Chinese characters are an indispensable part of Chinese civilization. They not only carry our history for thousands of years, but are also an important means of communication for people from ancient times to the present. The art of calligraphy derived from Chinese characters is more It is a treasure of Chinese civilization. But how were Chinese characters created?
Studying the origin of Chinese characters has a history of more than 2,500 years in China.
According to legend in the Pre-Qin Dynasty, Cangjie was the creator of calligraphy. "Xunzi·Jieye" records: "There are many good calligraphers, but Cangjie is the only one who passed down the calligraphy." "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals" records: "Xi Zhong made chariots, and Cangjie made books." According to legend, Cangjie was the historian of the Yellow Emperor and a representative person in organizing writing in ancient times. "Shuowen Jiezi" records: Cangjie was the historian who created characters during the Yellow Emperor's period and was revered as the "Sage of Writing". Historian Xu Xu believes that the creation of characters The appearance should be related to Cangjie. At that time, the formulation of calendars required written records, and the formulation of oracles also required writing. Therefore, Cangjie should be a member of the Zhuanxu tribe. He was "born here and buried here", so there is a mausoleum of Cangjie in Taipei. He lived in about the 26th century BC. Based on this, it is speculated that our country's writing was relatively mature four or five thousand years ago.
In modern times, some people recognized Cangjie and at the same time expanded the scope of his creation. The team of calligraphers. For example, Mr. Lu Xun, he believed that "In society, Cangjie is not the same. Some carve a few pictures on the hilt of the knife, some draw some pictures on the door. They are in harmony with each other and pass on word of mouth, so there are many words. Once the historian collects it, he can record the events perfunctorily. I am afraid that the origin of Chinese characters cannot escape this example." "Lu Xun. In other words, Chinese characters cannot of course be created by Cangjie alone, but are gradually enriched by many people like Cangjie. Cangjie is just more important and prominent among these people. The role of Chinese characters is relatively large. What we pay attention to is not whether Cangjie created the Chinese characters, but the meaning of the creation of the characters themselves. The emergence of Chinese characters marks that Chinese history has entered the era of written records and is a long history. A major event in the Chinese history, it also had an important impact on later generations.
Cangjie created Chinese characters
Cangjie, surnamed Hou Gang, nicknamed Shihuang, was an official historian during the reign of the Yellow Emperor and the founder of Chinese characters. He is revered as the "Saint of Creation of Chinese Characters". There are Cangjie Mausoleum, Cangjie Temple and Book Making Platform in Wu Village, 35 miles northwest of present-day Nanle County. Historians believe that Cangjie was born and buried here.
According to legend, Cangjie was born and buried here. "Begin to make written deeds instead of knotting ropes." Before that, people knotted ropes to remember events, that is, tying big knots in one big knot, small knots in small knots, and connected knots in a series of knots. Later, it developed to using knives to mark wood and bamboo. Symbols are used to record events. With the development of history and the gradual progress of civilization, things are complicated and there are many famous things. The methods of knotting and carving wood are far from meeting the needs. Therefore, there is an urgent need to create characters. The Yellow Emperor was an ancient invention. It was a period when there were many inventions. At that time, not only silkworm breeding was invented, but also boats, carts, bows and slaves, mirrors, pots and steamers for cooking, etc. Under the influence of these inventions, Cangjie was also determined to create a kind of writing. .
It is said that Cangjie had four double-pupiled eyes and was very smart. One year, Cangjie went on a hunting tour in the south and climbed a Yangxu Mountain (now Luonan County, Shaanxi Province), where he came to Xuanhuluo? In the water, he suddenly saw a large turtle with many blue patterns on its back. Cangjie found it strange, so he took it and studied it carefully. He looked around and found that the patterns on the turtle's back were actually meaningful. . He thought that since patterns could represent meanings, if a rule was set, wouldn’t everyone be able to use them to express their feelings and record things?
Cangjie thought about it day and night, observing everywhere and seeing all the stars in the sky. He traced and painted the distribution of mountains and rivers on the ground, the traces of birds, animals, insects and fish, and the shapes of vegetation and utensils, and created various symbols, and determined the meaning of each symbol. He followed his own wishes He used symbols to piece together several paragraphs and showed them to others. After he explained them, they could understand clearly. Cangjie called this symbol "zi".
Cangjie succeeded in making characters, but something strange happened. One day it rained like millet during the day, and at night I heard ghosts crying and howling. Why did it rain like millet? Because Cangjie created writing, which can be used to convey feelings and record things, which is certainly worthy of celebration. But why do ghosts cry? Some people say , because of the advent of writing, people’s wisdom and virtues have become increasingly blurred, and deceit, cunning, competition and killing have arisen. From now on, the world will never have peace, and even the ghosts will not be at peace, so the ghosts will cry.
