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Towards Chinese Calligraphy Zhuzhong Qian
Macalester International Volume 18 Chinese Worlds: Multiple Temporalities Article 12 and Transformations Spring 2007 Towards Chinese Calligraphy Zhuzhong Qian Desheng Fang Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl Recommended Citation Qian, Zhuzhong and Fang, Desheng (2007) "Towards Chinese Calligraphy," Macalester International: Vol. 18, Article 12. Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl/vol18/iss1/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute for Global Citizenship at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Macalester International by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Towards Chinese Calligraphy Qian Zhuzhong and Fang Desheng I. History of Chinese Calligraphy: A Brief Overview Chinese calligraphy, like script itself, began with hieroglyphs and, over time, has developed various styles and schools, constituting an important part of the national cultural heritage. Chinese scripts are generally divided into five categories: Seal script, Clerical (or Official) script, Regular script, Running script, and Cursive script. What follows is a brief introduction of the evolution of Chinese calligraphy. A. From Prehistory to Xia Dynasty (ca. 16 century B.C.) The art of calligraphy began with the creation of Chinese characters. Without modern technology in ancient times, “Sound couldn’t travel to another place and couldn’t remain, so writings came into being to act as the track of meaning and sound.”1 However, instead of characters, the first calligraphy works were picture-like symbols. These symbols first appeared on ceramic vessels and only showed ambiguous con- cepts without clear meanings. -
Glyce: Glyph-Vectors for Chinese Character Representations
Glyce: Glyph-vectors for Chinese Character Representations Yuxian Meng*, Wei Wu*, Fei Wang*, Xiaoya Li*, Ping Nie, Fan Yin Muyu Li, Qinghong Han, Xiaofei Sun and Jiwei Li Shannon.AI fyuxian meng, wei wu, fei wang, xiaoya li, ping nie, fan yin, muyu li, qinghong han, xiaofei sun, jiwei [email protected] Abstract It is intuitive that NLP tasks for logographic languages like Chinese should benefit from the use of the glyph information in those languages. However, due to the lack of rich pictographic evidence in glyphs and the weak generalization ability of standard computer vision models on character data, an effective way to utilize the glyph information remains to be found. In this paper, we address this gap by presenting Glyce, the glyph-vectors for Chinese character representations. We make three major innovations: (1) We use historical Chinese scripts (e.g., bronzeware script, seal script, traditional Chinese, etc) to enrich the pictographic evidence in characters; (2) We design CNN structures (called tianzege-CNN) tailored to Chinese character image processing; and (3) We use image-classification as an auxiliary task in a multi-task learning setup to increase the model’s ability to generalize. We show that glyph-based models are able to consistently outperform word/char ID-based models in a wide range of Chinese NLP tasks. We are able to set new state- of-the-art results for a variety of Chinese NLP tasks, including tagging (NER, CWS, POS), sentence pair classification, single sentence classification tasks, dependency parsing, and semantic role labeling. For example, the proposed model achieves an F1 score of 80.6 on the OntoNotes dataset of NER, +1.5 over BERT; it achieves an almost perfect accuracy of 99.8% on the Fudan corpus for text classification. -
Concretismo and the Mimesis of Chinese Graphemes
Signmaking, Chino-Latino Style: Concretismo and the Mimesis of Chinese Graphemes _______________________________________________ DAVID A. COLÓN TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY Concrete poetry—the aesthetic instigated by the vanguard Noigandres group of São Paulo, in the 1950s—is a hybrid form, as its elements derive from opposite ends of visual comprehension’s spectrum of complexity: literature and design. Using Dick Higgins’s terminology, Claus Clüver concludes that “concrete poetry has taken the same path toward ‘intermedia’ as all the other arts, responding to and simultaneously shaping a contemporary sensibility that has come to thrive on the interplay of various sign systems” (Clüver 42). Clüver is considering concrete poetry in an expanded field, in which the “intertext” poems of the 1970s and 80s include photos, found images, and other non-verbal ephemera in the Concretist gestalt, but even in limiting Clüver’s statement to early concrete poetry of the 1950s and 60s, the idea of “the interplay of various sign systems” is still completely appropriate. In the Concretist aesthetic, the predominant interplay of systems is between literature and design, or, put another way, between words and images. Richard Kostelanetz, in the introduction to his anthology Imaged Words & Worded Images (1970), argues that concrete poetry is a term that intends “to identify artifacts that are neither word nor image alone but somewhere or something in between” (n/p). Kostelanetz’s point is that the hybridity of concrete poetry is deep, if not unmitigated. Wendy Steiner has put it a different way, claiming that concrete poetry “is the purest manifestation of the ut pictura poesis program that I know” (Steiner 531). -
A Comparative Analysis of the Simplification of Chinese Characters in Japan and China
CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO CHINESE CHARACTER REFORM: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SIMPLIFICATION OF CHINESE CHARACTERS IN JAPAN AND CHINA A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ASIAN STUDIES AUGUST 2012 By Kei Imafuku Thesis Committee: Alexander Vovin, Chairperson Robert Huey Dina Rudolph Yoshimi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express deep gratitude to Alexander Vovin, Robert Huey, and Dina R. Yoshimi for their Japanese and Chinese expertise and kind encouragement throughout the writing of this thesis. Their guidance, as well as the support of the Center for Japanese Studies, School of Pacific and Asian Studies, and the East-West Center, has been invaluable. i ABSTRACT Due to the complexity and number of Chinese characters used in Chinese and Japanese, some characters were the target of simplification reforms. However, Japanese and Chinese simplifications frequently differed, resulting in the existence of multiple forms of the same character being used in different places. This study investigates the differences between the Japanese and Chinese simplifications and the effects of the simplification techniques implemented by each side. The more conservative Japanese simplifications were achieved by instating simpler historical character variants while the more radical Chinese simplifications were achieved primarily through the use of whole cursive script forms and phonetic simplification techniques. These techniques, however, have been criticized for their detrimental effects on character recognition, semantic and phonetic clarity, and consistency – issues less present with the Japanese approach. By comparing the Japanese and Chinese simplification techniques, this study seeks to determine the characteristics of more effective, less controversial Chinese character simplifications. -
The Chinese Script T � * 'L
Norman, Jerry, Chinese, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 1 3.1 Th e beginnings of Chinese writing 59 3 FISH HORSE ELEPHANT cow (yu) (m ii) (xiimg) (niu) " The Chinese script t � * 'l Figure 3.1. Pictographs in early Chinese writing 3.1 The beginnings of Chinese writing1 The Chinese script appears as a fully developed writing system in the late Shang .dynasty (fourteenth to eleventh centuries BC). From this period we have copious examples of the script inscribed or written on bones and tortoise shells, for the most part in the form of short divinatory texts. From the same period there also Figure 3.2. The graph fo r quiin'dog' exist a number of inscriptions on bronze vessels of various sorts. The former type of graphic record is referred to as the oracle bone script while the latter is com of this sort of graph are shown in Figure 3.1. The more truly representational a monly known· as the bronze script. The script of this period is already a fully graph is, the more difficult and time-consuming it is to depict. There is a natural developed writing system, capable of recording the contemporary Chinese lan tendency for such graphs to become progressively simplified and stylized as a guage in a complete and unambiguous manner. The maturity of this early script writing system matures and becomes more widely used. As a result, pictographs has suggested to many scholars that it must have passed through a fairly long gradually tend to lose their obvious pictorial quality. The graph for qui'in 'dog' period of development before reaching this stage, but the few examples of writing shown in Figure 3.2 can serve as a good illustration of this sort of development. -
Emojis and Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Emojis and Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs Emojis are often compared to Egyptian hieroglyphs because both use pictures to express meaning. However, Egyptian hieroglyphs were a writing system like the alphabet you are reading now and could be used to write anything. Instead of using letters for sounds, the ancient Egyptians used signs (pictures). Emojis are used differently. They add extra meaning to writing, a bit like how tone of voice and gestures add extra meaning when we’re speaking. You could write this paragraph using the emoji-alphabet at the top of the answer sheet, but that’s not how emojis are normally used. Aside from using signs instead of letters, there are lots of differences between the Scots and English writing systems and the ancient Egyptian one. For example, Egyptian hieroglyphs could be written either right to left or left to right and were often written in columns from top to bottom. Hieroglyphic writing didn’t use vowels. The name for this sort of writing system is an abjad. You can write out English and Scots with an abjad rather than an alphabet and still understand it without too much difficulty. For example: Ths sntnc sn’t vry hrd t rd. The biggest difference between alphabetic writing systems and the ancient Egyptian one is that in hieroglyphic writing a sign could be used in three ways. It could be used as a word (ideogram); as a sound (phonogram); or as an idea-sign (determinative) to make things easier to understand. For example, could be used as an ideogram for the word ‘bee’; as a phonogram for the first sound in ‘belief’; or as a determinative added to the end of the word ‘hive’ to distinguish it from ‘have’ and ‘heave’, which would all be written the same: hv. -
A STUDY of WRITING Oi.Uchicago.Edu Oi.Uchicago.Edu /MAAM^MA
