A dictionary of literacy at the beginning of life

A dictionary of literacy at the beginning of life

Yuan Shang

Life literacy dictionary, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, China, the earliest characters in Shang Dynasty, without a dictionary, just like a blind person, you can't recognize a word. As we all know, Oracle Bone Inscriptions was discovered in Anyang, but clues about it did appear in Xuanwu District.

1 10 years ago, that is, 1899, in the autumn of the 25th year of Guangxu in Qing dynasty, he was the king of imperial academy's wine offering in Beijing at that time (1845- 1900), which was equivalent to the head of a national educational institution. He got malaria in Beijing and took a lot of medicine, but he couldn't find it.

China ancient literati knew more about TCM, and Wang was no exception. He felt bad when he was ill, but he still took the prescription given by the servant. When he saw the keel, his heart seemed to have an impression. He remembers some books about it, but he has never seen it. So he called his servant and asked what the keel looked like. The servant replied that it would be mashed and cooked in the pot. Wang patted his thigh and the medicine was ready. Bring me the dregs. After a while, the servant brought a bowl of hot Chinese medicine soup. Without saying anything, Wang pulled it there first, ran out, found the scum, tossed and turned, and there was no result. Call home after returning to my room and say that you must show me the medicine next time. My family said I remember. I have taken several drugs in a row, and my condition is good and bad. One day, Wang asked about the keel, and his family said to keep it for you. Wang opened the medicine bag and found the keel soldier. Inadvertently, he found some carved symbols on the keel in front of him.

This amazing discovery immediately made his illness half better. I wonder, although the keel has many aliases, such as Land Rover Legacy, Naga Bone, Raw Keel, Forged Keel, Five-flower Keel, Blue-and-white Keel, Flower Keel and White Keel. This thing is an ancient mammal bone fossil, that is, an animal bone fossil. Why is there a symbol on it? This is amazing.

Wang likes collecting and studying epigraphy. At that time, a collector in Beijing always asked him to identify something good when he got it. In the process of appraisal, he learned a lot of knowledge. At that time, he had a vague feeling that this might be the legendary ancient Chinese characters. The symbol on the keel is neither a big seal nor a small seal. For further study, he sent his family to the pharmacy and bought all the keels in the pharmacy at the price of two taels of silver per keel. It is said that there were not many carved symbols on the keel of pharmacies at that time, because most pharmacies only accepted those without carved symbols. So the vendor who provided the keel scraped off the symbols on the keel with a knife. What Wang met was that the vendors were lazy and scraped. The recognizable words are rain, sun, moon, mountain and water.

Wang bought the keel at a high price and the news spread like wildfire. Vendors are scrambling to change the keel everywhere, and then find the door to deliver the goods. Wang became a keel collector. However, if something is hot, it won't last long. People used to put away the keel and scrape off the symbols on it. Now they put the keel in place. If there are no symbols, they need someone to carve some symbols. What fire, what fake and shoddy, seems to have been the case since ancient times.

In A.D. 1900, Eight-Nation Alliance went to Beijing, and Wang was appointed as the minister, actively preparing for the war of resistance. Seeing that the situation was not good, Cixi fled the capital with people around her, and the country was in trouble. No one in charge escaped first. On July 20, the invading army broke into Dongbianmen, and Wang led his well-trained troops to fully resist and eventually lost. Wang was deeply disappointed, wrote a desperate sentence, and then bid farewell to his family: "My heart is made up, and I can't drag out an ignoble existence." Then he committed suicide by taking poison and jumping into a well. He died at the age of 56.

Most of Wang's Oracle bones were collected by his good friend Liu E. Liu E is not only a famous writer, but also a collector. Through his further collection, Oracle Bone Inscriptions's collection increased to more than 5,000 pieces, and in 1903, he printed the book "Tieyun Hidden Turtle", making Oracle Bone Inscriptions the first.

In order to monopolize the financial resources, antique dealers initially asked about the loading place of Oracle Bone Inscriptions without telling them. Later, they couldn't hide, so they made a diversion and lied about the loading location. Five years after the announcement of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. That is, in 1908, Luo Zhenyu finally found out that the real unearthed Oracle bones were in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province, so Luo Zhenyu sent relatives to buy them, and then went there to inspect them himself. Roche has collected nearly 20,000 pieces of Oracle bones. 19 13 years, he selected more than 2,000 articles and compiled them into Shu Qi in Yin Ruins (pre-edited) for publication. Later, he compiled Yin Ruins, Shu Qi Jinghua in one breath (continued).

Luo Zhenyu, Dong Zuobin, Wang Guowei and Guo Moruo are known as the "Four Masters in Oracle bones". Their works, especially the first edition, not only have high collection value, but also have high research value and literature value.

In Shang dynasty, people carved Chinese characters on the bones of tortoise shells. Later, people called it "Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins", and it was also called "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" customarily. The contents are the divination records of the rulers of Yin and Shang dynasties, when to go hunting, whether the war with the enemy was won, whether it rained, and even whether there were children and dreams, and then these contents were engraved on the bones of tortoise shells for future verification. At present, there are 6.5438+0.5 million pieces of Oracle bones excavated and collected, engraved with more than 4,500 words, and 6.5438+0.5 million words have been identified. Although some words have been identified, they are controversial, and everything can be said, which cannot be called accurate identification.

There was no such dictionary in Shang Dynasty. Judging from some lettering works left over, there should be some word lists for beginners to learn copying and lettering.

Oracle dictionary is a reference book compiled by later generations in a certain order according to recognizable characters after Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery. There are three masterpieces, one is Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Sun Haibo, and there are two versions, the old and the new. One is the first edition of 1934 published by yenching university Harvard Yanjing Society. One is the Special Archaeological IssueNo. 14 andNo. 1965 published by Zhonghua Book Company, which was commissioned by the Institute of Archaeology, China Academy of Sciences, Sun Haibo. Jin Xiangheng also edited the sequel to Oracle Bone Inscriptions, published by Wen Yi Publishing House, 1993. The second part, The New Oracle Bone Inscriptions, edited by Liu Zhao, Hong Kui and Zhang Xinjun, Fujian People's Publishing House, 2009. The third part is the Oracle dictionary edited by Xu Zhongshu, Sichuan Dictionary Publishing House.

Taking Oracle dictionaries as the core to form a collective topic, if you want to learn to recognize Oracle characters, you can't do without these dictionaries, so I say that life accomplishment should start from dictionaries, not from confusion.

Beijing Chronicle 20 10 No.6