< p>Another theory is:On one occasion, Cangjie provided the Yellow Emperor with historical facts based on the historical records recorded in these knots. This caused the Yellow Emperor to fail in the border negotiations with Emperor Yan.
Afterwards, Cangjie resigned in shame and traveled around the world, visiting and recording historical events. Three years later, he returned to his hometown of Yangwu Village, Baishui, and lived alone in a deep ditch to "observe the circular curves of Kuixing, and observe the traces of the hooves and claws of birds and beasts." , he sorted out various materials and created various symbols representing all things in the world. He gave these symbols names, which are called characters.
Cangjie’s characters are all made according to the shapes of all things. For example: the character "日" is drawn according to the red and round shape of the sun; the character "月" is drawn imitating the shape of the crescent moon; the character "human" is drawn based on the silhouette of a person... Cangjie's creation of writing was later recognized. Huang Di found out about it, and was greatly moved, so he gave him the surname Cang. The meaning is that one person is superior to the emperor, and one emperor is superior to others. Later, God knew about this and rewarded Cangjie with a rain of grains. This is the Grain Rain in the world. The origin of the festival.
Starting from Baishui County, go down to Luohe River along the Wei (South) Qing (Jian) ??Highway, and then change to the Bai (Shui) Luo (Sichuan) Highway. The jeep is at the ravine on the plateau. After running around for about an hour, we arrived at Shiguan Village where Cangjie Temple is located. This Cangjie Temple with a history of more than 1,800 years has been officially listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit by the State Council.
Cangjie Mausoleum is located in On the west side of Wucun, facing Cangjie Temple to the west and east, is a large mound five meters high. Below the mausoleum are ancient cultural relics from the Yangshao to Longshan periods. In front of the mausoleum, there are Weng Zhong and stone lions, and there is a stone square with a letter. The word "Cangjie" means Cangjie Temple. The year when it was first built is unknown. According to the existing inscriptions in the temple, "it has not been replaced since the Han and Tang Dynasties." The Cangjie Temple we see today was built in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and covers an area of ??about 2,000 square meters. It is 700 square meters and faces south. It has a pair of stone pillars with exquisite and elegant carvings. The mountain gate and the second gate are all hard-mountain-style buildings. The worship hall, main hall and sleeping pavilion are generous and beautiful. There are also seal script couplets on the foreheads of celebrities in the Ming Dynasty and Cangjie and his wife. Stone carvings. The temple is lined with inscriptions, green pines and cypresses, willows and pavilions, and the whole building is majestic.
Records the Chinese writing system, and is still or has been used in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. .Chinese characters are one of the oldest characters in the world, with a history of more than 4,500 years. In a narrow sense, they are the characters of the Han people; in a broad sense, they are the most unique characters in the Chinese character culture circle.
< p>Chinese characters are the most basic unit of Chinese writing. Their use began in the Shang Dynasty at the latest, and have gone through various changes in oracle bone inscriptions, large seal script, small seal script, official script, regular script (cursive script, running script). Qin Shihuang unified China, and Li Si compiled the small seal script, " This is the beginning of the history of "writing with the same text". Although the pronunciation of Chinese dialects is very different, the unification of the writing system has reduced the communication barriers caused by dialect differences.Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty classified Chinese characters in "Shuowen Jiezi" The construction rules can be summarized as "Six Books": pictogram, referring to things, understanding, pictograms, phonetic notes, and borrowings. Among them, the four items of pictograms, referring to things, knowing, and pictographs are the principles of character creation, which are the "methods of creating characters"; and Zhuanzhu and borrowing It is the rule of word usage and the "method of using words".
For more than three thousand years, the way of writing Chinese characters has not changed much, allowing future generations to read ancient texts without being hindered. But in modern times, Western civilization entered After East Asia, various countries in the entire Chinese character culture circle have set off a trend of learning from the West. Among them, giving up the use of Chinese characters is an important aspect of this movement. The argument of these movements is that compared with Western pinyin characters, Chinese characters are cumbersome and cumbersome. .Many countries that use Chinese characters have made varying degrees of simplification of Chinese characters, and even attempted complete pinyinization. The Latin transliteration scheme of Japanese kana and the emergence of various Chinese pinyin schemes are all based on this idea. Mainland China has simplified the strokes of Chinese characters. With reference to cursive script and simplification, the "Simplified Character List" was reviewed and approved on January 28, 1956. It is still in use in China and Singapore. Taiwan has always used traditional Chinese.
