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Shizhoupian
The ''Shizhoupian'' () is the first known Chinese dictionary, and was written in the ancient Great Seal script. The work was traditionally dated to the reign of King Xuan of Zhou (827–782 BCE), but many modern scholars assign it to the State of Qin in the Warring States period (c. 475–221 BCE). The text is no longer fully extant, and it is now known only through fragments. History The ''Shizhoupian'' dictionary, which was probably compiled sometime between 700 BCE to 200 BCE, originally consisted of 15 chapters ( ''piān''), but six were lost by the reign of Emperor Guangwu of Han (25–56 CE) and the other nine chapters, except for scattered references, were lost by the Jin dynasty (266–420). Title Until recently, it was thought that the dictionary title referred to Shǐ Zhòu ( "Historian Zhou"), who allegedly served as Taishi (surname), Grand Historian (''Tàishǐ'' 太史) in the court of Western Zhou King Xuan (r. 827–782 BCE). Both the c. 78 CE "Yiwenzhi, Treatise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Dictionary
Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Han dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for the Chinese language, and this article discusses some of the most important. Terminology The general term ''císhū'' (, "lexicographic books") semantically encompasses "dictionary; lexicon; encyclopedia; glossary". The Chinese language has two words for dictionary: ''zidian'' (character/logograph dictionary) for written forms, that is, Chinese characters, and ''cidian'' (word/phrase dictionary), for spoken forms. For character dictionaries, ''zidian'' () combines ''zi'' "character, graph; letter, script, writing; word") and ''dian'' "dictionary, encyclopedia; standard, rule; statute, canon; classical allusion"). For word dictionaries, ''cidian'' is interchangeably written /; ''cídiǎn''; ''tzʻŭ²-tien³''; "word dictionary") or (/; ''cídiǎn''; ''tzʻŭ²-tien³''; "word dictionary"); ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Seal Script
The large seal script or great seal script () is a traditional reference to Chinese writing from before the Qin dynasty (i.e. before 221 BCE), and is now popularly understood to refer narrowly to the writing of the Western and early Eastern Zhou dynasties (i.e. 1046–403 BCE), and more broadly to also include the oracle bone script (c.1250–1000 BCE). The term is in contrast to the name of the official script of the Qin dynasty, which is often called the small or lesser seal script (小篆 ''Xiǎozhuàn'', also termed simply ''seal script''). However, due to the lack of precision in the term, scholars often avoid it and instead refer more specifically to the provenance of particular examples of writing. In the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), when clerical script became the popular form of writing and (small) seal script was relegated to more formal usage such as on signet seals and for the titles of stelae (inscribed stone memorial tablets which were popular at the time), th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shuowen Jiezi
''Shuowen Jiezi'' () is an ancient Chinese dictionary from the Han dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the '' Erya'' predates it), it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them, as well as the first to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components called radicals (''bùshǒu'' 部首, lit. "section headers"). Circumstances of compilation Xu Shen, a Han Dynasty scholar of the Five Classics, compiled the ''Shuowen Jiezi''. He finished editing it in 100 CE, but due to an unfavorable imperial attitude towards scholarship, he waited until 121 CE before having his son Xǔ Chōng present it to Emperor An of Han along with a memorial. In analyzing the structure of characters and defining the words represented by them, Xu Shen strove to disambiguate the meaning of the pre-Han Classics, so as to render their usage by government unquestioned and bring about order, and in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hànyǔ Dà Zìdiǎn
The ''Hanyu dazidian'' () is a reference work on Chinese characters. Overview A group of more than 400 editors and lexicographers began compilation in 1974, and it was published in eight volumes from 1986 to 1989. A separate volume of essays documents the lexicographical complexities for this full-scale Chinese dictionary. Besides the weighty 5,790-page first edition, there are 3-volume (1995) and pocket editions. A second edition (pictured at right) was published in 2006, and has a list of radicals printed on the dust jacket of each volume for quicker character look up. The first edition of the ''Hanyu dazidian'' included 54,678 head entries for characters, and this was expanded to 60,370 in the second edition, published in 2010. They give historical logographic forms such as oracle bone script, bronzeware script, and seal script. Pronunciation is glossed for Old Chinese (''Shijing'' rhyme group), Middle Chinese (fanqie spelling), and Modern Standard Chinese (pinyin). The chro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Han Dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warring interregnum known as the ChuHan contention (206–202 BC), and it was succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD). The dynasty was briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty (9–23 AD) established by usurping regent Wang Mang, and is thus separated into two periods—the Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD) and the Eastern Han (25–220 AD). Spanning over four centuries, the Han dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history, and it has influenced the identity of the Chinese civilization ever since. Modern China's majority ethnic group refers to themselves as the "Han people", the Sinitic language is known as "Han language", and the written Chinese is referred to as "Han characters". The emperor was at the pinnacle of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shanghai Museum
