A Study on Chinese Shape Taking Methods Reflected on the Character Making Process: Focusing on Major Nature Gods

Changjoon YOON

Abstract


'Letters record a language' means that letters, in specific forms, represent particular meaning and sounds differentiated from others. Because one language reflects its people's way of thinking, letters also include those thinking as a sign of that language. Especially from the very beginning, Chinese characters were devised to take the shapes that represent meaning of languages rather than the signals that indicate pronunciation, therefore the shapes of Chinese characters, especially that of the ancient pictographs, can be treated directly as very precious historical data, also can be said exactly reflect social aspects of the times.

But in some cases, meaning of language did not have specific shapes that represent exact meaning, so people in Shang Dynasty have to develop the system of taking shapes that represent abstract meaning.

To search for this, this research made consideration on the taking shapes system of Chinese character based on the findings through the analysis of oracle-bones letters and oracle-bone inscriptions regarding The God of Nature, especially The God of dragon, wind, rainbow, sun.

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5296/ijch.v7i1.17088

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