Chinese character classification
Encyclopedia
All Chinese character
s are logogram
s, but there are several derivative types. These include a handful which derive from pictogram
s (象形 pinyin
: xiàngxíng) and a number which are ideographic
(指事 zhǐshì) in origin, but the vast majority originated as phono
-semantic
compounds (形聲 xíngshēng). In older literature, Chinese characters in general may be referred to as ideograms, due to the misconception that characters represented ideas directly, whereas in fact they do so only through association with the spoken word. This article therefore covers the origin of these logographic characters, not their current function in the Chinese writing system.
divided characters into six categories (六書 liùshū "Six Writings"), which are described below. This classification is often attributed to Xu Shen
's second century dictionary Shuowen Jiezi
, but it has been dated earlier. The first mention is in the work Zhou Li of the late Zhou dynasty
, and the six types are listed in the Hanshu of the first century CE, and in Zheng Zhong (鄭眾) quoted by Zheng Xuan (鄭玄) in his first-century commentary of Zhou Li, although the details vary. The traditional classification is still taught but is no longer the focus of modern lexicographic practice. Some categories are not clearly defined, nor are they mutually exclusive: the first four refer to structural composition, while the last two refer to usage. For this reason, some modern scholars view them as six principles of character formation rather than six types of characters.
The earliest significant, extant corpus of Chinese characters is found on turtle shells and the bones of livestock, chiefly the scapula
of oxen, for use in pyromancy
, a form of divination. These ancient characters are called oracle bone script
. Roughly a quarter of these characters are pictograms while the rest are either phono-semantic compounds or compound ideograms. Despite millennia of change in shape, usage and meaning, a few of these characters remain recognizable to the modern reader of Chinese.
At present, more than 90% of Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds, constructed out of elements intended to provide clues to both the meaning and the pronunciation. However, as both the meanings and pronunciations of the characters have changed over time, these components are no longer reliable guides to either meaning or pronunciation. The failure to recognize the historical and etymological role of these components often leads to misclassification and folk etymology. A study of the earliest sources (the oracle bones script and the Zhou-dynasty bronze script) is often necessary for an understanding of the true composition and etymology of any particular character. Reconstructing Middle
and Old Chinese
phonology from the clues present in characters is part of Chinese historical linguistics
. In Chinese, it is called Yinyunxue
(音韻學 "Studies of sounds and rimes").
These pictograms became progressively more stylized and lost their pictographic flavor, especially as they made the transition from the oracle bone script to the Seal Script
of the Eastern Zhou, but also to a lesser extent in the transition to the clerical script
of the Han Dynasty
. The table below summarises the evolution of a few Chinese pictographic characters. Where no modern simplified form is provided, it is identical to the traditional character.
N.B.:
N.B.:
As these characters became more stylized over time, one or more of the components was often compressed or abbreviated. For example, the character 人 "human" was reduced to 亻, 水 "water" to 氵, and 艸 "grass" to 艹.
It is unclear whether a logical link induces a character layout, or the opposite, the association being a mnemonic
artifact of striking truth. Juxtaposition of "woman" and "child" could as well be interpreted as "maternal love" or "weakness".
A few further examples:
for English "for" in "4ever". For example, the character 來 was originally a pictogram of a wheat plant and meant *mlək "wheat". As this was pronounced similarly to the Old Chinese word *mlək "to come", 來 was also used to write this verb. Eventually the more common usage, the verb "to come", became established as the default reading of the character 來, and a new character 麥 was devised for "wheat". (The modern pronunciations are lái and mài.) When a character is used as a rebus this way, it is called a jiajiezi 假借字 (lit. "loaned and borrowed character") (in Wade-Giles
"chia-chie" or "chia-chieh"), translatable as "phonetic loan character" or "rebus character".
As in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian cuneiform, early Chinese characters were used as rebuses to express abstract meanings that were not easily depicted. Thus many characters stood for more than one word. In some cases the extended use would take over completely, and a new character would be created for the original meaning, usually by modifying the original character with a radical (determinative). For instance, 又 yòu originally meant "right hand; right" but was borrowed to write the abstract word yòu "again; moreover". In modern usage, the character 又 exclusively represents yòu "again" while 右, which adds the "mouth radical" 口 to 又, represents yòu "right". This process of graphic disambiguation is a common source of phono-semantic compound characters.
