Cang Xie tried to tie a knot on the rope all day and all night. He used ropes of different colors to represent different animals and foods, and knots tied with ropes represented each number. But over time, it won't work. It is easy to tie a knot on the rope for this increased number, but it is troublesome to untie a knot on the rope when reducing the number. Cang Xie thought of winding the rope and hanging all kinds of shells in the circle, instead of what he was in charge of. If it increases, a shell is added; if it decreases, a shell is removed. This method works best and has been used continuously for several years.
Seeing that Cang Xie was so capable, the Yellow Emperor put him in charge of more and more things, such as the number of sacrifices each year, the distribution of hunting and the increase or decrease of tribal population, all of which were called Cang Xie. Cang Xie began to worry again. It's not enough to hang shells with rope. How can I not make mistakes?
On this day, he took part in collective hunting and came to a fork in the road. Several old people were arguing about which way to take. An old man insisted on going east, saying there were antelopes; An old man wants to go north, saying that he can catch up with the deer not far ahead; An old man insisted on going west, saying that there were two tigers, and if they were not killed in time, they would miss the opportunity. Cang Xie, it turns out that they are all looking at the footprints of wild animals on the ground. Cang Xie suddenly felt happy: Since a footprint represents a wild animal, why can't I use a symbol to represent what I am responsible for? He ran home happily and began to create various symbols to represent things. Sure enough, manage things well.
When the Yellow Emperor knew it, he praised it and ordered Cang Xie to teach this method to all tribes. Gradually, the usage of these symbols has been popularized. In this way, the text is formed.
Cang Xie made a word, and the Yellow Emperor attached great importance to him. Everyone praised him, and his reputation is growing. Cang Xie's mind was a little hot, and his eyes slowly moved to the top of his head. No one looks down on him, his handwriting is very scrawled.
This word reached the ears of the Yellow Emperor, who was very angry. Courtiers have no room for deterioration in his eyes. How did Cang Xie realize his mistake? The Yellow Emperor called the oldest old man around him to discuss. The old man has tied more than 120 knots on his long beard, which shows that he is over 120 years old. The old man hesitated and went to Cang Xie alone.
Cang Xie is teaching people from all tribes to read. The old man sits quietly at the end and listens as carefully as everyone else. After Cang Xie finished speaking, everyone else dispersed, and only the old man was still sitting in his old place. Cang Xie was a little curious and asked him why he didn't go.
The old man said, "Cang Xie, your words have become a household name, but I am old and dizzy, and a few words are still unclear. Will you teach me again? "
Cang Xie looked at such a tall old man and respected him very much. He is very happy, urge him to speak quickly.
The old man said, "Are there four legs in the words horse, donkey and mule?" ? Cows also have four legs. Why didn't you invent the word' cow' with four legs and only one tail? "
Cang Xie was a little flustered when he heard this: when he first coined the word "fish", it was written like a cow, and when he coined the word "cow", it was written as a fish. It's all my own carelessness, and I actually taught it backwards.
The old man went on to say, "The word' heavy' you made means that you have to pronounce the word' out' from a long distance away, but you taught people to pronounce the word' heavy' as weight. On the other hand, the word "out" when two mountains are combined should be the word "heavy" for weight, but you have taught it to be the word "out" when going out. These words really puzzle me, so I have to ask you. "
At this time, Cang Xie was ashamed and knew that he had made a big mistake because of his pride. These words have been taught by all tribes and spread all over the world and cannot be changed. He quickly knelt down and expressed his regret with tears.
The old man took Cang Xie's hand and said sincerely, "Cang Xie, you have created words, so that the experience of our older generation can be recorded and passed on. You have done a great thing, and people will remember you from generation to generation. You can't be arrogant! "
From then on, every time Cang Xie made a word, he always scrutinized the meaning of the word, but he could ask people's opinions, and he was not careless. Everyone agreed, then decided, and then gradually spread to every tribe.
There is also a legend that Cangjie succeeded in creating characters and strange things happened. That day, it rained like millet during the day, and at night, I heard ghosts crying. Why does it rain like rain? Because Cang Xie created words, words can be used to convey ideas and record things, which is naturally worth celebrating. But why do ghosts cry? Some people say that because of writing, people's wisdom is growing, people's morality is dividing, and deception and cunning are born. The world will never be peaceful, and even ghosts will not be at peace, so ghosts will cry.
Development of Chinese characters
Development of Chinese characters
China script is one of the oldest scripts in history. It is the oldest and most widely used writing in the world today. Chinese characters are the only ideographic characters in various writing systems in the world today. As early as BC14th century, it was already a fairly developed writing system.
Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jin Wen.
The Yin and Zhou Dynasties, about 3400 to 2700 years ago, can be called Jia and Jin Dynasties. Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jinwen are the oldest known Chinese character systems, with the number of words reaching 4,000-5,000, which is enough to meet the needs of the recording language. The configuration of Jin Jia's characters is based on vivid, lifelike, concise and vivid pictographs and knowing characters, and generally has six forms summarized by later generations.
At that time, people respected ghosts and gods and divined when things happened. They carved Oracle Bone Inscriptions on the plane of tortoise shells and animal bones, and painted it red for good luck and black for danger. These words are all carved with a knife. The big characters are about an inch square, and the small characters are like grains, either complicated or simple, which is very delicate.
It slept for thousands of years and was not discovered until the 25th year of Guangxu reign in Qing Dynasty (1899). It was discovered in a village in Wuli, northwest of Anyang City, Henan Province, which is the old capital of Shang Dynasty (20th monarch Pan Geng). Because the reservoir burst, many Oracle bones were washed away. People thought it was a keel and used it as a medicine to treat diseases. The following year, a businessman named Wang became interested in these Oracle bones. He rushed to Henan to collect a lot and took it back to study. Later, Liu E continued to collect more than 5000 pieces. Therefore, some scholars named it Oracle Bone Inscriptions.
Ancient philologists have studied more than ten thousand characters of 10, and found that the structure of Oracle Bone Inscriptions has changed from single to combined, and with pictophonetic characters, it is quite mature. Among more than 4,600 Oracle inscriptions, 1700 has been recognized.
It was Jin Wen, also known as Zhong Dingwen, who appeared later than Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Shang and Zhou Dynasties were the era of bronzes. The ritual vessels of bronzes are represented by Ding, and the musical instruments are represented by bells. Zhong Ding is synonymous with bronze ware. Therefore, Zhong Dingwen or inscriptions on bronze refers to inscriptions cast or carved on bronzes.
The content of inscriptions on bronze is a record of activities or events such as offering sacrifices, giving orders, imperial edicts, campaigns, hunting and covenants. All these reflect the social life at that time. The inscriptions on bronze inscriptions are neat and elegant, simple and heavy. Compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions, they are more colorful. Bronze inscriptions are basically printed. These characters were discovered in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, when someone sent a tripod excavated in Fenyang to the palace, and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty named it Ding Yuan (formerly 1 16). Later, Jin Wen made one discovery after another. Ouyang Xiu and Zhao Mingcheng were scholars in Song Dynasty. They were both good at writing, studying and recording inscriptions on bronze.
The Mao inscription in the casting is very representative, with 32 lines and 497 words, which is the earliest bronze inscription unearthed. Mao's inscription is rigorous in structure, thin, smooth, even and neat, and it is a fine work in the bronze inscription. In addition, the inscription of Dahepan is also a masterpiece of bronze inscriptions.
Warring States script
Following the inscriptions on bronze in Shang Dynasty, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Western Zhou Dynasty and Spring and Autumn Period, the development of Chinese characters changed greatly in the Warring States Period, which began in the 5th century BC. This is mainly due to the fact that the vassal States were fragmented and did not belong to each other, and the centralization of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty was almost lost. Even Chinese characters are written separately, so Chinese characters in different countries have many differences in physical structure and writing style. In addition, with the development of economy and culture, the characters in this period became more popular, and the materials and scope of casting, carving and writing characters were expanded. Besides bronze inscriptions, Wen Tao, bamboo slips, coins and seals also appeared in large numbers. This makes Chinese characters used in different regions present different styles.
Macroscopically, the Warring States script can be divided into two systems: Six Kingdoms script and Qin script.
Six-country scripts refer to the scripts of Korea, Zhao, Wei, Qi, Chu and Yan, as well as the scripts of small countries such as Zhongshan, Yue and Teng. Compared with bronze inscriptions, the most obvious features are the random simplification of strokes and the extremely chaotic physical structure. Qin characters are close to the orthodox inscriptions in the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period, which are more rigorous and unified. Later people called it Wen Shu or Da Zhuan.
Because different countries and regions have different writing styles, the writing styles in the Warring States period were very confusing, and the writing styles of the same word were quite different.
Development of Chinese characters
Qin Shihuang unified Chinese characters.
Qin Shihuang (259 BC-2 BC10) was the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. Zheng Ming, the son of Wang Xiang of Qin Zhuang, became emperor at the age of thirteen and proclaimed himself emperor at the age of thirty-nine. From 22 1 year before 230 BC, the six countries of Korea, Wei, Chu, Yan, Zhao and Qi were destroyed successively, and the first unified and multi-ethnic centralized country in China history was established.
