University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 2008 A study of the standardization of Chinese writing/ Ying Wang University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Wang, Ying, "A study of the standardization of Chinese writing/" (2008). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 2060. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/2060 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A STUDY OF THE STANDARDIZATION OF CHINESE WRITING A Thesis Presented by YING WANG Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2008 Asian Languages and Literatures © Copyright by Ying Wang All Rights Reserved STUDIES OF THE STANDARDIZATION OF CHINESE WRITING A Thesis Presented by YING WANG Approved as to style and content by: hongwei Shen, Chair Donald E. GjertsoH, Member Enhua Zhang, Member hongwei Shen, Director Asian Languages and Literatures Program Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures Julie Caii s, Chair Departira hguages, Literatures and Cultures ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to earnestly thank my advisor, Professor Zhongwei Shen, for his helpful, patient guidance and support in all the stages of my thesis writing. Thanks are also due to my committee members Professor Donald Gjertson and Professor Enhua Zhang, for their generous help. My friends, Mathew Flannery and Charlotte Mason, have also edited thesis my in various stages, and to them I am truly grateful. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Professor Alvin Cohen, Professor Shaodan Luo, Professor Yun Xiao, and my friend Weijia Li. Together their friendship and selfless contribution to my professional development have been invaluable and will forever be appreciated. I would like to express my deep thanks to my husband, Qianshen Bai, who is an expert of Chinese calligraphy, and son, Ray Bai, for their patience with this project. Without their untiring love and consistent support, the completion of this work would not have been possible. Y.W. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv LIST OF FIGURES vi LIST OF PLATES vii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1 1 . A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF CHINESE WRITING 4 2. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND THE CAUSE OF VARIANTS 16 3. HISTORICAL REVIEW OF EFFORTS TO STANDARDIZE CHINESE WRITING 25 4. THE ROLE PLAYED BY THE ART OF CALLIGRAPHY IN STANDARDIZING WRITING 42 EPILOGUE 56 APPENDIX: PLATES 61 BIBLIOGRAPHY 93 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3 Pagen 1 . 1 Examples of the Four Major Formation Types of Chinese Character g 1.2 Sampling of the Three Major Component Types of Chinese Character 10 1.3 Example of "Segmentation of Graphs into Strokes" in M (Ma, Horse) 14 2.1 Unequal Characters are Allotted Equal Space 18 2.2 Character H 19 2.3 ffl^te and#^te 20 vi LIST OF PLATES Plate PageD 1.1 Pictographic signs and early characters 62 1 Evolution .2 of Chinese character 63 2. Cattle 1 scapula with oracle inscription 64 2.2 Inscription on the Shanshi Basin (ifcftS) shows a more organized composition of writings 65 2.3a Basic Chinese Character Structures (1) 66 2.3b Basic Chinese Character Structures (2) 67 2.4 Nishigawa Shundu (MJl|#y[5], 1847—1915), one hundred ways of writing shou, a calligraphic work written for celebrating someone's birthday 68 2.5 Character |S (chu, place) and M (gui, rule) and their variants 69 3.1 Greater Seal Script: Inscription on the Shi Qiang Basin (^i@^:) Western Zhou period 70 3.2 Small Seal Script: Stone inscription on Mount Tai (Hill) Qin Dynasty 71 3.3 Classics Carved in Stone during the Xinping Reign (Itr^P^i £r Xiping shijing) 72 3.4 Classics Carved on Stone in Three Scripts Santi shijing, also known as IE^p^Ei Zhengshi shijing) 73 3.5 Xu Shen (#tS, 58? -147?), Shuowen jiezi (tft^tft?^) 74 75 3.6 Yan Zhenqing (MX IIP, 709-784), copy of Ganlu zishu (^Fli^t^) the Chunhua reign period 4. 1 Model-bookfrom the imperial archives of Chunhuage tie) 76 4.2 Wang Xizhi (ca. 303-361), Yellow Court Classic (MM^x. Huang Tingjing) 77 Yue Yi lun) 78 4.3 Wang Xizhi (ca. 303-361), Eulogyfor Yue Yi (#t&i& vii 4.4 Ouyang Xun 557-641), Stele ofJiucheng Palace (fiJ& 'M SIt^IS Jiuchenggong liquan ming), erected in 632 79 4.5 Yu Shinan (Stilt, 558-638), Stele of Confucius Temple Fuzi miaotang bei), erected in 633 80 4.6 Chu Suiliang (^ii 596-659), Stele of the "Preface to the Great Tang Buddhist Canon" (J^ifcJ?fi$ Shengjiaoxu bei) 81 4.7 Yan Zhenqing (MKW, 709-785), Prabhutaratna Pagoda Stele Inscription (£Si§rJiijSfl£ Duobaota ganyingbei) dated 752 82 4.8 Liu Gongquan (#P&&, 778 - 865), Stele ofXuanmi ta (tC^Wfi? Xuanmita bei), erected in 841 83 4.9 Compare the character JH (//', beautiful) in running script and regular script 84 4.10 Tang tracing copy of Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering (Wlt^f^L^ff Shenlong version Lantingxu) 85 4.11 Tang copy of Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering (attribute to Chu Suiliang gift it 558-638) 86 4.12 Tang tracing copy of Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering (attribute to Chu Suiliang 596-659) 87 4.13 Rubbing of Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering (^5^^ Dingwu version) 88 4. 