While this word jiajie dates from the Han Dynasty
, the related term tongjia (通假 tōngjiǎ "interchangeable borrowing") is first attested from the Ming Dynasty
. The two terms are commonly used as synonyms, but there is a linguistic distinction between jiajiezi being a phonetic loan character for a word that did not originally have a character, such as using 東 "a bag tied at both ends" http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterASP/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E6%9D%B1&submitButton1=Etymology for dōng "east", and tongjia being an interchangeable character used for an existing homophonous character, such as using 蚤 zǎo "flea" for 早 zǎo "early".
According to Bernhard Karlgren
(1968:1), "One of the most dangerous stumbling-blocks in the interpretation of pre-Han texts is the frequent occurrence of [jiajie], loan characters."
These are often called radical-phonetic characters. They form the majority of Chinese characters by far—over 90%, and were created by combining a rebus
with a determinative
—that is, a character with approximately the correct pronunciation (the phonetic element, similar to a phonetic complement
) with one of a limited number of determinative characters which supplied an element of meaning (the semantic element, called a "radical
", which centuries later would be used to organize characters in a dictionary). As in ancient Egyptian writing, such compounds eliminated the ambiguity caused by phonetic loans (above). Phono-semantic compounds appeared prior to the first attested Chinese writing on Shang Dynasty oracle bones.
Most often, the radical is on one side (often the left), while the phonetic is on the other side (often the right), as in 沐 = 氵 "water" + 木 mù. Also common is for the semantic and phonetic elements to be stacked on top of each other, as in 菜 = 艹 "plant" + 采 cǎi. More rarely, the phonetic may be placed inside the semantic, as in 園 = 囗 "enclosure" + 袁, or 街 = 行 "go, movement" + 圭. More complicated combinations also exist, such as 勝 = 力 "strength" + 朕, where the semantic is in the lower-right quadrant, and the phonetic is the other three quadrants.
This process can be repeated, with a phono-semantic compound character itself being used as a phonetic in a further compound, which can result in quite complex characters, such as 劇 (豦 = 虍 + 豕, 劇 = 刂 + 豦).
However, the phonetic component is not always as meaningless as this example would suggest. Rebuses were sometimes chosen that were compatible semantically as well as phonetically. It was also often the case that the determinative merely constrained the meaning of a word which already had several. 菜 cài "vegetable" is a case in point. The determinative 艹 for plants was combined with 采 cǎi "harvest". However, 采 cǎi does not merely provide the pronunciation. In classical texts it was also used to mean "vegetable". That is, 采 underwent semantic extension from "harvest" to "vegetable", and the addition of 艹 merely specified that the latter meaning was to be understood.
Some additional examples:
– see historical Chinese phonology
. Contemporary foreign pronunciations (Sino-Xenic pronunciations) of characters are also used to reconstruct older Chinese, chiefly Middle Chinese
.
When people try to read a two-part character of which they are ignorant, they will typically follow the folk wisdom of you bian du bian (有邊讀邊) "read the side" and take one component to be a phonetic, which often results in errors.
The characters 老 lǎo "old" and 考 kǎo "a test" are the most commonly cited example. The words derive from a common etymological root (approximately *klao’), and the characters differ only in the modification of one part.
(陳夢家) (1911–1966) and Qiu Xigui. Both Chen and Qiu offered their own sanshu. (Qiu 2000:chp. 6.3)
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
s are logogram
Logogram
A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...
s, but there are several derivative types. These include a handful which derive from pictogram
Pictogram
A pictograph, also called pictogram or pictogramme is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to considerable extent pictorial in appearance.Pictography is a...
s (象形 pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
: xiàngxíng) and a number which are ideographic
Ideogram
An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.Examples of...
(指事 zhǐshì) in origin, but the vast majority originated as phono
Phonetic complement
A phonetic complement is a phonetic symbol used to disambiguate word characters that have multiple readings, in mixed logographic-phonetic scripts such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Akkadian cuneiform, Japanese, and Mayan...
-semantic
Determinative
A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may derive historically from glyphs for real words, and...
compounds (形聲 xíngshēng). In older literature, Chinese characters in general may be referred to as ideograms, due to the misconception that characters represented ideas directly, whereas in fact they do so only through association with the spoken word. This article therefore covers the origin of these logographic characters, not their current function in the Chinese writing system.
