20 April marked Chinese Language Day, established by the United Nations. Chinese Language Day celebrates multilingualism and cultural diversity. Chinese is renowned as one of the most complex languages, and this may be primarily because it has deep historical roots and has existed for thousands of years, and because the script has not changed that much since its original form.
To mark the occasion, we invited interested parties to listen to a public lecture on the Chinese language.
The lecture was given by Dr LU Xiaohong, Associate Professor at our partner university, Shanghai East China Normal University, who has been working in the field of international Chinese education for the past ten years, teaching Chinese to non-native speakers in China, and has experience of teaching Chinese in America and Belgium.
Chinese pictographic scripts reflect the twists and turns of Chinese history, the layers of Chinese society and even folk customs. They are the "living fossils" of Chinese civilisation. At the same time, Chinese characters reflect the thinking, cognition and value orientation of the Chinese people. They are not only the carriers of traditional Chinese culture, but also an important component of it.
The speaker began by mentioning one of the most famous Chinese historical figures, Cāng Jié 仓颉 (lived 2667 BCE - 2596 BCE), who is believed to be the inventor of Chinese characters. Chinese writing is one of the oldest in the world, dating back almost 5000 years. The Kangxi Dictionary Kāngxī Zìdiǎn 康熙字典 records a total of 47035 Chinese hieroglyphs. Various studies suggest that 90% of Chinese newspapers and magazines use 3500 hieroglyphs.
Over the years, scripts have evolved and basic writing styles have developed:
- oracle bone inscriptions (Jiǎgǔwén甲骨文)
- bronze inscriptions (Jīnwén金文)
- small seal characters (Xiǎozhuàn小篆)
- official writing (Lìshū隶书)
- standard letter (Kǎishū 楷书)
- cursive or "grass" script (Cǎoshū 草书）
- freehand cursive (Xíngshū 行书)
The lecture continues with a discussion of hieroglyphs from all stages of human life and their interesting meanings. For example, a baby born is already 1 year old according to the Chinese, because its age is counted from the time of the embryo. And this age has its own term, Xūsuì虚岁.
Dr Lu gives an interesting explanation of the etymology of the hieroglyphic Shǐ 始 and what meanings are hidden in the pictographic character tái 台.
The hieroglyphs bāo包，shēn身， zǐ子，bǎo保，yīng婴，rén人，jià嫁, qī妻，hūn婚 are revealed next, nǚ 女， nán男，lǎo老, shòu寿，sǐ 死, zǔ 祖 the meanings of each, and also mentions the superstitions and legends with which each of them is surrounded.
We are sure that those who are interested in languages will hear interesting and unique information in this lecture.
We invite you to listen to the recording of the lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_-DztLedkM&t=2s