A Brief Introduction To Chinese Characters Bailin Hao

A Brief Introduction To Chinese Characters Bailin Hao (郝柏林) T-Life Research Center, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China Institute of Theoretical Physics, Academia Sinica Beijing 100080, China The Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico http: //www. itp. ac. cn/~hao/

Written versus Spoken Language • By Chinese I mean Han the largest ethnic group (93. 3% 1982 census) • Different dialects, almost unique writing • A unifying factor in China • We will concentrate on written Chinese • Chinese language is very simple: close to English but grammatically even simpler

Characters versus Words l Bearing the difference from Western characters in mind, we will use the term “character” to denote the basic unit of written Chinese l Chinese characters rarely used in single l Combinatorics: most characters are used in combinations of 2, (3), 4, or more characters – words l New combinations appear every year, if not everyday

A Little Bit of History

A Reference Point in Chinese and Western History: 1 st Year AD • Qin Dynasty (221 – 206 BC) • West Han Dynasty (206 – 8 BC)with capital in Chang-an (now Xi-an) • East Han Dynasty (25 – 220 AD) with capital in Luoyang • A short New (“Xin”) Dynasty (8 BC – 23 AD) in between • Roman Senate (Augustus) (27 BC – 14 AD) • The Roman Empire (15 – 476 AD)

Chronology of China • Starting from 841 BC: 1 st year of “Republic” in West Zhou dynasty • 西周共和元年

Banpo Remains near Xi-an • Upper layer about 5600 YA; lower layer about 6700 YA as determined by 14 C • Found 113 appearances of 22 different symbols on pottery pieces: I, II, +, x … • May be numerals • Similar findings at other archeological sites

Characters on Bones

Characters on Both Sides of a Bone

Characters on Tortoise Shell

Characters on Tortoise Shell

Characters on Tortoise Shell

Characters on Stone Drums

Writing on Bamboo Pieces

“Chronology on Bamboo Pieces” • Bamboo pieces unearthed in 281 AD ( Jin( 晋) dynasty) in a big tomb in northern Henan province • Original pieces lost, many variants of the text remain

Writing on Bamboo Pieces

Xu Shen and his Dictionary • Xu Shen (许慎, circa 58 -147 AD, East Han Dynasty) • Started compiling the Dictionary (《说文解 字》) in the year 100 AD • Let his son hand the Dictionary to the Emperor in the year 121 AD when he was seriously ill • 9353 characters in 54 groups • Summarized the “Six Principles”

Six Principles of Creating and Using Chinese Characters • • (象形)Pictographic: simulating the form (指事)Indicating the subject (形声)Pictophonetic: graph + “sound” (会意)Implicating the meaning (转义)Transforming the sense (假借)Borrowing a character The first 4: creating a character The last 2: using an existing character

Not Just Pictures: Symbol + • • • Abstraction Association Indication Implication Pronounciation: pictophonetic

Pictograph: simple ones sun moon

Pictograph: simple ones human big sky, heaven

Pictograph: less simple ones water fire

Pictograph: less simple ones tree, wood, trees, forest cypress trees forest hill, mountain

Pictograph: less simple ones heart field force man

Pictograph: less simple one woman

Pictograph: more complex ones Long-tail bird horse

Pictograph + Indication above, on top middle, central below, under

Pictograph + Implication small dirt, soil

Pictograph + Indication knife blade

Pictograph and Implication

More Implications sharp tip dust burn, put on fire feel uneasy

Pictophonetic Characters • 洋(ocean)、海(sea)、江(big river)、 河(river)、溪 (brook)、湖(lake)、池 (pool) • 潮(morning tide) 汐(evening tide)

Pictophonetic: more examples • 衣(dress, cloth) 衤 • 複(double-layered)复 • 彳復 复(repeat, back • 覆 复 and forth)

