This paper investigates the vestiges of bear worship in ancient Chinese characters. It analyzes the emergence and significance of characters symbolizing bears, such as “能” (néng) and “熊” (xióng), to elucidate their connection with the tradition of bear worship. “能” is identified as a pictogram representing the bear’s body, and it is argued that the character “羽 /能” (yī) used in the bamboo texts of the Chu state is related to bear birth mythology. Additionally, the study reveals that the ancestral surname “嬴” (Yíng) of the Qin dynasty encapsulates meanings related to the bear. The research explores the potential links between the bear worship totem of the Hongshan culture and the ethnic groups of the Qin and Chu states, supporting the polygenetic theory of the formation of the Chinese nation. It particularly emphasizes the significance of the Northeast Asian civilizations beyond the monocentric theory centered around the Yellow River or the dualistic theory of the Yangshao-Liangzhu cultures. The study also contributes to understanding the cultural connections between Gojoseon’s Dangun mythology, the formation of the Korean ethnic group, and further cultural linkages with Japan. This study comprehensively illuminates the impact of bear worship on the formation of Chinese and Northeast Asian cultures and is expected to lay a crucial theoretical foundation for constructing the methodology of “Chinese character archaeology” that integrates studies of ancient characters with ethnology, archaeology, and philology. Through this, it aims to provide deep insights into how various ethnicities and cultures have interacted to shape Chinese civilization.

‘한자고고학’은 “한자에 남겨진 흔적을 통해 그 배후의 말 없는 문화사를 발굴, 해 석하는 학문”이라 정의할 수 있다. 이는 한자를 대상으로, 특히 한자의 어원을 통해 이에 반영된 문화성을 밝히는 학문으로, 이의 증명에 언어문자학, 문헌학, 고고학, 인 류학 등의 자료들이 동원될 수 있다. 여기서는 ‘한자고고학’의 개념 정립을 비롯해 그 실천적 사례로 ‘일(壹)’자의 어원과 상징 분석을 통해 ‘한자고고학’의 방법론적 구 축 가능성을 검토했다. 이를 위해 (1)문자학적 측면에서 일(壹)의 어원과 상징, (2)고 고학적 측면에서의 호(壺)와 인면호(人面壺)의 상징, (3)인류학적 측면에서의 호리병 박 숭배 전통, (4)출토문헌에서의 관련 자료들, (5)확장적 연구로서의 여러 유사 자료 들도 함께 논의했다. 이를 통해 기존의 한자학을 문화연구로 그 영역을 확장시키고, 인접학문과의 접속 속에서 그간의 한자 내부에 한정되었던 시선을 밖으로 확장함으 로써, 새로운 해석과 관련 영역을 개척할 수 있는 이론적 틀을 마련하고자 하였다.

This study aims to interpret the significance as a cultural symbolism of ‘rentouhu (人頭 壺),’ which is gourd-shaped earthenware with a human face sculpted on the spout and has been excavated in large quantities at the Neolithic sites in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River in China. Although there have been brief descriptions on these artefacts due to their unusual shape, there has been little discussion of their significance as a cultural symbol. This study would like to argue that this object is a visual depiction of the origin myth that ‘humankind was born from a gourd,’ a myth that is widespread in China. The narrative of the origin of humankind from bottle gourd is universal and takes various forms in the origin myths of many ethnic groups in China, including the Han Chinese. It is also closely associated with the gourd, a device that enabled humankind to survive the disaster of the Great Flood. This paper draws on graphonomic, philological, archaeological, and anthropological data to discuss the cultural implications of ‘rentouhu (人頭壺).’ In particular, by clarifying the etymology of several Chinese characters including the character ‘yi’ (壹: one), this paper analyzes the traces of the myth of the origin of humankind from the calabash implicit in the etymology. Artefacts from Yinxu (殷墟), Anyang, Henan Province showing ‘a bird’s body with a human face’ discovered in the lower Yellow River region and the petroglyphs depicting the ‘flowers in the shape of human faces’ in Lianyungang (連雲港), Jiangsu Province in the downstream area of the Huai River are also expressions of the myth of the origin of humankind and cultural symbols of ‘rentouhu.’ This study will contribute to in-depth studies of the rentouhu as well as the origins of Chinese civilization. Beyond this, it will contribute to proposing a methodology of ‘Chinese character archeology,’ a convergence study involving graphonomy, philology, anthropology, and archeology.

