Jijiupian
Jijiupian | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Literal meaning | Quickly Master [Characters] Chapters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hanja | 급취편 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hiragana | きゅうしゅうへん | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Jijiupian is a Chinese character primer that was compiled by the Han dynasty scholar Shi You around 40 BCE. Similar to an abecedarium, it contains a series of orthographic word lists, categorized according to character radical, and briefly explained in rhymed lines. In the Qin and Han dynasties, several similar othographic primers were in circulation, such as Cangjiepian, but the Jijiupian is the only one that survived for two millennia.
Title
[edit]The Jíjiùpiān "Quickly Master [Character] Chapters" is also called the Jíjiùzhāng
The title Jíjiùpiān uses the word piān
Jíjiù has several possible interpretations, depending on the meanings of jí
Quickly learn the rarely seen drinking vessels and many different things: listing the names of objects, people, and family names; classify them into different sections so that they will not be easily mixed up. Occasional consultation will definitely be a great delight—for it is quick to retrieve, and, if hard effort is put into it, there will surely be surprising rewards. Please follow the guidelines in each chapter.
This passage is notably the earliest recorded discussion of how to classify characters into different textual sections.[5]
While the title is usually transliterated Jijiupian, Chi-chiu-p'ien, etc., some English translations are:
- Handy Primer[6]
- Quick Access [to Characters][7]
- Quick mastery of the characters[8]
- The Instant Primer[9]
- Primer for Quickly Learning Chinese Characters[10]
- For Urgent Use[11][page needed]
- Wood-Prism Bundles for Rapid Attainment[12]
History
[edit]The first reference to the Jijiupian and Shi You
In the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE-25 CE), the teaching of characters was emphasized, and scholars compiled other character primers and wordbooks besides the Jijiupian, for instance, the Fanjiangpian 凡將
From the Han to the Six Dynasties (220–589), the most popular character textbook was the Jijiupian.[8] During the Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589), several other popular textbooks appeared, such as the Qianziwen "Thousand Characters Text", Baijiaxing "Myriad Family Surnames", and Sanzijing "Three-character Classic".[4] By the Tang, the Jijiupian had been replaced by the Qianziwen and Baijiaxing, both of which were deliberately written so that few characters they contain occur more than once. They were memorized generation after generation for over 1,000 years. In the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) and Qing dynasty (1644–1912), the most popular primer was the Sanzijing.[8] Contemporary Chinese scholarship admires the Jijiupian because of its high factual content as contrasted with the much more moralistic tendencies of similar later works such as the Sanzijing.[16]
The Jijiupian was one of several similar wordbooks that circulated widely during the Qin and Han periods, but it alone survived to the present day, owing to several factors. One reason for its preservation was a model version written by the famous Jin dynasty Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi (303–361), which was copied by generation after generation of literati eager to perfect their calligraphy.[16] The Yuan dynasty calligrapher Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322) also produced an orthographic model Jijiupian. Another factor was the textual explanations written by famous authors in later dynasties. The Tang scholar Yan Shigu wrote a (620) commentary, and the Song scholar Wang Yinglin
Modern archeological excavations have found fragments of the Jijiupian, and even some tablets on which the inscriptions were evidently exercises in copying characters.[17][18]
Text
[edit]The original Jijiupian consisted of 32 sections (zhang
The Jijiupian collation puts together characters written with the same radical or signific, and then divides them into chapters. Within each chapter, the style consisted mainly of 3-, 4-, or 7-syllable rhyming lines, as in Chinese poetry. Rhyme makes it easy to read, memorize, and recite.[4]
China's first "word books" were written to meet the needs of literacy education.[21] Shi You's Jijiupian was intended to be used for learning the meanings of basic characters and how they should properly be written. It formed a basis for verbal elaborations by teachers, and could have served as a handy reference manual for scribes and copyists.[16] The original Han edition Jijiupian was written in clerical script, but it was later used for learning to write in other calligraphic styles of characters, such as regular script and cursive script.
The Jijiupian has historical linguistic value as a record of common words that were current during the Han dynasty. It preserved many technical terms and names of plants, animals, tools, and objects, which are important for the histories of science, medicine, and technology. For instance, the Jijiupian was the first text to describe the trip hammer and waterwheel.
