There are different opinions about the origin of Chinese characters since ancient times. The theory of image origin is the mainstream view at present. In my opinion, while affirming that pictures are the main origin of Chinese characters, we can't deny the important role of knots, engravings and eight diagrams in the history of the emergence and development of Chinese characters, and we can take knots, engravings and eight diagrams as the secondary origins. The following is the information I have compiled about the origin of Chinese characters. You may wish to refer to it.

The origin of Chinese characters

China has a long history of culture. When our ancestors carved a historic stroke on the branches with primitive tools, that was the initial footprint of culture. The invention and use of characters recorded the daily life and social activities of primitive people, such as hunting and sacrifice, and inherited ancient civilization well. It can be said that the appearance of the characters was a great event at that time, "When it rains, the ghosts cry at night" (Huainanzi Ben Jing Xun). However, we can also see the importance of characters in people's minds. So there have been many different opinions about the origin of characters over the years. According to Yi Jie, Lao Zi Eighty, Zhuangzi Gui and Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xu, our ancestors used knots to take notes before Cangjie created characters. From then on, "Tai Hao made an appointment with Fu Li to replace the policy of tying the rope". Then there is "Cang Xie writes a book", that is, there are knot theory, engraving theory, gossip theory, picture theory, original image theory and so on, and each theory is incompatible. Illustration, with its pictographic characters in form and rich meanings in content, is generally recognized by philologists and named as "calligraphy and painting" or "picture writing" (Mr. Qiu Xigui agrees with "calligraphy and painting"). Mr. Tang Lan supported the image theory with "words equals images plus language". From the perspective of informatics, the theory of calligraphy and painting contains more information than other means of expression. The famous deer shooting map is a strong evidence. Pictures give people an intuitive feeling of shooting with bows and arrows, which is a dominant amount of information; The hidden information is that pictures act on the human brain in an intuitive form. Through the processing, association and imagination of the brain, it is concluded that "shooting can be used anywhere, whether it is shooting people, kissing horses or shooting tigers", which cannot be done by knotting and lettering. Therefore, people often think that pictures are the "source" of primitive characters, while ignoring the existing forms of other prehistoric characters. In my opinion, pictures are the main origins of Chinese characters, while knots, lettering and gossip can be regarded as secondary origins, which play an indelible role in studying the emergence and development of Chinese characters.

In the ancient society before writing, the original notes can be divided into physical notes, symbol notes and picture notes, each of which has its own function. Physical notes and symbolic notes can be said to be the initial attempts of primitive humans to help memory. Mr. Guo Moruo: "There are two systems in the structure of the occurrence and development of characters, one is the description system, and the other is the graphic system." "The drawing system should be before the graphic system", because it will take a long time for any nation to embark on the road of the primary stage of pictographic characters, that is, to draw an objective image and be able to resemble it. "The series of viewpoints and the excavation of prehistoric carving symbols have greatly shocked the theory that human characters originated from pictures. First of all, from the instrumental point of view, the existence state of visual symbols such as descriptions, marks and pictures is based on the needs of "primitive humans". As objects, there is no difference between the two. The reason why different expression tools are used is to meet the different needs of users, and there is no essential difference; Secondly, as far as the initiative of subject behavior is concerned, the interpersonal relationship between ancient humans is very simple, not to mention that politics-mainstream ideology was imposed on others, that is to say, there was relative freedom in choosing to tie knots, carve or draw pictures, although some scholars came to the conclusion that "the notch on pottery" was just a kind of "random notch" according to the investigation of Mr. Ningsheng Wang's "From Original Notes to Invention of Words". It is too absolute and arbitrary to think that they are "unsociable", "unreasonable" and "unable to convey any information" Pictures are identified by the type and meaning of their images, and the knotting mark of "things are tied to the rope with big ones and things are tied to the rope with small ones" also carries a certain amount of information. Ancient humans consciously kept their memories by tying ropes at will to avoid forgetting. We say that "writing is a communication tool of human society", and knotting is also a primitive communication tool to help memory and to prove mutual communication. The nature of "tool" is certain, which shows that there is a certain relationship between writing and knotting. In a sense, refusing the origin of knotting can be said to have determined the history of knotting. Although the way of knotting is simple, it is enough to express simple meanings, such as memory, Covenant and the way of knotting in later generations. For example, the Miao people in Zhu's works can't read, and they still remember notes with knots, which is handed down. Lin Shengbang also verified that the method of tying rope with sulfur balls can be divided into two categories, namely, those who barter things, those who pay rent and pay taxes, and those who count them as things. The ending note has also become the image source of some Chinese characters, such as … in Chinese characters, which is regarded as the ending image. In China Philology, Tang Lan thought that there were only a few pictographs in pictures and characters before phonetic symbols appeared, and besides, they were all completely pictographs. That is to say, pictographs have evolved into pictographs and hieroglyphs, and according to the above evidence, pictographs and knowing words can also be found in knotting notes. It can be seen that knotting notes are the prelude and rehearsal of word production, and knotting notes are the preparation of word production.

