stjorthotic Chapter 353: Tens Of Thousands Of Chinese Characters And Three Hundred Core Chinese Characters! [Ple
Chapter 353: Tens Of Thousands Of Chinese Characters And Three Hundred Core Chinese Characters! [Ple
“Now that the problem of the Four Treasures of the Study has been solved, the next step is the problem of people’s reading and literacy.
"Your Highness, how many Chinese characters do you think there are?!!"
Yan Changqing's eyes fell on Prince Zhu Biao and asked with a smile.
“I don’t know the exact number of Chinese characters, but I think there are somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000!”
Prince Zhu Biao thought for a moment and then replied.
This is really not nonsense. It is really not easy to determine the specific number of Chinese characters, and no one can really determine it.
Because you never know when a Chinese character that you don’t recognize will suddenly appear.
For example, the official script that was popular during the Qin Dynasty is actually not bad. The official script from the Qin Dynasty has been passed down to this day, and they can be regarded as having a complete inheritance of writing evolution.
Therefore, even if there are newly discovered official script characters, they can basically translate them and provide new regular script Chinese characters that correspond to the meaning of today's regular script characters.
What is worse is the small seal script of the Warring States Period, or the large seal script of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The writing in these two periods has a history of more than 2,000 years.
Over the past two thousand years, the Central Plains has experienced dynasty changes and wars, and the wars and chaos caused by each dynasty change also destroyed the cultural inheritance ten times.
More recently, for example, during the Mongol and Yuan rule, Mongolian and Chinese were required to be used as official scripts at the same time, and Mongolian was even promoted while Chinese was suppressed. This was actually a blow and damage to the cultural heritage of the Central Plains writing.
A little further away, such as the Huang Chao Uprising in the late Tang Dynasty, and the wealthy families who were massacred by Huang Chao.
Although those aristocratic families do not regard the people at the bottom as human beings, they regard themselves as natural nobles and ministers.
However, in order to prove that they are born nobles and ministers, those aristocratic families usually pay special attention to maintaining the cultural heritage of their families for hundreds of years, or even thousands of years.
The purpose is to be able to show off the cultural heritage inherited by our ancestors hundreds of years ago and thousands of years ago to slap Nanshi in the face when others question his family.
The inheritance of family cultural heritage of those aristocratic families is actually a kind of inheritance of Chinese writing culture.
Among the family cultural heritage of those aristocratic families, it is not surprising to directly find the historical records of small seal script and large seal script written by their ancestors hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, or even more than two thousand years ago.
Huang Chao's simple and crude massacre of those wealthy families was actually a kind of destruction of the literary and cultural heritage passed down hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, or even two thousand years ago.
However, it is precisely because of the loss of this family cultural heritage that has been passed down for hundreds, even thousands or two thousand years, that the aristocratic family has completely declined.
No one can tell clearly between gains and losses.
Coupled with the further Wuhu chaos, it was also a great destruction of the Central Plains culture, which naturally also included the corresponding cultural inheritance system of Chinese characters.
Therefore, Chinese characters can be traced back to the small seal script of the Warring States Period, or the large seal script of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Even Song Lian, who is now the head of the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty and the most knowledgeable person in Confucianism, cannot guarantee that he can understand all the translations.
As for dating back to the Shang Dynasty, or the Xia Dynasty, or even the bronze inscriptions and oracle bone inscriptions before the Xia Dynasty.
If Song Lian came to see it in person, he would have to guess the meaning of those bronze inscriptions and oracle bone inscriptions, and there was a greater chance that Yu would guess wrong!!!
What's even more terrible is that whether it is the official script characters during the Qin Emperor's political period or the small seal script characters during the Warring States Period.
Or it may be the seal script of the Western Zhou Dynasty, or it may be the Shang Dynasty, or it may be the Xia Dynasty, or even the bronze inscriptions, oracle bone inscriptions before the Xia Dynasty, etc.
These characters all belong to the category of Chinese characters!!!
As one of the inheritances of Yanhuang culture, no one will deny their existence.
As long as it is discovered and deciphered, a corresponding new Chinese character will definitely be given that represents the current meaning of Sinology.
So even if you count the specific total number of Chinese characters at this moment, the next moment someone with a cheap hand will dig up a new bronze vessel, or a new oracle bone or something.
It just so happens that there are some "patterns" and "roads" that have not been seen before. That's it. New Chinese characters are probably coming out again, and the original total number of Chinese characters is invalidated on the spot!!!
