How many stages do people go through from the beginning to the formation of the system?

The evolution of Chinese characters can be simply summarized into five stages: sound, shape, image, number and reason.

(1) "Sound" is an indispensable part of any language. In the distant and long Archaean, human beings gradually diverged from the instinctive "ridiculous ……" or the imitation of nature's "birdsong, insect song, animal roar, thunder and rain …", which is the evolution of pronunciation. For example, "Mom, Ba" is used to represent "Mom, Dad", which may be different from crying "Ah …". Phonetics has developed into a very complex system in modern times. Chinese has about 4× 400 = 1600 sounds. Phonetic differentiation must have its own laws, and some clues can be distinguished from modern languages. For example:

"Goose, chicken, duck, cat …" and other poultry and livestock may be named according to their sounds.

"Ha, oh, shh, ouch ……" and other sounds directly express the natural vocalization of human beings in different emotions.

"Wu → noon", "Miao → Miao" and "Mu → Mao" ... have the same sound and the same meaning.

Log, take also. Journey to the East was born out of the ground, and it looks as if its roots grew from the ground.

"Form" is the second important part of language, but it is not necessary. In ancient times, human beings mainly faced the problems of survival and racial continuity. In the process of fighting against nature, wild animals and poisonous snakes, it is sometimes necessary to use "shape" or "painting" to express things. For example, in order not to get lost in hunting, some marks may be made on rocks or tree trunks. When hunting, humans also pay attention to observing the footprints of wild animals to identify their characteristics. In addition, human beings may draw images of "the sun, the moon, people, mountains, trees, bricks, animals, ancestors, etc." out of worship of mysterious nature or pursuit of beautiful things.

Shuo Wen Jie Zi said, "Cang Xie, a historian of the Yellow Emperor, saw the footprints of birds and beasts and understood that shapes can be used to distinguish things and began to make words."

The original history of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Háng Xie, saw the hoof tracks of birds and animals (the tracks left by the passing of all animals), and knew that they were different, so he began to write a book.

"Examination → Gefan → Gecaichang", and "Fan" refers to the footprints of wild animals in Tanaka. "Pick" to distinguish, just like animals' fingers and claws. "Trial" is also indicated.

Primitive literary talent and discrimination, like the fingers and claws of wild animals, are separated. Beast's feet are like its palms, which come from mining and fields. Review, know, know, review and adopt. Well-informed, rich in details, from the heart and from the collection. Explanation, solution and adoption. Also consider its differences.

From "diagram" to a simplified process, the evolution process of "text" begins by taking the main characteristics of things. Pinyin characters have developed from the initial images to letters representing sounds, with sounds as the main body. Chinese characters have developed from the initial image to "image, number and reason", expressing various meanings with different images.

⑶ "Xiang" is the main method to create Chinese characters and explain things in the Book of Changes. "Sun, Moon" and so on belong to hieroglyphics and are the basic components of word-making. These basic components combine with each other to produce various "images" and create more words. Basic components and characters can also be combined at a higher level to produce many characters used to express various things and ideas.

Cang Xie wrote a book at the beginning of the original text. Gai Yi is pictographic, so it is called the text. From then on, the combination of sound and shape is called a word.

Such as "Ming → Sun and Moon", "Yi → Sun and Moon" and "Dan → Sun and Moon" (the bottom "one" means "land" and "?" Divination, three yang, such as "heaven, man and earth") and "manifestation → sun karma" ("karma" refers to the dense trees on the ground, and "sun" has reached the treetops, too bright and too obvious).

These words can form more words. Such as: "alliance → opening dishes" and "kicking →? Yi ","wet → obvious "and" Dan → Dan ".

Word-making and Yi-li are completely connected here, that is, the so-called fuzzy thinking of "image-taking physiology" and the dichotomy principle of "yin-yang interaction".

(4) The concept of "number" is gradually formed in the long-term evolution of human beings. The concepts that humans first master may be "nothing" and "being". Without water, you will be thirsty, without food, you will be hungry. "Is there-?" ? In the word "moon", it means hand, and "moon" means meat. The word "you" originally meant "you have meat under your hand". If you have meat, you won't be hungry. "You" is further divided to form the concept of "one, two, three and many".

"Shu" evolved in the direction of easy symbols, gradually separated from characters, forming eight diagrams, and forming the Book of Changes (Lianshan, Guicang and Zhouyi) in the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties in history. For example, odd numbers (one, three, five, seven, nine) and even numbers (two, four, six, eight, ten) are two groups of numbers with different properties. If odd numbers belong to Yang, even numbers belong to Yin. In the river map and Luo Shu, it is represented by "black, white" or "solid and empty" respectively. "Yi" is represented by "Yin and Yang" (,). If the number "one, two, three" is based on the thinking of Yi, the number "one" is regarded as Yang, and the number "two" is "three" or "?" . According to the principle of yin and yang overlapping, it is ",,?" . If the ","symbols are combined again, all symbols will be generated.

