Chinanews client, Beijing, November 5th (Reporter Shangguanyun) Recently, #原古文字也这俏# has been on hot search. In a series of pictures posted by netizens, those ancient texts that were originally a little distant from modern life, The "emoji package" that looks like today, seems to become alive in an instant.

Data map: The picture shows citizens visiting the Chinese Character Scene Art Exhibition.

Photo by Zhou Yi

Ancient Chinese characters in emoticons

  If every unfamiliar ancient text becomes an emoticon, would you feel very kind?

Not long ago, some netizens posted a set of ancient text "emoji packs" and quickly swiped the screen.

  The word "stinky" is like taking the steps of "six relatives do not recognize" when walking, the word "walking" is associated with a little person dancing, the word "different" is like taking a picture and comparing "ye", and the word "gong" is like A wry smile...

  These brain-opening ancient text emoticons set off a wave of "picking pictures". Some people say that the oracle bone inscriptions are very cute and their shapes are particularly cute. Others say that searching for the ancient Chinese characters of "ding", the characters found are almost similar. Stick figure cat.

  Regarding the pictures displayed on the popular Weibo, Jiang Yubin, a researcher at the Research Center for Unearthed Documents and Ancient Characters of Fudan University, said that the ancient Chinese characters mentioned were some of the oracle bone inscriptions and inscriptions from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the official scripts after the Han Dynasty.

Why are these ancient Chinese characters so cute?

  Then, there is a question: why are some ancient Chinese characters easily associated with emoticons?

  "This is related to the characteristics of Chinese characters. Alphabet characters (such as English) are mostly unidirectional linear arrangements, while Chinese characters are spread out on a two-dimensional plane. Each character is like a picture, which makes it easier for us to think of animals and plants. , Scenes, etc." Jiang Yubin explained.

Data map: A university teacher in Wuhan uses Oracle to teach. The picture shows students copying Oracle homework.

Photo by Wang Wen

  Chinese characters are more expressive.

Jiang Yubin said, for example, in ancient Chinese characters, "mountain" is a pictogram of a mountain, "ox" uses the image of a bull head, and "cong" is a scene of one person following another.

  "If you analyze all Chinese characters, you can disassemble them into hundreds of parts. Most of the parts are originally pictographic characters. This also makes people think of what they might represent when they see the shape of Chinese characters. Of course, these associations sometimes It is in line with the reality of Chinese characters, and sometimes it is just a joke." He said.

  In those popular ancient text emoticons, some explanations may not be so accurate.

  Zhou Zhongbing, a professor at the Institute of Ancient Books of Jilin University, gave an example: There is a strange character marked as "Dragon", which is interpreted in some ancient scripts and seals of the Qing Dynasty. The source is the inscriptions of the Song Dynasty.

  He said that these books contain two inscriptions by Chi's father Zhong. When recording the word "Chongguang", there are two ways to write the word "Chong", one is from "long" and from "brother", the other is Kind is the weird word mentioned above.

  Zhou Zhongbing believes that, in fact, this strange character is obviously different from the "dragon" in ancient Chinese characters. It is a human head and worm body, which may be a pictogram of some legendary animal. Because its pronunciation is similar to that of a dragon, it can be used as a favorite in the inscription.

Therefore, it should be said that this strange character is directly regarded as "dragon".

Those little stories about Chinese characters

  Except for a sigh of "Meng" in ancient Chinese characters, what you may not know is that Chinese characters have a very long history.

  "Like the ancient oracle bone inscriptions, the number of single characters is about 4000, which is relatively rich. In the'character database' at that time, a character can be written in different forms (variants), and some exist in traditional and simplified forms, indicating that it has been used for a long time and is more mature. "Jiang Yubin said.

Data map: Previously, the "Proving Ancient Zejin-Oracle Bone Inscriptions Cultural Exhibition" opened at the National Museum of China in Beijing.

The picture shows the enlarged model of oracle bone fragments and the translation annotations to attract the audience.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Jia Tianyong

  "Oracle bone inscriptions were of course not invented by someone suddenly. Before Oracle bone inscriptions, the evolution of characters should have been for a long time. For example, some carvings were discovered earlier than the Oracle era. Some scholars believe that they may be the early forms of writing." Zhou Zhongbing said. .

  The oracle bone inscriptions are highly expressive, and the pictographic level is relatively high.

Jiang Yubin mentioned that it is also a combination of the human form and the "Ge" shape of the killing weapon. Ge on the human side means the "defense" of guarding, and Ge on the human neck means "cutting" the head.

  He briefly introduced several types of ancient characters: during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, it was mainly written with a brush, and the writing medium should be a booklet composed of bamboo slips or wooden slips, as well as pottery, jade and so on.

The oracle bone inscriptions were mainly engraved on the oracle bones used for divination, and they were the application of the words on special occasions at that time.

  Bronze inscriptions are mainly written or engraved on bronzes during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.

Inscriptions on inscriptions must first be written with a brush, and then a more complicated procedure will be used to cast the writing, which reflects the appearance of the writing to a greater extent.

  In addition, Jiang Yubin also mentioned, "The official script was formed in the late Warring States period and became the common font of Chinese characters after the Western Han Dynasty. The mature official script emphasizes'candy head swallowtail' and so on."

  In his opinion, the knowledge of ancient Chinese characters is still meaningful today.

Some useful content recorded by them can also inspire people today.

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