Traditional classification
Traditional Chinese lexicographyLexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
divided characters into six categories (六書 liùshū "Six Writings"), which are described below. This classification is often attributed to Xu Shen
Xu Shen
Xǔ Shèn was a Chinese philologist of the Han Dynasty. He was the author of Shuowen Jiezi, the first Chinese dictionary with character analysis, as well as the first to organize the characters by shared components. It contains over 9,000 character entries under 540 radicals, explaining the origins...
's second century dictionary Shuowen Jiezi
Shuowen Jiezi
The Shuōwén Jiězì was an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary , it was still the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them , as well as the first to use the...
, but it has been dated earlier. The first mention is in the work Zhou Li of the late Zhou dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...
, and the six types are listed in the Hanshu of the first century CE, and in Zheng Zhong (鄭眾) quoted by Zheng Xuan (鄭玄) in his first-century commentary of Zhou Li, although the details vary. The traditional classification is still taught but is no longer the focus of modern lexicographic practice. Some categories are not clearly defined, nor are they mutually exclusive: the first four refer to structural composition, while the last two refer to usage. For this reason, some modern scholars view them as six principles of character formation rather than six types of characters.
The earliest significant, extant corpus of Chinese characters is found on turtle shells and the bones of livestock, chiefly the scapula
Scapula
In anatomy, the scapula , omo, or shoulder blade, is the bone that connects the humerus with the clavicle ....
of oxen, for use in pyromancy
Pyromancy
Pyromancy is the art of divination by means of fire.-History of pyromancy:Due to the importance of fire in society from the earliest of times, it is quite likely that pyromancy was one of the earlier forms of divination...
, a form of divination. These ancient characters are called oracle bone script
Oracle bone script
Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...
. Roughly a quarter of these characters are pictograms while the rest are either phono-semantic compounds or compound ideograms. Despite millennia of change in shape, usage and meaning, a few of these characters remain recognizable to the modern reader of Chinese.
At present, more than 90% of Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds, constructed out of elements intended to provide clues to both the meaning and the pronunciation. However, as both the meanings and pronunciations of the characters have changed over time, these components are no longer reliable guides to either meaning or pronunciation. The failure to recognize the historical and etymological role of these components often leads to misclassification and folk etymology. A study of the earliest sources (the oracle bones script and the Zhou-dynasty bronze script) is often necessary for an understanding of the true composition and etymology of any particular character. Reconstructing Middle
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese , also called Ancient Chinese by the linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties...
and Old Chinese
Old Chinese
The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....
phonology from the clues present in characters is part of Chinese historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
. In Chinese, it is called Yinyunxue
Historical Chinese phonology
Historical Chinese phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters, not alphabetic or syllabary, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably from those employed in, for example, Indo-European...
(音韻學 "Studies of sounds and rimes").
Pictograms
Roughly 600 Chinese characters are pictograms (象形 xiàng xíng, "form imitation") — stylised drawings of the objects they represent. These are generally among the oldest characters. A few, indicated below with their earliest forms, date back to oracle bones from the twelfth century BCE.These pictograms became progressively more stylized and lost their pictographic flavor, especially as they made the transition from the oracle bone script to the Seal Script
Seal script
Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...
of the Eastern Zhou, but also to a lesser extent in the transition to the clerical script
Clerical script
The clerical script , also formerly chancery script, is an archaic style of Chinese calligraphy which evolved in the Warring States period to the Qin dynasty, was dominant in the Han dynasty, and remained in use through the Wèi-Jìn periods...
of the Han Dynasty
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
. The table below summarises the evolution of a few Chinese pictographic characters. Where no modern simplified form is provided, it is identical to the traditional character.
N.B.:
- 女 nǚ is a stylised drawing of a woman kneeling in profile. In the oracle bone, bronze and seal scripts, the torso vertically bisects the crossed arms; in the clerical and standard scripts, the graph is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise so that the hands, not the feet, are pointed downward.
- 水 shuǐ "water" represents the lines of a flowing river.
