The origin of Chinese characters

According to legend, Cang Xie was an official under the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Emperor assigned him to be in charge of the number of livestock in the fence and the number of food on the chariot. But slowly, the storage of livestock and food is also gradually increasing and changing, and my head alone can't remember it. Cang Xie was puzzled.

Cang Xie tried to tie a knot on the rope all day and all night, and used ropes of different colors to represent different animals. 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 has made another mistake, which is no longer a matter of hanging a shell with a 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 underground beasts. 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.

Personal data:

Cang Xie, also known as Cang Xie, is the legendary historian of the Yellow Emperor and the creator of Chinese characters. However, it is generally believed that Cang Xie's creation of Chinese characters is only a legend, but he may be the organizer of Chinese characters.

Legend has it that Cang Xie was born with "two eyes and four eyes". There are only three people recorded in China's history books, namely Yu Shun, Cang Xie and Xiang Yu. Yu Shun is a modest and filial saint, Cang Xie is Wen Sheng, and Xiang Yu is a warrior.

Cang Xie was the assistant of the Yellow Emperor in the late primitive society of China. He once collected, sorted out and used the characters circulated among ancestors, which played an important role in the creation of Chinese characters and made immortal contributions to the reproduction and prosperity of the Chinese nation.

This prehistoric legend has never been mentioned in the ancient books of China before the Warring States Period. Cang Xie was first mentioned by Xun Qing during the Warring States Period. Followed by Lu's Chunqiu and Han Feizi, which are based on Xunzi's "so many people write good books, one person writes", and their main point is "writing books". After the Han Dynasty, in Huai Nan Zi and Lun Heng, it has developed from "Cangjie's creation of characters" to "Cang Xie's four eyes" and began to be deified. Especially in the Han Dynasty, Shu Wei further exaggerates Cang Xie's "being born with the ability to write, but also being recorded by the river, which has changed since the ancient times, looking up at the music trend of Kuixing, overlooking the feathers of fish and birds, knowing the mountains and rivers, and making words" ("Spring and Autumn Life Bud"). Later, it became more and more magical and developed into a legend that Cang Xie was "the historian of the Yellow Emperor". Huangdi was one of the leaders of tribal alliances in the late primitive society. At that time, there was no state machine. It can be seen that the theory of "historian" is obviously the result of later generations using the official name of the state machine for prehistoric legends.

Chinese characters are an indispensable part of Chinese civilization, which not only carries our history for thousands of years, but also is an important means for people to communicate from ancient times to the present. Calligraphy art originated from Chinese characters is a treasure of Chinese civilization. However, how are Chinese characters made?

Studying the origin of Chinese characters has a history of more than 2,500 years in China.

According to the pre-Qin legend, Cang Xie was the lyricist, and Xunzi Jiemu recorded: "Although there are many good books, Cang Xie is the only one handed down from generation to generation." "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals" records: "Xi Zhong made cars and books". According to legend, Cang Xie is a historian of the Yellow Emperor and a representative of ancient Chinese characters in China. According to Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Cang Xie was a historian of word-making in the period of the Yellow Emperor, and was known as the "sage of word-making". Historian Xu Xu believes that the appearance of writing should be related to Cang Xie. At that time, writing was needed to make calendars, and writing was also needed to make Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Therefore, Cang Xie should come from Zhuan Xu tribe. He was "born in Sri Lanka and buried in Sri Lanka", so there is Cangjieling in Taipei. He lived in the 26th century BC. Based on this, it is speculated that Chinese characters were relatively mature four or five thousand years ago.

In modern times, some people recognized Cang Xie, and at the same time expanded the team of word-makers. For example, Mr. Lu Xun thinks, "... in society, neither is Cang Xie. Someone carved a small picture on the hilt, and someone drew some pictures on the portal. As a result, word of mouth adds words, and historians can perfunctory notes as soon as they collect them. I'm afraid the origin of China characters can't escape this example. "Lu Xun. On foreign languages. That is to say, of course, Chinese characters can't be created by Cang Xie alone, but gradually enriched by many people like Cang Xie, among whom Cang Xie is only more important and has a greater role. Our concern is not whether Cang Xie created Chinese characters, but the significance of creating Chinese characters. The appearance of Chinese characters indicates that the history of China has entered the era of written records, which is a major event in the long history and has had an important impact on later generations.