Learn the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of numbers as arithmetic. Studying the "image" of "number" and saying "reason" with "image" is the interpretation of the Book of Changes. In Chinese characters, the phenomenon of root overlapping is everywhere, which is the concrete expression of "mathematics" in word-making. For example:

Singing → oral singing →ckv ("singing", from oral singing)

Cry → Beat the dog →kv ("cry", save the sound of hitting hard)

Noise → squeak → taste wood → zkv/zkvm ("squeak → taste wood") means that there are many birds chirping in the tree and there are three mouths for "tasting". )

Tao → page →xvy ("Tao", from, from page. Page, first)

Earth → eleven → earth (in Shuo Wen Jie Zi, earth → two, from two to two, the number of yin is like earth. According to intuition, fuzzy symbols are divided into eleven, which is the same as "Yes → Eleven". )

The quota is even. Earth, creatures, underground, underground, everything is deformed. Teacher, things are the same. Numbers start at the beginning and end at ten, from one to ten. Confucius said: Push ten into one to be a scholar.

Bad → soil is not →ht (bad, the tiles are destroyed without burning. )

If the original text is not good, it will succeed again. One said: tiles don't burn, and they are silent from the soil.

Gui (gūi)→ Tutu →gtt (Gui, master Rui Yu, below the upper circle. )

Yuan Gui, Rui, up and down. Gong Zhihuan is expensive, nine inches; Hou Zhixin returned, Bo Zhigong returned, all seven inches; The son holds Gu Bi and the man holds Pu Bi, all five inches. To seal the vassal, from the heavy soil.

Yao (yáo)→ Tugui → YTV/TTT (Yuan Dian Dictionary) (Yao, Tugao also. Such as: Yao → Ye,, and people. )

The original text is high and comes from three places. Yao, Gao Ye, from Yao, to Wu, also.

There are many similar examples. Another example is: Gold → Xin, Mu → Lin → Sen, Shui → Miao, Fire → Inflammation → Yan, Re → Shuang, Ren → Subordinate → Crowd, Yi → Xian. Usually the root weight means "many" and the triple means "many".

"Reason" is an extension of "image and number". The evolution of Chinese character extension is mainly based on "reason", that is, things close to each other are also related by "reason". For example, "Ming" means bright, which is extended to "eyes can see clearly, hearts can understand, things become obvious …" and so on.

The five stages of the evolution of Chinese characters "sound, shape, image, number and reason" are essentially five basic methods to create Chinese characters. Here's an example:

The words "cat → seedling → seedling → field" and "seedling → field" all belong to pictographic characters, and the cat is called "mi m÷o", so the sound of "cat" is defined as "māo", and the voice of the word is represented by "seedling". Miao → Tian Miao is pronounced Miao, which means "grass in the field". Cats may have been domesticated during Shennong's agricultural cultivation to deal with rats that destroyed crops and grains. The zodiac may have been set earlier than this period, which may be the reason why cats are not included. When creating Chinese characters, if two characters overlap, it means more. "Mi → Mi" means more grass, which is the concept of "number" in Chinese character creation. "Miao" means small seedlings, and the word "Miao" also extends to "trainable talents". Children and seedlings are very similar, but the reason is the same. This expands the extension of the word "Miao" and is an example of "reason". From the anatomy of the word "cat", we can see five basic word-formation methods: pronunciation, shape, image, number and reason, and also the historical evolution of Chinese characters.

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The mainstream of China font evolution;

In the late primitive society, the symbols carved on various utensils by Han ancestors gradually evolved into Chinese characters. In the long-term evolution process, Chinese characters have developed from Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang and Zhou Dynasties to bronze inscriptions in the Spring and Autumn and Western Zhou Dynasties, to the big seal script used in the early Qin Dynasty, to the small seal script used by Qin Shihuang to unify the national characters, and to the official script in Han Dynasty and the regular script that prevailed after Wei and Jin Dynasties, and have been used to this day. The mainstream of font evolution in China.

2 auxiliary fonts

The cursive script corresponding to Han Li is called Cao Zhang, and the cursive script corresponding to regular script is called Cao Cao. Now Cao Cao is also the evolution of Cao Zhang. In the Tang Dynasty, this kind of grass developed into weeds. Running script is a font between regular script and cursive script, which adds the characteristics of cursive script on the basis of regular script and retains many components of regular script, and is called Xing Kai. What is closer to cursive script is called cursive script. The development process of auxiliary font cursive script and running script is a tributary of China font evolution.

3 the characteristics of the evolution of Chinese characters:

The evolution of Chinese characters is characterized by the gradual standardization and stability of Chinese characters.

Small seal script makes the number of strokes of each word fixed; The official script forms a new pen system, and the font gradually becomes flat and square; After the birth of regular script, the font of Chinese characters has tended to be stable: the basic strokes of "horizontal, vertical, left, point, holding, picking, jun and folding" have been determined, the stroke shape has been further standardized, and the number and order of strokes of each character have been fixed; Because multi-line writing requires orderly arrangement, the font changes, the length and thickness of strokes are constrained to extend in the frame, the position and density of stroke distribution are also constrained, and the font structure pays attention to balance and symmetry. In a word, with the appearance of regular script, the square of Chinese characters has been finalized and the font of Chinese characters has evolved and matured. For more than a thousand years, regular script has been the standard font of Chinese characters.