Simple ideograms
Ideograms (指事 zhǐ shì, "indication") express an abstract idea through an iconic form, including iconic modification of pictographic characters. In the examples below, low numerals are represented by the appropriate number of strokes, directions by an iconic indication above and below a line, and the parts of a tree by marking the appropriate part of a pictogram of a tree.| Character | 一 |
二 |
三 |
上 |
下 |
本 |
末 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pinyin | yī | èr | sān | shàng | xià | běn | mò |
| Gloss | one | two | three | up | below | root | apex |
N.B.:
- 本 běn, "root" - a tree (木 mù) with the base indicated by an extra stroke.
- 末 mò, "apex" - the reverse of 本 (běn), a tree with the top highlighted by an extra stroke.
Ideogrammatic compounds
In ideogrammatic compounds (會意 huì yì, "joined meaning"), also called associative compounds or logical aggregates, two or more pictographic or ideographic characters are combined to suggest a third meaning. For example, the character 各 gè originally meant "to arrive". (It was long ago borrowed for "each".) The oracle-bone form of this compound, very similar to the modern glyph, shows 夂 a foot (the inverted form of 止 zhǐ, originally a foot) at a 凵 or 口 walled object, perhaps a dwelling. The meaning of "arrive" is thus suggested jointly, as a footstep at the door.As these characters became more stylized over time, one or more of the components was often compressed or abbreviated. For example, the character 人 "human" was reduced to 亻, 水 "water" to 氵, and 艸 "grass" to 艹.
It is unclear whether a logical link induces a character layout, or the opposite, the association being a mnemonic
Mnemonic
A mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...
artifact of striking truth. Juxtaposition of "woman" and "child" could as well be interpreted as "maternal love" or "weakness".
A few further examples:
| 木×2 = 林 lín |
木×3 = 森 sēn |
人+木 = 休 xiū |
| two trees → grove |
three trees → forest |
a man leaning against a tree → rest |
| 雥+木 = 雧(集) jí |
隹×2 +又= 雙 shuāng |
女+子 = 好 hǎo |
爪+木 = 采 (採) cǎi |
| three birds on a tree* → gather together |
two birds in the right hand → pair |
a woman with a child → good |
a hand on a bush → harvest |
| 木×2+火 = 焚 fén |
禾+火 = 秋(龝) qiū |
| wood on a fire → burn |
grain and fire → Autumn |
-
* Early forms of the character 集 ("gather together") show three birds (隹) on a tree.
Rebus (phonetic loan) characters
Jiajie (假借 jiǎjiè, "borrowing; making use of") are characters that are "borrowed" to write another homophonous or near-homophonous morpheme, comparable with using "4" as a rebusRebus
A rebus is an allusional device that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. It was a favourite form of heraldic expression used in the Middle Ages to denote surnames, for example in its basic form 3 salmon fish to denote the name "Salmon"...
for English "for" in "4ever". For example, the character 來 was originally a pictogram of a wheat plant and meant *mlək "wheat". As this was pronounced similarly to the Old Chinese word *mlək "to come", 來 was also used to write this verb. Eventually the more common usage, the verb "to come", became established as the default reading of the character 來, and a new character 麥 was devised for "wheat". (The modern pronunciations are lái and mài.) When a character is used as a rebus this way, it is called a jiajiezi 假借字 (lit. "loaned and borrowed character") (in Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
"chia-chie" or "chia-chieh"), translatable as "phonetic loan character" or "rebus character".
As in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian cuneiform, early Chinese characters were used as rebuses to express abstract meanings that were not easily depicted. Thus many characters stood for more than one word. In some cases the extended use would take over completely, and a new character would be created for the original meaning, usually by modifying the original character with a radical (determinative). For instance, 又 yòu originally meant "right hand; right" but was borrowed to write the abstract word yòu "again; moreover". In modern usage, the character 又 exclusively represents yòu "again" while 右, which adds the "mouth radical" 口 to 又, represents yòu "right". This process of graphic disambiguation is a common source of phono-semantic compound characters.