It is precisely because of this that the overall number of Chinese characters is always in a state that is likely to increase at any time.
However, although the overall number of Chinese characters has been in a state that may increase at any time, the general number of Chinese characters is only around tens of thousands.
As for Prince Zhu Biao, not only did he know all the tens of thousands of Chinese characters today, but he also knew at least more than 10,000 Chinese characters.
Of course, it's not just him, including Prince Zhu Biao, Zhu Di, Zhu Gang, Zhu Di and other princes, or other literary scholars, their basic literacy is more than 10,000 characters.
In other words, during this period, the basic literacy requirements for scholars were at least 10,000 words.
Because during this period, if you are not literate enough, you may not be able to understand what they write.
Because there will always be some people, or ministers, who deliberately use some remote and obscure words to write articles in order to show off their literary talent or erudition.
For example, in the ninth year of Hongwu, Ru Taisu, the head of the Ministry of Punishment, wrote a letter discussing five current affairs [107,000 words written eloquently!!!
Zhu Yuanzhang was really dazzled. Of course, it is not ruled out that Zhu Yuanzhang did not understand it well.
So he asked Wang Min to read it to him, but after listening for more than an hour, not only did he not finish reading it, but Zhu Yuanzhang was also stunned that he did not hear any valuable opinions from the memorial that lasted more than an hour.
Distraught, Zhu Yuanzhang became more and more angry as he thought about it. He refused to listen to the memorial and asked someone to drag Ru Taisu out and give him a beating first!
After finishing the typing, Zhu Yuanzhang continued to "read" the memorial the next day. Only when he reached the end did he realize that among the 17,000 words, only 500 were the key points, and the rest were all nonsense!!!
Not long after that, Zhu Yuanzhang asked people to formulate the format of suggestions, and there were again suggestions like Ru Taisu's in the Western Forbidden City.
But even so, as a traditional scholar in this period, there are no clear requirements for reading and literacy in terms of literacy.
However, literacy of at least 10,000 words is still an unwritten default requirement.
When teachers in private schools in colleges teach students to read and read, they also teach students to read more than 10,000 words by default.
This is why Prince Zhu Biao believes that people must know at least two thousand to three thousand Chinese characters before they can achieve the most basic and basic "reading and literacy".
Because the literacy level of two thousand to three thousand is already greatly reduced compared to the literacy level of traditional scholars.
After listening to Prince Zhu Biao's answer, Yan Changqing on the podium nodded and continued:
"Well, the total number of Chinese characters is tens of thousands, so does His Highness know the number of the most commonly used Chinese characters in daily life?!!"
A look of hesitation flashed across Zhu Biao's face. After thinking for a moment, he said frankly:
"I don't know, please ask Mr. Yan to clarify."
Yan Changqing nodded slightly, turned sideways and wrote the word "three hundred" in big letters on the blackboard behind him, then looked at Zhu Yuanzhang [as well as Prince Zhu Biao, Zhu Di, Zhu Gang, Zhu Di and other princes in Europe and said:
"Three hundred!!!"
"From the Shang Dynasty to the present, the total number of Chinese characters is uncertain, but the number of core Chinese characters that are most frequently used in daily life and have stable meanings does not exceed 300!!!"
"These three hundred core Chinese characters account for about 70% of the number of characters in any article!!!" (Wang's Hao)
"In addition to these 300 core Chinese characters, there are about 2,000 important Chinese characters, accounting for about 29% of the number of characters in any article!!!"
"The last remaining one percent belongs to the other tens of thousands of Chinese characters."
"Most of these Chinese characters are 'one-off' Chinese characters that only appear a few times in past documents, or are used under specific circumstances!!!"
"In other words, if you can recognize 300 core Chinese characters, you can probably understand 60% to 70% of any article!! Li!"
"If you can recognize the other two thousand important Chinese characters, then you can basically understand 90% to 100% of any article!!!"
"Of course, the understanding mentioned here only refers to being able to understand the words written on the article."
"But what the specific meaning of the article means, and whether you can understand what the article means, is another matter.
PS1: The new book is on the shelves, and we urgently need all the handsome guys, beauties, and big guys to order and customize it! I wish all the big guys who make full orders and custom orders to get rich overnight, good health, all the best, and good luck! Thank you all! Here you go All the bosses are on your knees!