oi.uchicago.edu A STUDY OF WRITING oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu /MAAM^MA. A STUDY OF "*?• ,fii WRITING REVISED EDITION I. J. GELB Phoenix Books THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS oi.uchicago.edu This book is also available in a clothbound edition from THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS TO THE MOKSTADS THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO & LONDON The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada Copyright 1952 in the International Copyright Union. All rights reserved. Published 1952. Second Edition 1963. First Phoenix Impression 1963. Printed in the United States of America oi.uchicago.edu PREFACE HE book contains twelve chapters, but it can be broken up structurally into five parts. First, the place of writing among the various systems of human inter communication is discussed. This is followed by four Tchapters devoted to the descriptive and comparative treatment of the various types of writing in the world. The sixth chapter deals with the evolution of writing from the earliest stages of picture writing to a full alphabet. The next four chapters deal with general problems, such as the future of writing and the relationship of writing to speech, art, and religion. Of the two final chapters, one contains the first attempt to establish a full terminology of writing, the other an extensive bibliography. The aim of this study is to lay a foundation for a new science of writing which might be called grammatology. While the general histories of writing treat individual writings mainly from a descriptive-historical point of view, the new science attempts to establish general principles governing the use and evolution of writing on a comparative-typological basis. -
Areal Script Form Patterns with Chinese Characteristics James Myers
Areal script form patterns with Chinese characteristics James Myers National Chung Cheng University http://personal.ccu.edu.tw/~lngmyers/ To appear in Written Language & Literacy This study was made possible through a grant from Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology (103-2410-H-194-119-MY3). Iwano Mariko helped with katakana and Minju Kim with hangul, while Tsung-Ying Chen, Daniel Harbour, Sven Osterkamp, two anonymous reviewers and the special issue editors provided all sorts of useful suggestions as well. Abstract It has often been claimed that writing systems have formal grammars structurally analogous to those of spoken and signed phonology. This paper demonstrates one consequence of this analogy for Chinese script and the writing systems that it has influenced: as with phonology, areal script patterns include the borrowing of formal regularities, not just of formal elements or interpretive functions. Whether particular formal Chinese script regularities were borrowed, modified, or ignored also turns out not to depend on functional typology (in morphemic/syllabic Tangut script, moraic Japanese katakana, and featural/phonemic/syllabic Korean hangul) but on the benefits of making the borrowing system visually distinct from Chinese, the relative productivity of the regularities within Chinese character grammar, and the level at which the borrowing takes place. Keywords: Chinese characters, Tangut script, Japanese katakana, Korean hangul, writing system grammar, script outer form, areal patterns 1. Areal phonological patterns and areal script patterns Sinoform writing systems look Chinese, even when they are functionally quite different. The visual traits of non-logographic Japanese katakana and Korean hangul are nontrivially like those of logographic Chinese script, as are those of the logographic but structurally unique script of Tangut, an extinct Tibeto-Burman language of what is now north-central China. -
The Origin and Evolvement of Chinese Characters
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Portal Czasopism Naukowych (E-Journals) BI WEI THE ORIGIN AND EVOLVEMENT OF CHINESE CHARACTERS Writing, the carrier of culture and the symbol of human civilization, fi rst appeared in Sumer1. Like other ancient languages of Egypt and India, ancient Sumerian symbols have been lost in the process of history, but only Chinese characters still remain in use today. They have played a signifi cant role in the development of Chinese lan- guage and culture. This article intends to display how Chinese characters were creat- ed and how they were simplifi ed from the ancient form of writing to more abstract. Origin of Chinese characters Chinese characters, in their initial forms, were beautiful and appropriately refl ected images in the minds of ancient Chinese that complied with their understanding of reality. Chinese people selected the way of expressing meaning by fi gures and pic- tures, and Chinese characters begun with drawings. Three Myths in Ancient Times It is diffi cult to determine the specifi c time when the Chinese characters emerged. There are three old myths about the origin of Chinese characters. The fi rst refers to the belief that Chinese characters were created by Fu Xi – the fi rst of Three Sovereigns2 in ancient China, who has drew the Eight Trigrams which have evolved into Chinese characters. The mysterious Eight Trigrams3 used for divination are composed of the symbols “–” and “– –”, representing Yang and Yin respectively. 1 I.J. Gelb, Sumerian language, [in:] Encyclopedia Britannica Online, Encyclopedia Britannica, re- trieved 30.07.2011, www.britannica.com. -
