I. Meaning
Liu Shu is China's ancient theory about the construction and use of Chinese characters. It divides the construction methods of Chinese characters into six types: pictograph, signifier, perception, pictophonetic characters, transliteration and borrowing. These six methods represent the evolution process of Chinese characters from concrete to abstract.
Second, specific examples
1, pictograph: Chinese characters are created by describing the shape or characteristics of things, such as the shape of "moon" like a curved moon and the shape of "turtle" like the side shape of a turtle.
2. Representation: add symbolic symbols or indicative symbols to the graphics to express the meaning, such as marking the words "up" and "down" above or below the subject "I".
3. Understanding: To express more complex concepts or meanings by combining two or more unique characters into a new word. For example, the word "wine" consists of "one" and "water", which means that wine is made from wine-making pottery bottles and water.
4. Pictophonetic characters: A new word, such as "He", is composed of a pictophonetic character side for meaning and a phonetic character side for sound, in which "Ju" (water) is the pictophonetic character side, indicating that the meaning of the word is related to water, and "Ke" is the phonetic character side, indicating the pronunciation of the word.
5. Annotation: Use existing words to express new things or concepts through homophones or synonyms, such as "Kao" and "Lao", which have the same pronunciation and can be annotated with each other.
Borrowing: using existing words to express new concepts or things with the same pronunciation but different meanings, such as "Ling" and "Chang", all have the meaning of "Chang", but they have different pronunciations and can be borrowed from each other.
The Historical Origin of Liu Shu and Its Modern Application
The historical origin of the first and sixth volumes.
The concept of six books can be traced back to Zhou Li in the Zhou Dynasty, but it was the scholar Zheng Zhong in the Han Dynasty who first systematically expounded the six books. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xu Shen, a scholar, explained Liu Shu in detail in Shuo Wen Jie Zi, and listed some examples, thus laying the foundation of Liu Shu's theory. Since then, Liu Shu has become one of the important theories of ancient Chinese characters and calligraphy in China.
The application of two or six books in modern times
With the development of modern linguistics and philology, Liu Shu theory is no longer the dominant theory of modern Chinese characters. However, the theory of six characters is still of great significance for us to understand the structure and evolution history of Chinese characters. At the same time, the theory of six methods also has certain application value in calligraphy, seal cutting and other fields, and is used by some artists for creation and research.