Analysis of Chinese Characters

'0 (X/4-XIVA PLini Jt^aca. ^tm fork CHARLES WILUAM WASON COLLECTION , CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OC CHAK1.es WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1S76 1918 MAR 7 1950 1 it i ^ ^ i' ftOC 5 1071 T DCC l£ 197^ ^ ' ^J^tagfTffro \R '2 7 2005 Cornell University Library PL 1171.W67 Analysis of Chinese characters / 3 1924 023 476 546 Cornell University Library The original of this bool< is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023476546 ANALYSIS OF CHINESE CHARACTERS G. D. WILDER AND J. H. INGRAM North China Union Language School 1922 4l*fe. % PL I17( Wb7 W, 1 1 2^ 1 1 1 liiJU^'' INTRODUCTION TO ANALYSIS OF CHINESE CHARACTERS. The author of the great Chinese English dictionary Mr. Giles, has not hesitated to express most trenchantly his contempt of etymology as it has been applied to Chinese Characters. He says that "Much of the etymology of the Shuo Wen is childish in the extreme", and that the phonetic principle of combination is the only one of which we can pretend to know aiiything. Notwithstanding the ridicule heaped upon it, scholars, like Chalmers, Chalfant, Wieger and others have continued to pursue the fascinating study of the origin of these symbols and have given us most interesting results. These results are so convincing that in the teaching of character writing we have unhesitatingly adopted the principle that the etymology of the earliest Chinese writers on the subject, childish though it may often be and fanciful, is yet superior to the numerous mnemonics that have been invented by foreign students to assist in the difficult task of memorizing the forms of a few thousand characters. The student of these pages may often consider the etymology suggested fanciful and the logic of the combinations far fetched but the following consid- eration should be borne in mind. They are the products of Chinese fancy and imagination and to some extent show the workings of the Chinese mind. Therefore they interest us who are students of Chinese thought. Moreover they often may only seem to be fanciful because we are ignorant of the ancient customs out of which they arise, or of the forms of the utensils of which they are pictures, or of the variations of pro- nunciation in the different dialects. If any oue of us were entrusted with the task of inventing written symbols for both concrete objects and abstract ideas it is doubtful if we would produce anything much less fanciful and we certainly could produce nothing of such rich historic interest, as certainly invests the 3000 most primitive characters. / Writing Chinese characters is a task of memory. ' Modern pedagogy ideas for fixing . insists on the value of logical or even fanciful links between them in mind. Those who try to learn Chinese characters almost in- Iv INTRODUCTION variably grope for some association of ideas, some logic in the formation by which to hold them in memory. We have no doubt that the groupings which have been arrived at already by a study of the ancient inscriptions of the early seal writings and etymologies are more interesting, more logical, and wider in- range than any memory system that has been or can be invented by the superficial study of the characters as written with the modern Chinese pen. These etymological studies enlist the interest of the historic imagination to aid the dry-as-dust task of committing to memory these curious symbols of the thought of three or four milleniums. Missionaries in China have been spared the task which their brethren in many places have had,' of reducing the language of the people to writing. The genealogy of Chinese characters takes us back neariy 4000 years. For an interesting historical sketch the student is referred to Wieger's introduction, of which we here give a summary. Tradition con- firmed by well grounded induction ascribes the idea of writing to the mythical Emperor Fu^ Hsi' i)^^ and the systemization of written charac- 'ters to Ts'ang' Chieh^ j^fg in the 27th century B.C. Emperor Huang^ Ti^ ^^, B.C. 2697-2598, had recorders trained in official schools under a zk. It t'ai" s/iiP or Grand Master. Bronzes of the i8th century B.C. with characters on them are extant. The stone drums exhibited in the gateway of the Confucian Temple in Peking, referred by some to the 12th century, by others to the 9th century B.C. show inscriptions in the style used by an imperial recorder ^ Chou'' in a catalog of characters called the ^^ Chou* wen' or large seal, "^"^ ta* chumi''. Later they became known as tadpole characters, (B.C. 200) ^^^ k'o^ ton' tzu*, because so many of the penstrokes suggest the form of a tadpole. Confucius, B.C. 500, complained, of scribes