| Pictograph or ideograph | Rebus word | Original word | New character for original word |
|---|---|---|---|
| 四 | sì "four" | sì "nostrils" | 泗 (mucous; sniffle) |
| 枼 | yè "flat, thin" | yè "leaf" | 葉 |
| 北 | běi "north" | bèi "back (of the body)" | 背 |
| 要 | yào "to want" | yāo "waist" | 腰 |
| 少 | shǎo "few" | shā "sand" | 沙 and 砂 |
| 永 | yǒng "forever" | yǒng "swim" | 泳 |
While this word jiajie dates from the Han Dynasty
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
, the related term tongjia (通假 tōngjiǎ "interchangeable borrowing") is first attested from the Ming Dynasty
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
. The two terms are commonly used as synonyms, but there is a linguistic distinction between jiajiezi being a phonetic loan character for a word that did not originally have a character, such as using 東 "a bag tied at both ends" http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterASP/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E6%9D%B1&submitButton1=Etymology for dōng "east", and tongjia being an interchangeable character used for an existing homophonous character, such as using 蚤 zǎo "flea" for 早 zǎo "early".
According to Bernhard Karlgren
Bernhard Karlgren
Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren was a Swedish sinologist and linguist who pioneered the study of Chinese historical phonology using modern comparative methods...
(1968:1), "One of the most dangerous stumbling-blocks in the interpretation of pre-Han texts is the frequent occurrence of [jiajie], loan characters."
Phono-semantic compound characters
- 形聲 xíng shēng "form and sound"
These are often called radical-phonetic characters. They form the majority of Chinese characters by far—over 90%, and were created by combining a rebus
Rebus
A rebus is an allusional device that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. It was a favourite form of heraldic expression used in the Middle Ages to denote surnames, for example in its basic form 3 salmon fish to denote the name "Salmon"...
with a determinative
Determinative
A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may derive historically from glyphs for real words, and...
—that is, a character with approximately the correct pronunciation (the phonetic element, similar to a phonetic complement
Phonetic complement
A phonetic complement is a phonetic symbol used to disambiguate word characters that have multiple readings, in mixed logographic-phonetic scripts such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Akkadian cuneiform, Japanese, and Mayan...
) with one of a limited number of determinative characters which supplied an element of meaning (the semantic element, called a "radical
Radical (Chinese character)
A Chinese radical is a component of a Chinese character. The term may variously refer to the original semantic element of a character, or to any semantic element, or, loosely, to any element whatever its origin or purpose...
", which centuries later would be used to organize characters in a dictionary). As in ancient Egyptian writing, such compounds eliminated the ambiguity caused by phonetic loans (above). Phono-semantic compounds appeared prior to the first attested Chinese writing on Shang Dynasty oracle bones.
Most often, the radical is on one side (often the left), while the phonetic is on the other side (often the right), as in 沐 = 氵 "water" + 木 mù. Also common is for the semantic and phonetic elements to be stacked on top of each other, as in 菜 = 艹 "plant" + 采 cǎi. More rarely, the phonetic may be placed inside the semantic, as in 園 = 囗 "enclosure" + 袁, or 街 = 行 "go, movement" + 圭. More complicated combinations also exist, such as 勝 = 力 "strength" + 朕, where the semantic is in the lower-right quadrant, and the phonetic is the other three quadrants.
This process can be repeated, with a phono-semantic compound character itself being used as a phonetic in a further compound, which can result in quite complex characters, such as 劇 (豦 = 虍 + 豕, 劇 = 刂 + 豦).
Examples
As an example, a verb meaning "to wash oneself" is pronounced mù. Although difficult to draw, it happens to sound the same as the word mù "tree", which was written with the simple pictograph 木. The verb mù could simply have been written 木, like "tree", but to disambiguate, it was combined with the character for "water", giving some idea of the meaning. The resulting character eventually came to be written 沐 mù "to wash one's hair". Similarly, the water determinative was combined with 林 lín "woods" to produce the water-related homophone 淋 lín "to pour".| Determinative | Rebus | Compound |
|---|---|---|
| 氵 water |
木 mù |
沐 mù "to wash oneself" |
| 氵 water |
林 lín |
淋 lín "to pour" |
However, the phonetic component is not always as meaningless as this example would suggest. Rebuses were sometimes chosen that were compatible semantically as well as phonetically. It was also often the case that the determinative merely constrained the meaning of a word which already had several. 菜 cài "vegetable" is a case in point. The determinative 艹 for plants was combined with 采 cǎi "harvest". However, 采 cǎi does not merely provide the pronunciation. In classical texts it was also used to mean "vegetable". That is, 采 underwent semantic extension from "harvest" to "vegetable", and the addition of 艹 merely specified that the latter meaning was to be understood.
