Liding

Summary

Liding (Chinese: 隸定; pinyin: lìdìng; lit. 'identify in clerical form'), sometimes lixie (Chinese: 隸寫; pinyin: lìxiě; lit. 'write in clerical form'), is the practice of rewriting ancient Chinese character forms in clerical or regular script. Liding is often used in Chinese textual studies.

Definition and terminology edit

 
 
The character "spring" in Shuowen small seal script (left) and its liding form in a Song/Ming-style typeface (right), compared next to each other.

During the Han dynasty, the clerical script reached its matured form, in which Chinese characters became largely rectilinear and readily segmented into strokes. The script in current use, the regular script, inherited this feature. By comparison, the scripts prior to the maturity of the clerical script, including various scripts from the time period spanning the Shang dynasty, the Zhou dynasty, the Warring States era and the Qin dynasty, employed more sinuous lines, less stable shapes, and more ambiguous stroke segmentations.[1]

This remarkable difference in style, combined with the fact that the graphic structures of the characters have changed significantly over time, creates difficulty for character recognition and form analysis. Liding refers to the attempt to regularize the ancient scripts in (post-)clerical writing, so as to aid recognition of not only the characters themselves but their individual components.

In An Outline of Grammatology, Chinese paleographer Qiu Xigui defines liding as "the transcription of ancient script forms into clerical-style forms while preserving the shapes of the former".[1] The nomenclature clerically identified transcription is used by Chinese archaeologist Xing Wen, who gives as its definition "... a traditional Chinese paleographical practice for transcriptions of ancient inscriptions ... [that] identifies the Clerical Script equivalent of the ancient character".[2]

Despite the literal meaning of the name, liding in modern studies renders the character forms into regular script,[3] as it is what most modern writings and typefaces are based on. The term kaiding (Chinese: 楷定; pinyin: kǎidìng; lit. 'identify in regular form')[4][5] is occasionally used to specifically refer to liding in the style of regular script, albeit not as often.

A character that is the result of liding of an ancient graph is called a liding zi, or liding character (Chinese: 隸定字; pinyin: lìdìng zì).

Broad and narrow liding edit

Liding traditionally lacks a strictly-defined code of practice. While general definitions are given, Chinese palaeographers tends not to elaborate on methodological details.[3][6]

Sometimes, to specify how strictly the transcriptions adhere to the original graphs, the terms broad liding (Chinese: 寬式隸定; pinyin: kuānshì lìdìng) and narrow (strict) liding (Chinese: 嚴式隸定; pinyin: yánshì lìdìng) are used, although their exact meanings are left largely unclarified.[6] Chinese scholar Li Shoukui proposes the distinction between liding by strokes and liding by components:

  • Liding by strokes is the strictest form of liding, converting the character to regular style while aiming to preserve every individual stroke in the graph, save that some stylistic details may be ignored. In practice, this method is used sparingly,often to preserve idiosyncrasies in certain graphs, or to transcribe unidentifiable characters. Even in the case of the latter, direct tracing is preferred over liding in order to avoid erroneous conversions.[3]
  • In liding by components, the structure is preserved per component instead of stroke. More alternations are allowed, such as removing redundant strokes or completing ellipted parts. Liding by components is the main liding method, as it displays the composition of the graph in the most accessible manner.[3]

The following table provides some examples of liding. In the "Possible liding" column, the graphs in each box are shown in increasing order of broadness. As is evidenced, the liding to one graph is often not unique. The ones provided in the table are not in any way exhaustive.

Historical form in question Possible liding Interpretation Character explanation with modern Mandarin pronunciation Comment
    zhèn “I” The forms in question are in Shuowen seal script.
  • The shape, , became after libian. The characters with the component may be either broadly identified as (prioritizing the display of component correspondence) or narrowly as (prioritizing the recording of graphic structure) as needed.
  • The majority of 辵 as a radical turned into , so it may be clerically identified by components as such.[7]
  • The liding form of provided in this table gives the information that the left radical of used to be instead of .[8][9]
      sòng "to see someone off"[9]
 [10]  [3]  [11] xián "virtuous" The form in question is excerpted from Guodian Chu slips. It was equivalent to , but the function of the filled block in the top right corner is unclear.[3] In the narrower liding form in the list, it is transcribed as . Where this uncommon feature is of any importance, it can be necessary to transcribe the graph narrowly like such, whereas it may be ignored in other contexts where it is insignificant.
 [12]   "to obtain" Also from Guodian Chu slips. The liding form by components shows that the graph consisted of and , therefore making clear the structure of the original graph to modern readers. The graph was a variant of the form  (⿱貝又), the latter of which was the predecessor of "to obtain".[13]
 [14]   "to obtain" From the inscriptions on Da Ke ding. The graph was another variant of   that, as the liding-by-component form suggests, consisted of and . Compared with  , one can see that two structurally distinct characters may be clerically identified distinctly from each other, although their interpretations might be the same.

