Why people gradually realize that Chinese characters should not and cannot be abolished

The Cultural Functions of Chinese Characters from the Morphological Structure of Chinese Characters

Abstract: In addition to the ****same functions of all kinds of characters, Chinese characters also have special functions that are different from those of other characters. Cultural function is one of the special functions. The special function comes from the special structure of Chinese characters. In the practice of utilizing Chinese characters for communication, people have discovered the special value of Chinese characters in many fields such as literature, art, folklore and entertainment, etc., and have triggered various specific cultural phenomena by splitting the characters. Its genres are rich, forms are varied, and ideas are strange, with outstanding national characteristics.

Keywords: Chinese characters, form, structure, cultural function, traditional thinking

I

Chinese characters have a long history, and they are the only ideographic writing system in the world that has survived to this day without any interruption in use. As a symbol of written communication, the Chinese character has always accompanied the cultural process of the Han people since its birth, and while performing the function of linguistic communication, it also carries a rich historical and cultural accumulation with its unique ideographic characteristics and internal composition. The structure of the Chinese characters is that the dots are drawn to form a text, and the text is combined into a character, which is flexible in assembly and varied in change. This structural pattern makes the Chinese characters add many non-linguistic and unique functions. Therefore, the ancients often used to analyze the forms of Chinese characters in their writings in order to preach, understand, or explain the life experiences, philosophies of life, and cultural mentality that were accumulated in the forms of the characters. There are three stories about Cao Cao and Yang Xiu (Yang Dezu) recorded in the Shishu Xinyi (New Words of the World):

1. Yang Dezu was the chief official of Emperor Cao Cao of the Wei Dynasty, and at that time, when he was constructing the main gate of the Xiangguo Mansion, Cao Cao came out to see it in person and told the people to write the character for "live" on the gate, and then he went away. When Yang Dezu saw this, he immediately had the door torn down. After the demolition, said: "'door' in the addition of a 'live' word, is the 'broad' word, the king of Wei is precisely too big door. "

2. Someone gave Cao Cao a cup of cheese, Cao Cao ate a little bit, and then wrote the character "合" on the lid and showed it to the people, who didn't understand what it meant. Yang Xiu took his turn and ate it, saying, "Cao Gong taught each person to take a bite, so what's the point of hesitating?"

3. Emperor Cao Cao of the Wei Dynasty once passed by the monument to the filial daughter Cao E, and Yang Xiu followed him. Yang Xiu followed him and saw that on the back of the monument were written the words: "A young woman in yellow silk, a grandson in pieces". Cao Cao said to Yang Xiu, "Do you understand?" Yang Xiu replied, "Yes." Cao Cao said, "Don't say it out loud, wait for me to think about it." After traveling thirty miles, Cao Cao said, "I've already thought about it." He told Yang Xiu to write out what he understood. Yang Xiu wrote, "Yellow silk, colored silk, in the word, is the word 'absolute'; young woman, young woman, in the word, is the word 'wonderful'; grandson, daughter's son, in the word, is the word The word 'good' is used for grandson, the son of a daughter, and the word 'good' is used for grandson. Cao Cao also wrote down his own understanding, which was identical to that of Yang Xiu. In the above story, the Chinese characters use their unique ideographic features and internal structure to express their meaning, creating a special effect that enhances the interest and impact of the story. The basic principle of creating words with Chinese characters is to use shapes to express meanings, which has its own internal characteristics and rules, and is traditionally referred to as the "Six Books". However, the people who use Chinese characters do not rely entirely on the "six books" and the theory of writing, but often, according to their own understanding and will, separate and combine the forms of Chinese characters to hide or attach their meanings, and show their own wisdom and humor.

