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I bought this book from the British Museum; they have a whole series of them. They look like rather simple language introductions, being less than 100 pages and heavily illustrated, but as Bill says, “they’re not kidding around”. The cover of the book contains a Zhou bronze inscription from the 11th century BC; this is not just nice cover art but is translated, into modern Chinese characters and English, in one chapter of the book. The book begins by looking at the way modern Chinese is written and spoken, it does a very good job at combating a lot of the myths about Chinese and explaining it all clearly. The next chapter is a breakdown of Chinese characters, and how they are written and how they are created, and broken down, and include tones and similar pronunciation.
Moore then looks at early oracle bones, he always includes the modern Chinese and English versions of the characters he discusses, he translates the texts, and explains the divination process. Not only this but he also had the BEST explanation of the “ten stems and twelve branches” that I’ve ever read. I’ve always been just about to get my head around it, but with one simple illustration it all made sense. It also contained a bone that was a fragmentary text of all the days of the sixty-day cycle, which Moore speculated was a handy reference for the diviners.
After the oracle bones he then looks at the bronze inscriptions of the Zhou, including as I mentioned a complete example of the cover illustration text. He looked at the standard characters as well as some variations. One of these variations was the bird script from Chu. I have to say Chu is the most fascinating of the Zhou cultures. They are responsible for the poems and beliefs of early spirit-possession, and here they had the MOST beautiful Chinese writing I have ever seen! I’ve never come across it before; it is called “bird script” and has birds added to the characters.
The next chapter looks at the writing under the unified Qin Empire, and examines in detail the seal script, which he describes as a very conservative script. I also learned that seal script was only used for inscriptions, and that a different style was used for writing on bamboo strips. I also learned that the bamboo strips could be re-used. There was a knife that could scrape the characters off the strips so they could be changed, and that early pictures of scholars showed them wearing these knives. Because this book focused on writing as functions rather than writing as art, it paid less attention to the developments of different types of calligraphy developed, giving only a brief outline of these forms. He looked at the development of the language and how it has been changed down to changes being made today.
It was a fascinating book, and despite its size I found I learned a lot of interesting new information. I would highly recommend it to people interested in the history and development of Chinese language. It also included a list of books in English, French and Chinese about the development of the language for further reading, several of these I shall have to track down and read.
Moore then looks at early oracle bones, he always includes the modern Chinese and English versions of the characters he discusses, he translates the texts, and explains the divination process. Not only this but he also had the BEST explanation of the “ten stems and twelve branches” that I’ve ever read. I’ve always been just about to get my head around it, but with one simple illustration it all made sense. It also contained a bone that was a fragmentary text of all the days of the sixty-day cycle, which Moore speculated was a handy reference for the diviners.
After the oracle bones he then looks at the bronze inscriptions of the Zhou, including as I mentioned a complete example of the cover illustration text. He looked at the standard characters as well as some variations. One of these variations was the bird script from Chu. I have to say Chu is the most fascinating of the Zhou cultures. They are responsible for the poems and beliefs of early spirit-possession, and here they had the MOST beautiful Chinese writing I have ever seen! I’ve never come across it before; it is called “bird script” and has birds added to the characters.
The next chapter looks at the writing under the unified Qin Empire, and examines in detail the seal script, which he describes as a very conservative script. I also learned that seal script was only used for inscriptions, and that a different style was used for writing on bamboo strips. I also learned that the bamboo strips could be re-used. There was a knife that could scrape the characters off the strips so they could be changed, and that early pictures of scholars showed them wearing these knives. Because this book focused on writing as functions rather than writing as art, it paid less attention to the developments of different types of calligraphy developed, giving only a brief outline of these forms. He looked at the development of the language and how it has been changed down to changes being made today.
It was a fascinating book, and despite its size I found I learned a lot of interesting new information. I would highly recommend it to people interested in the history and development of Chinese language. It also included a list of books in English, French and Chinese about the development of the language for further reading, several of these I shall have to track down and read.