Cefu Yuangui (冊府元龜) extensively quotes texts from the Book of the Later Han (後漢書), containing numerous variant readings. By employing computer technology to digitize various paper versions of Cefu Yuangui and Book of the Later Han, and through programming comparisons supplemented with manual proofreading, a database of variant readings where Cefu Yuangui cites the Book of the Later Han was established. From this database, 75 sets of ancient and modern characters were sorted out. The majority of these cases involve the use of ancient characters in the Book of the Later Han and modern characters in Cefu Yuangui, with a few instances in reverse, but there are also cases where both texts use a mix of ancient and modern characters. This reveals the characteristics of the times of the emergence and use of ancient and modern characters during the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, as well as the Two Song Dynasties. Some conclusions drawn from this study can provide references and insights for further improvements of the revised version of Cefu Yuangui.

Chinese ancient wordbook of standard characters is a type of character book that establishes a standard style for the writing of Chinese characters. This article selects seven types of character books, including the Tang Dynasty’s Ganlu Zishu, Wujing Wenzi, Xinjia Jiujing Ziyang, the Song Dynasty’s Fugu Bian, the Yuan Dynasty’s Zi Jian, the Ming Dynasty’s Sushu Kanwu, and the Qing Dynasty’s Zengguang Zixue Juyu. Through a review and analysis of their research status, it is determined that the style of character books is mainly explored from three aspects: character collection, bibliography, and arrangement style. Chinese ancient wordbook of standard characters has the characteristics of small volume and stable quantity in the collection of characters. In terms of typography, the form of the prefix has gone through a process of typography, from typography to typography, and gradually fixed to typography; Except for the “Fugu Bian”, all fonts are in regular script and stand out; Except for the “Ganlu Zishu”, all prefix categories are listed in regular script. In terms of arrangement style, the Ganlu Zishu has had a profound impact on future generations of character books. More character books use phonetic order, and are all based on four tones, with rhyme as the main focus. The use of radical method in the “Wujing Wenzi” and “Xinjia Jiujing Ziyang” is different from the radical in the “Shuowen Jiezi” in terms of the number, form, and order of radicals, mainly reflecting the trend of radical function transformation from structure to character inspection.

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.

The digitization of ancient characters allows ancient writing materials to break the limitations of time and space. The application of digital technology can also help the interpretation of ancient writings and contribute to the protection of original materials. After more than 20 years of efforts, the research on digital processing of Chinese ancient characters has made a series of attempts in ancient character database and query system, big data platform, ancient character input software and recognition software, and achieved a series of achievements. In the future, we need to make continuous efforts in the interdisciplinary talent training of Chinese Palaeography and computer science, the cooperation between different research institutions, and the openness of digital achievements.

There are a lot of problems in the existing databases of ancient characters, such as the digital processing obstacles of Gaiji (characters excluded in character sets), the defects of information technology, and a lack of completeness. The newly released “digital resource library for intelligent Internet search of ancient characters” makes the following breakthrough: it achieves full coverage of all types of ancient characters in all dynasties, and realizes the carrier conversion of character data with strict digital standards, allows the the further processing of materials and the intelligent recognition search technology, and forms the series of thematic databases. There are two major tasks for the future development of the digital resource library of Chinese characters: the development of international standards for ancient character sets, and the further processing and sorting of ancient character materials for the intelligent research of ancient characters.

The Tay people are the ethnic minorities with the largest population in Viet Nam, mainly distributed in the Northern Uplands and Midlands, mostly concentrated in the provinces of Cao Bang, Lang Son, Tuyen Quang and Ha Giang. Over the long history of development, along with the development and improvement of their language, the Tay people have gradually created a type of writing system using the graphic, phonetic, and meaning elements of Chinese characters in combination with indigenous phonetic and linguistic elements, to create the system that is called the Nom-Tay scripts or the Nom script of the Tay ethnic group. Traditional Tay literature is mainly recorded in this Nom - Tay script. The article reliesupon the texts that belong to the genre of narrative poetry (in this genre, a story is written as a long poem) written in Nom - Tay- the most significant part of the written classical folk literature of the Tay ethnic group. Materials from the texts, currently stored at the Institute of Sino - Nom Studies (Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences), will be used to conduct an analysis of the usage and the method of writing of the Chinese characters in these texts. Thereby, the article strives to confirm the important role and the ample appearance of the Chinese characters in VietnameseNom- Tay texts.