Comparison to other methods of transcription edit

Despite the lack of a rigorous definition, liding is generally considered distinct from the other two methods of transcription:

  • The direct tracing (Chinese: 摹寫; pinyin: móxiě) of the graph.[2] Tracing, as its name suggests, is the practice of tracing the original graph with minimal or no alterations. This is done when the transcriber is unable to rewrite the graph in question as a clerical form (for instance, when the graph is purely pictorial, or when the transcriber cannot give a plausible interpretation of the structure of the graph).
  • The interpretative transcription[2] or interpretation (Chinese: 釋文; pinyin: shìwén; lit. 'explanatory text')[15] of the graph. While liding preserves structure to some degree, interpretation only seeks to preserve meaning and completely disregards form. It substitutes the character in question with the corresponding character that is prevailing today to aid the understanding of the material. For example, in Cao Mei Zhi Chen (Chinese: 曹沬之陳; pinyin: Cáo Mèi zhī Chén; lit. 'Cao Mei went to Chen') slip, one of the Shanghai Museum bamboo slips, Li Ling transcribed the name    (告攵 ⿰禾蔑, if clerically identified by components) directly as 曹沬, as it was the currently prevailing writing of the name.[3]

However, it is worth noting that interpretative transcription is sometimes seen as a kind of broad liding.[3]

Difference from libian edit

While liding refers to the transcription of archaic scripts in modern style, libian (Chinese: 隸變; pinyin: lìbiàn; lit. 'clerical change') is the natural evolution from ancient scripts to clerical scripts. As the graphs often underwent drastic structural changes in the process of libian, the liding of a character could be considerably different from the same character after libian. Taking 年 ("year; harvest") as an example:

Original and Liding forms of  
In oracle-bone script In small seal script In clerical script In regular script
Route of evolution      
The liding forms [16]
Comment
  • The graph in oracle-bone script illustrated a person ( , regular counterpart 人) carrying grain ( , regular counterpart 禾) on the back, which reflected its original meaning, "harvest".[16] The liding form, , aims to reflect this, keeping the relative positions of the components unchanged, but changing the components to their regular counterparts.
  • In small seal script, a dot or stroke was added to the middle of the "person" component. As a result, the bottom component was no longer 人, but instead coincides in shape with  ("thousand", regular counterpart 千). This change is reflected in the corresponding liding form, , where 人 is swapped out for .[16]
  • During libian, the structure of the character was drastically altered. The original components were rendered unrecognizable in the process. , the actual regular form in use today, is immensely different from the liding forms shown above.

Use edit

In palaeography edit

As a means of transcription, liding is an important part of the study of historical texts. It unearths structural information of the graph that was obscured by the archaic handwriting style, making it more accessible for modern uses. Additionally, the process of liding involves identifying the clerical counterparts of the various components of a character form, and thus in itself presents an analysis of the composition of the character in question. In research publications, liding is extensively used.[3]

Liding is also used for digitizing historical scripts. A number of historical text databases[17][18][19][20] with transcription provide liding versions of transcription.

In dictionaries edit

Chinese dictionaries have, as a traditional practice, utilized the liding forms to record ancient variants in dictionaries. The Song dynasty saw the rise of epigraphy (Chinese: 金石學; pinyin: jīnshí xué; lit. 'the study of bronze and stone'); as a result, a number of character dictionaries and rime dictionaries at the time, including Leipian and Jiyun, preserved archaic variants in regular script. After Song, with the waning of traditional Chinese epigraphy, though the practice survived, lexicographers mostly took the archaic forms directly from earlier dictionaries like Yupian, Leipian, and Jiyun.[21]

 

For example, the image shown is the entry of the character excerpted from the Song version of Yupian.[22] As can be seen, a clerically identified zhouwen (Chinese: 籀文; pinyin: Zhòu wén; lit. 'the script of Shizhou'; a type of seal script from late-Western Zhou as recorded in the dictionary Shizhoupian) of is included.

The text in the image is read from top to bottom, right to left (the zhouwen liding graph is denoted by △ below):

。丁老切。請也,謝也,求福也。。籀文。

(", 丁老 qie, which is to request; to thank; to pray for happiness. △ is the zhouwen.")