4 radical:

According to the traditional Chinese character structure theory, people call the constituent unit of compound words "radicals". The concept of "radical" is used to explain "integration" and "combination", that is to say, radicals cannot be separated from words, and the radicals combined with them are compound words. For example, the radicals of "take" are "ear" and "you"; The radicals of chop are "stone" and "owe". But ear, you, stone and debt are inseparable. "Radical" is a title that classifies Chinese characters in dictionaries for reference. Radicals have a certain relationship with radicals, and most of the capitals in the dictionary are acted by ideographic radicals in Chinese characters. For example, chopping and grinding belong to stones, locusts and moths belong to insects. But radicals and radicals are not the same thing after all, and radicals with phonetic functions in pictophonetic characters are not radicals, such as "Ma" in "Mo" and "Huang" in "Locust" in the above example. If some words cannot be distinguished from radicals, they are used as radicals, such as "Xia", "concave", "year" and "main", which are classified into four parts respectively.

Radical is a name in the traditional Chinese character structure theory, which refers to two components in Six Books, meaning or sound, such as Qi and Ge in Fa, and Gate and Mouth in Wen. Component is a concept in the structural analysis system of modern Chinese characters, which focuses on the glyph structure of all modern Chinese characters, including not only ideographic characters and pictophonetic characters in Liu Shu Regulations, but also word-building components with phonetic and semantic functions, such as "two", "four", "six" and "real" in Yun. Components are the basic structural units of Chinese characters, which are between strokes and whole characters. Any component that can participate in word formation, whether radical or not, is a component.

Pictophonetic characters account for the majority of modern Chinese characters. Pictophonetic characters include signifiers and notes. The signifier is the ideographic part of pictophonetic characters, which has two functions: one is to remind the morpheme meaning class recorded by the characters, and the other is to distinguish homonyms. The limitation of signifier in expressing meaning lies in that it can only express a general and rough meaning class, but can't provide specific meaning information. Secondly, due to the evolution of the meaning of words and the extensive use of loanwords, the meaning of some pictophonetic words has been lost. Thirdly, the choice of ideographic characters of some pictophonetic characters reflects the level of understanding at that time, but now it seems unscientific, which leads to the imprecision of ideographic characters. Although signifier has the above limitations, it still plays a role in helping people master the meaning of words. The signifier refers to the phonetic part of pictophonetic characters, and its function is to express the pronunciation of the characters, that is, to suggest that the pronunciation of pictophonetic characters is the same. So you can use notes to read, distinguish similar words, and so on. Notes also have limitations, such as low pronunciation accuracy beside the sound, and may even be mispronounced. This is mainly because of the evolution of pronunciation, which leads to the difference of pronunciation between ancient and modern Chinese characters. Although pictophonetic characters have the above limitations, when meaning is combined with annotations, the information provided by pictophonetic characters is greatly increased. The rationality of phonological morphemes is one of the reasons for the long-term existence of Chinese characters.

5. Expression of the change of Chinese font structure

1) Ancient Chinese characters were unique, but now they seem to be combined, such as "Fu", "Yan", "Quan" and "It".

2) Ancient characters are a combination, and now they look unique, such as "history" and "year".

3) Some words are segmented according to the modern glyph structure, which can't meet the original meaning of word formation, such as "heavy", which comes from the eastern sound; Thief, by Ge Zesheng.

4) Modern simplified characters have changed the original combined words into single words, such as "book", and the sound and form have changed from the author's voice to "book" and become a single body; The "dragon" and "tong" beside the sound are written as "Li" and simplified as "dragon" to form an independent body.

5) After some words are simplified, some of their components are neither ideographic nor phonological. For example, "District, Zhao Hefeng" in ㄨ. "You" in Chicken and Drama.

6) Some new words in the six books have not been summarized, such as "Ping-pong". Due to the above changes in Chinese characters, it is obvious that there will be many difficulties in analyzing today's Chinese characters with the provisions of the six books.

6 Abstract:

The change of Chinese characters reflects the change of social structure to a certain extent, and the evolution of Chinese characters is mostly from the hands of nobles. The minions of the nobility gradually evolved when they joined literature. Civilians are used by it. And when I started in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, I was already out of my element hand. Therefore, we can generally see the evolution of these Chinese characters, and the social structure of towns is gradually becoming centralized.

In addition, the great wisdom of the Chinese nation can also be seen from the changes of Chinese characters. From the original hieroglyphics, we can see the imagination and expressive ability of China people, which are found all over the world.

Later, the world's characters were divided into two systems, one based on letters and the other on Chinese characters. Chinese characters are also the oldest existing characters, and their evolution and use so far reflect the wisdom of the Chinese nation.

It is reported that the literati of the Jurchen nationality follow the Oracle Bone Inscriptions of the Jurchen nationality. This news can prove this point even more.