My grandson’s question
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, my little grandson came to visit us.
My grandson is six years old and has just entered the first grade of elementary school.
But his question shocked me:
Oracle and bronze inscriptions both have heaven and earth. But oracle bone inscriptions don’t have land, only bronze inscriptions do. So, when there are only oracle bone inscriptions, which word should be used to write "地"?
? This is impossible to answer.
had no choice but to ask Mr. Li Pengbo for advice.
Mr. Li answered: Earthy.
soil
Oracle does have soil.
The bronze inscriptions become like this:
The meaning of this word, academic circles generally agree with Eastern Han philologist Xu Shen 's explanation:
The place where all things are born.
So, it also reads like spit.
Of course, earth is earth, and earth is earth.
So, why did the word "地" appear again later?
Because there is still a difference between soil and land.
This brings us to another question: Does ancient writing have a “ground”? There are different opinions on the issue of
and
.
Mr. Gao Hongjin believes that not only oracle bone inscriptions, but also bronze inscriptions have no place. When talking about the earth, we talk about soil. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, soil and regions were separated. Tu refers to the soil and earth refers to the heaven and earth.
Mr. Tang Jianyuan believes that there must be the word "地" in the Zhou Dynasty. Not only are there bronze inscriptions, there may also be oracle bone inscriptions, but they haven't been discovered yet.
However, it seems certain that there was the word "di" in the late spring and autumn years.
such as Houma League Book :
However, is this too difficult to recognize?
is also very different from the regular script characters.
Oracle, does it really have no "land"? I'm afraid there is
, it should be, it can be.
After all, where there is heaven, there is earth.
Let’s look at the word “天”.
day
The day of Oracle is like this:
The day of Jinwen is even more interesting:
Haha, it is clear at a glance, right?
Right, it’s a person with a very big head or something on his head.
It's just that he stands face-on and looks like the character "big".
is big. In fact, we are also people here, adults.
What can be above a person’s head? Of course
is "heaven"!
Tian, since it is a person standing face-to-face with a horizontal line on the top of his head, therefore, according to logical reasoning, the ground should have that horizontal line drawn under his feet.
So, is there such a word?
has.
Stand
Stand is a person standing face to face with a horizontal line under his feet.
Its oracle bone inscriptions are like this:
Bronze inscriptions are like this:
Five Dynasties Xu Xuan who edited " Shuo Wen Jie Zi " during the Northern Song Dynasty explained: The big one above is the person; the horizontal line below is the ground.
Therefore, philologists generally believe that standing means a person standing on the ground and not walking.
However, there are also some that look like they are walking, such as:
However, they also look like they are walking. Is
gone? I don’t know.
However, regardless of walking or not, this word can be guessed to be ground.
is standing on the ground, which is also the ground!
In other words, the ancients used it to express both standing and ground.
Of course, this is not my discovery, it is the discovery of the old-timers.
guesses
Mr. Shang Chengzuo believes that Li is the ancient word for "地". Mr.
Deng Erya has the same opinion. The logical reasoning mentioned above was put forward by his old man - since the pictogram of the sky is like a person with the sky above his head, the glyph of earth should be like a person with his feet on the ground. Mr. Deng also cited circumstantial evidence: many of the words next to the word "standing" are related to the place.
is like kun.
As we all know, Kun is the earth, the earth of heaven and earth.
The word
does not have oracle bone inscriptions. The earliest bronze inscriptions looked like this:
It turns out that kun is not beside the character for earth, but beside the character for 立?
It doesn’t matter if it comes next to the word soil, because soil is the ground.
Therefore, it is very likely that Li is the ancient word for "地".
Put it together with the word "天", and it becomes even more interesting:
Above the heads of human beings
Sky
Under human feet
Earth
Do you see the pattern?
pair, these two characters both use a horizontal line to indicate the direction, the subject is a person, a person in uppercase standing upright.
What is this called?
people-oriented
interesting, very interesting.
Because is people-oriented, it is one of the spirits of Chinese civilization.
- All quotations in this article can be found in Shanghai Education Press "Ancient Chinese Texts"
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