General Literary Chinese from Scratch/How Characters are Made

This lesson will teach you how Han characters are made. So far, we have mostly focused on pictographic characters, those that are just heavily abstracted pictures of things that were important to the ancient Chinese people. However, there are only so many pictures that one can remember until it becomes unfeasible, right? Let me introduce you to a text by the Heian (zh 平安) poet, Kiyohara no Sanemoto (zh 清原真友) of Japan. You are not required to understand what it means at this time. I want you to look at the characters themselves before reading on, for about 10 minutes. 《字訓詩·清原真友》 禾失曾知秩，中心豈忘忠。里魚穿浪鯉，江鳥度秋鴻。 火盡仍為燼，山高自作嵩。色絲辭不絕，凡虫泣寒風。 Isn't there something strange about the character choices? Perhaps there is a method to it all. Indeed, for each couplet, the first two characters form the fifth. The poem does in fact have meaning: The Poem on Character Interpretation The grain, though lost, still knows its order; its heart, though unwavering, never forgets loyalty. Fish dart through the waves like carp; river birds fly across in autumn like wild geese. Even when the fire is extinguished, it remains as ashes; even when the mountain is high, it remains majestic like Mt. Song. The silken threads of life continue their farewell; even the common insects weep in the cold wind. So what we have learned here, just by gazing at that poem, is that each character is made from others. This is where the next two character categories come in: Phono-semantic compounds and ideogrammic compounds. Ideogrammic compounds Ideogrammic compounds (zh 會意 "joined ideas") consist of two semantic objects being placed together to form a new one. The first two compounds you learned in this book, zh 林 and zh 森, are examples of this phenomenon. To give another example, (zh 典) "law, classic, documentation" consists of books (zh 冊) on a table (zh 丌). Ideogrammic compounds are quite rare in Chinese literature, but become more common in Japanese literature. For example, zh 働 "to work" is formed from zh 人 "person" zh 動 "move". If you put the sun (zh 日) and moon (zh 月) together to make (zh 明, what do you think it could represent? Phono-semantic compounds Phono-semantic compounds (zh 形聲) consist of one semantic character with another character next to it to serve as the sound. Most characters are formed through this method, making up around 80% of the Han script. Therefore, it is useful to learn a pronunciation with which to associate characters with sounds, even if it is not intended to be used productively. Let's take zh 人 and zh 山 for a moment to make zh 仙. This gets across "a man on a mountain," though it is more abstract: It refers to an Daoist immortal, which usually involves mountain symbolism. Mountain is pronounced shan in Mandarin Chinese, and this character would be pronounced xian (like shee-en). See the similarity? Oftentimes phono-semantic compounds try to be related, though this is not always the case. You can take these characters at face-value as if they were phonetic script, where the semantic characters are hints. Think of it like this: 👁️🌊👻 Even though these are images, you know what this says. That is how these work, only we are using these pronunciations with a different thing. So imagine this... 👁️🗑️[👁️🌪️] Eye bin "eye" - eye with a tornado next to it. So the eye of a typhoon? Yes - that is how these work, essentially. It resolves homophones. This is why so many characters end up like this. Semantic components are usually of concrete meaning: horse zh 馬，mouse zh 鼠，and bird zh 鳥 will almost always have a phonetic component on the left, and usually be about a type of that animal. Given the aforementioned information, why do you think that is? Exercise Try looking at the characters you have learned so far from previous lessons, and try to categorise them using the categories you have already learned. I also recommend learning "difficult" (zh 難) and "heavy" (zh 重), which will be useful in future lessons. Cangjie codes 平: 一火十 (MFJ) 安: 十女 (JV) 清: 水手一月 (EQMB) 原: 一竹日火 (MHAF) 真: 十月一金 (JBMC) 友: 大水 (KE) 字: 十弓木 (JND) 訓: 卜口中中中 (YRLLL) 詩: 卜口土木戈 (YRGDI) 禾: 竹木 (HD) 失: 竹手人 (HQO) 曾: 金田日 (CWA) 知: 人大口 (OKR) 秩: 竹木竹手人 (HDHQO) 豈: 山一口廿 (UMRT) 忘: 卜女心 (YVP) 忠: 中心 (LP) 里: 田土 (WG) 魚: 弓田火 (NWF) 穿: 十金一女竹 (JCMVH) 浪: 水戈日女 (EIAV) 鯉: 弓火田土 (NFWG) 江: 水一 (EM) 鳥: 竹日卜火 (HAYF) 度: 戈廿水 (ITE) 秋: 竹木火 (HDF) 鴻: 水一竹火 (EMHF) 盡: 中一火月廿 (LMFBT) 仍: 人弓竹尸 (ONHS) 為: 戈大弓火 (IKNF) 燼: 火中一廿 (FLMT) 高: 卜口月口 (YRBR) 自: 竹月山 (HBU) 作: 人竹尸 (OHS) 嵩: 山卜口月 (UYRB) 色: 弓日山 (NAU) 絲: 女火女戈火 (VFVIF) 辭: 月月卜廿十 (BBYTJ) 不: 一火 (MF) 絕: 女火尸竹山 (VFSHU) 凡: 竹弓戈 (HNI) 虫: 中一戈 (LMI) 泣: 水卜廿 (EYT) 寒: 十廿金卜 (JTCY) 風: 竹弓竹中戈 (HNHLI) 會: 人一田日 (OMWA) 意: 卜廿日心 (YTAP) 林: 木木 (DD) 森: 木木木 (DDD) 典: 廿月金 (TBC) 冊: 月廿 (BT) 丌: 一中 (ML) 働: 人竹土尸 (OHGS) 人: 人 (O) 動: 竹土大尸 (HGKS) 明: 日月 (AB) 形: 一廿竹竹竹 (MTHHH) 聲: 土水尸十 (GESJ) 仙: 人山 (OU) 馬: 尸手尸火 (SQSF) 鼠: 竹難女卜女 (HXVYV) 難: 廿人人土 (TOOG) 重: 竹十田土 (HJWG)