14 Stele of the Preface to the Great Tang Buddhist Canon in Running Script (A/fH^W) Compiled by Monk Huairen (W-ft ft) 89 4.15 Zhiyong (^tK, act. ca. late sixth-seventh century), Qianziwen) 90 Thousand Character Essay ( J^i^jt, Zhencao 91 5.1 Jiyun (He$) printed in the Song dynasty March 2 2008). ribap haiwaiban, 1 , 5.2 People 's Daily (A K 0 }W£btt£ Renming 92 The printing fonts here are used by other newspapers nationwide viii INTRODUCTION A striking phenomenon in the history of Chinese writing compared to the writing systems in many other civilizations is the relatively frequent appearance of variants yitizi, or allographs, yixingzi) of the forms of its standard written characters. "variants," I By mean that, in addition to a commonly accepted or officially sanctioned "standard" character representing a concept, there could exist several or even many variants of the standard form. While these variants and the standard form shared the same pronunciation and meaning, the variants differed in structural form from the standard character. The basic principles of character creation were well established as early as the Zhou dynasty (771 BCE), and, despite changes in writing style, the most basic characters showed a strong tendency to preserve their original forms. In addition, variants of standard characters usually remained sufficiently similar to their "parent" forms to be easily understood. However, in some cases, the existence of numerous variants caused difficulties in comprehension, which disrupted communications and business activities. Since the confusion caused by multiple variants was never taken lightly, frequent attempts were made over time to arrive at and preserve a standard form for each character, especially during periods of significant formal evolution in the script. Only recently have such efforts been eased by technological improvements in printing and communication. Related to these two phenomena are the two key questions addressed by this variants so easily? Second, thesis: first, why do Chinese characters tend to spawn written standardize what efforts have Chinese governments and private individuals made to writing? 1 This thesis consists of four chapters and an epilogue. Chapter One briefly reviews the history of Chinese writing. Throughout its long development, Chinese writing underwent a series of changes from simple inscriptions on oracle bones and turtle shells relying on a high proportion of pictographs to a fully mature, rather complex writing system whose character forms were essentially abstract. The first chapter's analysis will both assist readers in understanding the second chapter's discussion and will also show that characters developed in the early stages of the evolution of the written language may have become the source of later variants. Chapter Two analyzes attributes of characters that helped generate variants. My argument begins with the point that, in contrast to phonetic written languages, Chinese characters are ideograms. This means that each character represents an object or idea whose meaning is directly represented by its graphic structure without reference to its sound. It is true that, as characters developed into increasingly abstract, non-pictographic symbols, they also acquired phonetic markers to become phonetic-semantic combinations Nevertheless, Chinese never abandoned the fundamental importance of the ideograph over phonetics as the basis of character formation. But it is just because Chinese writing is ideographic rather than phonetic that variants were easily generated. The formation of written words in phonetic languages is disciplined by the requirement that word-forms adhere to their spoken sounds. Because a character may have different structures without affecting its pronunciation or meaning (that is, without affecting its usefulness), character structure was not preserved by the discipline of phonetics. Without the limiting factor of phonetics, characters were freer to vary in form. Ultimately, this meant that the designation of one of several character forms as standard was essentially arbitrary. 2 After analyzing why Chinese is prone to character variants in Chapter Two, Chapter Three will answer the second question: what efforts have successive Chinese governments and private individuals made to standardize writing? Both elements of society made repeated efforts over a long time to eliminate the confusion caused by multiple forms of the same character.