Changji's creation

Cang Xie, surnamed Hou, the historian of the Yellow Emperor and the founder of Chinese characters, is known as the "sage of word-making". Today, in wucun, 35 miles northwest of Nanle County, there are Cang Xie Ridge, Cangjie Temple and Bookstores. Historians believe that Cang Xie was born in Sri Lanka and was buried there.

It is said that Cang Xie "began to change the book contract into a rope". Before that, people tied knots and kept records, that is, big knots were tied for big events, small ones were summarized, and connected things were linked. Later, it was developed to carve symbols on wood and bamboo with a knife as notes. With the development of history, civilization is gradual, things are complicated and there are many famous things. The knotting and carving methods of wood are far from meeting the needs. There is an urgent need to create words. The Yellow Emperor was a period of numerous inventions in ancient times. At that time, not only sericulture was invented, but also boats, carts, bows, mirrors, cooking pots and retort were invented. Under the influence of these inventions, Cang Xie was determined to create a kind of writing.

Legend of Cang Xie; Four eyes and heavy pupils, very clever. One year, Cang Xie made a southern tour, climbed a mountain with Yang Que (now Luonan County, Shaanxi Province) and confronted Xuan Huluo? In the water, I suddenly saw a chinemys reevesii with many blue patterns on his back. Cang Xie looked surprised, so he picked it up and studied it carefully. He looked around and found that the pattern on the turtle's back was meaningful. He believes that patterns can not only express meaning, but if a rule is made, isn't it used by everyone to convey their feelings and record things?

Cang Xie thought about it day and night, observed everywhere, and saw the distribution of stars in the sky, the appearance of mountains and rivers on the ground, the traces of birds, animals, insects and fish, the shapes of plants and tools, described and painted, created various symbols, and set the meaning represented by each symbol. According to his own mind, he pieced together several paragraphs with symbols and showed them to people. After his explanation, he also understood. Cang Xie called this symbol "Zi".

Cang Xie succeeded in coining words, and strange things happened. On that day, it rained like millet during the day, and I heard ghosts crying and wolves howling at night. 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.

There is another saying:

On one occasion, Cang Xie made a mistake in providing the historical records recorded in these knots to the Yellow Emperor, which led to the defeat of the Yellow Emperor in the border negotiations with Yan Di. Later, it was a good way for Cang Xie to resign, travel around the world, visit and record historical events. Three years later, he returned to his hometown, Baishui Wu Yang Village, and lived alone in a deep ditch, "watching the joy of Kuixing and the traces of birds and animals' hooves", sorting out all kinds of materials and creating all kinds of symbols representing everything in the world. He gave these symbols a name, called Zi.

Cang Xie's words are made according to the shape of everything. For example, Japanese characters are marked according to the red circle of the sun; The word "moon" is painted in imitation of the shape of the new moon. The herringbone is looking at the silhouette painting of people ... The first article that the Yellow Emperor learned was very moved, so he was named Cang. It means that a gentleman is better than one person and a villain is better than a gentleman. Later, when God knew this, he sent down millet to reward Cang Xie. This is the origin of Grain Rain Festival on Earth.

Starting from Baishui County, get off the Luohe River along Wei (South) Qing (Jian) Highway, and then transfer to Bai (Shui) Luo (Chuan) Highway. The jeep ran for about an hour between the ditches and forks on the plateau before it came to Shiguan Village, where Cang Xie Temple is located. This Cang Xie Temple, with a history of over 1800 years, has been officially listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit by the State Council.

Cang Xie Ridge is on the west side of wucun, facing the west and east of Cang Xie Temple. This is a big mound five meters high. There are ancient cultural relics from Yangshao to Longshan under the mausoleum. There is a stone lion in Weng Zhong in front of the tomb, and there is a stone square with the word "Cang Xie" written on it. Cang Xie Temple, whose construction date is unknown. According to the existing inscriptions in the temple, "it has not been replaced since the Han and Tang Dynasties". Today's Cang Xie Temple was built in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, covering an area of about 2,700 square meters, with a pair of stone pillars facing south, beautifully carved and elegant; The gate and the second gate are hard mountain buildings, and the worship hall, the main hall and the sleeping pavilion are generous and beautiful. There are inscriptions on the seals of famous people in Ming Dynasty and stone carvings of Cang Xie and his wife. There are many steles in the temple, pines and cypresses, willows and pavilions, and the whole building is magnificent.

