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说文解字 Explaining and Analyzing Characters - Dictionary with a radical innovation
January 27, 2013, Sunday
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ACCORDING to legend, Cangjie, a very clever scribe to the Yellow Emperor (2697-2589 BC), was the creator of Chinese characters.
Because Cangjie had an extremely good memory, the emperor gave him assignments such as keeping records of food stocks and numbers of livestock and captives seized in battle.
As first, Cangjie used methods such as tying different-colored knots in string or using shells to represent numbers to help him remember things.
But as the Yellow Emperor gave him more and more assignments, Cangjie realized that such methods were not up to the job and decided to find a better way.
One morning, he saw three hunters arguing about animal footprints in the snow. One said they were the footprints of a deer going south, another insisted they were the footprints of a mountain goat going west. The third hunter claimed they were the footprints of a tiger.
Looking at the footprints, Cangjie thought if different footprints could help identify different animals, then why not use different symbols to indicate different things?
Based on his observations, he used simple lines to draw symbols to represent the sun, moon, a river, a mountain, a house, different animals and many other objects around him.
And those symbols gradually evolved into unique pictographs, which eventually became Chinese characters.
However, with the constant expansion of the Chinese vocabulary, it became a great challenge for any lexicographer to organize these into a handy dictionary for daily use.
It was not until the middle of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24) that the first dictionary that organized Chinese characters according to their "radicals" - shared components - appeared.
This dictionary was called "Shuowen Jiezi" (Explaining and Analyzing Characters), often shortened to "Shuowen." It was authored by Xu Shen, a renowned scholar and philosopher of Confucianism during the Western Han Dynasty.
Xu said that the title of the dictionary was intended to cover "wen" or graphic elements such as those created by Cangjie and analyze "zi," a combination of graphic elements and pronunciation.
To compile this unprecedented dictionary, Xu created 540 bu shou - meaning radicals or section headers - to represent unique graphic elements of the characters.
And then he divided those radicals into 14 categories, hence the 14 chapters of a total of 9,353 character entries in the dictionary.
The dictionary also has a preface and a 15th chapter, containing a postface and an index of character radicals.
While compiling the dictionary, Xu also created a solid theory basis for the Chinese language and preserved important information about the "small seal script," the original characters of the ancient times.
Xu completed the dictionary in 100 BC, but it was said that due to unfavorable political attitudes at the imperial court, it was not issued until 21 years later, when officially presented to Emperor An of the Han Dynasty.
Although not the first dictionary of Chinese language in history, "Shuowen," as the first dictionary compiled according to radicals, was certainly a game changer in Chinese philology.
It attracted hundreds of Chinese scholars and researchers to make systematic studies of Chinese characters and featured in examinations.
In the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), "Shuowen" was included as an essential part in the imperial civil examinations.
And during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) alone, more than 200 scholars are known to have specialized in studying "Shuowen."
Today, "Shuowen" is still regarded as the key to accessing a treasure trove of ancient Chinese culture and classic Chinese language.
Because Cangjie had an extremely good memory, the emperor gave him assignments such as keeping records of food stocks and numbers of livestock and captives seized in battle.
As first, Cangjie used methods such as tying different-colored knots in string or using shells to represent numbers to help him remember things.
But as the Yellow Emperor gave him more and more assignments, Cangjie realized that such methods were not up to the job and decided to find a better way.
One morning, he saw three hunters arguing about animal footprints in the snow. One said they were the footprints of a deer going south, another insisted they were the footprints of a mountain goat going west. The third hunter claimed they were the footprints of a tiger.
Looking at the footprints, Cangjie thought if different footprints could help identify different animals, then why not use different symbols to indicate different things?
Based on his observations, he used simple lines to draw symbols to represent the sun, moon, a river, a mountain, a house, different animals and many other objects around him.
And those symbols gradually evolved into unique pictographs, which eventually became Chinese characters.
However, with the constant expansion of the Chinese vocabulary, it became a great challenge for any lexicographer to organize these into a handy dictionary for daily use.
It was not until the middle of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24) that the first dictionary that organized Chinese characters according to their "radicals" - shared components - appeared.
This dictionary was called "Shuowen Jiezi" (Explaining and Analyzing Characters), often shortened to "Shuowen." It was authored by Xu Shen, a renowned scholar and philosopher of Confucianism during the Western Han Dynasty.
Xu said that the title of the dictionary was intended to cover "wen" or graphic elements such as those created by Cangjie and analyze "zi," a combination of graphic elements and pronunciation.
To compile this unprecedented dictionary, Xu created 540 bu shou - meaning radicals or section headers - to represent unique graphic elements of the characters.
And then he divided those radicals into 14 categories, hence the 14 chapters of a total of 9,353 character entries in the dictionary.
The dictionary also has a preface and a 15th chapter, containing a postface and an index of character radicals.
While compiling the dictionary, Xu also created a solid theory basis for the Chinese language and preserved important information about the "small seal script," the original characters of the ancient times.
Xu completed the dictionary in 100 BC, but it was said that due to unfavorable political attitudes at the imperial court, it was not issued until 21 years later, when officially presented to Emperor An of the Han Dynasty.
Although not the first dictionary of Chinese language in history, "Shuowen," as the first dictionary compiled according to radicals, was certainly a game changer in Chinese philology.
It attracted hundreds of Chinese scholars and researchers to make systematic studies of Chinese characters and featured in examinations.
In the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), "Shuowen" was included as an essential part in the imperial civil examinations.
And during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) alone, more than 200 scholars are known to have specialized in studying "Shuowen."
Today, "Shuowen" is still regarded as the key to accessing a treasure trove of ancient Chinese culture and classic Chinese language.
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