The intent of this paper is to introduce a method of deciphering oracle bone characters; specifically the interpretation of the Compound Ideograph. Utilizing this method, the article applies known characters to hypothesizing the expression of unknown characters. This view of Chinese characters comes from such work as I Ching or Classic of Changes and Shi-poem or Classic of Poetry, where the figurative mean and depiction of a realistic scene or parable are captured and symbolized within a pictorial representation or ideograph. By returning pictographic combinations to the realistic scene, all the meanings of an ideograph are derived from the scene and scene’s parable. The following explains the correlation between the combinations with the intended meaning. The ideographs are shown in that the first part is the pronunciation sound in Chinese while the second part in italics is the scene combined pictographs. [1] The English character of Bow for shooting arrows is borrowed figuratively to express “to bend the knee or body, as in reverence, submission”, “to cause to bend; make curved”, and is extended to Bowl to denote the Container figure like a bow. [2] The character of Sol means the sun, and its scene maps a lonely man like the sun without partners around, so Sol is used to denote solitary (alone, lone), sole (single), etc. in its figurative sense. [3] The Chinese character Gou-ear (句) is a scene of the ear with an ear-hook. Gou-ear means the hook in ear’s figurative sense, for a man uses his ear as a hook, or an ear looks like a hook on the wall. In another perspective, Gou-ear depicts Be-hooked, meaning Arrest, Capture, or Chain-up. When an ancient encounters a hook or a man stooping to work, and tries to tell others about it, he may say a tool like the ear (projecting out of the head) or a man working like the ear (figure), which is similar to saying that it looks like a bow in the West. [4] A character Fu-man:tiger (赴) is made of a tiger and man, reading ‘the tiger is like a man standing up’. A scene-parable of the tiger standing suggests “pounce, jump”, extending its meaning to “go to like a tiger jump, dedicate on”. It is a man determinative ideograph: the tiger is determined by a man standing. ‘Man is read as his feature: standing’ is called semantic loan. Similarly, Yue-man:deer (跃), means a deer like a man standing, also meaning a leap. Xiong-man:pig (熊) means a bear; a pig standing is like the bear. [5] A character Lian-ear:mouth (聯) is a narrative scene of the mouth-ear-mouth, words to words through the ear, telling a narrative story of people that are connected in the ear in the wild restricted visibility, which is derived to the connection, union, and contact. [6] Dong-kid (動) means a move, a scene of a boy (semantic loan), for a child’s behavior is the non- stop action for a moment. [7] A character Yu-pup:gape (欲) is a scene of the mouth opened up, which maps ‘want’. Man’s want means wish, man’s want from heart or by nature is hard to draw and ancient Chinese oracle priest to draw ‘animal’s want’, which was used metaphorically to mean the very wish, appetite, and desire (sex, material). Overall, an ideo-character is a narrative picture or story which tells thoughts or ideas, not record language words, and then is pronounced the glyph in it later. Thus the character creates the word.

1. 盤銘再釋
2. 盉銘再釋
3. 釋句
4. 釋赴
5. 釋讀方法
References
Abstract

• 大路大魏(多村歷史文孳研究齋) | Dalu Da WEIH