A writing system used to record Chinese is still or was 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, it is the writing of Han nationality; Broadly speaking, it is the same word in the cultural circle of Chinese characters.

Chinese characters are the most basic unit of China characters, which have been used since Shang Dynasty at the latest, and have undergone many changes in writing methods such as Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Da Zhuan, Xiao Zhuan, Li Shu and Kai Shu (cursive script and running script). Qin Shihuang unified China, and Lisi sorted out Xiao Zhuan, so the history of "the same name but no name" began. Although the pronunciation of Chinese dialects is very different, the unity of writing system reduces the communication obstacles caused by dialect differences.

In Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty summarized the structural rules of Chinese characters as "six books": pictographic characters, ideographic characters, knowing characters, pictophonetic characters, transliteration characters and loanwords. 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".

For more than 3,000 years, the writing style of Chinese characters has not changed much, enabling future generations to read ancient Chinese without obstacles. However, after modern western civilization entered East Asia, countries in the whole Chinese character cultural circle set off a trend of learning from the West, and giving up using Chinese characters was an important aspect of this movement. The argument of these movements is that Chinese characters are clumsy compared with western pinyin characters. Many countries that use Chinese characters have simplified Chinese characters to varying degrees and even tried to completely pinyin them. The Latin transliteration scheme of Japanese pseudonyms and the emergence of various pinyin schemes in Chinese are all based on this idea. Chinese mainland simplified the strokes of Chinese characters with reference to the cursive script, and revised and approved the Summary of Simplified Chinese Characters on June 28th, 1956, which is still used in China and New Zealand. Traditional Chinese has always been used in Taiwan Province Province.

Chinese characters are an important tool to carry culture. At present, there are a large number of ancient books written in Chinese characters. Different dialects all use Chinese characters as the writing system of * * * *, so Chinese characters have played an important role in the spread of Chinese civilization in history and become an internal link in the formation of Southeast Asian cultural circles. In the development of Chinese characters, a large number of poems, couplets and other cultures have been left behind, forming a unique art of calligraphy in China.

A Chinese character generally has many meanings and strong word-formation ability, and many Chinese characters can form words independently. This leads to the extremely high "use efficiency" of Chinese characters, and about 2,000 commonly used words can cover more than 98% of written expressions. Coupled with the characteristics of ideographic characters, the reading efficiency of Chinese characters is very high. The information density of Chinese characters is higher than that of letters, so on average, the Chinese expression of the same content is shorter than that of any other letter language.

At present, most areas where Chinese is used use two standardized Chinese characters, namely, traditional Chinese characters (traditional Chinese characters) and simplified Chinese characters (simplified Chinese characters). The former is used in Chinese communities in Taiwan Province Province, Hongkong, Macau and North America, while the latter is used in Chinese communities in Chinese mainland, Singapore and Southeast Asia. Generally speaking, although there are differences between the two writing systems, the individual differences of commonly used Chinese characters are within 25%.

Because of the complexity of Chinese character writing, the theory of Chinese character backwardness has a long history, which holds that Chinese characters are the bottleneck of education and informatization, and there is a trend to promote the "Latinization" of Chinese characters or even abolish them. It is generally believed that Chinese characters also have outstanding advantages. Although it is difficult to learn at first, there is no continuous learning problem similar to a large number of English words after mastering common words, and its ideographic characteristics can fully mobilize the learning ability of the human brain. After the problem of computer input is basically solved, the "Chinese character backwardness theory" and "Chinese character latinization" have actually been gradually abandoned by most people.

Puzzle: Half a Spring and Autumn Period-Qin Puzzle: Yinchuan Puzzle: Spring Puzzle: Come Again-Ran Puzzle: Goalkeeper-Flash Puzzle: Someone Stole a Car-Lost Puzzle: Every now and then, a fragrant Puzzle is brewed: Half green and half purple-Plain Puzzle: Self-body Puzzle: Scholar's tail cocked-Bald.