Chick is a method created by ancient humans on the basis of knotting notes to help remember numbers. Chess carving is used as a verb, and the definition of a person's name says, "Chess carving is also used to remember numbers." Because numbers are hard to remember, wood carving is used as a promise. Due to a large number of records in ancient literature, such as Guanzi Liangjia, Liezi Fu Shuo, Yilin and Quli. It is believed that the "conventional" nature of engraving is very close to the nature of writing, and it has the nature of writing. But I still deny that it is the origin of writing. Although some people speculate that one to eight numbers of Chinese characters come from seal cutting, this cannot be used as strong evidence. In my opinion, the carved symbols are quite close to Chinese characters, obey the needs of communication, have the characteristics of "established practice", and serve the social circle of people in small areas and regions. From the cognitive point of view, the simple thinking of ancient humans has created miracles. There is a direct relationship between depicting symbols and human thinking. In order to preserve the intuitive understanding of things, it is realized by a certain form (marking), and the scribbled symbols represent real things. If we call the ancient people's intention of preserving primitive memories "meaning", then the images produced by psychological processing can be called "images", that is, the original psychological schema, which shows that ancient people have the possibility of "writing my mouth", although these scribbled symbols have no phonetic form. However, the absence of sound does not hinder small-scale communication, nor does it affect the memory of breaking through the limitations of time and space. Although the content of memory is very limited, limited to simple and specific things, the nature of "convention" and the role of tools are enough to prove its importance before the appearance of words. As a secondary source, it is not too much.

Because all kinds of origin theories have some truth, it is too subjective to agree with one origin theory and reject the other. Some scholars compromise that there is an intermediate link between knot and pictographic Chinese characters, that is, the original "digital divination" represented by "Hutuluo". The idea is that knotting is mainly used for counting, but actually knotting is a primitive digital form, so people first use this primitive knotting number for divination. The "Book of River Map" is just a digital divination pattern formed by the original knotted numbers. These modes can arrange and perform a large number of digital divination. Different digital divination represents different things and their relationships. It can be said that digital divination has the function of writing, but the content represented by these digital divination is difficult to grasp after all. In order to record the contents of digital divination more vividly and accurately, the wizards in charge of divination gradually invented pictographic Chinese characters.

