|
Shiming
The ''Shiming'', also known as the ''Yiya'', is a Chinese dictionary that employed phonological glosses, and is believed have been composed . Because it records the pronunciation of an Eastern Han Chinese dialect, sinologists have used the ''Shiming'' to estimate the dates of sound shifts, such as the loss of consonant clusters that took place between the Old Chinese and Middle Chinese stages. Format The 1,502 definitions attempt to establish semantic connections based upon puns between the word being defined and the word defining it, which is often followed with an explanation. For example, chapter 12 contains: The Chinese call these paronomastic glosses '' shengxun'' 'sound teaching', which goes back to the Rectification of Names, which hypothesized a connection between names and reality. The ''Shiming'' preface explains this ancient Chinese theory of language. In the correspondence of name with reality, there is in each instance that which is right and proper. The comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erya
The ''Erya'' or ''Erh-ya'' is the first surviving Chinese dictionary. The sinologist Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from the 3rd century BC." Title Chinese scholars interpret the first title character ''ěr'' (; "you, your; adverbial suffix") as a phonetic loan character for the homophonous ''ěr'' (; "near; close; approach"), and believe the second ''yǎ'' (; "proper; correct; refined; elegant") refers to words or language. According to W. South Coblin: "The interpretation of the title as something like 'approaching what is correct, proper, refined' is now widely accepted". It has been translated as "The Literary Expositor" or "The Ready Rectifier" (both by Legge), "Progress Towards Correctness" (von Rosthorn), "Near Correct" (Xue), "The Semantic Approximator" ( Needham), and "Approaching Elegance" ( Mair). History The book's author is unknown. Although it is traditionally attributed to the Duke of Zhou, Confucius, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Dictionary
There are two types of dictionaries regularly used in the Chinese language: list individual Chinese characters, and list words and phrases. Because tens of thousands of characters have been used in written Chinese, Chinese lexicographers have developed a number of methods to order and sort characters to facilitate more convenient reference. Chinese dictionaries have been published for over two millennia, beginning in the Han dynasty. This is the longest lexicographical history of any language. In addition to works for Mandarin Chinese, beginning with the 1st-century CE '' Fangyan'' dictionaries also been created for the many varieties of Chinese. One of the most influential Chinese dictionaries ever published was the '' Kangxi Dictionary'', finished in 1716 during the Qing dynasty, with the list of 214 Kangxi radicals it popularized are still widely used. Terminology The general term ''cishu'' ( zh, links=no, t=辭書, p=císhū, l=lexicographic books) semantically encompasse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Han Chinese
Eastern Han Chinese (alternatively Later Han Chinese or Late Old Chinese) is the stage of the Chinese language Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39& ... attested in poetry and glosses from the Eastern Han period (1st–3rd centuries AD). It is considered an intermediate stage between Old Chinese and the Middle Chinese of the 7th-century ''Qieyun'' rime dictionary. Sources The rhyming practice of Han poets has been studied since the Qing period as an intermediate stage between the ''Classic of Poetry'' of the Western Zhou period and Tang poetry. The definitive reference was compiled by Luo Changpei and Zhou Zumo in 1958. This work identifies the rhyme classes of the period, but leaves the phonetic value of each class open. During the Eastern Han, Confucian scholars w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piya
The ''Piya'' (; "Increased ra") was a Chinese dictionary compiled by Song Dynasty scholar Lu Dian ( 陸佃/陆佃, 1042-1102). He wrote this ''Erya'' supplement along with his ''Erya Xinyi'' (爾雅新義 "New Exegesis of the ''Erya''") commentary. Although the ''Piya'' preface written by his son Lu Zai (陸宰/陆宰) is dated 1125, the dictionary was written earlier; estimates around the Yuanfeng era (元豐, 1078–1085), and Joseph Needham says around 1096. Lu Dian arranged the ''Piya'' into 8 semantically based chapters that closely correspond with the last ''Erya'' chapters 13-19. The only exceptions are Chapter 5 ("Explaining Horses") that is contained in ''Erya'' 19 ("Explaining Domestic Animals") and Chapter 8 ("Explaining Heaven") that anomalously corresponds with the first part of the ''Erya''. The preface explains Lu's motives for defining flora and fauna terminology. Since Song officials changed the basis for the Imperial examination from mastering poetry to ''j ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guangya
The (c. 230) ''Guangya'' (; "Expanded '' ra''") was an early 3rd-century CE Chinese dictionary, edited by Zhang Yi (張揖) during the Three Kingdoms period. It was later called the ''Boya'' (博雅; ''Bóyǎ''; ''Po-ya''; "Broadened ra") owing to naming taboo on Yang Guang (楊廣), which was the birth name of Emperor Yang of Sui. Zhang Yi wrote the ''Guangya'' as a supplement to the centuries older '' Erya'' dictionary. He used the same 19 chapter divisions into lexical categories, and numerous ''Guangya'' entries are abstract words under the first three chapters ''Shigu'' (釋詁 "Explaining Old Words"), ''Shiyan'' (釋言 "Explaining Words"), and ''Shixun'' (釋訓 "Explaining Instructions"). Based upon entries in the ''Guangya'' biological chapters, Joseph Needham et al. say most are original and different, showing little overlap with ''Erya'' entries, so that Zhang Yi almost doubled the 334 plants and trees in the classic dictionary. The Qing Dynasty philologist Wang Nia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xiao Erya