Yang Pu, a native of Shishou (now part of Hubei) in the Ming Dynasty, was a Hanlin scholar. When he was young, his family was poor, and the local officials asked his father to serve. Because of his father's old age and frailty, he repeatedly to the magistrate to request relief. The magistrate came up with a couplet that said, "The four mouths are in the same picture, and the inner mouths are all under the control of the outer mouths." Tu (traditional Chinese: 图), with one big "口" character on the outside and three small "口" characters on the inside. The local officials used this glyph to indicate that within their dominion, they had to submit to their jurisdiction. Yang Pu heard, immediately on the road: "five people **** umbrella, small people all rely on adults cover." Umbrella (traditional form is "umbrella", on the top is a big "people" character, below there are four small "people" character.) Yang Pu also made use of the shape of this character to reflect the hierarchical relationship between people in the society at that time, and politely explained his request. The magistrate was flattered by Yang Pu's compliments and saw that it was really difficult for his father to respond to the service, so he just did it.

Two

The cultural function of Chinese characters is recognized in both a broad and a narrow sense. In the broad sense, Chinese characters were created to record language in order to eliminate the time and space barriers to communication, and their basic function of linguistic communication, as well as all their functions, can be regarded as their cultural function. Traditional research on Chinese characters has focused mainly on their linguistic and communicative functions, and has a deep tradition and accumulation of research, while paying little attention to their cultural functions other than their linguistic functions. From a narrow point of view, the cultural function of Chinese characters should focus on the study of cultural functions other than linguistic communication. According to Comrade Liu Zhiji's research, this cultural function is divided into two aspects: the first is the implication of cultural information and the second is the shaping of cultural phenomena. The former originates from the creation of Chinese characters, while the latter is linked to the use of Chinese characters. As for the former, Comrade Liu Zhiji, in his book A Comprehensive Discussion of Chinese Characters and Culture, fully demonstrates this cultural function of Chinese characters through a series of specific and typical textual materials to explore the cultural connotations of Chinese characters. In fact, Chinese characters produce dynamic effects and positive influences in all cultural fields, and such effects and influences are by no means limited to the scope of their linguistic communication. In this way, the cultural function of Chinese characters can be realized in various cultural fields, forming its own unique world. Therefore, in addition to the ****same functions of all kinds of characters, Chinese characters also have special functions that are different from those of other characters, and the cultural function is one of these special functions. The special function comes from the special structure of Chinese characters. Due to the characteristics of the morphological structure of Chinese characters and the influence of the trend of dismantling fonts, people, in the practice of using Chinese characters for communication, have discovered the special creative value of Chinese characters in many fields such as literature, art and folklore, giving rise to a variety of specific cultural phenomena. They are rich in genres, diverse in form, and ingenious in conception, and have outstanding national characteristics.

Chinese Characters and Puzzles:Puzzles are directly related to the shapes, sounds and meanings of Chinese characters. Compared with other scripts, Chinese characters open up a wide world for riddles. It is funny, humorous and unique. There are many kinds of relationships between riddles and riddles. Some of them make comprehensive use of the relationship between character shape, character sound and character meaning. For example:

When you look at it, it's round; when you write it, it's square; when it's cold, it's short; when it's hot, it's long. The answer is "day".

More often, the structure of the characters and the relationship between strokes are utilized. For example:

Month after month, two months **** half. One mountain after another, all three mountains hang upside down. Above there is an arable field, below there is a long-flowing river. The six mouths **** a room, two mouths are not reunited. The answer to the riddle is "use".

One side prefers rain, the other prefers wind, and the wind is afraid of water, while the rain is afraid of insects. The answer is "fall".

The monk and the monk had an argument, but the monk was no longer a monk, and the monk was no longer a monk. The answer is "reward".

There are also some crossword puzzles that utilize illusions. For example:

The top is not on the top, the bottom is not on the bottom, can not be on the top, stop appropriate in the bottom. The answer is "one".

The top goes to the bottom, the bottom goes to the top, the two ends go to the middle, the middle goes to the two ends. The answer is "to".