In order to establish the highest authority and consolidate the centralized government, he took a series of measures in politics, economy, culture and thought.
Because of the confusion of characters in various countries during the Warring States period, it greatly affected the implementation of political laws and regulations, the development of economic production and the spread of culture and education. Therefore, after Qin Shihuang destroyed the six countries and unified China, the first important thing he did was to write the same script, that is, unified script.
The whole work was presided over by his prime minister, Li Si, and it was divided into two steps: first, all kinds of forms different from Qin language in Six Kingdoms were abolished, that is, forms that were not in harmony with Qin language were taken as the basis of norms; The second is to simplify and delete the official script of Qin, that is, the form of big seal script, and at the same time absorb some simple and vulgar characters in folk fonts to standardize it. In this way, a new official font, Xiao Zhuan, was formed.
This is the first thorough Chinese character standardization movement led by the central government in the history of China, which is of great significance in the history of Chinese character development.
official script
According to legend, there was a disciple named Cheng Miao in Qin Dynasty who was imprisoned for offending Qin Shihuang. Cheng Miao saw that it was very troublesome for prison officials to write Yao cards with seal script at that time, so he carried out reforms, simplified the complex, rounded the square and created new fonts. Qin Shihuang saw it and appreciated it. Not only did he absolve himself of his sins, but he also made him an empire and used this font in official prisons. Because Cheng Miao is a slave, it was originally designed for the application of slave clothes, so it is called official script. There may be many indirect factors in this story. In fact, just like the emergence of calligraphy, official script is created by many people over a long period of time, and what Cheng Miao did was probably to sort out his works.
According to the archaeological materials, the characters on some wooden signs and bamboo slips in the Warring States and Qin Dynasties tend to simplify seal script, reduce strokes, change the font into square flat and use wave pen. This is the bud of official script. In the Western Han Dynasty, the elements of Li style in calligraphy were further increased. Lao Zi, a silk painting of the Western Han Dynasty unearthed in Mawangdui, Changsha, has obvious official meaning. Lishu matured in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The era of Emperor Huan of Han Dynasty (147- 167) and Emperor Ling of Han Dynasty (168- 189) was the heyday of official script.
The appearance of official script is a great change in the history of calligraphy and even writing. Since then, calligraphy has bid farewell to ancient Chinese characters that lasted for more than 3,000 years and opened modern Chinese characters. The structure of Chinese characters no longer has the pictographic meaning of ancient Chinese characters, but is completely symbolic. Official script is a qualitative change and transition, connecting the preceding with the following, seal script and regular script. As a kind of calligraphy art, it broke the limitation of single stroke in the original seal script and has undergone very rich changes. The predecessors called the writing style of seal script jade chopsticks, which are made of jade, horizontal, vertical and even. The structure of words is very strict and rarely changes. Official script is not like this. Its points are clear, the shades are clear, and the wave paintings have swallowtail silkworm heads, which are full of twists and turns. Use a pen wisely and comprehensively, or Fiona Fang can do both. The knot is steep and ups and downs, or vigorous and powerful, or beautiful and neat, or round and charming, or stick to the palace, dignified and dignified, or open and close freely, flying with high spirits, which can be described as ever-changing and extreme. This is really a magnificent chapter in the history of calligraphy. Close friend Kang Youwei spoke highly of Han Li. He wrote in "Two Boats in Guangyi": The books in the Han Dynasty were not prosperous, not only with high spirit, but also with the most varieties, which were respected by hundreds of generations. Du Du worked as a grass, Cai Yong as a flying white, and Liu Desheng as a running script, all of whom were Han Chinese. The late season comes true, and future generations can't go outside. It was extremely difficult to establish this system by the Han Dynasty.
The calligraphy style of Han dynasty was related to the social atmosphere at that time. The official script of the Han Dynasty contains great momentum and is full of vigorous strength. The exquisite and wonderful Han Li still exudes infinite artistic charm.
The official scripts of the Han Dynasty that we see today are all preserved by carving them on stone tablets. Unfortunately, the author of Shu Dan didn't leave a name at that time, so later generations had to name it after a monument or an inscription, such as Yiying Monument, Shi Chenbei Monument, Li Monument, Confucius Monument, Shimen Monument, Huashan Monument, Cao Quanbei, Xiqiao Monument, Zhang Jingbei and Zhang Qianbei.