2천여 년 동안 한자를 사용한 베트남에는 지금까지도 한자의 영향이 닿지 않은 곳이 없다. 고대에 한자가 베트남의 다방면에 영향을 준 것은 부인할 수 없는 사실이다. 과거의 베트남은 한자를 ‘성현지자(聖賢之字)’, ‘재도지자(載道之字)’ 등으로 불렸고 그 위상이 매우 높아 문맹인 백성들은 한자가 적힌 폐지 한 조각을 보기만 하면 반드시 허리를 굽혀 줍는 등, ‘결석자지(敬惜 字紙, 문자가 적힌 종이를 귀하게 여기는 것)’의 문화가 존재했다. 반면, 지금의 베트남은 명승고 적, 절, 사원, 서적에 모두 한자가 적혀져 있지만 90%의 베트남인들은 자신의 조상들이 쓴 문자를 이해하지도 읽어내지도 한다. 베트남 학자들은 음수사원(飲水思源, 물을 마실 때는 그 근원을 생각하다. 즉 근본을 잊지 않다) 한 베트남 민족이 오늘에 이르러 ‘망본(忘本, 근본을 잃다)’하였음을 슬프지만 인정할 수밖에 없었다. 이로 인해 학자들은 서로 연합하여 베트남 정부에 한자의 재활성화를 요구했다.

『야화춘풍투고성(野火春风鬪古城)』은 이영유(李英儒)의 동명소설을 개편한 항일전쟁 주제의 현대 민족 가극으로 최근 몇 년간 오리 지널 가극 중 가장 영향력이 있는 가극 거작이다. 2005년 중국 항일 전쟁과 세계 반 파시즘 전쟁 승리 60주년을 기념하기 위하여 중국 인민 해방군 가극단이 이 가극을 창작ㆍ연출했다. 가극은 소설의 주 요한 줄거리를 취하고 북방의 한 고성 안에서의 중국 지도부의 지하 항일 전쟁 전투의 이야기를 표현했다. 본 논문은 『야화춘풍투고성』의 최종 발행한 VCD 판본에 의거하 여 문헌 연구ㆍ분석ㆍ종결 등의 방법을 통해 『야화춘풍투고성』극 중 여성 역할인 양모(楊母)를 착안점으로 하였다. 배경 창작에서부터 아리아의 음악 특징(언어ㆍ음성ㆍ노래를 포함) 등 방면까지 양모의 중요 아리아를 예로 들어 연구 결문 부분으로 진행하였다. 간단하게 문장의 맥락을 다듬고 『야화춘풍투고성』중 여성의 역할이 표현하 고 있는 음성 형태의 기초상을 해명하였다. 정감ㆍ어투ㆍ언어 등 각 종 방면의 요소들을 결합한 것이다. 본문을 통하여 성악 애호가들이 극중의 양모에 대해 더욱더 완전한 이해를 할 수 있기를 바란다. 동 시에 본문은 분석된 아리아의 노래 분석과 가창 처리 등을 매우 세 심하게 묘사하였다. 성악에 대해 공부하는 애호가들에게 참고와 도움이 될 수 있기를 바란다.

The history of the spread and development of Chinese characters in Korea is very long. Chinese characters were introduced into the Korean peninsula as early as in the period from the end of the Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms (A.D. 3C). Until the end of the 19th century, Chinese characters were the official writing system in Korea. The Korean peninsula has a history of using Chinese characters for over 1,500 years. It has an incomparably rich collection of ancient texts and documents written with Chinese characters. Of them are a considerable number of stone carvings that authentically recorded the profound literacy of the Korean people in the Middle Ages as far as the culture of Chinese characters is concerned. At the same time, these stone carvings are also of valuable reference for the developmental transformations and the configurational patterns since the formation of the clerical script, through the Wei-Jin period, the Sui and the Tan dynasties, and all the way through modern times. The present study takes as an example of the stone tablet of Master Chinkam Sŏnsa of the Silla era collected in Korean Grand Compendium of Ancient Inscriptions published by the Korean Studies Institute. I specifically summarized and analyzed the alternative script of ancient Chinese characters in the Korean stone carvings. I found out that there are characters written with different strokes or in a different internal structure, those which have been simplified, those which some parts have been added to or subtracted from, and those with a different position. Then I explored the formation and the developmental trajectory of individual variant forms of a Chinese character. Thus, I grasped the reasons for the formation of the variant Chinese characters in Korean ancient stone carvings as well as their writing characteristics.

The development of Nom characters is promoted on the basis of and in attachment with Chinese characters, and in this regard the Phonetic Annotation of the Thousand Character Classic 《千字文解音》 compiled in the late Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam was a very practical textbook for learning Chinese characters and Nom characters. Based on categorizing Nom characters, the paper intends to clarify several notions on Nom characters of the Phonetic Annotation of the Thousand Character Classic. In the beginning, Nom characters can be divided into two major types: the directly borrowed Chinese characters and the independently invented ones. The former includes borrowing sounds, meanings, and both. The latter, according to the components of Chinese character formations, can be divided into the pictophonetic of Chinese characters and that of Nom characters. In the last part of the article, we summarize the relationship between Chinese characters and Nom characters. It is necessary not merely to consider the relationship but to understand the comparisons between them. With the aid of studying Nom characters, we can find that irrespective of whether they are directly-borrowed from Chinese or independently invented, the sound of Chinese characters is the most important feature for them. But we cannot ignore the ideographic parts of Nom characters because they, on the one hand, make up the phonetic deficiency of Chinese characters while promoting the development of Nom characters on the other. In our modern society, Chinese characters and Nom characters came to drift apart, and the latter especially was withdrawn from the historical stage, but the traditional culture of Vietnam is still recorded in literature both in Chinese characters and Nom characters. Moreover, the Nom character is one of the most important representatives of Vietnam’s traditional culture. For this reason solely, this research shall be a great help to further understanding of significant cross-cultural aspects between China and Vietnam, and more specifically of histories related to the spreading, application, and development of Chinese characters in Vietnam.

