern prose was passed down through social choice in later generations, and ancient prose was abandoned. However, they also constitute the phenomenon of recording the same word in ancient documents, but the ancient and modern words are different, so they also belong to the category of ancient and modern words, that is, ancient and modern words constitute the same ancient and modern words. For example, "Ye Ye" is a variant of different times. Learn from soil and forest. It was first seen in Oracle Bone Inscriptions's annotations in Shang Dynasty. In the Warring States Period, phonetic symbols were added (and often used), and at the same time, pictophonetic character fields were newly created (in this case, biographies were shaped as leaves). Yan Heye is different in different times. Historical records? Biography of Sima Xiangru: "Paste nourishes grass" and "Songs of the South?" "Nine Songs": "The weather is fierce and angry, and the original branches are killed again" is a wild ancient style. Through social choice, today's stadiums can pass, while ancient gymnasiums are gradually abandoned. However, they share the same word in ancient books, and they also have the nature of "making the past serve the present", so "Yao Ye" is also an ancient and modern word. Another example is "autumn stork", which is the name of a bird. It was first seen in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and it is a hieroglyph. In Qin and Han Dynasties, it was added as a stork beside birds. Shuowen: "Wei, Wei Jue also. ..... The poem says: I am singing in the field. " Paragraph note: "This poem is a stork. When explaining the text, I said, "This is another work. "Later generations passed away, but in the words used in ancient books, it is ancient and modern words. There are also similar:-climbing, boiling, repetition, threat, spread, gap, embarrassment, complexity, embarrassment and so on.
Second, interchangeable words.
Fake is also called borrowing, and it is also called borrowing from predecessors. It is a phenomenon that the ancients used a homonym instead of it when writing characters. The word originally used is called Ben Zi, and the word temporarily used to replace it is called Tong Quan Zi or Tong Quan Zi (short for borrowed words). For example:
(1) ZhuangGongSheng, his style is unexpected. ("Zheng Haihan Duan")
(2) What is wrong cannot be ignored. (Biography of Zhang Shizhi)
(3) The past also bends, and the newcomers also believe that bending trusts and benefits each other. (under cohesion)
Obviously, the application of example 1 is negative, and negation is negation. Example 2: Wrong application measures and the significance of placement; The letters in Example 3 are contrary to buckling, and can only flow smoothly when applied. However, the authors of these sentences did not use words that should have been used, but used words that had nothing to do with meaning but sounded similar. This is the so-called cheating phenomenon in ancient books. Here "Cuo", "Cuo" and "Xin" are common words, and "Cuo" and "Shen" are their original words respectively.
Although predecessors also called it "borrowing" and "expressing meaning by sound", it is different from "borrowing" in one of the six books. Borrowing characters in Liushu is a method of word-making, a law of borrowing writing symbols from other characters instead of making special writing symbols for some words, and a "borrowing sound" of "saying nothing" (except those who create it later); General loan is a flexible phenomenon of ancient Chinese characters, that is, instead of using the original character, it is temporarily replaced by other words with similar pronunciation, which are "original character" and "Yi Yin".
(2) The relationship between interchangeable words and interchangeable words.
The phenomenon of using Chinese characters in ancient books is complicated. From different angles, there are different relationships between interchangeable words and interchangeable words. Mainly includes:
1. Phonetically speaking, interchangeable words and interchangeable words have homonym, disyllabic or rhyming relations. For example:
(1) the letter to the knot, people. (The Book of Rites? Yi Yi ")
(2) Not much help, relatives. ("Mencius? Gong Sunchou ")
(3) So the ninth Wan Li is next, and then the current wind. ("Zhuangzi? Xiaoyao Tour ")
(4) Not dead. ("Warring States Policy? Zhao Ce ")
⑤ Deng is a southern state. (The Book of Songs? Daya？ Han Yun ")
6 from ten disciples. ("Historical Records? Funny Biography Supplement)
"Bei" in the example 1 and "Pan" in the example 2 are loanwords of "Bei" and "Rebellion" respectively, and "Bei" and "Pan" are homophonic. "Pei" in Example 3 and "Mei" in Example 4 are loanwords of "skin" and "Mao" respectively. Pei and Pi, Mei and Mao are disyllabic; The word "Deng" in Example 5 and the word "Suo" in Example 5 are loanwords of "Cheng" and "Xu" respectively, and the rhymes between Deng and Cheng, Suo and Xu overlap.
