Zhengzhou, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Why is the Cangjie statue inlaid on the bronze door of the Library of Congress?
——Interview with Wang Yunzhi, Director of the Research Center for Oracle Bone Science and Ancient Civilization of Henan University
Written by Yang Dayong
Regarding the origin of Chinese characters, the legend of "Cangjie Characters" is widely spread at home and abroad. What is the relationship between the Cangjie and the Chinese Guyu solar term and the United Nations Chinese Day? Why is the Cangjie statue inlaid on the bronze door of the Library of Congress? On the eve of this year's Guyu solar term and the United Nations Chinese Day, Wang Yunzhi, director of the Center for the Study of Oracle Bones and Ancient Civilization at Henan University and honorary president of the Henan Provincial Writing Society, was interviewed by China News Service's "East-West Question" to interpret the above questions.
The transcript of the interview is summarized below:
China News Service: Who is Cangjie, and why is his portrait inlaid on the bronze door of the Library of Congress?
Wang Yunzhi: According to historical records, Cangjie was the historian of Xuanyuan Yellow Emperor, known as the "ancestor of Chinese writing", and was a world historical and cultural celebrity.
Many classics such as "Shiben Composition", "Xunzi Jiesha", "Han Feizi Wuyi", "Lü's Spring and Autumn", "Shuowen Jie Zi Order" and many other classics have recorded the deeds of "Cangjie Character Making", especially in Henan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Shandong and other middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.
Legends are the shadow of history. In the vast land of China, for thousands of years, the theory of "Cangjie making characters" has become a classic story of the source of Chinese characters, which is very rich in Chinese cultural characteristics. It can be said that the "Cangjie culture" around the legend of Cangjie and the origin of Chinese characters as the core connotation is a very important national cultural heritage.
The more national it is, the more global it is. The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world. On the bronze doors of the entrances and exits on the left and right sides of the John Adams Building of the library, inlaid with figures who have influenced the world's writing, the statue of Cangjie and his name are among them. The Library of Congress explains Cangjie as "the creator of Chinese characters." "Cangjie belongs not only to China, but also to the world, which is a reverence for celebrities who have made seminal contributions to world culture, and at the same time shows the global intellectual community's recognition of the cultural roots of Chinese characters.
Cangjie statue and name on the bronze door of the John Adams Building at the Library of Congress. Photo by Sha Hanting
The Chinese characters that we are still using today are a great invention of the Chinese Cangjie sages. Throughout the ages, Chinese characters have not only played an important role in promoting the development of Chinese culture, but also played an important role in the exchange and dissemination of world culture. Chinese characters have a long history and a long history, and they carry a very rich cultural connotation, covering almost all the distinctive personalities of Chinese culture that distinguish them from Western culture.
As an excellent cultural gene, Chinese characters have not only served and inherited the culture of the Chinese nation for thousands of years, but also had a far-reaching impact on the development of East Asia, Southeast Asia and other ethnic cultures. The United Nations has long designated Chinese characters as one of the most important common languages in the world.
A signboard on the street of Shinsaibashi in Osaka City, Japan. Photo by Hu Jilin
China News Service: What is the relationship between Cangjie and the Guyu solar term and the United Nations Chinese Day?
Wang Yunzhi: Guyu is the last solar term in spring among the 24 solar terms of the Chinese lunar calendar. The arrival of the valley rain solar term means the end of the cold wave weather, and the temperature rises faster.
"Huainanzi Benjing Training" records, "The former Cangjie wrote books, and the sky rained, and the ghosts cried at night." Later generations set the day when the millet rained as the valley rain in the 24 solar terms of the Chinese lunar calendar.
"Cangjie characters" is the beginning of the ancient ancestors from ignorance to civilization, God moved by Cangjie to create words, so to the sky of millet rain to reward Cangjie, this is what a romantic and magnificent imagination, but also can see people's reverence for the origin of Chinese characters.
