Analyzed from the features of the inscriptions, the ge (dagger-axe) of the Wucheng which is collected by the National Museum of China is closely relevant to Zhao States of the Three-Jin area in the Warring-States Period. It is more rational to believe that the manufacture time of the weapon should be 252 BC. The author argues that the name of supervisor is Mangzao (芒早 ), and the position of the main fabricant is Gongshisefu (工師嗇夫 ).
The Bronze Hu in Shang and Zhou dynasties is one of the most vital bronze wares, from the early Shang Dynasty, through the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, until the Qin and Han dynasties. The name forms of bronze Hu are rich and varied. There are not only a variety of special names but also dozens of modifiers. The bronze Hu’s names reflect the key information about the function of the vessel. Therefore, we have exhaustively sorted out the names included in The Inscriptions and Image Integration of Bronze Vessels of Shang and Zhou Dynasties,The Continuation of The Inscriptions and Images Integration of Bronze Vessels of Shang and Zhou Dynasties and the Third Edition of Shang and Zhou Bronze Inscriptions and Image Integration by Mr. Wu Zhenfeng. On such a basis, this paper tries to make a systematic study into the function of bronze Hu in Shang and Zhou dynasties by starting from the name of bronze Hu and combining with the inscriptions of bronze vessels, handed down documents, the shape and structure of vessels and the unearthed combination of boats. In the final analysis, it is concluded that such names of bronze Hu as ‘Li Hu’, ‘Yu Hu, and ‘Zao Hu’ reflect the function of wine, The name modifier “盥” reflects thefunction of bronze Hu for the water dispenser, and “飤 Hu” and “Hu” from the side reflects the function of the Hu used for treats.
Xinji Zangjing Yinyi Suihanlu (新集藏經音義隨函錄), Newly Compiled Sounds and Meanings of Tripitaka; Kehong Sound and Meaning) is a large work that identifies textual corruption in handwritten copies of Buddhist scriptures using informal (non-standard form) Chinese characters through sounds and meanings. It was written by Kehong based on Buddhist scriptures of the Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties Period to faithfully present the actual situation of the use of Chinese characters in copying Buddhist scriptures at that time, making considerable contribution to the research of classical Chinese, classical text proofreading, and corrections of large lexicographic works. Kehong Sound and Meaning contains a wide collection of “lexicographic entries” sorted by the sequence of appearance in scriptures, interpretations and explanations of the form, sound, and meaning of each entry with a range of jargons. In her doctoral thesis, A Study of Kehong Sound and Meaning: A Perspective of Characters, Xiaojing Han introduces the denotations and connotations of jargons including: “orthographical form”, “other form”, “also known form”, “alternative form”, “appropriate form”, “colloquial form”, “classical text”, and “classical text form”. This paper attempts to identify and explore the 114 entries of jargons explicitly marked as “classical text” in Xinjizangjingyinyisuihanlu published by the SWF Company (Tripiṭaka Koreana: XXXIV and XXXV) in order to elucidate the “classical text” citied in Kehong Sound and Meaning, and conclude that the phenomena of characters require special attention.
Zhu (朱) is a pictophonetic character and associative compound. Mu (木) and Zhu (丶) indicate the meaning, and especially the latter refers to the pronunciation as well. Its original meaning is wood with red inside. Zhu (朱) assumes the semantic function in pictophonetic characters. The meaning of the expression comes from two sources: one is that it derives from the extended meaning of Zhu (丶) as the phonetic symbol of Zhu (朱) means red or bright; the other is that it derives from the extended meaning or rebus of a short form for Zhu (鼄), which means ‘to cut off’ or ‘a name of the place’.
The original intention and achievement of Chinese character culture industry research and practice is “Chinese character culture + X”, and “Chinese character culture + City (Region)” is the most comprehensive practice. Because of its rich cultural carrying capacity, unique pictographic features, and many related physical carriers, Chinese character culture can become the core and leading cultural strategy of cities, regions, and communities. In China, the two practical cases that combine Chinese character culture and city cultural strategy most closely are “Xu Shen’s Hometown – Luohe” and “Yin Ruins – Anyang.” This paper focuses on the cross fields of Chinese character culture, cultural industry, and public management, takes Luohe and Anyang as samples, introduces the cultural strategy modes and main contents of the two cities on the theme of Chinese character culture. By researching and comparing the implementation of the two strategies and the construction ideas behind them, this paper sums up the planning framework of the two cities’ cultural strategies. It matches the corresponding practice path of Chinese character culture to provide references. It helps scholars of Chinese character culture practice cultural strategic prediction, decision-making, and consulting projects of different cities.
The definition of ‘wen’ in the preface of Shuowen Jiezi by Xushen is “creating characters is according to shape image, so the shape image is wen”. Wenshi of Zhang Taiyan studies 510 single-element characters as ‘chuwen’ in Shuowen Jiezi. He is the first scholar who proposes the concept of ‘chuwen’. Subsequently, experts in ancient writing apply the theory of ‘chuwen’ to explain the shape of ancient writing massively, representing great achievements. Based on this, the paper divides ‘chuwen’ into ‘phonetic one’ and ‘semantic one’ to study the reading method and applicative value, respectively. This paper lists 10 examples of 潮, 瓜, 訊, 要, , 範, 瓒, 金, 臨, 沐 to illustrate that ‘chuwen’ must be paid attention to in the interpretation of difficult ancient writing.
