The "Yi·Xici Part II" states, "In ancient times, when Emperor Fuxi ruled the world, he observed the phenomena in the sky when looking up, and the patterns on the earth when looking down; he observed the patterns of birds and beasts and the suitability of the land, taking close examples from the body and distant examples from things. Thus he created the Eight Trigrams to understand the virtue of divine spirit and to categorize the nature of all things." This passage explains the principles of the Yi (I Ching) and also the principles behind the creation of Chinese characters.
1. Structure of Chinese Characters
The structure of Chinese characters is 'round on the outside, square on the inside.' This follows the ancient idea of 'round heaven and square earth.' The circle '○' is a simplified form of '[', and is the most perfect shape in the world. The circumference of '○' compared to its diameter is a constant (π = 3.14159 ...), representing the 'unchanging' within the 'change' of the material world, and it can be said, 'all transformations do not leave it.' The circle '○', with a fixed line length, can occupy the largest 'space of the universe.' Therefore, the 'round outside and square inside' structure of Chinese characters is a construction that is both 'perfect' and 'efficient.'
2. The Concept of 'Five'
The character '五' evolves to '二乂.' According to Shuowen Jiezi: 'Five represents the five elements; yin and yang intersect between heaven and earth at the noon.' Thus, the character '五' refers to the intersection of heaven and earth, yin and yang, and sounds like 'Wu Wu' (戊午). 'Wu' is the fifth of the heavenly stems; 'Wu' also refers to May.' In the famous 'He Tu' and 'Luo Shu,' 'five' is placed in the center of the diagram, also implying the 'intersection of yin and yang.' 'Heaven' is the greatest 'yang symbol,' 'earth' is the greatest 'yin symbol,' and 'heaven and earth create the five elements.' The 'five elements' are the five basic substances that ancient people believed composed all things in the world, namely: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
3. The Five Basic Strokes
Strokes are the smallest continuous units that make up the form of regular script Chinese characters. All strokes can be summarized into five standard structures: horizontal (一), vertical (丨), left-falling (丿), right-falling (丶), and hook (乙).
4. Origins and Evolution of Chinese Characters
The evolution of Chinese characters can be briefly summarized into five stages: sound, form, imagery, number, and principle.
(1) 'Sound' is a necessary component of any language. In the distant and long ancient era, humans gradually distinguished 'sounds' with specific meanings and representative of certain things from instinctive 'cries, laughter...' or by imitating nature's 'birdsong, insect calls, beast roars, wind sounds, thunder, rain...' This is the evolution of speech. For example, 'ma, ba' is used to represent 'mother, father,' possibly derived from the cry sound 'ah...'.Phonetics has evolved to the modern era into a very complex system, with about 4×400=1600 sounds in Chinese. The differentiation of sounds must follow its own certain rules, and some clues can be discerned from modern languages. For example: "goose, chicken, duck, cat..." and other poultry and livestock may have been named based on their sounds. "Ha, wo, shh, aiyo..." are sounds that directly express natural human vocalizations in different emotions. "Wu → noon," "miao → miao (small)," "mu → mao (to emit)..."—sounds are connected, and meanings are associated.
[Original Text] Mu (木), means to sprout. Sprouting from the ground symbolizes the eastward movement, with the bottom representing its roots.
(2) "Form" is the second important component of language, but it is not necessary. In ancient times, humans mainly faced issues of survival and reproduction. In the struggle against nature and fierce beasts, snakes, etc., sometimes "form" or "drawing" was needed to represent things. For example: during extended hunts, to avoid getting lost, one might make some marks on rocks or tree trunks. Humans also paid attention to the tracks of wild animals while hunting to identify the characteristics of the beasts. Additionally, humans may have drawn images like "sun, moon, people, mountains, trees, plants, animals, ancestors..." on cave walls out of worship for the mysterious nature or pursuit of beauty.
The Shuowen Jiezi says, "Cangjie, the historian of Emperor Huang, saw the footprints of birds and beasts and understood that form could be used to distinguish things, thus beginning to create characters."