On April 20, 2019, Shangluo and Luonan County, Shaanxi Province held the 2019 Guyu Sacrifice Cangjie Ceremony. Photo by Niu Shupei
Every year, the Guyu solar term is around April 20. In 2010, the United Nations designated Chinese Day as April 20 every year to commemorate the contribution of Cangjie, the "ancestor of Chinese writing".
The ancestors of the Han Dynasty deified the "Cangjie Character Making", so Gu Yu had the folk custom of worshiping Cangjie. "Qingming sacrifices to the Yellow Emperor, and Gu Yu worships Cangjie. Out of reverence for Cangjie, in many places across the country in the Cangjie Temple, Cangjie Temple, Cangjie Word Table, Cangjie Tomb and other relics, people will hold worship activities before and after the Guyu solar term.
With the rapid development of globalization, the exchange of Chinese and foreign cultures and the global craze for learning Chinese and Chinese characters are heating up. The in-depth development and utilization of Chinese character information processing technology has also attracted more and more attention to Chinese character culture. The establishment of the United Nations Chinese Language Day is mainly to strengthen the global dissemination of Chinese culture, promote the global development of Chinese, and enable more people in the world to understand, learn and appreciate the unique charm of Chinese character culture. The Chinese people designated Gu Yu as a day of worship for Cangjie and Chinese Day by the United Nations, which also fully reflects the world's admiration and recognition of the creator of human civilization.
On April 20, 2023, the "Thousands of Shapes and Meanings: The Grand Exhibition of Chinese Character Culture" opened at the Summer Palace Museum in Beijing. Photo by Yi Haifei
China News Service: How do you look at "Cangjie Character Creation" from the perspective of the historical view of the development of Chinese characters?
Wang Yunzhi: For a long time, the theory of "Cangjie making characters" has mostly stayed at the level of myths, legends and worship. It can be generally believed that the production of ancient Chinese characters is the crystallization of the wisdom of the Chinese Cangjie sages and philosophers.
If we interpret it from the perspective of the historical view of the development of Chinese characters, we should not simply regard "Cangjie character creation" as a myth and legend, but should regard the Cangjie sage figures as objective and real "character ancestors", and take the proposition commemorating Cangjie and the origin of Chinese characters as "Cangjie culture" to develop and protect, and start to explore the origin of Chinese character civilization, and explain "where Chinese characters come from" from the history of Chinese character development.
There is no doubt that legends such as "The History of the Yellow Emperor Cangjie" and "Cangjie Character Creation" have unique Chinese cultural elements, indicating that Chinese civilization and Chinese character civilization are synchronized, and also reflecting that the Chinese character symbol system is a self-originating cultural phenomenon, which originated independently in the context of ancient Chinese civilization.
Over the past few decades, the Chinese archaeological community has released a series of excavated materials related to the origin of Chinese characters earlier than the Yinxu oracle bone inscriptions, mainly carved or painted symbols on pottery, and also a small number of symbols engraved on oracle bones and jade tools. It can be said that the carved symbols of ancient times are all over the land of China, which together open up new ideas and provide new clues for explaining the origin of Chinese characters and tracing the ancient Cangjie. In the vast land of China, the ancient ancestors have gone through a long process from knotted rope records, symbol records to the invention of writing, the invention of writing is far more than a Cangjie, the ancient Cangjie sage figures are not only a moment.
The new building of the Yinxu Museum exhibits oracle bone fragments carved with divination. Photo by Kan Li
The surviving ancient Chinese characters, such as oracle bone inscriptions and golden inscriptions, are the basis of Chinese characters, and new characters are constantly being bred through them in later generations. As far as the function of words and symbols is concerned, the ancestors have endowed it with strong vitality since the invention of ancient Chinese characters. The evolution and development of Chinese characters have formed a continuous evolutionary sequence, and the Chinese writing materials of each period reflect the historical trajectory of the development and evolution of Chinese characters in an all-round way.
