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Cangjie (programming Language)
Cangjie is a legendary figure in Chinese mythology, said to have been an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. Legend has it that he had four eyes, and that when he invented the characters, the deities and ghosts cried and the sky rained millet. He is considered a legendary rather than historical figure, or at least not considered to be the sole inventor of Chinese characters. Cangjie was the eponym for the ''Cangjiepian'' proto-dictionary, the Cangjie method of inputting characters into a computer, and a Martian rock visited by the Mars rover '' Spirit'', and named by the rover team. Legend of character creation There are several versions of the legend. One tells that shortly after unifying China, the Yellow Emperor, being dissatisfied with the "rope knot tying" method of recording information, charged Cangjie with the task of creating characters for writing. Cangjie then settled down on the bank of a river, and devoted himself t ...
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Literary And Colloquial Readings Of Chinese Characters
Differing literary and colloquial readings for certain Chinese characters are a common feature of many Chinese varieties, and the reading distinctions for these linguistic doublets often typify a dialect group. Literary readings () are usually used in loanwords, geographic and personal names, literary works such as poetry, and in formal contexts, while colloquial readings () are used in everyday vernacular speech. For example, the character for 'white' () is normally read with the colloquial pronunciation in Standard Chinese, but can also have the literary reading in names or in some formal or historical contexts. This example is particularly well known due to its effect on the modern pronunciations "Bo Juyi" and "Li Bo" for the names of the Tang dynasty (618–907) poets Bai Juyi and Li Bai. The differing pronunciations have led linguists to explore the strata of Sinitic languages, as such differences reflect a history of dialect interchange and the influence of formal ...
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Jiahu Symbols
The Jiahu symbols () comprise a corpus of markings on prehistoric artifacts found in Jiahu, a Neolithic site of Peiligang culture in Henan, China. The Jiahu symbols are dated to around 6000 BC. The site was excavated in 1989. Although at first a total of 17 groups of symbols were identified, intensive scrutiny has found there to be only 11 definitely incised signs, of which 9 were incised on tortoise shells and an additional 2 on bone. The archaeologists who made the original finds believed the markings to be similar in form to some characters used in the much later oracle bone script (e.g. similar markings of "eye", "sun; day"), but most doubt that the markings represent systematic writing. A 2003 report in '' Antiquity'' interpreted them "not as writing itself, but as features of a lengthy period of sign-use which led eventually to a fully-fledged system of writing". The earliest known body of writing in the oracle bone script dates much later to the reign of the lat ...
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Cangjie Input Method
The Cangjie input method (Tsang-chieh input method, sometimes called Changjie, Cang Jie, Changjei or Chongkit) is a system for entering Chinese characters into a computer using a standard computer keyboard. In filenames and elsewhere, the name Cangjie is sometimes abbreviated as cj. The input method was invented in 1976 by Chu Bong-Foo, and named after Cangjie (Tsang-chieh), the mythological inventor of the Chinese writing system, at the suggestion of Chiang Wei-kuo, the former Defense Minister of Taiwan. Chu Bong-Foo released the patent for Cangjie in 1982, as he thought that the method should belong to Chinese culture, Chinese cultural heritage. Therefore, Cangjie has become open-source software and is on every computer system that supports traditional Chinese characters, and it has been extended so that Cangjie is compatible with the Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese character set. Cangjie is the first Chinese input method to use the QWERTY keyboard. Chu saw ...
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Oracle Bone Script
Oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Inscriptions were made by carving characters into oracle bones, usually either the shoulder bones of oxen or the plastrons of turtles. The writings themselves mainly record the results of official divinations carried out on behalf of the Late Shang royal family. These divinations took the form of '' scapulimancy'' where the oracle bones were exposed to flames, creating patterns of cracks that were then subjected to interpretation. Both the prompt and interpretation were inscribed on the same piece of bone that had been used for the divination itself. Out of an estimated 150,000 inscriptions that have been uncovered, the vast majority were unearthed at Yinxu, the site of the final Shang capital (modern-day Anyang, Henan). The most recent major discovery was the Huayuanzhuang cache found near the site in 1993. Of the 1,608 Huayuanzhang pieces, 579 bear inscriptions. E ...
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Neolithic Signs In China
Beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, artifacts bearing markings dating to the Neolithic period have been unearthed at several archeological sites in China, mostly in the Yellow River valley. These symbols, collectively called ( 'pottery scripts'), have been compared to the oracle bone script — the earliest known forms of Chinese characters, first attested — and have been cited by some as evidence that Chinese writing has existed in some form for over six millennia. However, the Neolithic symbols have only been found in small numbers, and do not appear to go beyond pictorial techniques, as is required to obtain a true writing system representing spoken language. Nature Small collections of symbols have been found at several archeological sites dating to the Neolithic period in what is now China. The symbols are either pictorial in nature, or are simple geometric figures, and have either been incised into or drawn onto artifacts—mostly pottery, but sometimes a ...
