Original title: Taiwan Photo: Sherlock Holmes who is willing to solve the mystery of Chinese characters - Interview with " Chinese Character Tree " author Liao Wenhao
China News Service Taipei, June 6th Title: Sherlock Holmes who is willing to solve the mystery of Chinese characters - Interview with "Chinese Character Tree" author Liao Wenhao
China News Service reporter Liu Shuangshuang Liu Shuling
"Hippographies are not just single characters, they are often a condensed painting, narrating a complete event." Liao Wenhao, a retired associate professor who is from the Department of Electrical Engineering at National Taiwan University who "cross-border" study of the evolution of Chinese characters, believes that it is a pity that modern Chinese characters have lost their original shape, and gradually no one knows the story behind it.
Liao Wenhao introduced the Chinese character tree system in the studio of the Taipei University of Business Education Center. Photo by Liu Shuangshuang, China News Service reporter
Recently, in the studio of the Taipei University of Commerce Cultivation Center, a mainland reporter in Taiwan met Liao Wenhao, the author of the "Chinese Character Tree" series of books that have recently sold across the Taiwan Strait, and listened to him interpreting the mystery of Chinese characters.
Dayu Flood Control is a Chinese character story that Liao Wenhao prioritizes.
The ancient Dayu story has a long history. How did it pass on? Liao Wenhao believes that the smart ancients used the image memory function of pictogram .
He said that the oracle bone inscription with the word Yu is composed of insects and an "extended arm", representing the hero who captures the snake and dragon, which coincides with the description of the pre-Qin classic "Dayu subdued the snake and dragon that caused floods". Liao Wenhao believes that many records about the relationship between Dayu and Yao and Shun in later historical books may be fabricated, and his own research can restore his innocence.
However, why do teachers who graduated from the Department of Motors and specialize in computers and databases "competitively" with Chinese characters?
In response to this, Liao Wenhao smiled and said that when he was a child, he hated writing Chinese characters very much, because the strokes were easy to be confused, and he did not know the meaning of many radicals next to them. However, during his postgraduate study, especially as an associate professor and director of the school library, he was exposed to many exegetic articles, "from then on the road of obsessed with Chinese characters."
"For the past hundred years since the oracle bone inscriptions were discovered, the textual examinations and interpretations have been filled with the situation of each saying their own words." Liao Wenhao, who taught the construction of database systems and models, boldly wondered whether a system could be reconstructed based on the original meaning and relationship of Chinese characters, which not only leverage the advantages of hieroglyphs, but also decrypted ancient history and culture.
breaks away from the rut, Liao Wenhao follows Sherlock Holmes's verification method and constructs a novel Chinese character system; for example, more than a thousand Chinese characters are actually derived from "people", and all Chinese characters related to plants are derived from "天" (a small grass). After his unique series of books in "Chinese Character Tree" was published, he has achieved success in the cross-strait book market.
Moreover, "Chinese Character Tree" has developed derivative products. Taipei University of Commerce, who teaches, kept Liao Wenhao's Chinese Image Company at the school's cultivation center. There is a special character "Hua" on his business card. A big red tree, branches and leaves are beautifully and symmetrically distributed. The oracle bone inscription is a big tree gradually blooming and scattering.
Liao Wenhao took out a set of image-word table game toys. The 71 graphic characters derived from the character "man" are like fruits with branches and leaves, distributed on the branches of a "Chinese Character Tree", vividly interpreting the growth story of Chinese characters. For example, the word "无" means that the baby's limbs are underdeveloped when he is born and needs to be held by his parents; the word "无" shows the baby's incomplete development and large amount of amniotic fluid is discharged and prematurely died.
"Combining oracle bone inscriptions, archaeological relics, pre-Qin classics, and research and reasoning on the extended meaning of the text, I found the internal connection that belongs to Chinese characters." Liao Wenhao told reporters that this may be due to the "big data thinking" of science students.
As of now, according to data provided by publishers, the "Chinese Character Tree" series has sold more than 50,000 copies in Taiwan and more than 290,000 copies have been issued in mainland China. In Taiwan, some scholars believe that the "Chinese Character Tree" has opened up a new horizon for understanding Chinese characters, breaking away from the restrictions of radicals, and reconnecting the secret relationship in the evolution and development of Chinese characters; but some well-known university professors criticized it as a "martial arts novel" in philology.
Liao Wenhao, who became a monk halfway through, looked at it calmly: "Everyone is welcome to criticize and correct me. I am not afraid of mistakes, but I hope to make the system more perfect through rational communication and discussion."
"Many foreigners want to learn Chinese characters, but they are discouraged because it is too difficult." Last August, Liao Wenhao "retired nakedly" from the school and brought six or seven assistants to concentrate on developing the "Chinese Character Tree" network system. He hopes to build a database of image characters through the Internet, and use the trilogy arrangement of ancient characters, image characters and modern Chinese characters to attract more people, especially foreigners, to pay attention to, learn Chinese characters, and spread Chinese culture.
June 7, the "Chinese Character Evolution and the Publishing Academic Seminar on the Publishing of "Chinese Character Tree" will be held in Beijing. At the invitation of Lin Liantong, the Institute of Languages, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Liao Wenhao will face-to-face with the mainland academic community for the first time with his achievements. He believed it was a good start. (End)