Calligraphy in the Han dynasty, in addition to inscriptions, also includes Han bamboo slips written on wooden boards (north) and bamboo boards (south). Han Liyuan on the chessboard is not as neat, solemn and gorgeous as the inscription, but lively, dynamic, changeable and even casual, with a sense of humor. If inscriptions are compared to meticulous brushwork, then Han bamboo slips are like freehand brushwork. The fonts in Han bamboo slips are naturally naive, careless, scrawled and even sloppy. Some of them seem to reveal the information of Jin cursive script.
Development of Chinese characters
cursive script
What is cursive script? In a broad sense, cursive script is a scribbled font. Ancient Chinese characters are scribbled in ancient Chinese characters, and modern Chinese characters are scribbled in modern Chinese characters. In a narrow sense, cursive script is a writing style, characterized by a combination of strokes and a simple structure. A book is a scrawled and fast font. It is said that any font can be scribbled and cursive. For example, there are many scrawled words in bronze inscriptions; However, the cursive script in philology is a specific font, which developed from Qin Li's scribble writing style, formed in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, and was widely popular in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Liang Wudi and Xiao Yan's "cursive script" thought that strong cursive script appeared because: "the princes argued for a long time, and the simplified characters were handed down from generation to generation, hoping for posts, but it was difficult to save speed, pretending to rush the book, so this cursive script was built. It shows that cursive script is produced for the convenience of writing.
When did cursive script come into being? The name of cursive script was mentioned for the first time in history. Syria ",Syria clearly pointed out that" Han Xing has a cursive script ".
regular script
Regular script is a slightly modified font for official script. It is called regular script because it can be used as a French model for learning Chinese characters. Regular script is a writing style based on Han Li, also known as "official script" and "true script". It was formed in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and gradually matured in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. In the Three Kingdoms period, Zhong Wei had Wang Jinxi, and the font was further standardized, making regular script a completely independent font.
Compared with official script, regular script has straighter lines and stronger font stereotypes. Specifically, Han Li's strokes are mostly rectangular, diverging outward, while regular script strokes are mostly rectangular and concentrated inward. Han Li's pens are mostly wavy, and the thickness changes greatly, while regular script pens are stable or hard to fold, and the thickness changes relatively little.
Semi-cursive/running/calligraphy (China's calligraphy)
Running script is a font between cursive script and regular script. The early running script was between cursive script and official script, and now the common running script is between cursive script and regular script. Whether it's official script or regular script, it's a bit time-consuming to write one stroke at a time. Therefore, when people write something that is not very important, they often write casually and hastily, which is faster, but at the same time, they should keep the form of regular characters. This is a running script. Since the Six Dynasties, it has been the main handwritten font.
20 10 year
What is the goal of "Basic Standards for Social Application of Chinese Characters"?
1956 the State Council's "Instructions on Promoting Putonghua"
Chinese is the main language in China, the most widely used language in the world and one of the most developed languages in the world. Language is a tool for communication and social struggle and development. At present, Chinese is serving the great socialist construction of our people. Learning Chinese well is of great significance to the development of China's socialist cause.
Due to historical reasons, the development of Chinese has not reached the point of complete unification. Many dialects with serious differences hinder people's conversation in different regions and bring a lot of inconvenience to socialist construction. Some inconsistent and ungrammatical phenomena in language exist not only orally, but also in writing. In written language, even in publications, the confusion of vocabulary and grammar is quite serious. For the further development of China's politics, economy, culture and national defense, these phenomena must be effectively eliminated.
The foundation for the unification of Chinese already exists, that is, Putonghua with Beijing accent as the standard, northern dialect as the basic dialect and typical modern vernacular as the grammatical norm. Popularizing this Putonghua in all aspects of cultural and educational system and people's life is the main method to promote the complete unification of Chinese. To this end, the State Council instructed as follows:
(1) Since the autumn of 1956, Mandarin has been taught in Chinese classes in primary and secondary schools all over the country except in ethnic minority areas. By 1960, students above grade three in primary schools, students in middle schools and normal schools should basically speak Putonghua, teachers in all subjects in primary schools and normal schools should teach in Putonghua, and teachers in middle schools and secondary specialized schools should also teach in Putonghua. Mandarin should also be added to Chinese teaching in colleges and universities. Students who are about to graduate from middle schools and institutions of higher learning, young teachers and teaching assistants in institutions of higher learning, if they still can't speak Mandarin, should attend short-term remedial classes to facilitate their work. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education should formulate special plans to strengthen Chinese teaching in schools at all levels and promote the standardization of Chinese, and report them to the State Council for approval and implementation.
