A Study Of The Folk Characters In The Shao Jianghai Script Manuscript Collection

The folk character in Shao Jianghai Script Manuscript Collection can be divided into five types:simplification,complication,conversion,generalization and others.Each category is subdivided into several sub-categories according to different classification standards.Generalization,mixture,borrow glyphs,reduction,correct writing mainly touch upon the change of glyphs.Borrow pronunciation touch upon the pronunciation of characters.Simplification,complication,conversion mainly touch upon the change of glyphs and occasionally touch upon the pronunciation.The regional folk character is influenced by regional dialect and is created by dialect internal innovation.The common writing phenomenon in Shao Jianghai Script Manuscript Collection has two characteristics: stability and flexibility.Stability includes two aspects: a part of the folk characters is available in previous documents and the writer uses the universal characters in Southern Fujian dialect sometimes,showing obvious inheritance;and the folk writing form of the folk characters can often be analogized to a series of characters with same component,showing a certain systematization.At the same time,the book also exists the phenomenon of one character with several glyphs,same glyph but different characters,both orthodox and popular and creating new character.This is due to the writer restricted by cultural level,or actively modifying the characters to meet the needs of the recording language.So the folk characters are more flexible than the formal characters with strict standardization.The regional folk character in Shao Jianghai Script Manuscript Collection includes the universal character in Southern Fujian Dialect and the newly-coined character.The universal character in Southern Fujian Dialec is created to express and record Southern Fujian Dialect,which is identified,obeyed by people and used widely in Southern Fujian.The newly-coined character is created by writer to meet the needs of recording dialect during writing,which can be divided into compound inscriptions and entire creation.The entire creation characters are created through the method of composite fonts record dialect words and pictophonetic.The sound and shape symbols are refer to the dialect pronunciation and meaning of the characters respectively.In addition,there is few semasiography which refers to the meaning of words and the specific context.