2. From the shape point of view, if interchangeable words or interchangeable words are pictophonetic characters, most of them have the same phonetic symbols. Because pictophonetic characters account for a large proportion in Chinese characters, and the premise of communication and separation is that the sounds are similar, so communication and separation are more common in pictophonetic characters, while in pictophonetic characters, most of them have the same phonetic symbols. For example: wealth-material, painting-Taoism, constant-taste, worship-singing, basic-enthusiasm, Hubei-gray, bandits-non, static-net, poking, saying-taking off, litigation-praise, worry-ignoring, tin giving. Of course, words with homonyms and different pronunciations are not limited to pictophonetic words with the same phonetic symbols, so both interchangeable words and interchangeable words are different, such as "You-You", "Yes-You" and "Fun-You". , are other cases, but only a small proportion.
3. From the perspective of metonymy, there are differences between interchangeable words and interchangeable words. The so-called single borrowing means that nails can borrow B, but B can't borrow A ... For example, the extension of flexion and extension can be replaced by sincere words, but sincere words can't be replaced by extended words; Broken backs can be replaced by the number of broken backs, but the number of broken backs cannot be used to replace words and the word B can be replaced by each other, that is, when A is a word, B is a loan word, and when B is a word, B is a loan word. For example:
(1) Even, do not insult, the so-called strong face, is it expensive? (Report to Ren Anshu)
(2) eighty years old, give one stone to rice, twenty years of meat, and five buckets of wine. ("Han Shu? Wendi Ji ")
(3) An Youwei is a dangerous man in the world, but what if he is not surprised? (About Cumulative and Sparse Storage)
(4) rivers should be outstanding, autumn sun should be violent, and vastness can hardly be used. ("Xu Xing")
Example ① "Yi" is a loan word, and "Ji" is its original word; Example 2 "Ji" is a loan word and "Yi" is the original meaning. "Yi" and "Ji" are festivals. Example 3 "Shang" is a loan word and "Shang" is its original word; Example 4 "Shang" is a loan word, and "Shang" is the original meaning. "Shang" and "Shang" are mutual festivals. Similar examples include: love-sadness, talent-cutting, reason-solidity and so on. The phenomenon of borrowing words in ancient books is mostly single borrowing, but less mutual borrowing.
4. In terms of the corresponding number of words, there is generally a one-to-one relationship between interchangeable words and interchangeable words, that is, one word is only borrowed by another word, but many words can be borrowed by two or more words, forming a one-to-many relationship. For example, the word "discrimination":
(1) Lord qimeng, who can tell? ("Zuo zhuan? Zhao Gongnian ")
(2) Will the husband take advantage of the righteousness of heaven and earth to conquer the debate of six qi and swim endlessly, and stay for evil? ("Xiaoyao Tour")
Look at the mountains and rivers and distinguish the gods. ("Historical Records? Five Emperors ")
(4) In the ancestral temple dynasty, there was a struggle for supremacy. ("Historical Records? Confucius family ")
Example 1 Du pre-notes the cloud: "Debate, cure also." The meaning of governance lies in "doing"; Example 2 Guo Qingfan's "Collection of Solutions" said: "Discrimination, reading will change"; Example 3 Today's Shangshu? Shundian "debate" is "embarrassing" (times); Example 4 "The Analects of Confucius? "Debate" in "hard times" is "poop". The words "debate" can be used interchangeably, such as "doing", "changing", "worrying" and "then". In addition, from the cabinet, trusts, giants; Can pass, can come, can go and can forget; Appropriate, clumsy, enemy, clumsy; Ability, tolerance, innocence, intimacy and so on all belong to this category.
(3) Recognition of interchangeable words
The past tense is to express meaning by borrowing sounds, provided that the sounds are similar, so the recognition of past tense words is mainly based on sounds. When a word can't be explained by its original meaning or extended meaning in reading, we should consider whether it is common or not. Like The Analects of Confucius? Yang Huo: "Yang Huo wants to see Confucius. If Confucius doesn't see it, it belongs to Confucius." How to explain the word "return" in this sentence? According to Shuowen, the original meaning of boudoir is that women get married, which obviously doesn't make sense. If there is a reward, the extended meaning of "reward" seems to be feasible, but Confucius didn't lend it to Yang Huo dolphins. How can he say reward? The context means that Yang Huo wants to send a dolphin to Confucius, so that Confucius can see Confucius politely when paying homage. There is no gift in the original meaning and extended meaning of Guizi, so it can be seen that there is a word "feed" dedicated to food in ancient times, which has the same meaning, so it can be preliminarily concluded that Guizi is a typo of feed. Looking up the same book "Cabbage", there is also a saying that "Qi people belong to female music, Ji suffers from it, and will not go to Korea for three days", which means that Qi will give female music to Lu.
There are two points to be paid attention to when recognizing interchangeable words: (1) You should have common knowledge of ancient phonology. The so-called homophones are in terms of ancient sounds, not modern sounds. Ancient and modern pronunciation has changed a lot. Up to now, words with similar pronunciations are not all homophones, and some may become completely different. And words with different pronunciations may become the same and similar. Therefore, when we use sound as a clue to identify the truth, we must not only take the current voice as the standard. (B) In the absence of other examples, we should not speak out of turn just because of homophones. There must be sufficient evidence and reasons to judge whether a word is borrowed as a word.