The basic glyphs in ancient Chinese characters are mostly taken from forms and things that are closely related to people's real lives. When the ancestors made characters, they relied on their experience of life, or paid attention to the shape and outline, or paid attention to the posture characteristics, and gave shape to the object. The Cangjie sage characters have created such a strict text body and unparalleled aesthetic connotation of writing, so that the excellent genes of words have been passed down to this day.
China News Service: How do you view the status of ancient Chinese characters in world civilization?
Wang Yunzhi: The production of writing is an important symbol of the formation and development of human civilization. There are many ancient scripts in the world, which are important symbols of early human civilization. Such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, West Asian cuneiform, Indian Harappan script, etc. None of these ancient texts have been handed down, and they have been lost to history for various reasons. Only Chinese characters have endured, from ancient times to the present, and have recorded the appearance of Chinese characters in each period like fossils.
Cuneiform clay tablets of ancient Lianghe River basin cultural relics exhibited at the "Great River Civilization Exhibition" held by the Zhengzhou Museum. The cuneiform script is now a relic and is preserved in the museum. Photo by Han Zhangyun
The cultural differences between Chinese and Western ancient scripts are roughly in four aspects: first, in terms of characters and sources, the knotted characteristics of the origin and early ideograms of Chinese characters are completely different from those of ancient Western civilizations; second, in terms of writing system, the West broke away from the knotted character system of West Asian and ancient Egyptian ideographs earlier, mainly using the phonetic alphabets of the ancient Phoenicians to transform the pinyin script, and the kingdoms and ethnic groups that restructured the script changed frequently; third, the ancient and modern Chinese characters inherited the wisdom of "Cangjie Character Making", and from the ancient Zhou ( zhòu, the one-week font of ancient Chinese characters, i.e., the big seal) to the Song style characters have always taken the route of square ideographic Chinese characters; fourth, the legends and stories of character making are different, the Chinese "Cangjie character making" theory is very rich in the character portrayal of oriental culture and the imprint of the Yellow River civilization, and the scene of character making in ancient Western civilization is more rich in religious stories and drama in the image of mythological characters.
Compared with the scripts of other ancient civilizations, ancient Chinese characters can adapt to the needs of language development, and continue to mature and improve with the enrichment of languages, and avoid the fate of premature death under the catalysis of foreign languages and the renewal of conceptual categories, just like the ancient scripts of ancient Egypt, ancient Babylon and ancient India.
The context of Chinese characters has not only promoted the development of Chinese culture, but also made significant contributions to world civilization. Chinese characters are both ancient and modern, and are known for their strong national centripetal force and cohesion, as well as their strong super-dialectal nature, and play an irreplaceable role in the spread of world culture. (ENDS)
Interviewee Profile:
Wang Yunzhi was appointed as the leader of the discipline of ancient Chinese history at Zhengzhou University in 1998, and the doctoral supervisor of archaeology and history. He is currently the director of the Oracle Bone and Ancient Civilization Research Center of Henan University, the chief expert of the Collaborative Innovation Center for the Yellow River Civilization Research of Henan University, the doctoral supervisor of the interdisciplinary discipline of oracle bone inscription and ancient civilization, the honorary president of the Henan Character Society, the vice president of the China Yin Shang Culture Society, the director of the Chinese Paleographic Society, the director of the Chinese Character Society, and the expert academic member of the Chinese Character Museum. He has been engaged in the teaching and research of paleographies and ancient civilizations for a long time, especially in the fields of oracle bone science and Yin Shang history, Shang and Zhou script interpretation, and etymology. He has presided over the completion of a number of national key projects, such as "The Ancient Characters of the Central Plains Cultural Dictionary", "The Great Collection of Jiajin Inscriptions Unearthed in Henan over the Years", "The Collation and Research of Shang and Zhou Bronze Inscriptions Unearthed in the Central Plains", "The Development of Oracle Bone Corpus Database and Its Interpretation Research", etc.