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Xi Zi Pagoda
The Xi Zi Pagoda (惜字塔, Xizi Ta) is a paper burning incinerator constructed in the shape of a small pagoda. In Taiwan, it is commonly referred to as Sheng Ji Ting (圣迹亭) or Xi Zi Ting (惜字亭), in Hakka regions as Jing Zi Ting (敬字亭), and in Ryukyu as Funjirū (Ryukyu language: ). Unlike incinerators used for burning joss paper for ancestral worship, the Xi Zi Pagoda is specifically designed for burning paper containing written characters. This practice reflects the deep respect and reverence ancient scholars and literati held for written characters. The pagoda also symbolizes reverence for the inventor of Chinese characters and the God of Culture and Literature. The belief that written characters were sacred, influenced by the imperial examination system, was deeply ingrained in ancient Chinese culture. It was considered improper to casually dispose of paper inscribed with characters. Instead, discarded paper with words had to be burned with sincere reverence. ...
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Shǐ (surname)
Shǐ (史) is a Chinese surname meaning "history" of "official historiographer". It is romanized Shih in Wade–Giles, or Sze or Si in Cantonese romanization. According to a 2008 study, it was the 82nd most common name in China. A 2013 study found that it is shared by 2.85 million people, or 0.210% of the population, with the province with the most people being Henan. It is the 63rd name on the ''Hundred Family Surnames'' poem.K. S. Tom. [1989] (1989). Echoes from Old China: Life, Legends and Lore of the Middle Kingdom. University of Hawaii Press. . Origins # It is said to be borne by descendants of Cang Jie, the official historiographer during the reign of the mythical Huang Di, the ‘Yellow Emperor’The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland # Shi (史), post name of an official in charge of recording historical events during the Western Zhou dynasty. Later, the surname was subsequently adopted as a surname by descendants of official historiographers in many ...
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Shaanxi
Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to the west. Shaanxi covers an area of over with about 37 million people, the 16th-largest in China. Xi'anwhich includes the sites of the former capitals Fenghao and Chang'anis the provincial capital and largest city in Northwest China and also one of the oldest cities in China and the oldest of the Historical capitals of China, Four Ancient Capitals, being the capital for the Western Zhou, Western Han, Sima Jin, Jin, Sui dynasty, Sui and Tang dynasty, Tang List of Chinese dynasties, dynasties. Xianyang, which served as the capital of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), is just north across the Wei River. The other Prefectures of China, prefecture-level prefecture-level city, cities into which the province is divided are Ankang, Baoji, Hanzho ...
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Hebei
Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It borders Shanxi to the west, Henan to the south, Shandong and Liaoning to the east, and Inner Mongolia to the north; in addition, Hebei entirely surrounds the direct-administered municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin on land. Its population is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu people, Manchu, 0.8% Hui people, Hui, and 0.3% Mongols in China, Mongol. Varieties of Chinese spoken include Jilu Mandarin, the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, and Jin Chinese. During the Spring and Autumn period, Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (771–226 BC), the region was ruled by the states of Yan (state), Yan and Zhao (state), Zhao. During the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), the region was called Zhongshu Sheng, Zhongshu. It was called North Zhili during the ...
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Henan
Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Luoyang, Anyang, Kaifeng and Zhengzhou, are in Henan. While the province's name means 'south of the river', approximately a quarter of the province lies north of the Yellow River. With an area of , Henan covers a large part of the fertile and densely populated North China Plain. Its neighboring provinces are Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Anhui, and Hubei. Henan is China's third-most populous province and the most populous among inland provinces, with a population of over 99 million as of 2020. It is also the world's seventh-most populous administrative division; if it were a country by itself, Henan would be the 17th-most populous in the world, behind Egypt and Vietnam. People from Henan often suffer from regional discrimination ...
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Shandong
Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural and religious center for Taoism, Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism. Shandong's Mount Tai is the most revered mountain of Taoism and a site with one of the longest histories of continuous religious worship in the world. The Buddhist temples in the mountains south of the provincial capital of Jinan were once among the foremost Buddhist sites in China. The city of Qufu was the birthplace of Confucius, and later became the center of Confucianism. Shandong's location at the intersection of ancient and modern north–south and east–west trading routes has helped establish it as an economic center. After a period of political instability and economic hardship beginning in the late 19th century, Shandong has experienced rapid growth in recent de ...
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