Origin of Chinese Characters: Modern Interpretations of the Shuowen Jiezi

Author: Dou Wenyu / Dou Yong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: This book explains the form and origin of 3,500 commonly used Chinese characters, as confirmed by the National Language and Character Working Committee, divided into six chapters according to their creation methods. We analyze pictographic characters, ideographic characters, indicator characters, symbolic characters, and the compound ideographic characters they form together. This approach allows for mutual corroboration, facilitates understanding, and enhances persuasiveness. To thoroughly illustrate the points, we also analyze the form and origin of related uncommon characters. Among the commonly used characters, there are over 100 pictographic characters, over 60 ideographic characters, over 30 indicator characters, over 100 symbolic characters, over 60 phono-semantic characters, and over 3,000 compound ideographic characters. We believe that Chinese characters are a symbolic writing system based on pictographic, ideographic, and indicator characters, with compound ideographic characters as its main component.