[Original Text] Cangjie, the historian of Emperor Huang, saw the traces of hooves and tracks of birds and beasts, understood that differentiating principles could be distinguished, and initially created writing.
"Shen (审) → mian-fan → mian-bian-tian," where "fan" refers to the footprints of beasts in the fields. "Bian" (釆) means to distinguish, symbolizing the claws of beasts. "Shen" means to know thoroughly.
[Original Text] 釆, means to distinguish, symbolizing the claws of beasts, to separate. Beast feet are called fan, from 釆 and 田, representing the paw. Shen (审) means to know thoroughly, composed of 宀 and 釆. Xi (悉) means detailed, from 心 and 釆. Shi (释) means to explain, from 釆. 釆 takes from distinguishing things.
Through the process of simplifying "pictures" and taking the main features of things, the evolution of "characters" began. Phonetic scripts developed from original images toward letters representing sounds, using phonetics as the main component. Chinese characters evolved from original images toward "form, number, logic," using different images to represent various meanings.(3) 'Xiang' (象) is the main method for creating Chinese characters and for explaining ideas in the Book of Changes (Yi). Characters like 'sun' (日) and 'moon' (月) are examples of pictographs and are the fundamental components for creating characters. These basic components combine with each other to produce various 'Xiang' (forms/images), generating more characters. The basic components and characters can also combine at a higher level to create many characters that represent different things and ideas.
[Original text] When Cangjie initially created writing, he relied on categorization and pictographs, hence it was called 'wen' (文, writing). Later, when phonetic elements were added, it was called 'zi' (字, character).
Examples: 'Ming' (明) → 'sun + moon' (日月), 'Yi' (易) → 'sun + wu → sun + moon', 'Dan' (旦) → 'sun + 1' (the '1' below represents 'earth', corresponding to the three yang lines in the hexagram indicating 'heaven, human, earth'), 'Xian' (显) → 'sun + ye' ('ye' represents dense trees on the ground; 'sun' has risen above the treetops, so it becomes bright 'Xian').
These characters can also form more characters. For example: 'Meng' (盟) → 'Ming + vessel' (明 + 皿), 'Ti' (踢) → '? + Yi', 'Shi' (湿) → 'water + Xian' (氵 + 显), 'Dan' (但) → 'person + Dan' (亻 + 旦)…
Here, character creation and Yi principles are fully aligned, which is what is referred to as the fuzzy thinking of 'drawing forms to generate principles' and the binary principle of 'interaction of Yin and Yang'.
(4) The concept of 'Shu' (数, number) gradually formed in the long evolutionary process of humans. The first concepts humans likely mastered were 'none' and 'existence'. Without water, one becomes thirsty; without food, one becomes hungry. In the character 'You' (有 → �Q月), '�Q' represents 'hand' and '月' represents 'flesh'. The original meaning of 'You' is 'there is meat under the hand'; having meat to eat prevents hunger. 'You' further differentiates into the concepts of numbers like 'one, two, three, many'.
'Numbers' gradually evolved towards Yi symbols, separating from characters over time, forming the eight trigrams, and eventually forming the Book of Changes (Yi Jing) during the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties (including Lianshan, Guicang, and Zhou Yi). For example, odd numbers (1, 3, 5, 7, 9) and even numbers (2, 4, 6, 8, 10) are two groups of numbers with different properties. If odd numbers belong to Yang, even numbers belong to Yin. In the Hetu and Luoshu diagrams, they are represented as 'black and white' or 'solid and hollow'. In the Yi, they are represented by 'Yang lines' (—) and 'Yin lines' (– –). For numbers 1, 2, 3, applying Yi thinking, '1' is seen as a Yang line, '2' as Yin line, '3' as ? (?), and according to the principle of overlapping Yang lines, overlapping Yin lines gives '—, —, ?'. Further combining these symbols produces all Yi symbols.