This study was designed to show how ancient Chinese understood the concept of truth through characters listed in Shuowen Jiezi, the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters (A.D.100). In my previous research, I examined the interconnectedness of „zhen‟ (貞) and „zhen‟ (眞) as cognate words, to show how ancient Chinese developed a concept of „truth‟ early on. In this paper, I would like to clarify how ancient Chinese thought about truth/falsehood, right/wrong, and assent/dissent through interpreting the meaning of characters with shi 是 („true‟) or fei 非 („false‟) as a components in Shuowen. I analyze shi 是 („true‟), 25 characters having 是 as a component (2 characters having 是 as a semantic part, 23 characters having 是 as a sound part), fei 非 (false), and 35 characters having 非 as a component (5 characters having 非 as a semantic part, 30 characters having 非 as a sound part). I further analyze fú 弗, signifying „not‟, and 17 characters having 弗 as a component (17 characters having 弗 as a sound part and 0 character having 弗 as a semantic part), because 非 and 弗 are similar in meaning and usages. Taking into consideration all the different meanings represented by these characters, I divide them into three categories: (1) characters for depiction of the object in question with distinctive features, (2) characters for regulation, and (3) characters representing value. The first category include 14 characters having 是 as a component (56%), 3 characters having 非 as a component (16%), 1 character having 非 as a component (6%). As the second, 4 characters having 是 as a component (16%), 23 characters having 非 as a component (66%), 4 character having 非 as a component (24%) are included. 5 characters having 是 as a component (20%), 3 characters having 非 as a component (9%), 12 character having 非 as a component (71%) are classified as the third. I hope this paper is to stimulate related research by providing the origins, historical development and detailed interpretation of truth-related characters, and so be able to advance toward more insightful writings on truth.

Chinese Character studies have mainly been focused on four areas: orthography, phonology, meaning, and character frequency. To add a new dimension to the existing approaches, this paper will provide and examine a quantitative data about the range of the vocabulary in Chinese character dictionaries. As a promising new method, the new approach, both diachronic and dynamic, will be very useful in exploring changing aspects of Chinese Characters usage, compared with the existing synchronic and static approaches. This paper aims to provide analysis of all Chinese Characters included in Chŏnun-okp'yŏn, the most authoritative dictionary of Joseon dynasty published in 1805 meaning ‘Chinese Rhyme Dictionary’, and in Sinjajeon, meaning ‘New Dictionary of Chinese Characters’ published in 1915, to explain their changing aspects in the entries of two dictionaries, and then to show how social change affected the use of Chinese Characters in early twentieth-century Korea. To that end, I construct the database of the two dictionaries on the basis of a detailed analysis of all the characters with respect to the radicals, strokes, components, and structures of these characters, which shows that Chŏnun-okp'yŏn includes 10,997 Chinese characters and Sinjajeon contains 13,348 characters with 13,084 in the body text and 264 in three appendices. 2,114 characters were newly inserted and 7 characters were removed in the body text of Sinjaeon. In particular, the number of the radical headings containing more than 20 newly inserted characters are 35, with 1,624 new characters in total, accounting for 77.1% of the total. The total number of radical headings including more than 30% newly inserted characters are 26. In addition, the number of radical headings containing more than 10 newly inserted characters with a growth rate of more than 20% is 903, accounting for 43% of the total number of characters. Based on these data, modern Koreans appears to have a wider vocabulary consisted of Chinese characters. The number of characters under the radicals meaning animal and plant ( 犬 (dog), 牛 (cow), 肉 (meat), 木 (tree), 米 (rice), 禾 (pine), 田 (farmland), 虫 (insect) etc.), those meaning mineral (石 (stone), 玉 (jade), etc), those meaning industrial products (皮 (leather), 巾 (towel) ect.), those meaning pathology (疒 (illness), 歹 (broken bones), etc.), increased quite a bit, the words reflecting newly emerged phenomena of industrialization or modernization in the early 20th century. In addition, it can be pointed out that the words used for spoken Chinese newly appears in Sinjaeon.