Chinese Characters and Poetry:The relationship between Chinese characters and poetry lies mainly in the influence of Chinese characters on poetic forms. Most of the classical Chinese poems, except for words and songs, are neatly organized in terms of sentence length. For example, the Classic of Poetry is basically in four lines, the Chu Rhetoric is roughly in six lines plus the word "Ruoxi", and most of the ancient and modern poems are in five or seven lines. Why should the neatness of verses be based on characters? It has to do with the shape of the Chinese characters. The requirement that verses be neat in length, i.e. that they contain the same number of words in each line, reached what later became a fixed rule for certain genres. Examples are the metered verse and the stanza. In addition to the stricter number of words and rhymes, the most important feature of proximal poems is the requirement of leveling and pairing. The leveling and counterpoint of proximal poems are also related to the Chinese characters. Sometimes poets use the phenomenon of multiple sounds and meanings of Chinese characters to harmonize the level and tones of the verses. There are two types of poetic couplets directly related to Chinese characters: "partial couplets" and "borrowed couplets". Since there are many articles and books on this subject, I will not talk about them. In classical Chinese poetry, there are several other genres that are closely related to Chinese characters. These are the iambic pentameter, the hermetic pentameter, and the theosophic pentameter.

The characteristic of iambic pentameter is that it can be read backwards and forwards. For example, in the Song Dynasty, Qian Weiji wrote a poem entitled "Spring Day Climbing to the Great Pavilion of Compassion":

The blue sky is very clear and snowy, and the mountain pavilion is very clear and snowy, and the evening smoke encroaches on the foils, and the bright moon converges on the courtyard

These twenty words can be read in any one of these ways, and can become poems either in a straight or inverted way, which makes forty poems of five lines, and each of these poems rhymes with each other.

Couplet poems are those in which a character is first split into its radicals, and then the two radicals are combined to form a single character. For example:

The fifth chapter of Dream of the Red Chamber:

All birds come from the last days, and all know that they adore this life's talent;

One from the two orders and three men's wood, and cry to the Golden Tomb to make things even more sad.

Here the "bird" is "phoenix" (phoenix) of the split font; "two orders" together as "cold"; "people wood" The "human wood" is "Hugh", indicating that Jia Lian's attitude towards Wang Xifeng is from obedience to coldness, and finally abandonment. A poem by Liu Yizhi of the Song Dynasty is even more typical, using the word "break" in all its lines:

The sun and the moon are bright and dusk, the mountain winds rise from the sky;

The stone skin is still firm and the ancient trees wither and die.

What is the meaning of the words of the Yellow Crane, the heart of the aspirant is still alive.

The theosophical body is even more special, for example, Su Dongpo's poem "Evening View" (original text omitted).

Chinese Characters and Calligraphy and Seal Engraving:Calligraphy and seal engraving are art forms unique to Chinese characters; Chinese characters provide a wide range of content for calligraphy and seal engraving, and calligraphy and seal engraving make Chinese characters grow their artistic wings. Characters and calligraphy and seal-carving are fundamentally different, yet they are always combined and intertwined. It is a combination of tools and art, a perfect union of three kinds of wisdom. From the appreciation point of view, calligraphy and seal carving works are generally flat: written or topography on paper. However, compared with calligraphy, seal carving is a means to give three-dimensional artistic vitality to Chinese characters. The characters provide a base for calligraphy and seal carving, and calligraphy and seal carving beautify the characters. Therefore, the forms of our Chinese characters are loaded with a heavy accumulation of beauty, which is a manifestation of high art and culture.

Chinese Characters and Couplets:Couplets are not only the art of Chinese language, but also the art of Chinese characters. It is one of the national literary forms that our people enjoy. The practical scope of couplets is wide, deep into all aspects of social life, there are many different uses. There are various kinds of couplets, such as spring couplets, wedding couplets, birthday couplets, door couplets, hall couplets, elegiac couplets, social couplets, harmonic couplets, satirical couplets, and couplets of famous scenic spots and monuments, etc.; the carriers are various, such as paper, silk, cloth, bamboo, metal, and glass, etc.; the writing styles are various, such as true, cursive, seal script, and official scripts; and the writing styles are various according to the different objects and requirements. It can be said that the couplets have become a set of poetry, calligraphy, printing and decorating (carving and decorating) as one of the unique Chinese character culture of the comprehensive works of art, is an elegant and popular **** appreciation of the oddball.