The study of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of numbers is called arithmetic.Studying the 'image' of 'numbers' and speaking 'principles' through 'images' is the way to deduce the I Ching. In Chinese characters, the phenomenon of repeated radicals is ubiquitous; this is a concrete manifestation of 'numerology' in character creation. For example:
\唱 → 口昌 → ckv ('唱', from 口, 昌 for the sound)
\哭 → 吅犬 → kv ('哭', from 吅, with 犬 giving the phonetic component)
\噪 → 口喿 → 口品木 → zkv / zkvm ('喿→品木', indicates many small birds chirping on a tree, '品' is three mouths, evaluating comprehensively)
\嚣 → 页 → xvy ('嚣', from 页; 页 also means head)
\土 → 十一 → ti (In Shuowen Jiezi, 土 → 二丨, from 二, with 二 being a yin number, representing earth. In the fuzzy meta-code, it is intuitively divided as '十一', same as 士 → 十一)
\【Original Text】 'Two is the number of earth, derived from evenness. Earth is what gives birth to things, and two symbolizes below and within the earth, the emergence of shapes. Shi (士) represents affairs. Numbers begin with one and end with ten, following one and ten. Confucius said: combining ten into one represents Shi.'
\坏 → 土不 → ht (One interpretation of 坏 is 'unbaked tile', meaning destruction.)
\【Original Text】 '坏 is formed when a mound is rebuilt. One says: tile unbaked, from 土, with 不 for the sound.'
\圭 (guī) → 土土 → gtt (圭, auspicious jade, round on top and square at the bottom.)
\【Original Text】 '圭 is auspicious jade, round on top and square below. A duke holds a huán guī, nine cun; a marquis holds a xìn guī, a count holds a gōng guī, all seven cun; a son holds a valley jade, a man holds a cattail jade, all five cun. To enfeoff vassals, it follows the concept of multiple earths.'
\垚 (yáo) → 土圭 → ytv / ttt (Yuanma dictionary) ('垚' is high earth. For example: '尧' → '垚兀', meaning tall, from placing '垚' on top of '兀', implying height and distance.)
\【Original Text】 '垚, high, from three earths. Yao, tall, from putting 垚 on top of 兀, implying height and distance.'
There are many similar examples. For instance: 金 → 鑫, 木 → 林 → 森, 水 → 淼, 火 → 炎 → 焱, 又 → 双, 人 → 从 → 众, 乂 → 爻… Normally, repeated radicals indicate 'many', triple repetition indicates 'multitude'.
⑸ 'Principle' is an extension of 'image' and 'number'. The expansion of the connotations of Chinese characters mainly occurs through 'principle'; that is, for objects with similar 'images', their 'principles' are also related. For example, '明' originally means bright, and extends to 'seeing clearly with eyes, understanding with mind, things becoming evident…' and so on.
The five stages of Chinese character evolution mentioned above — 'sound, form, image, number, principle' — essentially correspond to the five fundamental methods of creating Chinese characters.Here is an example to illustrate: the character "猫 → 犭苗 → 犭艹田". The components "犭, 屮, 田" are all pictographs. The cat's sound is "miǎo", so the pronunciation of "猫" is determined as "māo", and when creating the character, the phonetic part is represented by the character "苗". "苗 → 艹田" has the same sound as "渺", meaning "tiny grass in the field". Cats may have been domesticated by humans during the agricultural period of Shennong to deal with rats that harmed crops and grain. The establishment of the twelve zodiac animals probably predates this period, which may be why the cat was not included. When creating Chinese characters, if a component is doubled, it indicates plurality. "艹 → 屮屮" indicates many plants; this is the concept of "quantity" in Chinese character formation. The original meaning of "苗" is a small sprout, and it also extends to mean "talent that can be nurtured"; children and small sprouts resemble each other, and the principle is connected. In this way, the character "苗" broadens its scope, which is an example of "principle". From the analysis of the character "猫", one can see the five basic methods of character formation: sound, form, imagery, quantity, and principle, and also observe the historical evolution of Chinese characters.