| Determinative | Rebus | Compound |
|---|---|---|
| 艹 plant |
采 cǎi "harvest, vegetable" |
菜 cài "vegetable" |
Some additional examples:
| Determinative | Rebus | Compound |
|---|---|---|
| 扌 hand |
白 bái |
拍 pāi "to clap, to hit" |
| 穴 to dig into |
九 jiǔ |
究 jiū "to investigate" |
| 日 sun |
央 yāng |
映 yìng "reflection" |
Sound change
Originally characters sharing the same phonetic had similar readings, though they have now diverged substantially. Linguists rely heavily on this fact to reconstruct the sounds of Old ChineseOld Chinese
The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....
– see historical Chinese phonology
Historical Chinese phonology
Historical Chinese phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters, not alphabetic or syllabary, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably from those employed in, for example, Indo-European...
. Contemporary foreign pronunciations (Sino-Xenic pronunciations) of characters are also used to reconstruct older Chinese, chiefly Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese , also called Ancient Chinese by the linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties...
.
When people try to read a two-part character of which they are ignorant, they will typically follow the folk wisdom of you bian du bian (有邊讀邊) "read the side" and take one component to be a phonetic, which often results in errors.
Simplification
Since the phonetic elements of many characters no longer accurately represent their pronunciations, when the People's Republic of China simplified characters, they often substituted a phonetic that was not only simpler to write, but more accurate for a modern reading in Mandarin as well. This has sometimes resulted in forms which are less phonetic than the original ones in varieties of Chinese other than Mandarin. (Note for the example that many determinatives were simplified as well, usually by standardizing cursive forms.)
|
|
Derivative cognates
The derivative cognate (轉注 zhuǎn zhù, "reciprocal meaning") is a classification of purely historical value, and is the least understood of the liushu principles of character formation. It may refer to characters which have similar meanings and often the same etymological root, but which have diverged in pronunciation and meaning. The English words chance and cadence would fit this pattern, as they share a common Latin root, cadentia "to fall". If English were written the way Chinese is, these two words might have similar characters.The characters 老 lǎo "old" and 考 kǎo "a test" are the most commonly cited example. The words derive from a common etymological root (approximately *klao’), and the characters differ only in the modification of one part.
Modern classifications
The liushu had been the standard classification scheme for Chinese characters since Xu Shen's time. Generations of scholars modified it without challenging the basic concepts. Tang Lan (唐蘭) (1902–1979) was the first to dismiss liushu, offering his own sanshu (三書 "Three Principles of Character Formation"), namely xiangxing (象形 "form-representing"), xiangyi (象意 "meaning-representing") and xingsheng (形聲 "meaning-sound"). This classification was later criticised by Chen MengjiaChen Mengjia
Chen Mengjia was a Chinese scholar and archaeologist. At the height of his career Chen was Professor of Chinese at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He was married to Chinese poet and translator Zhao Luorui...
(陳夢家) (1911–1966) and Qiu Xigui. Both Chen and Qiu offered their own sanshu. (Qiu 2000:chp. 6.3)
See also
- RadicalRadical (Chinese character)A Chinese radical is a component of a Chinese character. The term may variously refer to the original semantic element of a character, or to any semantic element, or, loosely, to any element whatever its origin or purpose...
- Chinese writing
- Chinese calligraphy
- Japanese writing
- Stroke orderStroke orderStroke order refers to the order in which the strokes of a Chinese character are written. A stroke is a movement of a writing instrument on a writing surface. Chinese characters are used in various forms in Chinese, Japanese, and in Korean...
- AtejiAtejiIn modern Japanese, primarily refers to kanji used phonetically to represent native or borrowed words, without regard to the meaning of the underlying characters. This is analogous to man'yōgana in pre-modern Japanese...
, Chinese characters used phonetically in Japanese - Transliteration into Chinese charactersTransliteration into Chinese charactersIn Chinese, transcription is known as yīnyì or yìmíng . While it is common to see foreign names left in their original forms in a Chinese text, it is also common to transcribe foreign proper nouns into Chinese characters....
, Chinese characters used phonetically