Full-text Translation of Shuowen Jiezi Preface

When Xu Fuchang, Chinese Department of National Taiwan University in Taiwan Province Province compiled Ancient Times, the Fu family lived in the world. (He) looked up at the sky, looked down at the geography, observed the images of birds and animals and the pulse of the earth, and brought the method itself as close as possible and other things as close as possible. On this basis, he created Yihe Bagua, and used hexagrams to express people's good and bad luck. In the Shennong era, society was governed by knotting and bookkeeping, and the affairs at that time were managed. There are more and more trades and chores in society, and things of concealment and falsification also occur from time to time. Cang Xie, the historian of the Yellow Emperor, saw the footprints of birds and beasts, realized that birds and beasts could be distinguished from each other in different textures, and began to make characters. (After words are used in society, all industries are fixed and all kinds are clear. The original intention of Cangjie's word creation was probably taken from Guagua, which said that courtiers should assist the king and make the king's administration smooth. In other words, Cang Xie created words to publicize fatwas, advocate style, and help the king's management. It is more convenient for the king to be kind to his subjects with writing tools, and his subjects should be based on morality, and they must never be knighted by their own writing skills.

Cang Xie first created Chinese characters, which are called "Wen" because they draw shapes according to the types of things. Later, he created integrated words, pictophonetic characters, to expand the number of characters, which is called "Zi". Calling it Zi means that it originated from the multiplication of Wen and increased the number of characters. Writing words on bamboo slips and silks is called a book. "Book" means writing something similar. Text: After the long years of "Five Emperors" and "Three Kings", some have changed their brushwork: some have made different styles, so the stone carvings left by the 72nd generation monarch who closed the retreat in Mount Tai have different fonts.

"Zhou Li" stipulates that the children of the gentry enter the primary school library at the age of eight, and are educated by academic officials, first teaching "Six Books". The first name of the Six Books refers to things, and the shape and structure seem to be recognized, but the meanings of the words embodied in them can only be known after investigation, and the word "up and down" is an example. The second is hieroglyphics, which means: draw an object by drawing, and the wave twists and turns of strokes are consistent with the situation of natural objects, such as the word sun and moon. The third name is pictophonetic characters. The meaning of pictophonetic characters is to choose comparable phonetic symbols and semantic symbols to form characters according to the nature and name of things. The word He Jiang is an example. The fourth is to know, which means: combine the morphemes related to things to form a text; Through the mixing of morpheme meanings, we can know the meaning or intention of new words, such as Orfila. The fifth kind is Zhuan Zhu, which means: taking the word as the head and the word as the root, making a universal word, inheriting the shape, sound and meaning of the root word, and having the same meaning as the root word, such as Kaur Word. The sixth kind is called borrowing. Borrowing means: don't make words for something, but find a homonym according to the name of something, such as the word primate.

In Zhou Xuanwang, Taishi Shi Shu sorted out 15 pieces of Dazhuan, which is different from ancient Chinese. (However, ancient prose is still popular. ) Until Confucius wrote the Six Classics, Zuo Qiuming was still using the ancient prose in Zuo Zhuan. Scholars are familiar with the form and significance of ancient Chinese prose. Later (Warring States period), the princes ruled by violence and did not obey the Zhou Emperor; They hate that music interferes with themselves, and they all abandon the classics. China is divided into seven heroes. The measurement methods of fields are different, the specifications and sizes of cars are different, laws and regulations are different, clothes and hats are different, dialects are different, and words are different.

At the beginning of Qin Shihuang's destruction of the Six Kingdoms, Prime Minister Li Si called for the unification of the system and the abolition of those words that were inconsistent with the Qin script. (Reese and others criticized Jia's standard writing. ) Reese wrote Cang Xie, CZ ordered Zhao Gao to write a calendar, and a surname ordered Hu Wujing to write a study book. (They all use the font of Biography of Shi Shuda, and some words have been simplified and changed. This font is what people call Xiao Zhuan. At this time, Qin Shihuang burned Confucian classics, in addition to destroying ancient books, recruiting officers and soldiers, and vigorously defending the corvee, there were many official and prison affairs, so the official script was produced, which made writing tend to be simple, and the ancient Chinese font was stopped from now on.

