(Shencheng Scenic Line) The source of Shanghai culture hidden behind Xujiahui's "retro" zhuyin

Zhongxin Wanghai, May 5 Topic: The source of Shanghai culture hidden behind Xujiahui's "retro" zhuyin

Written by Xie Mengyuan

Xujiahui Academy, which took nearly 10 years to prepare and build, has continued to be extremely popular once it opened, adding another important reading landmark to Shanghai. RECENTLY, XUJIAHUI ACADEMY, WHICH HAS BEEN OPEN FOR MORE THAN FOUR MONTHS, HAS CAUSED HEATED DISCUSSIONS BECAUSE OF THE PLAQUE "ZIKAWEI", AND SOME NETIZENS BELIEVE THAT IT SHOULD BE CHANGED TO CHINESE PINYIN "XUJIAHUI".

Qian Nairong, a well-known linguist and former head of the Chinese Department of Shanghai University, said in an exclusive interview with Chinanews.com that before the Xinhai Revolution, there was no unified official language nationwide, and people everywhere used dialects, so Shanghai dialect was used as the social language in Shanghai at that time.

In addition, according to Xu Ziliang, a professor at East China Normal University and a member of the Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Expert Committee, before the introduction of the Hanyu Pinyin Plan, China did not have a unified standard for Chinese character phonetics, so many different phonetic methods were used between the late Qing Dynasty and 1958, such as Weituma-style pinyin, postal pinyin, Cantonese pinyin, and zhuyin symbols.

After the opening of Shanghai in the late Qing Dynasty, many French missionaries came to Tushan Bay (once an important landmark in Shanghai, located in the south of Xujiahui, present-day Shanghai). Qian Nairong believes that at that time, in order to learn the local dialect, these French people used French pronunciation to spell out the pronunciation of Shanghainese "Xujiahui", and at that time, Shanghainese could also distinguish sharp group sounds, so the character "Xu" was pronounced "zi".

Language is the carrier of culture, in Xu Ziliang's view, language contains a lot of cultural connotations, people can find the evolution of culture and history from language, "'ZIKAWEI' the Zhuyin has actually preserved the history of the Shanghai dialect, so I think this Zhuyin is a very meaningful thing." ”

Looking back at Shanghai's history, it is impossible to avoid its "entanglement" with the West in modern times, and the current Xujiahui area is the source of Shanghai culture.

"Xujiahui is a landmark of exchanges between Chinese and Western civilizations, and 'Xu' is Xu Guangqi from 'the first person to see the world'." Xu Ziliang said: "He collaborated with Matteo Ricci in translating the Primitive Geometry (the first six volumes), which can be said to introduce Western science to China. His descendants then lived in the area where he was buried, which later became Xujiahui. ”

"After the opening of Shanghai in 1843, the Tushan Bay area became the most important birthplace of Shanghai culture, and it produced the first very famous Shanghai cultural figures in China, such as Ma Xiangbo, who founded Fudan Public School, and many famous painters." According to Qian Nairong, Tushanwan Art Museum has created brilliant achievements, "There are many students who have received training in Western painting at Tushanwan Art Museum, and the works that go out here have also spread to many places, including foreign countries." The famous Shanghai School painters Ren Bonian, Zhang Yuguang and Hang Zhiying, China's first watercolor painter Xu Yongqing, and sculptor and oil painter Zhang Chongren were all educated by Tushanwan Art Museum. Xu Beihong was also indirectly influenced by the art museum. ”

Xu Beihong once wrote "Review and Prospects of Art Nouveau", commenting on Tushanwan Art Museum when reviewing the Western Painting Movement in China: "Shanghai Xujiahui is also one of its bases, and the communication between Chinese and Western cultures has made a very precious contribution there. Tushan Bay also has a place to practice painting, which is also the cradle of Chinese Western painting. ”

The museum is just one of the "stars" of Tushan Bay, and the excitement of the Xujiahui area in history is by no means limited to the field of art. Founded in 1872, Xujiahui Observatory is known as the "First Meteorological Observatory in the Far East" and is the only century-old meteorological station in China, witnessing the history of modern meteorological development in China. The Xujiahui Library, founded by the Catholic Society of Jesus in 1847, is the earliest surviving modern library in Shanghai. Xuhui Public School, founded in 1850, is one of the earliest Catholic church schools in China, known as the "first school of western learning and eastern learning", and is the first school in China to open mathematics, physics and chemistry courses...

Whether it is the "learning from the west and the east" at the end of the Ming Dynasty, or the large-scale exchange of Chinese and Western cultures in modern times, it has left an indelible trace in the urban area of Tushanwan in Xujiahui. "ZIKAWEI" is not only a simple "retro" zhuyin, but also hidden behind Tushan Bay's library building, printing house, records, stained glass and other art gathering places, is the library building, meteorological observatory, Xuhui Middle School and other cultural and educational highlands, but also that magnificent history. (End)