Chinese characters are important symbols that carry culture. Tools, there are currently a large number of classics written in Chinese characters. Different dialects use Chinese characters as their own writing system. Therefore, Chinese characters have played an important role in the spread of Chinese civilization in history, and have become an intrinsic link in the formation of the Southeast Asian cultural circle. .In the process of the development of Chinese characters, a large number of poems, couplets and other cultures have been left behind, and a unique art of Chinese calligraphy has been formed.
A Chinese character generally has multiple meanings and also has a strong ability to form words. And many Chinese characters can be independently formed into words. This results in the extremely high "usage efficiency" of Chinese characters. About 2,000 commonly used characters can cover more than 98% of written expressions. Coupled with the characteristics of Chinese ideograms, the reading efficiency of Chinese characters is very high. Chinese characters It has a higher information density than alphabetic characters. Therefore, on average, Chinese expressions of the same content are shorter than characters in any other alphabetic language.
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Currently, most of the areas where Chinese is spoken use two standardized Chinese characters, namely Traditional Chinese (traditional Chinese characters) and Simplified Chinese (simplified Chinese characters). The former is used in the Chinese circles in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and North America, and the latter is used in mainland China. and the Chinese communities in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Generally speaking, although there are differences between the two Chinese character writing systems, the individual differences in commonly used Chinese characters are less than 25%.
Due to the complexity of writing Chinese characters, the theory of "Chinese character backwardness" It has existed for a long time. Chinese characters are considered to be a bottleneck in education and informatization, and there is a push to "Latinize Chinese characters" or even abolish them. Nowadays, it is generally believed that Chinese characters also have outstanding advantages. Although it is difficult to learn initially, it does not exist after mastering common characters. It is similar to the problem of continuing to learn a large number of English words, and its ideographic characteristics can also fully mobilize the learning ability of the human brain. After the computer input problem has been basically solved, the "Chinese character backwardness theory" and "Chinese character Latinization" have actually gradually been accepted by most people. Abandon.
Word riddle: Banbu Chunqiu - Qin word puzzle: Yinchuan - Quan word puzzle: Come again - Ran word puzzle: Goalkeeper - Flash word puzzle: Someone stole the car - Lose word puzzle: The day after making wine Xiang word puzzle: half green and half purple - Su word puzzle: oneself - body word puzzle: scholar with a raised tail - bald
1. Women are also careless (make a word puzzle) angry
2 . Mouth out a sad sound and sew it in the clothes. (Play a word puzzle) Sad
3. The Chinese character is sandwiched in the clothes. (Play a word puzzle) Zhong
4. No need to add a point, Digging in the grass. (Place a word puzzle) Rabbit
5. The woman said that we should be united. (Place a word puzzle) Forgive
1. Word puzzle: The emperor’s new clothes—attack
p>2. Word puzzle: First-class level - Huai
3. Word puzzle: Shi Dakai - Yan
4. Word puzzle: Getting started with Gongzhu - Yan
5. Word puzzle: Extraordinary generosity - Hui
6. Word puzzle: Get acquainted with people who came out of purdah - Jia
7. Word puzzle: One Thousand and One Nights - annihilate< /p>
8. Word puzzle: Seventy-two hours - Jing
9. Word puzzle: A black dog, neither barking nor roaring - Mo
10. Word puzzle (Type one word) Before and after dusk ---- past
11. Crossword puzzle (Type one word) One arrow through the heart---- must
12. Crossword puzzle: Cooperation from all directions , contribute more - Qi
13. Word puzzle: A little change in greed will lead to poverty - poverty
14. Word puzzle: Banbu Chunqiu - Qin
< p>15. Word puzzle: Yinchuan - Spring16. Word puzzle: Come again and again - Ran
17. Word puzzle: Goalkeeper - Flash
18 .Word puzzle: Someone stole the car - lose
19. Word puzzle: The fragrance smells the next day after making wine
20. Word puzzle: Half green and half purple - plain
21 .Word puzzle: oneself - body
22. Word puzzle: scholar with a raised tail - bald
23. Word puzzle: focus on supporting the northwest - head
24. Crossword puzzle: The body is disabled but the heart is not disabled. --Xi
25. Crossword puzzle: Eighteen times six - school
26. Crossword puzzle: A heart with a hook and a moon accompanied by three stars - heart< /p>
27. Crossword puzzle: One stroke, one vertical stroke - press
28. Crossword puzzle: Eight-character head - learn