In fact, all kinds of origin theories have their theoretical basis. However, what I want to say is that while people attach importance to fact research, they ignore the most essential and important issues. When linguists look at China's ancient Chinese characters with reverence, they are looking for the purpose of "writing" and what is the writing as a measure. Qiu Xigui believes that linguists can be divided into narrow and broad schools. The narrow school believes that writing is the symbol of recording language. The generalized school believes that pictures and symbols used by people to convey information and express a certain meaning can all be called words. Teacher Qiu thinks that this difference is only a difference in words, and it is hard to say what is absolutely right or wrong. In fact, however, the definition of words has become the key to explore the origin of words. That is to say, linguists have broad and narrow definitions of words, which leads to different theoretical basis and verification methods when discussing the origin of words, so there are various theories of the origin of words. The view of the narrow school is: "The voice of the speaker's meaning is recorded by the author." (Justice >) This sentence tells the essence of words. Character is a writing symbol system invented to record language, which is based on language. China's characters are square Chinese characters. Naturally, linguists in a narrow sense take this definition as the criterion and conduct a strict one-on-one comparative study. Symbols with words and without words are clearly defined, so it is easy to find unqualified conditions, such as symbols that do not represent pronunciation, but are just made by ancient humans at will. Each knot has no fixed connection with morphemes or words in the language, and Chinese characters are regarded as an advanced symbol system, which is more complicated. Judging prehistoric symbols from the inherent character configuration, according to Shang and Zhou Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions are close to the origin of Chinese characters, and individual characters are mostly pictographic characters induced by pictographs. The relationship between Chinese characters and the words they represent clearly shows the origin relationship between Chinese characters and pictures. "Characters are based on graphs, and the original characters are understandable graphs"; Under the guidance of the theory that images and symbols are used to convey information and express a certain meaning, generalized philologists support the image theory and put forward the knot theory, engraving theory and gossip theory. From a macro point of view, as long as it can be used to convey information, it can be used as materials and evidence to explore the origin of words. According to the current progress of archaeological work, we have no strong evidence to say for sure that the theory of pictures is the only origin of writing. Accurately speaking, this is the mainstream view, while some people hold a negative opinion, thinking that "pictographs" with indicative patterns as narrative descriptions can no longer be found in China, while hieroglyphics in pre-dynastic times in ancient Egypt are expressed in the form of pictures. We can't conclude that Chinese characters originated from pictures just because there are a large number of pictographs in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, but most linguists, such as Tang Lan and Qiu Xigui, still hold positive opinions. In my opinion, before there is conclusive evidence, it can be considered that the picture theory is the main origin, and the knot theory, lettering theory and gossip theory are the auxiliary origins, which enrich the theory of the origin of words and form a diversified view, but there are still primary and secondary points.

conclusion

Through the above analysis, I think it is necessary to distinguish between the broad sense and narrow sense in the definition of words and the broad sense and narrow sense in the theory of the origin of words. In ancient times, knotting, lettering, gossip and pictures, as symbol forms, were chosen according to the needs of the expresser and were in a relatively free choice stage. Picture symbols have laid the foundation of the origin theory with their overall advantages (pictographs, images and meanings), but in a broad sense, the origin theory of Chinese characters can be supplemented and developed with the theory of structure, seal cutting and gossip as the secondary origins.

Characteristics of Chinese characters

Chinese characters are one of the oldest characters in the world and have a great influence on the surrounding areas. They are letters of other characters. It is a written symbol for recording events. Formally, it has gradually changed from a figure to a square symbol composed of strokes, so Chinese characters are generally called "square characters". It has developed from hieroglyphics (ideographs) to phonetic symbols with both sound and meaning, but the overall system is still ideographs. Therefore, Chinese characters have the characteristics of integrating image, sound and meaning. This feature is unique in world writing, so it has unique charm. Chinese characters are the treasure of China's culture for thousands of years, and they are also our lifelong mentor and friend, and everyone's spiritual home. Chinese characters can often arouse our wonderful and bold associations and give people beautiful enjoyment.

Chinese characters are the bond of national soul. Making a living in a foreign country, Chinese characters are a kind of sustenance. Even a plaque, a piece of paper, and the square characters on it will attract you like a magnet and make you feel the kindness from your motherland. Because China people's feelings are condensed into the simplest. Every stroke is written in Chinese. Overseas, whether successful or wandering, as long as there are Chinese characters, there will be much comfort and sustenance, because every word has a far-reaching origin, whether pictographic or ideographic, whether knowing or speaking, every China person is the soul of Chinese characters.

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