The use of characters in couplets is colorful and interesting. The Cantonese opera "Miss Qiao three gas Zhou Yu" used in the couplet as: "Qiao female natural delicate, y hate rouge glue Xiao face; stopping is martial arts, why bother copper and iron casting dart blade." The couplets are not only strict and neat, but are also in line with the split characters and the same radicals. Hong Kong movie "three laughs" used to show Tang Pak Fu's agile talent of a couplet is: "ten mouth mind, think of the country think of the king think of the community cherry; eight eyes are still appreciated, appreciate the wind appreciate the moon appreciate the fragrance of the autumn". The cleverness of this couplet lies in the fact that the first couplet combines the three characters of "ten mouths of heart" into the word "think", and the second couplet combines the three characters of "eight eyes of Shang" into the word "appreciate", and then strings them together in a series. "word, but also strung together into a gas, the meaning of the text is smooth. Another example: after the Eight-Power Allied Forces sacked Beijing, a "foreign Confucian" and presumptuous attempt to stand to pollute the spiritual culture of the Chinese people, out of a couplet: "qin se pipa, eight king king in the upper"; the Chinese people to "demons and monsters, four small ghosts Ghosts and demons". The Chinese people responded by using the same character type, exposing the crimes of the imperialist powers in violating our country's territory. During the Cultural Revolution, when the Gang of Four was rampant, some people also quoted this couplet to satirize them: "The Eight Kings have the same face as the qin and the pipa; the demons and sprites have the same heart as the Four Little Ghosts." The use of radicals, radicals and other components of the Chinese character form, graphically and profoundly depicts the hideous face of the "Gang of Four".

Chinese Characters and Names:In ancient China, the enjoyment of a family name, clan, first name, or character was closely related to a person's identity, status, family, and occupation. As a result, there were a lot of preoccupations in the use of Chinese characters as symbols for the recording of family names, clans, first names and characters. In this way, a culture of surname and name related to characters unique to China has been formed. Chinese people attach great importance to their names, because changing one's surname means changing one's ancestors, which is a great shame. To name, there is an ancient "young name, crown word" said, "the man is twenty years old, crown and word" ("Li Ji - Qu Li on"). Ancient people had a name and a character, usually calling themselves by their name to show self-humility, and calling others by their character to show respect. The "name" and "character" are generally related in some way. The so-called "by the name of the provincial form of the word" is one of them, that is, will indicate that someone's "name" of the word for a certain amount of shape reduction, to constitute his word. Such as Kong Carp, the word Bo fish, the word, "fish" from the name "carp" of the left half; Qing Yao Koon, the word Zifang, the word "square" to take the name of one of the upper two sides. There is also away from the analysis of the name of the word shape and the system of the word of the fate of the word method, the Qing people Lin Dong, the word with the people, the Qing people Yao Jian, the word Jianmu, the Ming people Zhang spacious, the word Shangwen and so on. There is also the analysis of the character shape of the surname and name. Such as the famous writer Lao She, surnamed Shu, the "Shu" word is analyzed as "She", "Iu" two words as the name; writer Zhang Changbao, name "Longbow The writer Zhang Changbao, the name "Longbow" is also a split of the surname "Zhang". Another increase or decrease in the character form of the family name and for the name. Increase the surname for the name, such as Wei Wei, Li Ji, Lin Sen, etc.; reduce the surname for the name, such as Nie Er, Ruan Yuan, Yin and so on. Utilizing the structural characteristics of Chinese characters, the practice of disassembling and assembling the characters used in surnames has already appeared in the Two Han Dynasty. In the Book of Han - Wang Mang Biography, the surname Liu (Liu) was broken down into "Mao, Jin, Knife". From then on, people used to break down the family name into several parts. After thousands of years of accumulation, many common surnames have a fixed pattern of clutch assembly. For example:

Yin Wu Xu double double wood Lin double mouth Lv day said Chang mouth day Wu ear east Chen Li early chapter sun and moon Ming Mu Zi Li three paintings of the king three points Wang Gu Yue Hu Mu Yi Yang people can He two horse Feng three ears Nie ......