Index Časopisu Studia Orientalia Slovaca Ročníkov 1–10 (2002–2011) · a Cumulative Index to Studia Orientalia Slovaca Vols 1–10 (2002–2011)
Index časopisu Studia Orientalia Slovaca ročníkov 1–10 (2002–2011) · A Cumulative Index to Studia Orientalia Slovaca vols 1–10 (2002–2011) Zostavili · compiled by Raoul David Findeisen Martin Slobodník∗ Štúdie · Articles 1 Anderl, Christoph. »Notes on the Development of Vernacular Literature in China and the Language of the Early Recorded Sayings« 4: 103–124 2 Andrš, Dušan. »Role umění v živote člověka: Feng Zikai a jeho příspěvek k čínské estetice první poloviny 20. století« [The Role of Art in the Life of Man: Feng Zikai and his Contribution to Chinese Aesthetics of the First Half of the Twentieth Century] 4: 153–175 3 Benická, Jana. »Čínsky mahāyānový buddhizmus: odstupňované spôsoby vhliadania pravej povahy sveta« [Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism: Different Stages of Discernment of the True Nature of the Phenomenal World] 1: 29–42 4 ——.»Večné “ja” v čínskom buddhizme? Rozhovory majstra Nanyang Huizhonga s „chanovým hosťom z juhu“« [Eternal »Self« in Chinese Buddhism? The Dialogues between Chan Master Nanyang Huizhong and the »Chan Guest from the South«] 2: 61–78 This index has been compiled with the cooperation of Katarína Čavojská, Ján Ďurica, Hana Kucharovičová, and Stanislav Vavrovský, hereby gratefully acknowledged. 458 Findeisen/Slobodník · Contents SOS 1–10 (2002–2011) 5 ——. »Taiwanci, Japonci alebo Číňania? O taiwanskej spoločnosti počas japonskej okupácie ostrova očami spisovateľa Wu Zhuoliua (1900–1976)« [Taiwanese, Japanese or Chinese? Taiwanese Society under Japanese Occupation as Viewed by the Writer Wu Zhuoliu (1900–1976)] 4: 125–140 6 ——. »Yogācāra a jej teória existencie “objektívnej podpory mysle”« [Yogācāra and Its Theory on the Existence of the »Objective Support« of the Mind] 6: 105–122 7 ——. -
Chinese Writing and Calligraphy
CHINESE LANGUAGE LI Suitable for college and high school students and those learning on their own, this fully illustrated coursebook provides comprehensive instruction in the history and practical techniques of Chinese calligraphy. No previous knowledge of the language is required to follow the text or complete the lessons. The work covers three major areas:1) descriptions of Chinese characters and their components, including stroke types, layout patterns, and indications of sound and meaning; 2) basic brush techniques; and 3) the social, cultural, historical, and philosophical underpinnings of Chinese calligraphy—all of which are crucial to understanding and appreciating this art form. Students practice brush writing as they progress from tracing to copying to free-hand writing. Model characters are marked to indicate meaning and stroke order, and well-known model phrases are shown in various script types, allowing students to practice different calligraphic styles. Beginners will fi nd the author’s advice on how to avoid common pitfalls in writing brush strokes invaluable. CHINESE WRITING AND CALLIGRAPHY will be welcomed by both students and instructors in need of an accessible text on learning the fundamentals of the art of writing Chinese characters. WENDAN LI is associate professor of Chinese language and linguistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Cover illustration: Small Seal Script by Wu Rangzhi, Qing dynasty, and author’s Chinese writing brushes and brush stand. Cover design: Wilson Angel UNIVERSITY of HAWAI‘I PRESS Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888 LI-ChnsWriting_cvrMech.indd 1 4/19/10 4:11:27 PM Chinese Writing and Calligraphy Wendan Li Chinese Writing and Calligraphy A Latitude 20 Book University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu © 2009 UNIVERSITY OF HAWai‘i Press All rights reserved 14â13â12â11â10â09ââââ6 â5â4â3â2â1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Li, Wendan. -
Chapter 6, Writing Systems and Punctuation
The Unicode® Standard Version 13.0 – Core Specification To learn about the latest version of the Unicode Standard, see http://www.unicode.org/versions/latest/. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and the publisher was aware of a trade- mark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters or in all capitals. Unicode and the Unicode Logo are registered trademarks of Unicode, Inc., in the United States and other countries. The authors and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this specification, but make no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of the information or programs contained herein. The Unicode Character Database and other files are provided as-is by Unicode, Inc. No claims are made as to fitness for any particular purpose. No warranties of any kind are expressed or implied. The recipient agrees to determine applicability of information provided. © 2020 Unicode, Inc. All rights reserved. This publication is protected by copyright, and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction. For information regarding permissions, inquire at http://www.unicode.org/reporting.html. For information about the Unicode terms of use, please see http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html. The Unicode Standard / the Unicode Consortium; edited by the Unicode Consortium. — Version 13.0. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-936213-26-9 (http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/) 1.