The Shanghai Museum is a museum of ancient Chinese art, situated on the People's Square in the Huangpu District, Shanghai, Huangpu District of Shanghai, China. Rebuilt at its current location in 1996, it is considered one of China's first world-class modern museums and famous for its large collection of rare cultural pieces. History The museum was founded in 1952 and was first open to the public in the former Shanghai Racecourse club house, now at 325 West Nanjing Road. The founding collections came principally from three sources: a batch of artifacts gathered by the Communist 3rd Field Army during the civil war from accidental finds and confiscations of private property and brought to Shanghai upon the Communists' conquest of the city; artifacts confiscated by the customs service; items sold by private collectors due to political pressure during political purges and purchased by the government. The former Shanghai Municipal Museum was also merged into the new Shanghai Museum. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ding (vessel)
''Ding'' () are prehistoric and ancient Chinese cauldrons, standing upon legs with a lid and two facing handles. They are one of the most important shapes used in Chinese ritual bronzes. They were made in two shapes: round vessels with three legs and rectangular ones with four, the latter often called ''fangding''. They were used for cooking, storage, and ritual offerings to the gods or to ancestors. The earliest recovered examples are pre-Shang ceramic ding at the Erlitou site but they are better known from the Bronze Age, particularly after the Zhou deemphasized the ritual use of wine practiced by the Shang kings. Under the Zhou, the ding and the privilege to perform the associated rituals became symbols of authority. The number of permitted ding varied according to one's rank in the Chinese nobility: the Nine Ding of the Zhou kings were a symbol of their rule over all China but were lost by the first emperor, Shi Huangdi in the late 3rd century BCE. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reconstructions Of Old Chinese
Although Old Chinese is known from written records beginning around 1200 BC, the logographic script provides much more indirect and partial information about the pronunciation of the language than alphabetic systems used elsewhere. Several authors have produced reconstructions of Old Chinese phonology, beginning with the Swedish sinologist Bernard Karlgren in the 1940s and continuing to the present day. The method introduced by Karlgren is unique, comparing categories implied by ancient rhyming practice and the structure of Chinese characters with descriptions in medieval rhyme dictionaries, though more recent approaches have also incorporated other kinds of evidence. Although the various notations appear to be very different, they correspond with each other on most points. By the 1970s, it was generally agreed that Old Chinese had fewer points of articulation than Middle Chinese, a set of voiceless sonorants, and labiovelar and labio-laryngeal initials. Since the 1990s, most autho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Zhengzhang Shangfang (; ; 9 August 1933 – 19 May 2018) was a Chinese linguist, known for his reconstruction of Old Chinese. Zhengzhang was born as Zheng Xiangfang ( ; ) in Yongjia County, on the outskirts of Wenzhou. As and have the same pronunciation in the Wenzhou dialect, his personal name became Shangfang ( ). While he was in high school, his parents changed his family name to Zhengzhang ( ), a combination of the parents' surnames (Zheng (surname), Zhèng and Zhang (surname), Zhāng). At this time, he became interested in historical phonology and studied the works of Yuen Ren Chao, Wang Li (linguist), Wang Li and others at Wenzhou's library. In 1954, unable to enter university to study linguistics, he began geological work in the Beijing area. In his spare time, he continued to develop his own ideas on Old Chinese phonology, particularly the finals and vowel system. In the 1960s and 1970s, he undertook dialect survey work in Wenzhou for Lü Shuxiang until he was sent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Surname
Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, and among overseas Chinese communities around the world such as Singapore and Malaysia. Written Chinese names begin with surnames, unlike the Western tradition in which surnames are written last. Around 2,000 Han Chinese surnames are currently in use, but the great proportion of Han Chinese people use only a relatively small number of these surnames; 19 surnames are used by around half of the Han Chinese people, while 100 surnames are used by around 87% of the population. A report in 2019 gives the most common Chinese surnames as Wang and Li, each shared by over 100 million people in China. The remaining top ten most common Chinese surnames are Zhang, Liu, Chen, Yang, Huang, Zhao, Wu and Zhou. Two distinct types of Chinese surnames existed in ancient China, namely ''xing'' () ancestral clan names and ''shi'' () branch lineage names. Later, the two terms began to be used i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epigraphy
Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the writing and the writers. Specifically excluded from epigraphy are the historical significance of an epigraph as a document and the artistic value of a literature, literary composition. A person using the methods of epigraphy is called an ''epigrapher'' or ''epigraphist''. For example, the Behistun inscription is an official document of the Achaemenid Empire engraved on native rock at a location in Iran. Epigraphists are responsible for reconstructing, translating, and dating the trilingual inscription and finding any relevant circumstances. It is the work of historians, however, to determine and interpret the events recorded by the inscription as document. Often, epigraphy and history are competences practised by the same person. Epigraphy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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