This kind of text clutch disassembled, is not to analyze the standard of the literalist, this is the folk of the practical literalism. The people are only trying to memorize and differentiate easily, and they are not trying to strictly

talk about the structure of the characters.

Avoidance of taboo is also related to Chinese characters. Taboo avoidance is a custom unique to China. The so-called avoidance of taboo means that the names of monarchs and honored elders are not directly written out in writing, nor can they be directly addressed verbally. This system was founded in the Zhou Dynasty. Therefore, according to the system of avoidance of taboo not dare to call people "by their names", but also dare not "by name", otherwise it will also lead to death. Chinese characters have extraordinary functions and are highly adaptable. It is possible to utilize synonymous and homophonic characters to substitute for each other, and it is also possible to avoid taboo by using methods such as missing strokes, splitting characters, changing readings, resembling characters, and adding radicals. So only Chinese characters can cope with this idiosyncratic custom.

Chinese games, like other cultural activities, always involve the participation of Chinese characters, thus forming the unique Chinese word games. The word game is to use Chinese characters as materials to produce various kinds of interesting riddles, couplets, cryptic phrases, drinking orders, word tests, rumors, hidden words, puns, clutch poems, post-hoc phrases, folkloric characters, etc. The following are just a few of these games. Here are just a few to introduce (some have already been introduced in the previous article).

It is said that Tang Xuanzong Chancellor Rinhu R綯(令狐綯) once led the army through the Daming Temple in Yangzhou, and saw a four-character poem inscribed on the wall of the corridor as follows: "A man in the hall, the two observers with the same light, the spring depth of one foot, the point of the ice next to the two people connected to the two people, do not owe a side, two beams and four pillars, the fire baked, in addition to the double folding, the two days are not complete." Ruolin Rope Rope was first puzzled by the meaning, and then when drinking tea made from the water of Daming Temple, he realized that it was a cryptic phrase: "The water of Daming Temple is unparalleled in the world". ("One person" is the character for "big"; "two Yao" is one day and one month, which is the character for "bright"; "one foot" is the character for "big"; "one foot" is the character for "big"; "two Yao" is one day and one month, which is the character for "bright"; "one foot" is the character for "big". "Shakichi" is eleven inches, that is, "Temple" character; "Ice side" to "point" for the "water" character; two people connected to the "sky" character; "do not owe a side" for the "next" character; "two beams, four pillars, four pillars, four pillars, two beams, four pillars, four pillars, two beams, four pillars. "two beams and four pillars, the fire burning" for the word "Yan"; "two days" to remove the "double fold" that is "than" word). Another example is the Ming Dynasty Lu Rong "Beans Garden Miscellany - Volume VI" records: "Chen priest enquiry, the word Rutong, Songjiang people, good wine. Drinking sound and hot ears, the chest has something unfair, each to the guest hair. People have too much, the face of the language, not less credit.