To illustrate the types of lists that the Jijiupian contains, and their value for those who wished to write correctly, consider the Section 24 list of traditional Chinese herbal medicines, written in rhymed 7-character lines.[22]
灸 刺 和 药逐去邪 By moxa, acupuncture and the compounding of drugs we may drive out the malign (qi that cause illness). (Of drugs and drug-plants there are:) Huángqín黄 芩 Scutellaria lateriflora, fúlíng伏 苓 Wolfiporia cocos, yù 礜 arsenolite, and cháihú 茈胡 Bupleurum falcatum. Mǔméng牡 蒙 Rubia yunnanensis, gāncǎo甘草 Glycyrrhiza glabra, wǎn 菀 Aster tataricus, and lílú藜 蘆 Veratrum niqrum. Wūhuì烏 喙 and fùzǐ附子 both Aconitum carmichaelii, jiāo椒 , Zanthoxylum piperitum, and yánhuá 芫花 Daphne genkwa. Bànxià半 夏 Pinellia ternata, zàojiá 皂莢 Gleditsia sinensis, ài艾 Artemisia argyi, and tuówú 橐吾 Ligularia sibirica.
The rhyme-words (Old Chinese reconstructions from Baxter-Sagart 2014) are: *sə.ɢa
The text "impresses readers with its balanced content and ingenuity",[3] and some examples are:
To buy on credit, to borrow, to sell and to buy, these activities give convenience to merchants and markets….To cut, to mince, to broil and to cook a whole piece of meat, each has its own shape….Rooms, houses, and inns are [for people] to rest and there are also towers, palaces, and halls….Various ranked lords have their fiefs, lands, and household vassals; these [privileges] come from hard studies, but not from [the help of] ghosts or spirits.[23]
The Jijiupian teaches students basic vocabulary for daily life, with occasional moral lessons.
References
[edit]- Lee, Thomas H. C. (2000). Education in Traditional China: A History. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 4 China, Volume: 13. E.J. Brill. ISBN 9789004103634.
- Needham, Joseph; Lu, Gwei-djen; Huang, Hsing-Tsung (1986). Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 6 Biology and Biological Technology, Part 1: Botany. Cambridge University Press.
- Yong, Heming; Peng, Jing (2008). Chinese Lexicography: A History from 1046 BC to AD 1911. Oxford University Press.
Footnotes
- ^ "CText for Hanshu".
- ^ Needham, Lu & Huang 1986, p. 194.
- ^ a b Lee 2000, p. 437.
- ^ a b c Yong & Peng 2008, p. 57.
- ^ a b Yong & Peng 2008, p. 144.
- ^ Needham, Lu & Huang 1986, p. 562.
- ^ Theobald, Ulrich (2010), Jijiupian
急 就篇 "Quick Access [to Characters]", Chinaknowledge - ^ a b c Wilkinson, Endymion (2000). Chinese History: A Manual (revised and enlarged ed.). Harvard University Asia Center. p. 49. ISBN 9780674002494.
- ^ Yong & Peng 2008, p. 25.
- ^ Cai, Zong-qi (2013), How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology, Columbia University Press. p. 85.
- ^ Cheung, Martha Pui Yiu; Lin, Wusun (2014). An Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation (Version 1): From Earliest Times to the Buddhist Project. Routledge. ISBN 9781900650922.
- ^ Barbieri-Low, Anthony J. and Robin D. S. Yates (2015), Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China (2 vols): A Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Legal Texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb, E.J. Brill. p. 1102.
- ^ Tr. Needham, Lu & Huang 1986, p. 194.
- ^ Creamer, Thomas B. I. (1992), "Lexicography and the history of the Chinese language", in History, Languages, and Lexicographers (Lexicographica, Series maior 41), ed. by Ladislav Zgusta, Niemeyer, p. 112 (105-135).
- ^ Tr. Yong & Peng 2008, p. 25.
- ^ a b c d Needham, Lu & Huang 1986, p. 195.
- ^ Loewe, M. (1967), Records of Han Administration, 2 vols., Cambridge University Press. Vol. 2 p. 418.
- ^ Needham, Lu & Huang 1986, p. 197.
- ^ Goodrich, Chauncey S. (1975), "The Ancient Chinese Prisoner's Van", T'oung Pao 61.5: 215-231. p. 220.
- ^ Yates, Robin S. (2011), "Soldiers, Scribe, and Women: Literacy among the Lower Orders in Early China", in Writing & Literacy in Early China, ed. by Li Feng and David Prager Branner, University of Washington Press, p. 358 (340-369).
- ^ Allan, Keith (2013). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. p. 212. ISBN 9780199585847.
- ^ Tr. Needham, Lu & Huang 1986, p. 195.
- ^ Tr. .Lee 2000, p. 438.
Further reading
[edit]- Serruys, Paul L-M. (1962), "Chinese Dialectology Based on Written Documents", Monumenta Serica 21: 320–344.
External links
[edit]急 就篇·卷一 ,四 庫 全書 edition Jijiupian, Archive.org急 就篇 - Ji Jiu Pian, searchable Jijiupian, Ctext