A Study About The Popular Form Of Chinese Characters In Japan Before Meiji

Overseas Chinese characters belong to a research field of Chinese characters in modern times,which is closely related to Chinese characters after their transformation.Besides China,Japan is the only country in the Chinese character sphere in East Asia that still uses Chinese characters on a large scale.Therefore,it is undoubtedly of great importance to investigate the relationship and similarities between the Chinese characters used in Japan and Chinese characters.It has been proved by predecessors that most of the Chinese characters used in Japan currently appeared before the Meiji era,and most of them can be found in the literature from Han to Tang Dynasty in China,which originated from the Popular Form of Chinese characters in the past dynasties.However,there are still a lot of incomprehensible points around these pre-Meiji Japanese characters.For example,why do some Japanese Popular Form characters,which are regarded as variant Popular Form characters because there are no use cases found in Chinese ancient books,appear in the works about their use in China around the 21 st century? Why are many inherited Popular Form characters directly derived from China retained as standard characters in Japan,but not adopted in China today? Where have they gone in China?These problems are generally said to be the source and flow of Japanese and Japanese vulgar characters.This article mainly focuses on these problems.The first chapter introduces the origin of this topic,research object,research purpose and methods,research value and innovation points,and finally summarizes the research situation of Japanese Popular Form characters.In chapter two,from the perspective of inheritance and variation,11 kinds of Popular Form characters in pre-Meiji literatures are investigated.Firstly,briefly introduces the materials used,then sorts out the types of Popular Form characters in these literatures,and finally makes a case analysis.According to the configuration way,it does not exceed the Popular Form characters in our country.From the point of view of the concrete body,it not only bears the inheritance of the popular characters from our country,but also has the variation of the popular characters mainly in Japan.In chapter three,with the Japanese characters in the four works of Zhengkai Lu,Wokai Zheng’e,Tongwen Tongkao and Shengwen Zuan Kao in the Edo Period as the starting point,this article tries to break the time limit and observe the common usage of Japanese characters in the whole East Asia before Meiji,in order to have a better understanding of the origin and flow relationship between the two countries.The result is that "訳(译)" "釈(释)" "円(圆)" "囲(围)" used to be regarded as the Popular Form characters only appeare in Japan appeared in the literature during the Republican Era of China.While "(乐)" used both in Japan and Korea."(图)" used both Japan and Vietnam.The symbol " " replaces the same parts of the characters are the Popular Form characters among Japan,Korea and Vietnam.The Popular Form characters used in China,Japan,Korea and Vietnam are like "豊(丰)".In chapter four,focusing on the "flow" of the Popular Form characters in the two countries,this paper investigates the use of 31 Popular Form characters inherited before Meiji in Japan and China from ancient times to the 1950 s,which can be roughly divided into practical level and calligraphy level.Twelve characters such as "氷(冰)" have been accepted as candidate Chinese characters in recent years,while 19 characters such as "変(变)" have not been accepted as such in recent years.Some of the variations still exist in small areas such as place names and the writings of senior citizens.In chapter five,through the above investigation,some understanding of the origin and flow of Chinese and Japanese Popular Form characters and the remaining problems are obtained.In terms of the fundamental relationship,the roots of Japanese Popular Form characters are all in Chinese Popular Form characters.The homology and divergence of the Chinese and Japanese Popular Form characters can be reflected in their physical structure and use occasions."Homology and heterology" may also be reflected in the development of Chinese Popular Form characters.In the future,it may be considered to add a time demarcation line to the discussion of "National Popular Form characters" and "International Popular Form characters".In order to understand why contemporary Chinese and Japanese characters appear so different,it is necessary to strengthen the relationship between the use of modern Chinese characters,different cultural and historical backgrounds,and the writing norms of the two countries.