who were dishonest and instead of leaving blanks when they forgot characters, made new ones. These he called '^^ ck't^ tzu^ Or odd characters. Ch'in^ Shih' Huang^ ^^M. 213 B.C. had his prime minister Li* Ssu^ ^%\ make a new catalog called the H;^ sai^ ts'ang} It contained 3300 characters which are known as the small seal /h^ hsiao^ ckuan*. U? Ssu^-- invented no new symbols but combined the primitive picture characters with phonetics. /Thus the creation of new characters ceased before 200 B.C. and probably long before that, as the phonetic principle, which renders unnecessary the invention of new symbolic elements, was in use in 800 B.C. Li' Ssu' was deceived by the " odd characters " and as he had not enough ancient documents to ascertain the meaning of many g ' INTRODUCTION ^-/„ V symbols he fixed wrongly the meaning of many characters. We can now correct some of his mistakes. In the period of literary enthusiasm following Li^ Ssu* many new characters were invented by the easy process of phonetic combination. As there were many I'terary centers with different dialects prevailing and no standard or center of control, c^pMtlesi useless and duplicate characters were formed. Li* Ssu's catalog was reedifed seven times until it contained 7380 at the time of Christ and two hundred years later over ten thousand. The modern standard dictionary of Kan Hsi finished A.D. 17 17 has 40,000 characters. Of these 34,000 are monstrosities and useless doubles ; 2000 more are surnames and doubles of little use, leaving 4000 that are in common use. \ Of these 3000 are all that need be studied for etymological purposes, although there are also some rare or obsolete characters that are of etymological and historical interest. Importunately the 3000 ancient primitives are still the most useful characters and anyone who gets a mastery of them and their combiriations will have a magnificent vocabulary for all departments of literat ure, Let j no one be appalled by the popular misstatement that there are 80,000 characters or even by the fact that there are 40,000 in the dictiohary. The vocabularies of Goodrich and Soothill have but 10,000 and the larger Chinese English dictionaries but 14,000. ) One who masters^'^QOO, will find himself fairly well equipped for public speech. Dr. Goodrich after his many decades of experience is surprised that he can catalog but 4000 colloquial characters. ^ Besides the multiplication of characters there have been many trans-"^ formations for ease in writing or condensations for the sake of speed. Many \ of these changes occurred as writing materials changed. ( At first the metal stylus, writing on wood made uniform strokes equally easy in all directions.- Curves and circles were common. Then the wooden pencil used on silk caused, poor writing and some peculiar changes. Finally finfe pointed ' hair brushes used on paper gave great power of shading^ and speed in exe- cution but still further distorts the shapes of the classic small seal characters. \ The brush has produced the modern |f^ ^'ai^ i3u*, in which curves-^ characters, are reduced to straight lines and angles, and the grass ^^ \ ts'ao* t0u*, or running hand which still further obliterates the classi/! forms. Other transformations are due to abbreviation for securing moro small pieces of bone, shell metal, as space for inscriptions on or Mr. J, ' VI INTRODUCTION Mellon Menzies has pointed out, and these abbreviations have become precedents for permanent forms. — About 1 20 A.D. there was printed a posthumous work of Hsii' Shen (B.C. 86). It was the first publication of genuine archaeological and etymological studies. This father of Chinese archaeology had travelled exteisively and studied Li' Ssu's catalog. His great work is the ^%M^ Shuo* Wen"" Chieh' Tzu*. It contains 10516 standard characters arranged under 534 to 544 primitive symbols which are the^o:rigin of our 214 radicals. All Chinese dictionaries claim to be based upon the Shuo Wen, though they often show ignorance of it and few scholars to-day are ac- quainted with it. Our Character Analysis is based upon Wieger's Ety- mological Lissons which is drawn largely from the Shuo Wen. Our references usually m;an that our explanation is taken from Wieger. But it is not always so, for the original Shuo Wen as well as the works of Chalfant, Chalmers and others have been used. Original or at least modern suggestions have been made and usually placed after the reference to Wieger. In Wieger's Lessons will often be found the quotation trom the Shuo Wen in Chinese justifying the explanation. /^ We shall use a few technical expressions which are best explained by the ancient classification of characters into six categories.

Load more