(Essential questions) Sears, "Uncle Chinese Characters": How do Chinese and Western cultural exchanges "find the roots" of Chinese characters?

　　China News Service, Nanjing, November 27th, title: "Uncle Chinese Characters" Sears: How do Chinese and Western cultural exchanges "find the roots" of Chinese characters?

　　China News Agency reporter Cheng Li Yang Yanci

　　Language is a mirror, reflecting cultural heritage, historical precipitation and mutual learning of exchanges.

When China's development achievements continue to attract the attention of the world, the world is more eager to understand the culture behind China's development.

Language is this bridge.

　　Globally, the demand of people from all over the world to learn Chinese continues to grow.

According to data from the Office of the National Leading Group for International Promotion of Chinese Language (Hanban), as of now, excluding China, one out of every 31 people in the world has studied and used Chinese.

　　Richard Sears, an American scholar known as "Uncle Chinese Characters", recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Service "Dongxi Wen". He talked about the reasons and feelings of "seeking roots" for Chinese characters. In his eyes, "Chinese characters are not only Chinese". Of the world".

"Uncle Kanji" Richard Sears.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Yang Bo

Why are you looking for "previous life and present life" for Chinese characters?

　　Richard Sears is one of the first scholars in the world to use modern technology to study the source of Chinese characters, and he is affectionately called "Uncle Chinese Characters".

　　Since learning Chinese at the age of 22, Sears, now over 70 years old, has spent nearly half a century studying and researching Chinese characters.

He started using computers to digitize Chinese characters since the 1990s. He founded the "Chinese Character Source" website, which contains nearly 100,000 ancient Chinese characters and has users in more than 170 countries and regions around the world.

　　Richard Sears was born in Oregon in the western United States. He has a bachelor's degree in physics and a master's degree in computer science, but he has a keen interest in Eastern culture.

"For foreigners, it is very difficult to learn Chinese characters. But after learning it, I found that Chinese is the most wonderful."

　　Sears introduced that according to the types and nature of the world's various characters, Chinese characters are ideographic characters, and English are phonographic characters.

At present, most of the languages ​​in the world are phonetic characters; besides Chinese, there are Japanese and Vietnamese, and the latter is also deeply influenced by Chinese.

　　How to understand this difference?

Sears pointed out that unlike English, Chinese characters are developed from primitive pictorial characters, and their meaning is more intuitive.

The early Oracles can clearly see that they are mainly pictographic and understanding.

Although the form of Chinese characters has undergone great changes after thousands of years, the ideographic function is still very significant.

Therefore, to learn Chinese characters, one needs to start with "Shuowen Jiezi".

In December 2019, the National Museum of China exhibited the "Wang Binzhong Ding·Wang Wang Zhusi Painted Zhu Bu Bone Inscriptions" in the National Museum of China.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Hou Yu

　　Sears quoted Xu Shen’s definition of "Shuowen" and "Jiezi" in "Shuowen Jiezi": "Cangjie wrote a book at the beginning, and it was built with similar pictograms, so it was called a text. Later, the shape and sound are mutually beneficial. That is to say the word. The text is the basis of the object; the word is the word, the words are soaked and soaked." In this sense, there are not only morphological differences between Chinese and English, but the process of "character creation" determines the two. A completely different learning method.

　　Sears believes that in Western phonetic language systems, the meaning of a word is often displayed through "morphemes" and "roots."

The deep difference between the two determines that Westerners cannot rely on the way of learning English (ie root extension method), but adopt a completely different "story memorization method".

　　"Foreigners learning Chinese is different from Chinese. Chinese people have a language environment since they were young, and they have a systematic study of pinyin, and Chinese is a compulsory course." Sears believes that to a certain extent, learning Chinese from an early age makes rote memorization. Learning Chinese characters by recitation is not difficult for Chinese people, but not for foreigners.

Foreigners learning Chinese must start with interest.

Therefore, it is particularly important to understand the stories behind Chinese characters.

　　Sears, who grew up in the phonetic language environment, has deeply experienced the many and complex strokes of Chinese characters in the process of learning Chinese.

Memorizing by rote will only make people miserable. If you understand the pictographic origin of Chinese characters, you will be able to grasp Chinese characters more easily.

Thus, he began a long journey of "searching for roots" in Chinese characters.

　　The establishment of a digital website for the source of Chinese characters was still a blank field in the 1990s.

　　There are more than 10,000 ancient Chinese characters in "Shuowen Jiezi", more than 38,000 words in "Liu Shu Tong", and more than 24,000 words in "Inscriptions on Inscriptions"... After nearly ten years, "the source of Chinese characters" The website was publicly launched in 2002. The website displays the glyphs of nearly 100,000 ancient Chinese characters collected by Sears. You can find the "previous life and present life" of each Chinese character with the click of a mouse.

In December 2020, the "Shu Wen Jie Zi Textbook" written by Mr. Mo Gong, the president of the Chinese Culture Research Association, was officially published by Zhonghua Book Company.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Ren Haixia

"Chinese temperature" in the eyes of China

　　"I often say that every Chinese character is logical, and every Chinese character has its own story." According to Uncle Chinese Characters, learning Chinese is not only for mastering a mysterious oriental language, but also for the passage of words. Understand thousands of years of Chinese culture.

Understanding is also the first step to get out of prejudice and move towards identification.

　　In the eyes of "Uncle Chinese Characters", every foreigner has a different starting point for learning Chinese.