From this time on, there were eight styles of calligraphy in the Qin Dynasty, the first one was called Da Zhuan, the second one was called Xiao Zhuan, the third one was called seal cutting, the fourth one was called worm book, the fifth one was called imitation book, the sixth one was called official book, the seventh one was called dead book, and the eighth one was called official book. There were cursive scripts after the founding of the Han Dynasty.

According to the laws of the Han Dynasty, students 17 years old began to take exams, and only those who can recite, read and write 9000 Chinese characters can become book history collectors. The next step is to test them with the calligraphy "eight styles". After passing the county exam, he was promoted to the Central Taishiling to take the exam again, and the person with the best score was used as the secretary of the central secretarial office. If an official's official document, memorial and words are written incorrectly, Shangshu History will be reported and impeached. Although the regulations are in place now, the examination has stopped, the work of writing has not been taught, and scholars have not learned Chinese characters for a long time.

When Xuan Di proclaimed himself emperor in the Han Dynasty, he recruited a man who could read, and Xuan Di sent him to learn from him. (Later) Du Ye, a local official in Liangzhou, paid tribute to the local people, gave lectures to doctor Qin Jin, and read ancient Chinese characters. During Emperor Ping of Han Dynasty, more than 0/00 people, including Gui Li, were hired to give lectures and write in Weiyangguan, and they were honored as "Little Bachelor". Yang Xiong, assistant minister of Huangmen, collected everyone's explanations and wrote Xun Debate. Xun Bian summarizes the 14-character book since Cang Xie Pian, with a total of 5,340 words. Most of the words used in ancient books are included in this book.

When Wang Mang was in power, he asked Zhen Feng and others to proofread books to show off his efforts in the system of rites and music. During this period, some changes have taken place in ancient Chinese characters. There were six fonts at that time. The first article is ancient prose, which comes from a batch of ancient books collected in the wall of Confucius' residence. The second name is Qizi, which is also ancient prose, but the font is different from ancient prose: the third name is seal script, that is, small seal script; The fourth Zuo Shu, the official script of Qin Dynasty, was created by Qin Shihuang under the command of Du Rencheng Miao. The fifth wonderful seal, used for seal cutting seal script; The sixth book is called the book of birds and insects, which is written on flags and banners.

King Lu Gong demolished Confucius' residence, and (unintentionally) got China's ancient classics such as The Book of Rites, Shangshu, Chunqiu, The Analects of Confucius and The Book of Filial Piety. (China's ancient classics) and Zuo Zhuan were presented in Peiping from the later period. Some counties and vassal States often dig up the last generation of Baoding and utensils from the ground. Their inscriptions are all ancient writings of the previous generation. These ancient writing materials are similar, although they can't reproduce the whole picture of ancient writing, they can know the situation of ancient writing in pre-Qin period. The world is ignorant, trying to deny and vilify ancient prose, which is regarded as an unknown text forged by curious people under the guise of coming up from the wall of Confucius' house and deliberately changing the writing method of this text; (I think ancient prose) is a paradox, disrupting the routine; People who believe in ancient Chinese want to show off to the world.

There are many Confucian scholars (who like to speculate) competing to explain the meaning of texts and classics. They regarded the official script that only existed in the Qin Dynasty as the official script of Cang Xie era, saying, "Official script is handed down from generation to generation, where can it become intimate?"? They even talk nonsense: "the horse is the first person." ""people holding ten is a fight. "The word" worm "is a vertical part of Chinese characters." Officials in charge of punishment explain laws and decrees, but as for inferring criminal law by analyzing glyphs, for example, "asking people to accept money" (the original meaning is to prohibit intimidating criminals and asking for bribes, and "asking" is a borrowed word of "greatness", but) some people say the word "asking" (the word above is "stop" and the word below is "judgment". Vulgar and shallow people appreciate what they are used to, but they are out of place for rare things. (They) have never seen Hong Tong's knowledge, don't know the laws and regulations of Chinese characters, regard China's ancient classics as heresy, treat nonsense as truth, and take what they know as fantastic. (They) explored the profound meaning of sage's writings, and when they saw Cang Xie's sentence "The younger son inherits the imperial edict", they said that Cang Xie was written in the era of the Yellow Emperor, saying that that sentence contained the profound meaning that the Yellow Emperor would become an immortal and let the younger son inherit it. They are confused, can they not go against reason?

