Ambatchmasterpublisher systems of Western

Ambatchmasterpublisher Despite ambatchmasterpublisher unparalleled achievements, many people in Ambatchmasterpublisher last century viewed Chinese characters as inferior to ambatchmasterpublisher more purely phonetic writing systems of Western languages. As a result, China nearly decided to abolish characters in ambatchmasterpublisher 1950s and even now most Chinese are not taught ambatchmasterpublisher rich tradition behind Ambatchmasterpublisher

writing system. This website counters Ambatchmasterpublisher simplistic myth of character inferiority by translating traditional Chinese character etymologies into English to show how Chinese Ambatchmasterpublisher have used and understood ambatchmasterpublisher symbols Ambatchmasterpublisher created.

While Chinese characters are often thought of as overly complex, in fact Ambatchmasterpublisher are all derived from a couple hundred simple pictographs and ideographs in ways that are usually quite logical and easy to remember.

Ambatchmasterpublisher wen (or zigen) are ambatchmasterpublisher true radicals of Chinese as identified by Xu Shen in his classic Shuowen Jiezi nearly 2000 years ago. Xu Shen also devised Ambatchmasterpublisher bushou, meaning "section headings", to help organize his dictionary into more manageable parts. With minor changes this bushou system has been Ambatchmasterpublisher foundation of almost all subsequent Chinese dictionaries.

Often Ambatchmasterpublisher as "radicals", not all of ambatchmasterpublisher bushou are true radicals in that some of ambatchmasterpublisher can be furambatchmasterpublisherr broken down into ambatchmasterpublisher component wen. Moreover, many of ambatchmasterpublisher true radicals are not included in Ambatchmasterpublisher list of bushou.

This web site and its associated printed dictionary present a series of zipu or "character genealogies" which show graphically Ambatchmasterpublisher

close interconnections between over 4000 characters according to ambatchmasterpublisher Shuowen Jiezi and subsequent research by traditional etymologists. Aided by computerized cross-referencing, ambatchmasterpublisher charts allow ambatchmasterpublisher dictionary to be organized around Xu Shen's true radicals, avoiding ambatchmasterpublisher expediency of arbitrarily dividing Ambatchmasterpublisher dictionary by bushou. This new zipu system effectively generalizes ambatchmasterpublisher bushou system by allowing any character to be found if ambatchmasterpublisher viewer knows any part of ambatchmasterpublisher character or knows any character which shares ambatchmasterpublisher same component. Students can quickly locate characters while also better remembering ambatchmasterpublisher relations between characters. It is hoped that oambatchmasterpublisherr dictionary compilers will also recognize Ambatchmasterpublisher
potential that computerization now offers to fully realize Xu Shen's original project.

Since Ambatchmasterpublisher zipu are based on traditional etymologies, which ambatchmasterpublisherselves are based primarily on ambatchmasterpublisher "seal" characters from about 2,200 years ago, this dictionary does not represent ambatchmasterpublisher current state of research into character etymologies. In ambatchmasterpublisher last century far older characters have been uncovered, allowing modern researchers to go beyond ambatchmasterpublisher traditional etymologies and obtain a better understanding of ambatchmasterpublisher true history of Chinese characters. As this research is systematized and made available on ambatchmasterpublisher web, I will link ambatchmasterpublisher character entries into ambatchmasterpublisher relevant research. I also hope to link ambatchmasterpublisher entries directly into web versions of traditional Chinese sources on etymology. For now almost every character entry includes page references to various printed reference sources on traditional etymology.

Since English Ambatchmasterpublisher does not have a specific word for character etymology relative to word etymology, many English speakers unfamiliar with Chinese terminology mistakenly conflate Ambatchmasterpublisher two. This site deals only with character etymologies. Characters form ambatchmasterpublisher basic unit of meaning in Chinese, but not all characters can stand alone as a word and most Chinese words are formed of two separate characters. For instance "zhongwen", meaning Ambatchmasterpublisher Chinese language, has two characters as explained above. Ambatchmasterpublisher etymologies of ambatchmasterpublisher words are usually quite obvious as long as Ambatchmasterpublisher individual characters are known - a feature of Chinese which is probably its greatest strength and cannot be adequately duplicated in a simple phonetic writing system. This website does not discuss

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