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.

The Collection of Characters of the Warring States Period edited by Tang Yuhui, includes the most abundant forms of Characters of the Warring States Period up to now. Characters on ancient seals are one type of Chinese Characters it recorded, which accounts over 1/4 among the total number of the characters. According to recently related research achievements, we made a revision of these missing prefixes of Chinese characters, forms of characters on ancient seals and other different mistakes in the Collection of Characters of the Warring States Period.

This paper is concerned with the research on the classification and origin and connotation of the <Xunmeng zihui>. The paper points out that the term of dictionary definition is the key to grasp the meaning of Chinese characters to the users. However, because the ancient authors did not explain the terms they used, this resulted in our study of ancient Chinese character dictionary is very difficult. If we do not understand the terms, the source and uses of the dictionary, We will not be able to carry on the research to the South Korean Ancient Chinese character dictionary, Whether it is the dictionary itself, or its traditional and theoretical.

이 논문은 동아시아 한자문화권에서 다양하게 진행되어오고 있는 書法( 중국은 書法, 한국은 書藝, 일본은 書道)예술을 한문교육의 차원에서 재조명하여 그 심미 적 교육 방안을 모색해 본 것이다. 동아시아 한자는 황하문명의 긴 역사를 바탕으 로 다양한 상상력과 창의력이 동원된 문자였다. 우리 동아시아의 한자문화권에서 는 아주 오래전부터 서법의 예술이 다양하게 발달해 오고 있었다. 이 서법예술 속 에는 다양한 미적 상상력과 창의력이 함의되어 있다. 한자교육은 단순히 識字 교 육 범위를 넘어 동아시아 한자문화의 편린들을 심미적으로 이해하고 향유할 수 있도록 다양하게 교육할 필요가 있다. 우리 한자문화권의 서법의 역사 속에는 한문교육 자료로 활용할 수 있는 다양 한 심미적 교육요소들이 무진장으로 함의 되어 있다. 고대 서법예술의 심미적 교 육은 학습자들의 인성을 순화하게하고, 창의력과 상상력을 제공하며 전통문화를 계승하고 문화를 창도하는 원동력이 될 수 있는 중요한 영역임을 재확인 할 수 있었다. 서법예술의 심미적인 교육은 학생들의 심성을 순화시키고 다양한 상상력과 창의 력을 개발시킨다. 이 논문에서는 동아시아 한문교육의 일환으로 동양의 고대서법의 미학을 심미적으로 교육하기 위하여 이 서법의 미학을 어떻게 공부하게 하여 어떻게 심미적으로 교육할 수 있는 가에 대하여 그 목표와 내용, 그리고 그 방법과 평가로 나누어 모색해 보았다. 동아시아 고대서법의 심미적 교육을 통하여 동양의 고대문화 를 이해하고 심미적으로 향유하며 문자의 기원과 발달을 생생하게 체험하고 이를 바탕으로 창의성과 상상력을 마음껏 발휘 시키며 나아가서 서법의 수련을 통하여 심성수양과 인격의 완성까지 추구하게 할 수 있다. 고대서법에 대한 심미적 교육을 통하여 다양한 유형의 고대서법 자료를 심미적 으로 향유할 수 있는 능력을 기른다. 또한 고대서법에 담긴 선인들의 삶과 지혜를 이해하여 건전한 가치관과 바람직한 인성을 함양하고, 전통문화를 바르게 이해하 고 창조적으로 계승 발전시키며 한자문화권의 문화에 대한 고대서법의 기초적인 지식을 익혀 한자문화권 내에서의 문화의 이해와 소통에 기여하려는 선구자적인 태도를 지니게도 할 수 있다. 한문교육의 다양한 방법의 추구로 한문교과의 심미적 교육의 위상을 제고하는 새 지평이 열리는 계기가 될 수 있기를 희망한다.

클라우디오 몬테베르디의 《포페아의 대관식》에 등장하는 포페아와 옥타비아는 둘 다 로마 제국의 5대 황제였던 네로의 부인이었다. 오페라에서 두 여주인공의 캐릭터는 실제보 다 추악하게 왜곡되었는데 이것은 이 작품이 완성되고 초연되었던 베니스 공화국의 정치적 성향이 반영되었기 때문이다. 본 논문에서는 고대 로마 역사가인 타키투스, 수에토니우스, 디오 카시우스의 원전을 살펴보고 여기에 기록된 포페아와 옥타비아의 실제 모습과 오페라 속의 모습을 비교 분석하였다.