When in Hanlin, tasted disobedience to the rich and powerful, out for the governor of Anlu. Farewell to the same Liu, or advocate for the wine order, each with two words divided into two words, to rhyme with each other, to the end of the poem. Mr. Chen, a bachelor, wrote: 'The word "Boom" is three cars, and the word "Doo" is slanted; the word "Car" is slanted; the word "Car" is slanted; the word "Cold Mountain" is slanted. Bachelor Gao Gu Yun: 'Pin character three mouth, water You character into wine; mouth mouth, advise you to drink a cup of wine.' Chen Yun: 'stand character three straight, black out the word into a deputation; straight straight straight, where to and not deputation." The three wine orders were all created by the method of character splitting and combining. There is also the use of split characters to form a hiatus, for example:

A little bit of arrogance - read a stink

King less a cross - a little bit of soil

Heart a knife on the head of a word - - bear with it

There is a knife on the head of a word - - bear with it. -Tolerated

The old character pouted its buttocks -Took the test

Two dots on the head of the seven characters -Shooked out of the bend

Grandma Wang and Grandma Yu

There also exists a rather special kind of "writing" in society, which is called "solidarity writing" by some and "folklore writing" by others. The word "unity" is called by some people, and some people call it the "folklore word". (Specific examples are omitted due to printing difficulties, see Li Yuanqiang's "A Small Note on the Investigation of Folklore Words in Unity" in Guo Feng, Volume 1, Issue 5, 1989, Shanghai Folklore Culture Society. Shanghai Folk Culture Society, 1989 edition.) (Ho: zhucai jinbao) Strictly speaking, this type of phenomenon should not be counted as a character, since its content contains phrases or sentences. What we want to study is this kind of folkloric amalgamation of words, which, in addition to denoting a specific meaning, also contains a specific cultural function. It expresses the cultural mindset of people seeking auspiciousness and affluence, and the visual beauty of counterpoint and balance.

Mr. He Jiujiuying pointed out in his book "Chinese Character Culture" that "there is no one-to-one correspondence between the structural field of Chinese characters that stores information and the psychological field of the cognizers", which also produces visual illusions, ambiguity, and misinterpretation. What we want to study is that misunderstanding also contains specific cultural functions." It is also pointed out that:- "Glyphic misinterpretation is of course wrong, but it cannot be said that what is wrong does not have any value to speak of. Academic judgment and value judgment cannot be equated. In terms of value judgment, the misinterpretation of glyph structure can convey cultural information beyond the structure." Especially in ancient prophecies and word surveys, the shape of the glyphs is often intentionally created to "misunderstand". From the misunderstanding, we can see the political intention, mythological thinking, superstitious thinking, ancient customs, and the cultural mentality of seeking good fortune and avoiding bad luck. There are many articles on this subject, so I won't repeat them.

Three

Chinese characters and traditional ways of thinking are closely related to each other, influencing each other and ****together reflecting the cultural characteristics of the Han people. Because the Chinese character composition is centered on the ancient people's visual and tactile senses to take the image, and sometimes take the image from different angles, visual and tactile senses are different, so the different angles of the Chinese character's taking the image of the word creation must have a certain cultural background, reflecting the thinking characteristics of the Han nationality. For example, the ancient character "人", which is a sideways shape of a human being, is like bowing and saluting, which shows that we should be courteous and polite, reflecting the social reality that China has emphasized on "etiquette" since ancient times. Another example is the ancient Chinese character "夫", which originally meant adult man. The shape of the character indicates that men in ancient times also had long hair on their heads and had to have hairpins to fix their hair or hats, reflecting the ancient custom of binding hair and inserting hairpins for adult men. It can be seen that figurativeness is the main feature of ideographs. From the structure of Chinese characters, physical symbols and ideograms, we can realize the thinking process of the ancients in creating characters.

Chinese characters represent abstract meanings with concrete figures. For example, the ancient Chinese character "尘" (dust) refers to the dust raised by the deer. However, the character "尘" does not only refer to the dust raised by the deer, but also to the dust raised by other animals. Another example is the character "逐", which resembles a man chasing after a wild boar. However, the character "逐" is not limited to the meaning of chasing a boar, but all animals are called "逐". The ancients often used concrete images to express abstract meanings when creating words, reflecting imaginative thinking, which expresses abstract meanings through concrete images.