According to Historical Records, Shun Di said; "I want to see the portraits painted by the ancients." This shows that Shun Di has formulated this system and will act according to the old code, instead of taking advantage of this loophole. Confucius said, "I can still see the doubts in the history books." And he said, "(this" skeptical spirit ") people are gone now!" (Doubt) It's not that the author doesn't understand, but (worry) that if people interpret ancient history by their own guesses, it will make right and wrong uncertain; Clever words and sophistry will bring doubts and troubles to scholars and researchers in the world. Writing is the foundation of the history of the hundred books and classics, and it is the primary condition for promoting kingly way. Predecessors used it to record their own experiences and pass them on to future generations, who relied on it to understand ancient history. Confucius said, "born from the foundation" is because it can make people understand the deepest truth in the world and will not be bothered again. Now I narrate the seal script, refer to the ancient prose and essays, learn from the theories of various factions, and make sure that the words are big or small, and there is a conclusion and evidence, and write my own explanation on the basis of textual research. I want to use this book to compile everything, analyze fallacies, and let learners understand (the origin of words) and understand the wonderful meaning of words. I arrange the words by the method of partial head and combined radical head, so that they won't be mixed together. Everything can be seen from this book, and there is nothing that is not involved and not recorded. When I meet something that readers can't understand, I use something that can be explained as a metaphor. Meng Xi's Yijing, Kong Anguo's Shangshu, Mao Heng's The Book of Songs, Zhou Li, Zuo Zhuan, The Analects of Confucius and Xiao Jing all quoted ancient versions. When I meet something I don't know, I will tell you what is missing. ……

The article "Syria" lists 540 parts in 14. There are 9,353 Chinese characters in this book, with 1 163 repetitions and comments 13344 1 word. In the arrangement of radicals in this book, the first part is placed at the beginning, and the arrangement of Chinese characters is carried out according to the principle of "similar items", so that things can be divided into groups; The "same article" belongs to one place, the "same way" is connected together, the typesetting is orderly, and the prefixes are connected one by one according to the font; Starting with the word "one", apply for quotation and link together to explore the origin of tens of thousands of Chinese characters; By listing the word "sea" at the end of the article, we can know that as far as poverty is concerned, change has returned to "one"

At that time, in the Han Dynasty, Shengde was bustling and the sun was shining. Guangwudi inherited the destiny, practiced the way of Emperor Yao and started a great cause. Both at home and abroad owe Han Xiandi, and this kindness is like rain. (Royal) Longxing School, selecting talents without leaving the people behind; The bachelors know the importance of scholarship, and their discussions are very profound, and their views can be passed on to future generations (so I edited this book). At this time, it was the first day of the first month of the twelfth year of Emperor Han Yong.

I'm a Miao from Xu's family, and my ancestors should be counted from Yandi Shennong. The ancestor Jinyun assisted the Yellow Emperor, and the ancestor Gong was replaced. The ancestor Taiyue assisted him, and Lu Shu, a descendant of Taiyue, escorted the Zhou Dynasty and was enfeoffed by the Zhou Emperor. Xu Shi was protected by generations. Since then, the Xu family has moved to Runan, and since then, my first clan has lived by your water.

I worship saints, and I don't venture near them. How high is the holy gate? For example, Nanshan in Cui Wei. I want to give up halfway, but I can't. I have exhausted my blunt talents, but unfortunately, the "taste of Tao" has not passed, and I can only remember the "doubt" I heard. I deduced the meaning of sage's word-making, and made up my own shallow opinion. I don't know much about this subject. If there are obvious mistakes, I hope you will correct me.