This paper aims to explore the understanding and evolution of the concept of ‘truth’ (眞 理) in the earliest stages of Chinese history on the basis of oracle bone script zhen (貞) and the inscriptions zhen (眞). It further aims to prove that zhen (貞) and zhen (眞) are cognate words. ‘Truth’ in English is commonly translated as zhen (眞) in Chinese. However, it is not easy to find an intersection between two notions of ‘truth’ in the early stage of Eastern and Western culture in spite of a great deal of controversies over the notions in sinological studies, since there was almost no cultural exchange between the East and the West before the modern era. After the nineteenth century, with the expansion of the Western power, Westerners attempted to understand the manifold ways of Eastern thought. Thus, many concepts that were dominant in Western thinking were transplanted in many areas of Eastern thinking; the concept of ‘truth’ (眞理) is such a case. The Western concept of ‘truth’ (眞理) pursues correspondence theory, based on the dichotomy of true and false. Based on this idea, many Western scholars still claim that the notion of ‘zhen’ used in Chinese classical texts can not be equated with “truth” used in Europe and Anglo-American dominant philosophy. Therefore, I would like to return to the primitive sense of truth in the oracle bone script, explore the pre-theoretic understanding of truth before concrete forms of knowledge such as Confucianism and Buddhism were introduced, to show the interconnectedness of zhen (眞) and zhen (貞). Traditional interpretations of zhen (眞) can be roughly classified into three types: ‘a Daoist ascetic with miraculous powers’ (神仙)(see Xu Shen, Duan Yucai, et al.); ‘treasure’ (see Tang Lan, Ma Xulun, Zhou Fangfu, He Linyi, etc), and ‘death as unchanging status’ (see Shirakawa). Among these, the first version of zhen has been considered most authentic, because Shuowen Jiezi《說文解字》, the first authoritative dictionary of Chinese characters, defines zhen (眞) as “a Daoist hermit transforming shape and ascending into Heaven ( 僊人變形而登天也)” with Daoist connotations. Such interpretations, though dominent, were based on Xiaoshuan and did not seem to include closer investigations of zhen (貞), the older form of zhen (眞), based on recently unearthed literatures. Though contemporary archaeological studies provide evidence of more ancient origins, it is difficult to extract the original sense from the primitive script of zhen (貞), because it was only used as the name of a place or a person. This paper thus follows several hypotheses: 1. zhen (眞) is cognate with zhen (貞); 2. zhen (貞) in oracle bone script means ‘to ask Heaven questions from signs or omens obtained by burning tortoise shells or animal bones’ and a person in charge of performing a divination rituals’ is known as a diviner(zhenren ‘貞人’); 3. zhen (貞) was specified into zhen (眞); 4. Under the influence of Daoism during the early Han Dynasty, zhen (眞) was defined as ‘a Daoist hermit’ (神仙), and then acquired the meaning of truth after the introduction of Buddhism. The strategies of the paper are as follows: firstly I will analyze zhen (眞) by breaking it into its component characters and trace back its original forms and senses of zhen in oracle bone scripts; secondly, I will examine its usage in the ancient literatures based on phonetic and semantic patterns; finally I will try to place possible coordinates of ‘truth’ among constellations of various meanings of zhen (貞) and zhen (眞).

A Ming Dynasty Book, YuTang LiZheng ZiYi YunLv HaiPianXinJing (玉堂釐正字義韻律海篇心鏡, Vol. 20s), is collected in National Library of Korea. The author Zhu ZhiFan (朱之蕃, 1548-1624) is a minister of the Ming Dynasty, also a famous calligraphist. In 1606, he has been to Korea, left lots of influent poetry and calligraphy works. According to the preliminary investigation, this book is re-adjusted and re-edited, basing on HanLin ChongKao ZiYi YunLv DaBan HaiPianXinJing (翰林重考字義韻律大板海篇心鏡, Vol. 20s) which was rescheduled by Liu KongDang (劉孔當) in 1596. The purpose of this paper is as follows: Firstly, we introduced content and collection situation of YuTang LiZheng ZiYi YunLv HaiPianXinJing (Korean version), which has not been formally introduced to the academic community; Secondly, we described the structure, the preparation of the whole story and author of this book; Thirdly, we compared this book with various HaiPian, expecially to find the origin of the relationship between them. Finally, we concluded its influence on Korean academic and literary circles in the later 17th century.

This article examines a series of “tongzi”(同字) in Nam-sun Choi’s New Chinese Dictionary(新字典) published in 1913. “tongzies” are the Chinese Characters which have considered as same words because they have almost the same meaning and sound but slightly different shapes from orthodox written forms. In order to uncover Choi’s implicit intention and underlying interpretative strategies in New Chinese Dictionary, I firstly processes all the data by computer and compiles the database. Secondly, I extract 3053 characters explained as “tong(同)”(the same) in the dictionary and analyze their interpreting systems, methods of classification, structural features, etc. Finally I add all the cases of “tongzi” and their character structures in the appendix for the convenience of related studies.