Entry form Zhouwen as per Shuowen Jiezi Zhouwen liding Comment
 [23]   dǎo "to pray"

Unicode encoding edit

Rare forms encountered in ancient scripts are sometimes restricted to a specific period or even to a limited number of historical artefacts, and liding is a process that often requires fine structural differentiation; it is thus not unusual that character forms required in liding are unencoded in Unicode. Specialized fonts sometimes utilize Private Use Areas to store liding graphs that see non-oneoff uses but are unencoded.[24]

A number of liding-specific characters do have their dedicated Unicode code points. Notably, there are 1808 ideographs introduced from the work Yinzhou Jinwen Jicheng Yinde (殷周金文集成引得 [Concordance of Shang and Zhou Dynasty Bronze Inscriptions][25]), with 365 in CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C, 1410 in Extension E and 33 in Extension F.[26] The majority of them are liding forms of graphs found in the bronze inscriptions. Their kIRG_GSource field values start with GZJW.[27]

References edit

  1. ^ a b Qiu, Xigui (2000). Chinese Writing. Translated by Norman, Jerry; Mattos, Gilbert L. Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California. ISBN 9781557290717.
  2. ^ a b c Xing, Wen (2010). "Paleographic, Historical, and Intellectual History Approaches to Warring States Manuscripts Written on Bamboo Slips: A Review Article". Early China. 33/34: 233–262. ISSN 0362-5028. JSTOR 24392449.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 李, 守奎 (2006-12-12). "Cao Mei Zhi Chen Zhi Liding Yu Guwenzi Liding Fangfa Chutan" 《曹沬之陳》之隸定與古文字隸定方法初探 [The Liding in Cao Mei Zhi Chen, and a Preliminary Study of Liding Methods of Ancient Scripts]. 武漢大學簡帛研究中心. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  4. ^ Xiong, Jiaquan; 熊加全 (2020). "Yu Pian" Yinan Zi Kaoshi Yu Yanjiu 《玉篇》疑難字考釋與研究 [The interpretation and research of difficult characters in Yu Pian] (in Chinese) (Di 1 ban ed.). Beijing Shi. ISBN 9787101140910. OCLC 1243744916.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ Zhang, Yongquan; 張湧泉 (2020). Hanyu Suzi Cong Kao (Xiuding Ben) 漢語俗字叢考 [A Comprehensive Study of Folk Variants of Chinese Characters] (in Chinese). Beijing. ISBN 978-7-101-13337-0. OCLC 1153704687.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ a b 張, 顯成; 李, 真真 (2009). "Zhongxifang Jianbo Wenxian Shidu Fangfalun Bijiaoyanjiu" 中西方简帛文献释读方法论比较研究 [A Comparative Study on the Chinese and Western Methodologies of Text Interpretation of the Silk and Bamboo Slips]. Journal of Southwest University for Nationalities (in Chinese).
  7. ^ "辵". 漢語多功能字庫 Multi-function Chinese Character Database. Retrieved 2021-11-29.
  8. ^ "朕". 漢語多功能字庫 Multi-function Chinese Character Database. Retrieved 2021-11-29.
  9. ^ a b "送". 漢語多功能字庫 Multi-function Chinese Character Database. Retrieved 2021-11-29.
  10. ^ "小學堂字形". xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  11. ^ "臤". 漢語多功能字庫 Multi-function Chinese Character Database. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  12. ^ "小學堂字形". xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  13. ^ "得". 漢語多功能字庫 Multi-function Chinese Character Database. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  14. ^ "小學堂字形". xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw. Retrieved 2021-11-29.
  15. ^ 莫, 小不. ""Liding Guwen" Ji Gu Xiyin Shiwen Wenti" "隶定古文"及古玺印释文问题 [On Some Issues in "Writing Ancient Chinese Characters in the Official Script" and Interpreting Ancient Seals]. Journal of Zhejiang University (Humanities and Social Sciences) (in Chinese). doi:10.3785/j.issn.1008-942X.2008.05.006.
  16. ^ a b c "年". 漢語多功能字庫 Multi-function Chinese Character Database. Retrieved 2021-11-28.
  17. ^ "先秦甲骨金文簡牘詞彙資料庫 Lexicon of Pre-Qin Oracle, Bronze Inscriptions and Bamboo Scripts". inscription.asdc.sinica.edu.tw. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
  18. ^ "甲骨文數位典藏 Digital Archive of the Oracle Bones Rubbing". rub.ihp.sinica.edu.tw. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
  19. ^ "青銅器拓片數位典藏 Digital Archive of Bronze Rubbings". ndweb.iis.sinica.edu.tw. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
  20. ^ "漢代簡牘數位典藏 Digital Archive of Han Wooden Slips". rub.ihp.sinica.edu.tw. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
  21. ^ 黃, 德寬. "Du Liding "Guwen" Shuzheng" 讀《隸定"古文"疏證》 [After Reading Study on Liding "Archaic Script"]. Collected Papers of History Studies (in Chinese) (2003–2).
  22. ^ "大廣益會玉篇一 第44頁 (圖書館) - 中國哲學書電子化計劃". ctext.org (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Retrieved 2021-11-30.
  23. ^ "小學堂字形". xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
  24. ^ "中华书局宋体字库介绍及安装说明". www.ancientbooks.cn. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
  25. ^ "BabelStone Blog : Old Hanzi". www.babelstone.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
  26. ^ "Unihan_IRGSources.txt (from Unihan.zip)". www.unicode.org. 2021-08-09. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
  27. ^ "UAX #38: Unicode Han Database (Unihan)". www.unicode.org. Retrieved 2021-11-30.