On the Origin of Chinese Characters

There are different opinions about the origin of Chinese characters since ancient times. The theory of image origin is the mainstream view at present. In my opinion, while affirming that pictures are the main origin of Chinese characters, we can't deny the important role of knots, engravings and eight diagrams in the history of the emergence and development of Chinese characters, and we can take knots, engravings and eight diagrams as the secondary origins. Keywords text painting; Prehistoric image symbols; Carving; Gossip culture has a long history. When our ancestors carved a historic stroke on the branches with primitive tools, that was the initial footprint of culture. The invention and use of characters recorded the daily life and social activities of primitive people, such as hunting and sacrifice, and inherited ancient civilization well. It can be said that the emergence of characters was a great event at that time. Rain millet, ghost crying at night? (Huainanzi Ben Jing Xun) Although it is an exaggerated description, we can also see the importance of words in people's minds. Therefore, there have been different opinions about the origin of words for many years, according to Yi? Collected Works of Laozi? Eighty ","Zhuangzi? Pregnancy, pregnancy, pregnancy, pregnancy, pregnancy? Preface, before Cangjie made words, our ancestors used knots to take notes. "After that, how? Taeho K and Fu signed a book contract to replace the policy of tying ropes? . then what Cang Xie writes books? There are knot theory, engraving theory, gossip theory, picture theory, original image theory and so on. And every theory is incompatible with water and fire. Illustration is widely recognized by philologists because of its pictographic form and rich meaning, and it is named? Text painting? Or? Pictures and words? (Mr. Qiu Xigui agrees? Text painting? ), for Mr. Tang Lan? Text equals picture plus language? Support the picture theory. From the perspective of informatics, text painting? Theory contains more information than other expressions. The famous deer shooting map is a strong evidence. Pictures give people an intuitive feeling of shooting with bows and arrows, which is a dominant amount of information; The amount of implicit information is that pictures act on the human brain in an intuitive form and are obtained through processing, association and imagination of the brain. Shooting can be used anywhere, whether it's shooting people, horses or tigers. This can't be done by tying ropes and carving. So people often think that pictures are the original words? Source? , while ignoring the existence of other prehistoric figures. In my opinion, pictures are the main origins of Chinese characters, while knots, lettering and gossip can be regarded as secondary origins, which play an indelible role in studying the emergence and development of Chinese characters. In the ancient society before writing, the original notes can be divided into physical notes, symbol notes and picture notes, each of which has its own function. Physical notes and symbolic notes can be said to be the initial attempts of primitive humans to help memory. Mr Guo Moruo's? There are two systems in the structure of the development of characters, one is the description system, and the other is the graphic system. ? The scoring system should be before the graphic system. Because it takes a long time for any nation to embark on the road of the primary stage of pictographic characters, that is, to describe an objective image and be able to resemble it. ? The presentation of such a series of viewpoints and the excavation of prehistoric sculpture symbols have greatly shocked? Human writing originated from pictures? The theory of. First of all, from the instrumental point of view, the existence state of visual symbols such as representation, marking and drawing is based on? Primitive humans? As a starting point and as an object, there is no difference between them. The reason why different expression tools are used is to meet the different needs of users, and there is no essential difference. Secondly, from the initiative of subject behavior, the interpersonal relationship between ancient humans is very simple, not to mention politics. Impose the mainstream ideology on others, that is to say, there is relative freedom in choosing structure, drawing or drawing, although some scholars have made a survey according to Mr. Ningsheng Wang's From Original Notes to Inventing Words? Notches in pottery? Just a kind of? Random marking marks? The conclusion is that they are both? No socializing? 、? It doesn't explain itself, does it? 、? Nothing can be conveyed. This statement is too absolute and arbitrary. Pictures are recognized because of their image types and ideographic meanings. Birds of a feather flock together? The traces of knotting also carry certain information. Ancient humans consciously used random knotting actions to preserve their memories to avoid forgetting. We say? Is writing a communication tool of human society? Knotted ropes are also used as primitive communication tools to help memory and as proof of mutual communication. Tools? The nature is certain, which shows that there is a certain relationship between knotting and writing. In a sense, refusing the origin of knotting can be said to have determined the history of knotting. Although the way of knotting is simple, it is enough to express simple meanings, such as memory, Covenant and the way of knotting in later generations. For example, the Miao people in Zhu's works can't read, and they still remember notes with knots, which is handed down. Lin Shengbang also verified that the method of tying rope with sulfur balls can be divided into two categories, namely, those who barter things, those who pay rent and pay taxes, and those who count them as things. The notes of the structure have also become the source of some Chinese characters, such as,, etc., all taken from the structure. In China Philology, Tang Lan thought that before the phonetic symbols appeared, there were only a few pictographs in the pictures, and in addition, the pictures were still completely pictographs. That is to say, pictographs have evolved into pictographs and hieroglyphs, and according to the above evidence, pictographs and knowing words can also be found in knotting notes. It can be seen that knotting notes are the prelude and rehearsal of word production, and knotting notes are the preparation of word production. Chick is a method created by ancient humans on the basis of knotting notes to help remember numbers. Qike is used as a verb, and the explanation is: Qike, how many times? Because numbers are hard to remember, wood carving is regarded as a promise, because there are a lot of records in ancient literature, such as "Guan?" Light and heavy armor, Liezi Fu Shuo, Yilin, Quli, etc. Writers have given appropriate affirmation to the geek theory and think that geeks? As usual? The nature of Chinese characters is very close to writing, but it is still not recognized as the origin of writing. Although some people speculate that Chinese characters with numbers from one to eight originated from inscriptions, this cannot be used as strong