This paper analyses how cultural ideas come into play and affect the interpretation on a word’s very complex and layered meaning in Diwuyou(第五游) written by Yujin Sim(沈有鎭) in the Late 18th Century, the earliest systematic etymological Dictionary of Chinese Characters of Joseon period. Diwuyou contains 1552 main entries written in the "regular script"(kaishu) followed by “Seal Script”(xiaozhuan), and provides the interpretation of formation, meaning, structure, pronunciation, semantic change and some supplementary comments for each character. We think all dictionaries seem to provide neutral information, but to arrange and interpret various usages of a word consistently, a set of values and attitudes of their editors cannot help being included. However hard editors of dictionaries try to provide objective information, they cannot be value neutral: dictionaries involve both attitudes and values. The aim of the paper is, thus, to analyses and uncover the hidden consent of dominant ideas and value orientation of Yujin Sim’s age reflected in the interpretations of Chinese characters of Diwuyou. The consent was implicit or hidden because Sim tried to be systematic and consistent in his data collection method concerning brush strocks and make detailed records of origin and history of words. Then, defying the age-old tradition of Shuowenjiezi(說文解字), he defined the meanings of words in 18th century Korean contexts. But by reading Diwuyou more deeply, you can find that the content, methodology, and the very culture of Diwuyou were the product of such a dominant ideology of the age as “neo-confucianism” which drove ruling elites very critical against Buddhist doctrine in the 18th century, an approval of “a divinely sanctioned, hierarchical political and social order as a universal and cosmic order and admiration of the core values of peace, non-violence, harmony and modesty.”

Currently, the research on Chinese characters’examination in Korea is still lack of quantitative investigation and statistic information which are systematic and microscopic. Such shortage is a pity of modern research of Chinese characters in Korea and academia of Chinese characters should pay attention to this situation. The forms and quantity of Chinese characters is the foundation of regulating Chinese characters’examination. In order to edit the table of Chinese characters, a practical survey must be conducted. Based on this awareness, the researching group has imported the lists of Chinese characters from eight organizations conducting examination of Chinese characters into a database. By counting the quantity of characters, combining the information from Chinese characters’table of official examinations and the statistics of Chinese characters’ frequency in the database, then comparing them, our research group has established the important reference to define the Chinese characters’table, quantity of Chinese characters, and types of Chinese characters, which is a breakthrough. With this study, we have obtained a reliable cornerstone for the study of the quantity and types of Chinese characters used in Chinese examinations in Korea.

The article sums up the achievements and shortage of the Han-Chinese language documents’ digitization, introduces the originality and programme of the associated retrieval system of ancient linguistics documents in Korea,and testifies about theoretical Value, practical function and academic significances of the associated retrieval system of ancient linguistics documents in Korea.

본 논문은 朝鮮 正祖 16年(1792)에 刊行된 『生生字譜』를 對象으로 삼아 이에 反映된 當時의 漢字 빈도 狀況과 그것이 漢字 頻度 硏究史에서 가지는 의의에 대해 논의하고자 기획되었다. 形·音·義 외에 漢字의 第4要素라 불리는 “글자의 빈도(字頻)”는 해당 글자의 실제 사용 능력을 나타내 준다는 의미에서 漢字의 字頻硏究는 漢字 그 자체는 물론 漢字의 應用硏究에도 중요한 의의를 가진다. 이를 위해 본 논문에서는 『生生字譜』에 수록된 1만4천9백82개의 字種을 대상으로 하여 (1) 한자빈도 연구사에서 가지는 『生生字譜』의 가치, (2) 『生生字譜』에 대한 간단한 소개, (3) 『生生字譜』와 18세기 후반 朝鮮時代의 文獻用 漢字頻度, (4) 고빈도 상위 50한자의 속성 분석과 빈도 비교 등에 논의했다. 특히 (3)에서는 『生生字譜』에 수록된 부수별 자종과 주조 수량, 빈도별 글자례, 收錄字의 累積 計頻度, 收錄字의 頻度 等級 分類 등에 대해 논의했고, (4)에서는 고빈도 상위 50한자를 추출하여 이들의 품사, 선진시대 각종 역대 문헌 자료, 동한시대 실물 자료, 위진남북조 석각문자 등과의 빈도 비교를 통해 『生生字譜』가 가지는 빈도의 의의에 대해 논의했다. 다만, 『生生字譜』에 기록된 주조량이 어떤 방식에 의해 조사되고 63등급에 의해 분류되었는지, 당시의 다른 “字譜”들과의 차별성은 무엇인지에 대해서는 지속적인 연구가 필요하다.