Pictophonetic: more examples • 日 • 旦(dawn, dawning) • 复旦大学 • 小学、中学

Pictophonetic Characters Make the Most of Characters • On bones and tortoise shells (~1400 BC): 20% • In Xu Shen’s Dictionary (121 AD): Pictograph=264, pict+indication=129, pict+implication=1167, pictophonetic=7679 (82%) • In Kangxi Dictionary (1716 AD): 90%

A Riddle for the Character 也 (also, too) • • With water you feed fish (池) With soil you grow vegetable (地) With horse you ride 1000 miles a day (驰) With person you get a partner (他)

Creating New Characters in Science • Physicists have created very few characters, for example, entropy (熵) • Chemists create a new character almost for each new element or organic compound: 镭(radium, the 88 th element), 鍆(mendeleevium, the 101 th element)苯 (benzene)

How Many Han Characters? Period Number of Characters Shang Dyn. (16 -11 century BC) >4500 on >150000 pieces of bones and tortoise shells Xu Shen’s Dictionary (121 AD) 9353 Dictionary in Nan Dyn. (386 -556 AD) 16917 Dictionary in Ming Dyn. (13681644) 33179 Kangxi Dictionary(1716) 47035 Modern Chin. Dictionary 56000

How Many Han Characters? • About 65 000 ever existed • Standard set for computer input (GB 2312, published 1 May 1981): 3755 in pinyin order + 3008 in stroke order, total 6736 It covers 99. 75% of common usage l About 2000 to read newspapers Li He (李贺, 790 -816), the exotic poet of Tang Dynasty, used 2700+ characters in all his exotic poems

Typing Characters into Computer • More than 400 different methods invented, only less than 10 have survived • Phonetic (Pinyin): most efficient if you speak standard Beijing dialect • Several stroke systems: very efficient by specially trained professionals • Associative input system, using common words and phrases • Input of Chinese texts much more efficient than English

Chinese Character Font/Style • 金木水火土 • 金木水火土

Chinese Calligraphy and Painting • Story on the son of the great caligraher WANG Xi-zhi: “our son has spent a whole barrel of water and now he has got one dot resembling his father”, a remark by the boy’s mother. • Almost no dyslexia among Chinese kids

Chinese Classic Poems “We are simple people. We speak poetic language”, as a Russian joke says. Let’s end with Chinese poems.

Classic Chinese Poems versus European Sonnets • Sonnet = 14 -line poems • (Italian) Petrarchan sonnet: octet + sestet = ABBA CDDC XYZ • (English) Shakespearen sonnet: 3 quatrains + couplet ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

“Regular Expressions” in Han • Couplets: 2 symmetric pharses • 5 -character classic poem: 4 lines with 5 characters in each, AABA rhyme • 7 -character classic poem: 4 lines with 7 characters in each, AABA rhyme • 5 - and 7 -character poems: 8 lines including two couplets • Long-and-short sentences using a fixed template

Example of 5 -Character Classic 打起黄莺儿 (da qi huang ying ni) 莫叫枝上啼 (mo jiao zhi shang ti) 啼时惊妾梦 (ti shi jing qie meng) 不得到辽西 (bu de dao liao xi)

Example of 5 -Character Classic 打 起 黄 莺 儿 Beat up yellow oriole (-chen) 莫 叫 枝 上 啼 Not let branch on sing 啼 时 惊 妾 梦 Sing- ing break (my) dream 不 得 到 辽 西 Not able reach Liao West

Mutual Understanding of People Is Crucial for Mankind Future • “The clash of civilization” (S. P. Huntington) • “Conflict of culture” in wider context • We are anxious to understand other people, other culture, other civilization • Language is an important bridge. It is hard and unnecessary to become a polyglot, but knowledge of a 2 nd and some feeling of a 3 rd language is very helpful.

• http: //www. zhongwen. com/ (Yale) • 《马氏文通》：comparative Chinese and English grammar, written in the turn of 20 th century by the brother of the founder of Fudan University Ma Xiang-bo (马相伯)

Thank You Notice: Many figures used in this PPT were obtained by googling. Since no URLs were indicated explicitly, please keep this for your own use only.