The ''Xiao Erya'' (; "Little ra") was an early Chinese dictionary that supplements the ''Erya''. It was supposedly compiled in the early Han dynasty by Kong Fu ( 264?–208 BCE), a descendant of Confucius. However, the received ''Xiao Erya'' text was included in a Confucianist collection of debates, the ''Kongcongzi'' (; ''K'ung-ts'ung-tzu''; "The Kong Family Master's Anthology"), which contains fabrications that its first editor Wang Su (, 195–256 CE) added to win his arguments with Zheng Xuan (, 127–200 CE). The Qing dynasty scholar Hu Chenggong (, 1776–1832), who wrote the ''Xiao Erya yizheng'' ( "Exegesis and Proof for the ''Xiao Erya''"), accepted Kong Fu as the author. Liu concludes the ''Xiao Erya'' reliably dates from the Western Han dynasty and suggests its compiler was from the southern state of Chu. The ''Xiao Erya'' has 374 entries, far less than the ''Erya'' with 2091. It simplifies the ''Eryas 19 semantically-based chapter divisions into 13, and entitles them ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Classic Texts
The Chinese classics or canonical texts are the works of Chinese literature authored prior to the establishment of the imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC. Prominent examples include the Four Books and Five Classics in the Neo-Confucian tradition, themselves an abridgment of the Thirteen Classics. The Chinese classics used a form of written Chinese consciously imitated by later authors, now known as Classical Chinese. A common Chinese word for "classic" () literally means ' warp thread', in reference to the techniques by which works of this period were bound into volumes. Texts may include ''shi'' (, ' histories') ''zi'' ( 'master texts'), philosophical treatises usually associated with an individual and later systematized into schools of thought but also including works on agriculture, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, divination, art criticism, and other miscellaneous writings) and ''ji'' ( 'literary works') as well as the cultivation of '' jing'', 'essence' in Chinese m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shengxun
In classical Chinese philology, ''shengxun'' () or ''yinxun'' () is a practice found in Chinese dictionaries where characters are explained by use of a homophone or near-homophone. The practice is ancient, and is present in texts predating the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC). The ancient ''Shiming'' () dictionary is notable for using ''shengxun'' for most of its definitions, and the highly influential ''Shuowen Jiezi'' compiled by Xu Shen also employs the technique. For example, Xu's explanation of the word is: The words for 'ghost' and 'return' are near-homophones both in Xu's reading and in modern Standard Chinese. A similar explanation of the word can be found in the earlier '' Erya'' (). ''Shengxun'' can be highly fanciful, and often results in folk etymology. Put another way, the practice points to a notion of , or what Bernhard Karlgren called "word families". See also * Rebus A rebus ( ) is a puzzle device that combines the use of illustrated pictures with ind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yin And Yang
Originating in Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (, ), also yinyang or yin-yang, is the concept of opposite cosmic principles or forces that interact, interconnect, and perpetuate each other. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary and at the same time opposing forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts and the parts are as important for the cohesion of the whole. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of primordial qi or material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang, force and motion leading to form and matter. "Yin" is retractive, passive and contractive in nature, while "yang" is repelling, active and expansive in principle; this dichotomy in some form, is seen in all things in nature—patterns of change and difference. For example, biological, psychological and seasonal cycles, the historical evolution of landscapes over days, weeks, years to eons. The origin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Records Of Three Kingdoms
The ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'' is a Chinese official history written by Chen Shou in the late 3rd century CE, covering the end of the Han dynasty (220 CE) and the subsequent Three Kingdoms period (220–280 CE). It is regarded as to be the authoritative source text for these periods. Compiled following the reunification of China under the Jin dynasty (266–420), the work chronicles the political, social, and military events within rival states Cao Wei, Shu Han and Eastern Wu into a single text organized by individual biography. The ''Records'' are the primary source of information for the 14th-century historical novel ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'', considered to be one of the four classic novels emblematic of written vernacular Chinese. While large subsections of the work have been selected and translated into English, the entire corpus has yet to receive an unabridged English translation. Origin and structure The ''Book of Han'' and ''Records of the T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Definition
A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definitions (which try to list the objects that a term describes).Lyons, John. "Semantics, vol. I." Cambridge: Cambridge (1977). p.158 and on. Another important category of definitions is the class of ostensive definitions, which convey the meaning of a term by pointing out examples. A term may have many different senses and multiple meanings, and thus require multiple definitions. In mathematics, a definition is used to give a precise meaning to a new term, by describing a condition which unambiguously qualifies what the mathematical term is and is not. Definitions and axioms form the basis on which all of modern mathematics is to be constructed. Basic terminology In modern usage, a definition is something, typically expressed in words, that at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