The way of thinking of the Han people is empirical and comprehensive, and it tends to grasp things as a whole. Those who do not have things to draw the abstract concept, can be used to visualize the perceptible form of expression, including abstract nouns, locative words, and verbs, adjectives and so on. Ancient people based on the experience accumulated in long-term life, production practice, the overall intuitive way of thinking from the use of associations, symbols, metaphors, etc., the relationship between the parts of the whole of the things within the comprehensive thinking and different shapes of different words to indicate different meanings. For example, the word "left and right" and other orientation words, there is no physical object can be like, so only indirect expression to create pictograms, using the left and right hands to indicate the orientation. Another example is the adjective "sweet", "Shuowen": "beautiful. From the mouth to contain one." It refers to things, indicating the place where the tongue is located, and the tongue can recognize flavors. The characters created in this abstract way have become intuitive, and people can perceive them visually. This kind of composition not only requires life experience, but also reflects the thinking characteristic of the Han people, which attaches importance to overall intuition and comprehensive analysis.

The holistic way of thinking is good at grasping the two opposing aspects of the unity, which makes the Han people used to talk about even pairs. The structure of Chinese characters pursues duality, and a Chinese character is mostly composed of two characters. Traditionally, there are four ways to form Chinese characters: hieroglyphic, referential, huiyi, and xingyin. These four ways of forming Chinese characters are used with different frequencies, with the more frequent the use of the morphosyntactic characters the later the age of the characters. A large number of morpho-sound characters are basically composed of two parts, divided into a binary structure. One part is phonetic and one part is ideographic. Its cultural functions are distributed on the level of sound and the level of meaning. The formation of this characteristic of Chinese characters is closely related to the influence of the traditional way of thinking of the Han people, which speaks of even pairs.

The ancients used yin and yang to recognize all things. The Chinese character "形声字" is the most suitable for this traditional way of thinking. Inside the character "形声字" there is a dichotomy between "形旁" and "声旁", and these two sides of the dichotomy constitute the whole of the character "形声字". In the case of most of these characters, the form side is on the left and the sound side is on the right. Before the Qin and Han dynasties, people believed that the one on the right was honorable and the one on the left was inferior. The one on the right was considered to be yang and the one on the left was considered to be mean. For most of the characters, the sound side is yang and the form side is yin. It is for this reason that the form-side on the left is often deformed. The same character "邑" is deformed when it is used as a form-side in the characters "都" and "鄢", while it is deformed when it is used as a form-side in the characters "Yi" and "Yi". When it is used as a form in characters such as "Du" and "Yan", it is deformed, but not when it is used as a sound in characters such as "Yi" and "Yi". The rise in the proportion of form-sounding characters made up of both yin and yang aspects is not unrelated to the influence of this traditional way of thinking.

The vast majority of Chinese characters are merged characters, and the vast majority of merged characters are form-sound characters. The structure of the characters best reflects dialectical thinking. Dialectical thinking believes that opposites such as existence and non-existence, yin and yang, rigidity and flexibility, emptiness and reality, and movement and static are complementary and indispensable, and that it does not emphasize only one side of these opposites while ignoring the other, but rather, it holds the way of reconciliation and compromise. Simple ideographs and pseudo-characters are extremes that do not conform to the spirit of mediocrity. The glyphs of ideographs reflect both the meaning and the sound of the language elements, and the juxtaposition of form and sound, as well as the reconciliation and compromise, are in line with the ancient cultural spirit of "the middle ground". At the same time, the symmetry of the forms of Chinese characters, especially the form and sound of the characters, constitutes a kind of balanced beauty, reflecting the Han people's aesthetic concept of balance and symmetry as the beauty of the Chinese language. The structure of each typeface in Chinese characters has its own internal law of balance. A Chinese character occupies a small square grid, and the structure of the character is so well-proportioned and neat that the square character is characterized by balance and symmetry. The formation of this characteristic of Chinese characters is related to the influence of traditional thinking and aesthetic concepts. In a word, Chinese characters share many cultural characteristics with traditional ways of thinking.