| Lin Yiguang completed the book Wenyuan, which literally means the origin of words, in 1920. It is hailed as one of the most important works on Chinese character studies, however, the book is more often cited than studies. This essay, using Lin's theories on the six categories of Chinese characters and current research results on oracle, explored the 1551 prefixes included in the 12th volume of Wenyuan. The main research method adopted in this essay is making a comparison between words mentioned in Wenyuan and oracles in three oracle bone inscription dictionaries, finding valid oracles, and thus proves Lin's theories.The whole essay is divided into five chapters, with the first one figuring out similarities between Lin's theories and Explanation of Articles and Words, the second on how did Lin redress point of views in the book Explanation of Articles and Words based on ancient China's bronze inscriptions, the third on Lin's mistakes in basing his theories on the bronze inscriptions, the fourth on arguable words, and the last analyzing Wenyuan's contributions to Chinese characters studies and its defects. The conclusion is stated at the end of the essay. |
PDF Full Text Request