evidence. In my opinion, the carved symbols are quite close to Chinese characters, subject to the needs of communication, and there are? As usual? From the cognitive point of view, the simple thinking of ancient humans has created miracles. There is a direct relationship between depicting symbols and human thinking. In order to preserve the intuitive understanding of things, it is realized through a certain form (carving), and the carved symbols represent things in reality. What if we call it the intention of ancient humans to preserve primitive memories? Meaning? Then, through psychological processing, the image it produces, that is, the carved symbols, can be called? Elephant? , that is, the original psychological schema, it can be seen that ancient humans had it? I write my mouth by hand? It is possible that although these symbols have no phonetic form, the absence of pronunciation does not hinder small-scale communication, nor does it affect the memory that breaks through the time and space restrictions. Although the content of memory is limited, it is also limited to simple and specific things. As usual? The nature and function of the tool are enough to prove its importance before the text appears. As a secondary source, it is not too much. Because all kinds of origin theories have some truth, it is too subjective to agree with one origin theory and reject the other. Some scholars compromise that there is an intermediate link between knot and pictographic Chinese characters, that is, Huturo book? Represented by primitive people? Digital hexagrams? This paper expounds that knotting is mainly used for counting. In fact, knotting is an original digital form, so people should first use this original knotting number for divination. Huturo book? It is this digital divination schema composed of primitive knotted numbers. These schemata can show numerous digital divination, and different digital divination represents different things and their relationships. It can be said that digital divination has the function of writing, but the content represented by these digital divination is difficult to grasp after all. In order to record the contents of digital divination more vividly and accurately, the wizards in charge of divination gradually invented pictographic Chinese characters. In fact, all kinds of origin theories have their theoretical basis. However, what I want to say is that while people attach importance to fact research, they ignore the most essential and important issues. When philologists examine China's ancient characters with reverence, are they pregnant with exploration? Words? Qiu Xigui believes that linguists can be divided into two schools: narrow sense and broad sense. The narrow school believes that writing is the symbol of recording language. The generalized school believes that pictures and symbols used by people to convey information and express a certain meaning can all be called words. Teacher Qiu thinks that this difference is only a difference in words, and it is hard to say what is absolutely right or wrong. In fact, however, the definition of words has become the key to explore the origin of words. That is to say, linguists have broad and narrow definitions of words, which leads to different theoretical basis and verification methods when discussing the origin of words, so there are various theories of the origin of words. The narrow point of view is:? The meaning of the speaker's voice was recorded by the author. ? ("book? The preface > justice) tells the essence of words. Character is a writing symbol system invented to record language, which is based on language. China's characters are square Chinese characters. Linguists in a narrow sense naturally take this definition as the criterion and conduct a strict one-on-one comparative study. Symbols with words and without words are clearly defined, so it is easy to find unqualified conditions, such as symbols that do not represent pronunciation, but are just made by ancient humans at will. Each knot has no fixed connection with morphemes or words in the language, and Chinese characters are regarded as an advanced symbol system, which is more complicated. Judging prehistoric symbols from the inherent character configuration, according to Shang and Zhou Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions are close to the origin of Chinese characters, and individual characters are mostly pictographic characters induced by pictographs. The relationship between Chinese characters and the words they represent clearly shows the original relationship between Chinese characters and pictures. Text is based on pictures, and the original words are pictures that can be understood? ; Where is the generalized linguist? Pictures and symbols used to convey information and express a certain meaning? On the basis of supporting the picture theory, this paper puts forward the theory of knotting, lettering and gossip. From a macro point of view, as long as it can be used to convey information, it has certain significance in itself and can be used as materials and evidence to explore the origin of words. According to the current progress of archaeological work, we have no strong evidence to say for sure that the theory of pictures is the only origin of writing. Correctly speaking, this is the mainstream view, while some people hold a negative view that indicative models are used for narrative description? Pictures and words? No trace was found in China, and the hieroglyphics of pre-dynastic times in ancient Egypt were all expressed in the form of pictures. We can't conclude that Chinese characters originated from pictures just because there are a large number of pictographs in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, but most linguists, such as Tang Lan and Qiu Xigui, still hold positive opinions. In my opinion, before there is conclusive evidence, it can be considered that the picture theory is the main origin, and the knot theory, lettering theory and gossip theory are the auxiliary origins, which enrich the theory of the origin of words and form a diversified view, but there are still primary and secondary points. Conclusion Through the above analysis, I think it is necessary to distinguish between the broad sense and narrow sense in the definition of words and the broad sense and narrow sense in the theory of word origin. In ancient times, knotting, lettering, gossip and pictures, as symbol forms, were chosen according to the needs of the expresser and were in a relatively free choice stage. Picture symbols have laid the foundation of the origin theory with their overall advantages (pictographs, images and meanings), but in a broad sense, the origin theory of Chinese characters can be supplemented and developed with the theory of structure, seal cutting and gossip as the secondary origins. Refer to [1] Su Peicheng. Outline of modern Chinese characters [M]. Beijing: Peking University Publishing House [2] Qiu Xigui. Outline of philology [M]. Beijing: Commercial Press,1August 988 [3] Shen Yiqing. On the origin of ancient characters in China [J]. Journal of Hebei University, 1988, 1 [4]. On the origin of Chinese characters [J]. Journal of Jinggangshan Teachers College, August 2002