(two) Chinese classes in the cultural education of the People's Liberation Army in China and Chinese classes in schools at all levels of the People's Liberation Army in China shall be taught in Putonghua. Soldiers should learn to use Mandarin within one year of enlistment, and military school students at all levels should learn to use Mandarin within one year of enlistment. Chinese teaching in amateur schools of various organs should also take Putonghua as the standard.
(3) Local Youth League branches and local trade union organizations should adopt appropriate and effective methods to vigorously promote Putonghua among young people and workers. Youth league members should take the lead in learning and promoting Putonghua. Cultural cram schools in factories (first of all, big factories), cultural cram schools and advanced classes in rural private schools all the year round should promote the teaching of Putonghua as much as possible and step by step.
(4) Local radio stations should cooperate with local Putonghua promotion committees to hold Putonghua lectures. Radio stations in dialect areas must appropriately increase the programs broadcast in Putonghua in their daily broadcasts to help local listeners gradually understand and learn to speak Putonghua. National broadcasters, national film actors, professional drama actors and vocal music (singing) actors must be trained in Putonghua. Putonghua should also be gradually popularized among Peking Opera and other opera actors.
(5) Editors of newspapers, news agencies, magazines and publishing houses all over the country should learn Mandarin and common sense of grammar and rhetoric, and strengthen the editing of manuscripts. The Ministry of Culture should urge the central and local publishing institutions at all levels to designate special persons to take charge, establish systems, train cadres and make plans, so as to basically eliminate the nonstandard use of words and sentences in publications within two to five years respectively.
(6) Service personnel of railway, transportation, post and telecommunications, commercial enterprises in big cities and industrial and mining areas, health personnel in big cities and industrial and mining areas, police in big cities and industrial and mining areas, staff of judicial organs, journalists of newspapers and news agencies, staff of cultural centers and stations, and staff of organs at or above the county level should all learn Putonghua. The above-mentioned relevant authorities shall, according to different situations, formulate specific plans for their staff to learn Putonghua, and be responsible for their implementation, so that all the staff in various fields of the authorities who are often close to the masses can learn Putonghua within a certain period of time.
(7) Except for special needs, all translators who communicate with foreign countries should use Putonghua for translation.
(8) The China Character Reform Commission should complete the scheme of Chinese Pinyin in the first half of 1956, so as to facilitate the teaching of Putonghua and the phonetic notation of Chinese characters.
(9) In order to help the teaching of Putonghua, the Institute of Linguistics of China Academy of Sciences should compile the Pronunciation Dictionary of Putonghua for Determining Phonetic Norms in 1956 and the Medium-sized Modern Chinese Dictionary for Determining Lexical Norms in 1958, and organize the strength of Chinese departments in normal universities and colleges in conjunction with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education in 1956 and 65438+. The provincial education departments should compile pamphlets according to the characteristics of dialects in each province to guide the people in the whole province to learn Putonghua in 1956. The Ministry of Education and the Broadcasting Bureau should produce a large number of records for teaching Mandarin. The Ministry of Culture should make films to promote and teach Putonghua within the scope of 1956.
(10) In order to train cadres to promote Putonghua, the Ministry of Education should hold regular Putonghua phonetic research classes and train Chinese teachers and educational administrative cadres in middle schools and normal schools around the country. All organs, organizations and troops should also send appropriate cadres to participate in the training. Similarly, provincial, city and county education administrative organs should generally hold short-term training courses on Putonghua pronunciation to train Chinese teachers in primary and secondary schools and normal schools around the country, and local organs, organizations and troops should also send appropriate cadres to participate in the study.
(eleven) the State Council set up a working committee to promote Putonghua, unified leadership of the national promotion of Putonghua. Its daily work is the responsibility of China Character Reform Commission, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Culture and Institute of Linguistics of China Academy of Sciences: China Character Reform Commission is responsible for the planning, guidance and inspection of the whole work; The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education are responsible for the leadership of Putonghua teaching in schools and amateur schools at all levels, the training of Putonghua teachers and the supply of Putonghua textbooks. The Ministry of Culture is responsible for standardizing the language of publications, publishing books and periodicals related to Putonghua, and making records and movies; The Institute of Linguistics is responsible for the research and publicity of the standardization of pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar in Putonghua. The people's committees of all provinces and cities shall set up the same committees, and the education departments and bureaus of all provinces and cities shall be their daily working organs.
(12) In ethnic minority areas, Putonghua should be vigorously promoted among Han people in various regions. Chinese teaching in minority schools should be based on Putonghua. Radio stations in ethnic minority areas should use Mandarin as much as possible in Chinese broadcasting. The people's Committee of the autonomous region may, according to the needs, set up a working committee for promoting Putonghua to lead the work of promoting Putonghua in the autonomous region in a unified way.