1. Women are too worried and angry.

2. Mouth out of sorrow, sewing in clothes. (Playing crossword puzzles) Mourning

3. Chinese characters are sandwiched in clothes. (Playing crossword puzzles) Desire

4. Don't add points, drill in the grass. (Playing crossword puzzles) Rabbit

5. The woman said she wanted to be totally new. (Playing crossword puzzles) Excuse me.

1. Crossword: The Emperor's New Clothes-Attack

2. crossword puzzle: Level 1-Huai

3. crossword puzzle: Shi Dakai-Yan

4. Crossword: Introduction to Pig Worship

5. Crossword: Very generous-come back

6. crossword puzzle: get out of the boudoir and get to know each other-good.

7. Crossword: One Thousand and One Nights-Fighter

8. Crossword: 72 hours-Crystal

9. crossword puzzle: a black dog, neither barking nor barking-silence

10. crossword puzzle at dusk yesterday (typing a word)

1 1. A crossword puzzle (typing a word) goes through the heart with an arrow will.

12. crossword puzzle: four parties come to cooperate and contribute more-installation.

13. crossword puzzle: a little change before greed makes you poor-poverty.

14. Crossword puzzle: Chunqiu-Qin

15. crossword puzzle: Yinchuan-Spring

16. crossword puzzle: Come again-Ran

17. Crossword: Goalkeeper-Flash

18. crossword puzzle: someone stole a car-lost it.

19. crossword puzzle: the day after brewing.

20. Crossword: Half Green and Half Purple-Vegetarian

2 1. Crossword: Self-body

22. Crossword: This scholar is bald and cocky.

23. Crossword: Focus on supporting Northwest-Head

24. Crossword puzzle: physical disability, mental disability. -Interest

25. Crossword: Eighteen by Six Schools

26. Crossword: A Hooked Moon and a Samsung Heart

27. Crossword: A little vertical pressure

28. crossword puzzle: eight characters-learning

Oracle Bone Inscriptions has a history of more than 3,000 years. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery must be familiar to everyone. What about Oracle Bone Inscriptions?

What kind of writing is it? Since the discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions at the end of19th century, * * * *

More than 60,000 pieces of Oracle bones/kloc-0 were found, more than 4,000 characters were found, and 1752 characters were recognized. this

Some Oracle Bone Inscriptions and bronzes have become our first-hand information about court life in Shang Dynasty.

Materials. Why do you say that? Let's start with the appearance of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. minister

Todos records: "Only the Yin ancestors have books." The word "book" written by a businessman

, is the image of slender bamboo woven with rope; The word "dot" is book-shaped, with both hands arched.

Elephant. But the merchant's "canon book" is written on bamboo and wood, which is easy to decay. In the Spring and Autumn Period,

As the days were running out, Confucius said, "Li Xia, I can say,

Qi deficiency also; Li Yin, what I can say is not enough in the Song Dynasty. Lack of literature.

If you have enough, I can levy it. ("The Analects? "Historical Records Eight Shu")? "Although Yin Shiji

There is a general outline, but the whole article is only two thousand words, which is still relatively short. Not bad, Jean.

People leave us two other things that can give us some insight into their lives.

Roughly understand. These are Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jin Wen. "Bronze Inscription" is cast on bronze wares.

Text. Most of the inscriptions on Oracle bones are the records of divination of Shang kings.

There are some things that have nothing to do with divination, so they are collectively called "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the origin of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, is the cultural product of Shang Dynasty (about BC17th century-BC 1 1 century), about 60 years ago.

More than 3600 years of history. Shang rulers were superstitious about ghosts and gods and used turtles before.

Oracle bone divination is good or bad, and then the items occupied and the divination to be checked afterwards are engraved on Oracle bone.

Text or related notes, the text is called Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Since the late Qing Dynasty, it has been found in Yin Ruins in Anyang, Henan Province.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions 100 years ago. At present, the number of bones unearthed is more than150,000, most of which are

Pan Geng moved to Yin and died of royal relics. In order to go out to Yin Ruins, they are also called Yin Ruins. because

Inscriptions are mostly Oracle Bone Inscriptions, so it is also called Zhenbu. At present, the * * * words unearthed in Oracle Bone Inscriptions are

4500, more than 2000 words have been recognized, and more than 1000 words have been recognized. It recorded China more than 3,000 years ago.

Social, political, economic and cultural information. This is the earliest and most precious thing in existence.

Historical sites.