Third, variant characters
The so-called variant characters refer to characters with the same sound and meaning, the same function of remembering words, but different configurations in a certain historical period. For example:
(1) Take the strong as the weak and listen to each other. (Biography of Chao Cuo)
(2) Hold it and learn its pitch. (The Book of Rites? Music ")
Doctors make good people. (Gong Suichuan)
(4) Why do you regard heaven and earth as slaves? ("Anecdote of Duan Taiwei")
Although the words in the above sentences have different configurations, their sound, meaning and memorization functions are exactly the same and can be interchanged under any circumstances. Words like this are variants. Although some homonyms are the same in a sense and can be used interchangeably in some situations, their functions of memorizing words are not exactly the same, and such words cannot be regarded as variants. For example, swimming and swimming are only related in the sense of play and can be used together, but swimming in ancient times only refers to swimming rather than swimming; Praise and praise can only be used together in the sense of praise, while praise and praise only used praise instead of praise in ancient times. This shows that although their memory functions have the same and different aspects, they are not completely coincident. Therefore, words like this can't be regarded as variants, so as to avoid misunderstanding when reading.
(B) the shape differences of variant characters
There are six main differences in the form of variant characters:
1. The word formation methods used are different, one is pictophonetic and the other is non-pictophonetic. Such as: moon, fairy-,shame-shame, tears-tears, gas-thunder, gas-,gas-mountain, etc.
5. Both of them are pictophonetic characters and phonological characters with different ideographic characters. Such as: strength-strength, worry-times, exceed-exceed, chant-chant, mistake-worry, drift-drift, list-list, warm-up, chaff-crop, etc.
6. They are pictophonetic characters, phonological characters, and the phonetic symbols are different. Such as: Feed-Feed, Ni-Ni, Ba-Yi, Ape-Yi, Mei-, Pant-Yi, Di-, Yan-Yi, Back-Back, Nan-Yi, etc.
7. They are both pictophonetic characters and phonological characters, and their signifiers and phonological symbols are different. Such as: complaint, trace, trace, leftover, trace, village, makeup, japonica, etc.
8. The radicals are located in different positions. Such as:-foot, peak foot, slightly foot, shy foot, almost-,goose foot, loose foot, autumn foot and so on.
9. The shape of the brush path is slightly different. This is often due to different writing styles and habits, resulting in different fonts. Such as: ice-,book-,soap-,Wu-,Syria-,etc.
As can be seen from the above example, pictophonetic characters are the easiest to produce variant forms, so pictophonetic characters have the most variant forms.
(3) Problems that should be paid attention to when identifying variant characters.
There are two situations that are most noteworthy:
1. There were variant characters in a certain period in history, but later generations divided them and divided the function of remembering words into two different characters. For example, "cough" and "zi" used to be a pair of variant characters in history. Shuowen: "Well, children laugh. The sound coming from the mouth. Son, the ancients in China coughed from the child. " Book of rites? Inside: "The father holds the right hand and is named after cough." Historical records? Biography of Bian Que: "Have you ever told Kebao's son?" Laozi: "I am alone, and I have no symptoms, like a baby who doesn't cough." The original name of Shi Wen is Zi. "Yan family training?" "godson": "if a son has a cough, the teacher will protect him and guide him with kindness." Ben wrote Childhood again. In these sentences, cough and children both read hái, and both use the original meaning of "children laugh". Later, the variant forms were separated and the original meaning was rarely used. Cough reading knock, clear mouth, such as "cough saliva into beads. "That is, today's cough. Children still read the sea, called infants. Cough and child have become completely different words. There are many such examples, such as "Yuyu". Originally, Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Yu Yi were both universal, but later they were divided. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the main word and metaphor is the figurative meaning. " "Fenbin", originally universal, refers to the appearance of literary quality. Shuowen quoted the "Wen fen" in the Analects of Confucius, but now it is elegant. After the differentiation of later generations, "object" still expresses its original meaning, and "fen" is read as a quantifier. There are similar changes in education-in, anxiety-exploration, shock-embarrassment and extension-concealment. When reading ancient books, we must make a historical investigation of this kind of variant characters, and we should not misunderstand the meaning rashly because of what people have learned.
2. In order to simplify Chinese characters, two ancient characters that were not variants but had different meanings or usages are merged into variants when they are arranged. For example, "cannon" is a cooking method. Book of rites? Liu Yun: "Burn with a gun." Note: "The gun is also wrapped in fire." And "cannon" () is "machine stone", which means that in ancient wars, stones were fired by mechanical forces to attack the enemy, so the word was taken from stones. Later, when artillery was invented, it was borrowed as "cannon". Gun and cannon were not the same word. Now the gun is scrapped after it is merged into variant characters. Similar to rape and rape, nuclear and nuclear, leisure and leisure, and so on. When reading ancient books, we must not treat them as variant characters, but start with their original meanings and distinguish their different meanings and usages on different occasions.