With China’s increasingly open, international influence and international status, all countries are eager to learn more about and learn from China, and Chinese is undoubtedly a key to a better understanding and understanding of China.

　　According to statistics from Hanban, as of 2020, more than 70 countries around the world have included Chinese in their national education systems, and more than 4,000 universities, more than 30,000 primary and middle schools, and more than 45,000 Chinese schools and training institutions have opened Chinese courses.

There are nearly 200 million people studying and using Chinese in foreign countries.

In June 2021, the German final of the 14th "Chinese Bridge" Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign Middle School Students was successfully held online.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Peng Dawei

　　Sears personally felt that the two-way Chinese craze was heating up.

"When I first learned Chinese, China was relatively closed. There were relatively few channels for learning Chinese and understanding China. Now China is becoming more open and progressing, and foreigners have more and more reasons to learn Chinese and learn Chinese characters. China. The footsteps of Chinese people are also all over the world, and there are opportunities to meet Chinese people all over the world, which also makes foreigners interested in Chinese."

　　These changes have inspired "Uncle Chinese Characters" to continue to study the source of Chinese characters.

He believes that the differences between Chinese and Western characters are not only reflected in the shape and source of characters, but also the similarities and differences in the thinking patterns, behaviors, scientific concepts, and moral and legal concepts of the two places.

All these differences are displayed and passed down through the carrier of "words".

　　"Understanding the source of Chinese characters, you will understand the life and culture of ancient Chinese people. For example, some characters vividly show ancient textiles, some depict ancient astrology, and some show traditional Chinese agriculture and livestock. Each There is a story behind the words, and these stories string together Chinese history."

In March 2021, Beijing, children and children will spend the weekend to learn about Oracle history.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Hou Yu

　　"By understanding the evolution of Chinese characters, you can clearly see the origin of Chinese characters, what the ancients thought and thought, vivid and lovely, and full of fun." Uncle Chinese characters said that this is the biggest difference between learning English and the greatest pleasure. .

　　Sears believes that it will be difficult to truly understand traditional Chinese culture without a thorough understanding of the story behind each Chinese character.

"Of course, you can also learn Chinese by rote memorization, but the essence is gone."

　　In his view, words are the carrier of cultural heritage.

The difference in words is the appearance, and the difference in culture is the root.

　　Sears gave an example: “If you don’t learn the origin of Chinese characters, it’s hard to understand why Chinese people put the word'福' upside down.”

　　"On the Spring Festival, the Chinese will put an upside-down "Fu" on the door. They turn the "Fu" upside down, which means that the contents of the container are poured into the house, and they also take the homonym "Fu reached". This is the Chinese. Culture." Sears said.

In February 2021, Chongqing, Southwest University winter vacation students write blessings to welcome the Chinese New Year.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhou Yi

　　According to Sears, the different expressions of the same word meaning in Chinese and English also reflect the cultural differences between the two sides.

"In China, the word cousin has more than ten specific titles such as cousin, cousin, cousin, cousin, etc., but in English, it is a simple generalization. This shows that in China, a large family since ancient times The concept still exists, and this strong kinship continues to this day. This is very different from the Western concept of a small family. Similarly, the order of the surname and first name also reflects this difference."

　　Sears believes that learning Chinese characters through the source of characters is to dissolve the "hardest language" into the most vivid short stories, so that people can learn and remember in understanding, and then better understand the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, and realize the transition from sensibility to rationality. Leap makes cross-cultural communication more effective and smooth.

In a sense, this is an important part of the "people-to-people bond."

Breaking through cultural boundaries: "Chinese characters are not only Chinese, but also of the world"

　　Now, through the Sears website, people all over the world can easily learn Chinese by themselves.

According to the latest statistics, the global monthly visits to the website have exceeded 1 million, with users from more than 170 countries and regions.

　　The "collision" between traditional Chinese characters and modern technology has allowed Chinese characters to burst into new charms, allowing Chinese to have a wider audience and more convenient channels.

Sears said that in the current globalization, culture should not have a "sense of boundary".

"Chinese characters are not only Chinese, but also of the world."

　　Sears said: "Whenever a Chinese person says to me:'You can speak our Mandarin.' I will answer:'Chinese is not only Chinese, it is the precious culture of the world.'"

　　In December 2020, 70-year-old Sears received the long-awaited permanent residence identity card for foreigners in the People’s Republic of China.

With this card, "Uncle Chinese" plans to live in Nanjing for a long time.

In September this year, "Uncle Chinese Character Studio" was established in Nanjing.

Uncle Chinese Character Studio.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Yang Bo

　　"Chinese characters are my most precious thing." Sears claimed to like the term "Uncle Chinese Characters" very much, even though he is now at the age of "Grandpa Chinese Characters".

"Living to be old, and learning to be old." He proficiently quoted an old Chinese saying to express his imagination about the future of Chinese characters.

"In the future, I will work hard to break the'cultural boundary', promote exchanges between China and the West, and share Chinese character stories with more people." (End)

About the interviewee:

American scholar Richard Sears.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Yang Bo

　　Richard Sears (Richard Sears), Chinese name Sruide, American, born in 1950, Chinese character research scholar, founder of the "Chinese character source" website.

He spent 20 years sorting out the glyphs of Oracle, Bronze Inscriptions, Xiaozhuan, etc. and published them on the Internet.

Learners of Chinese characters around the world can view the corresponding glyphs as long as they input Chinese characters.

Therefore, Sears is affectionately called "Uncle Chinese Characters".