‘豪𢜶 Haosao’ is a dialect word widely used in Wu dialect areas. It means ‘to be quick or hurry’ and, by extension, ‘straightforward; comfortably’. The original word of that should be ‘𠢕趮 haozao’, which is a near-synonymy compound word. The commonly used Korean adverb of ‘어서 (eoseo)’ has the meaning of ‘to be quick or hurry up’ instead of ‘please’ as an interjection. ‘豪𢜶 (haosao)’ and ‘어서 (eoseo)’ correspond in terms of both sound and meaning. It is possible that the latter was borrowed from Wu dialect. During the Southern, Sui, and Tang Dynasties, the regions of Jiangsu and Zhejiang had frequent exchanges with Baekje and Silla. It is likely that ‘ 豪 𢜶 (haosao)’ was introduced to the Korean Peninsula during that period. Whether ‘어서’ has something to do with ‘豪𢜶’ or not is still worthy of further studies.
Child education (xiaoxue, 小學) literature of the original manuscript of Yupian quoted includes approximately eleven kinds, and the quotation of the literature is about 2,936 times. What is found, in comparison with the standing version of child education literature, is that there are many lexical and expressional relations worth examining and distinguishing in the original manuscript of Yupian quoted, which includes those of characters of the borrowing, the misused, the variant form, the mutual usage, and so on. The value of research into the words and expressions in child education literature of the original manuscript of Yupian quoted is in fact inestimable especially in terms of philology, lexicology, and literary studies. Not only can it explain the abovementioned relations but calibrate the variant forms, folk characters, and semantic errors in dictionary entries. Moreover, it can supplement the errors in omission, and also offer some materials of differentiation between the original manuscript of Yupian and the standing version of child education literature.
Chinese traditional dictionaries are often named after “文”, “ 字” or “dictionary” such as Shuowenjiezi, Zihui, Kangxi Dictionary, etc. The dictionary named Yupian began with Guyewang in the Liang Dynasty. It has its own cultural meaning to use jades comparing to characters. This paper analyzes the reasons for the naming of dictionaries in their own history. And the particularity of Yupian’s naming by examining the taking of such treasure as ‘yu’, a metaphor of Chinese characters. From this rhetorical perspective, it can also be seen that the things named ‘jade’ have their characteristics as well. According to the records of ‘jade’ in classical literature and its influence on people’s ideology in ancient cultural life, it is, in fact, found that the meaning of ‘jade’ has gradually developed and spread. Its metaphorical meaning has also extended to various fields in the same fashion. From the standpoint of the relation between jades and Chinese characters, and that between language and culture, this paper will explore the origin of the naming of Yupian as a dictionary and its influence on the naming of Japanese and Korean dictionaries.
Vietnam is a multi-ethnic country with many cultures, languages, and forms of texts that coexist independently and interactively. Among the Vietnamese ethnic minorities is the Tay, the most primarily populated one. Before the use of the Latinized script, the Tay people used to use Nom which is made up of the graphic, phonetic and semantic elements of Han characters. Currently, the cultural source of the Tay is one of the most precious cultural heritages of Vietnam. If we want to decode, research, explore and promote the values of this heritage, it is impossible not to have a good set of reference books, which are Nom-Tay (word-based and character-based) dictionaries. It is undeniable that the compilation of Tay-language dictionaries and texts has attracted interest, and been in implementation for about half a century, thanks especially to the government, research institutions, and generations of Vietnamese scholars. However, the achievements have not met the needs and utilization potential of the explored materials. With the extremely abundant resources of ancient Nom-Tay texts, with the proper attention and investment of the state and investment funds, and with researchers’ enthusiasm, the compilation of the Nom-Tay (word-based and character-based) dictionaries will, to be sure, attain remarkable achievements.
The isorhyme is an important part of Chinese phonology research. The research into Chinese isorhymes performed in the Korean Peninsula is also no less important, especially from the perspective of East Asian Linguistics. It is of great value to understand the content of isorhymes in the Korean peninsula for understanding the development of isorhymes abroad. By collecting and sorting the research materials on Korean isorhymes and phonology in the past 50 years, this paper analyzes the characteristics and values of studies on Chinese isorhymes in the Korean Peninsula. It summarizes the application of ancient phonology theory, the study on a phonological model of Shengyin Changhetu (《聲音唱和圖》 ), Qieyun (《切韻》 ) and related rhyme books, and studies on rhyming in the three dynasties of Song, Ming, and Qing. In the final analysis, it is concluded that considering the history and current situation related to the studies on Chinese isorhyme in the Korean Peninsula, the fundamental research into the equivalence prosody is of great value.
The focus of this study is to investigate the impact of the debate and decision-making on Literary Sinitic education in Korea and China after modern times. In addition to the differences in space and time background, South Korea and China have very similar development process and outcome in many aspects, such as Chinese character education, Chinese language education and debate and decision-making related to language policy. The dual structure of this study, which has both universality and particularity, is different from that before modern times. And this kind of difference is also the present appearance of Sino-sphere.