Fourth, traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters are collectively called. The so-called traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters are relative, which refers to the number of parts or strokes used in the formation of the same character. Parts or strokes are mostly traditional Chinese characters, while parts and strokes are less simplified Chinese characters. The complexity and simplicity of the same word (of course not every word) have existed since ancient times. In the process of the development and evolution of Chinese characters, although there is a side of simplifying, it has not been fully and widely implemented. Because different times have different social personalities and habits, complexity and simplification often go hand in hand without strict orthography. For example, "learning" has traditional Chinese characters, and "learning" has simplified Chinese characters; "Abandon" has traditional Chinese characters, and "Abandon" has simplified Chinese characters. Simplified Chinese characters are often used in ancient books, and there are also traditional Chinese characters, historical records? Biography of Zhang Shizhi: "These two men couldn't say what they said. How can you give me this spy? " Learning Chinese characters is traditional. Abandon the word, I use traditional Chinese characters but also simplified Chinese characters, Zuo Zhuan? Two years in the public service: "What harm will the princes do if they abandon the Millennium because their sons are not excellent?"? "This is simplified. The so-called simplification is relative to the simplification of the same word in the configuration instruction. If you look at the memory function and usage of words, they are essentially a different kind. Because of the particularity of Chinese characters in social use, they are listed separately for special explanation.
The simplification of Chinese characters actually includes two aspects: one is to simplify fonts, and the other is to reduce the number of commonly used words. The former adopts various methods (such as simplifying radicals, taking part or outline of the original font, cursive writing, recreating new fonts, etc.). Some commonly used words are transformed into glyphs, so that the structure of words is simple, strokes are reduced and writing is convenient. The main problem involved is "shape". The latter is to keep some words and discard some words at the same time, which is to adjust or merge the memory function of words, mainly involving the problem of "meaning" These two aspects have an influence on reading ancient books. If only the simplification of fonts has nothing to do with the meaning of words, then the problem is relatively simple, as long as I know the corresponding traditional Chinese characters. For example, you only need to know the simplification of the word Hanshu. If it involves both font and word meaning, the problem is not so simple. There are several situations worth noting:
1. The simplified configuration of a word is exactly the same as that of a word in an ancient book, but its sound, meaning and usage are completely different.
(1) Nothing is a public hearing except laughter. ("Historical Records? Biography of Sima Xiangru)
(2) The price to San Francisco. (The Book of Songs? Daya？ Board of Directors))
(3) If you drop this thief, the crops will itch. (The Book of Songs? Daya？ Sang Rou ")
In the sentences of these ancient books, the listening sound y(n, meaning "smiling face", and the valence sound ji (,meaning "goodness"; The itchy sound y(ng, meaning "disease". Now in simplified Chinese characters, obedient listening, price (price) and itch (itch) have the same shape, but their meanings are quite different. There are also simplified characters belonging to this category: factory, wide, victory, bad, machine, apple, building, fit, different, wax, and so on. We encounter such words in ancient books, and if we interpret them according to the sound and meaning of simplified words now, we can't understand the meaning of the ancients.
2. Although the font has not been simplified, another (or two) homonyms or words with similar sounds have been merged. Most of the merged words are discarded after being dismissed, and a few are still "retained", but the function of memorizing words has been greatly reduced. In this way, "merging" increases the meaning that was originally absent and expands their function of memorizing words. For example, "ugly" originally only means earthly branches, and after simplifying Chinese characters, it has merged its function of remembering words. Ugliness was abandoned by "dismissal", so the protagonist added the meaning of "ugliness" and "ugliness" in addition to expressing the earthly branch. Another example is "doing", which was originally just to express the sin of doing things and seek justice. When Chinese characters are simplified, some functions (wet and dry) and all functions of "gan" are combined, so "gan" is abandoned, leaving only one meaning of "gan Kun". Similar words include: Yu, Yu, [Hou], [Dou, She, Ji, Ye and so on.
3. Simplify the font, at the same time, merge the memorization function of another homophone or homophone, and discard the simplified traditional Chinese characters and merged words. For example, "capture" is a simplification of "capture" (which refers to hunting animals in ancient times), and at the same time, it integrates the memorizing function of "capture" (which refers to harvesting crops in ancient times), so the two meanings of "capture" and "agricultural capture" are combined by the word capture, and the words capture and capture are discarded at the same time. Similar examples include remittance (remittance), hunger (hunger, hunger), bell (bell, bell), calendar (calendar, calendar) and so on.