Zhang Taiyan, a master of the Republic of China, has a very high attainment in Chinese characters, phonology, sermons, scriptures, zhuzi, history, philosophy, Buddhism, medicine and other aspects. Regarding the study of Chinese characters, Zhang Taiyan believes that the characteristics of Chinese characters are not as simple as "wrapping around the characters".
Zhang Taiyan repeatedly emphasized that primary school (philology) is the foundation of Sinology and the beginning of indoctrination. As a citizen, we should "build a small scholar, the foundation of the country, the end of the royal religion, the upper school first, the lower to the people's convenience", and "think that the literature is the old training, and we must be the people of the country." ”
Zhang Taiyan, who published an article entitled "On the Absurdity of the Chinese Character Unification Society", described in detail the great differences between the Chinese script and the Japanese script, strongly pointing out the impossibility of the unification of the two scripts and the serious consequences of forcing this practice. The reason why Zhang Taiyan strongly opposed it stemmed from the wave at that time that Chinese characters were an obstacle to the progress of our nation.
For example, Kang Youwei believes that the world is the same, and the language and writing are only in and out of the human ear, and the language and writing should be unified. Through the article "On the Absurdity of the Unification of Chinese Characters", Zhang Taiyan strongly responded, which had a profound impact on future generations. So much emphasis is placed on Chinese characters, but when Zhang Taiyan named his daughters, he was "very unorthodox", and as a result, he made a joke that no one dared to come to the door to mention his relatives.
In order to name his daughter, Zhang Taiyan found extremely eccentric writings from the vast sea of ancient books, which led to the celebrities in the academic circles at that time not knowing, and the names of the four daughters were: Zhang 㸚 (lǐ), Zhang Yi (zhuó), Zhang 㠭 (zhǎn), and Zhang 㗊 (jí).
There is a folk saying that Zhang Taiyan gave his daughter such an esoteric name, that is, to let her daughter marry a celebrity with high learning, but unfortunately no one can recognize these four words, and the four daughters can only wait bitterly. Seeing that no one came to the door to propose to him, Zhang Taiyan had to publish his daughter's name to the public, and abolished the harsh standard that only by knowing these few words could he marry a daughter.
"In ancient times, there were people who asked people who had a big career in universities, and they had to have neuropathy to do it." I think zhang Taiyan got the nickname "zhang madman", and there are also reasons for this. Although the daughters are married, such a name makes an embarrassment. In the autumn of 1940, a special college student from the Jinling Women's College of Arts and Sciences, which had been forced to move to Chengdu due to the fall of Nanjing, was in her 40s.
The girl is in the third grade of the Chinese Department, and on the first day of class, when the class leader introduces the new students to the class, an embarrassing scene appears. The woman's name is very special, "chapter, chapter, chapter...", in the end, it can't be read, and can only be called Zhang Sigong, because her name is four industrial characters. Later, everyone learned that this woman was Zhang Taiyan's third daughter, Zhang Yi.
Such a special master of traditional Chinese studies, so interesting, is really emotional. Perhaps it is this personality, coupled with profound knowledge, that makes him a master of the Taidou level, and is praised by Lu Xun as "the spirit of the sage and the model of the later generations." ”
Reference: Zhang Taiyan Chronology