Chapter 202: Phonetic notation, compilation of dictionary
Feeling the looks of amazement and admiration from the audience, Li Nian couldn’t explain anything, so he couldn’t open up and say to everyone: You are wrong, this The word was not created by Li. Li was just a porter of culture and knowledge, and he just took advantage of time travel.
Everyone was circulating the paper, and Li Nian continued: "I asked you to come here, not to ask you to make up characters, but to entrust you with two things to do: one is to phonetically note these characters; To give meaning to these words.”
"Li has now completed the comparison of these characters with Qin Zhuan, but there are too many characters. It is difficult for Li alone to complete the phonetic notation and meaning of each character, and we need your help."
"The phonetic notation means..."
Li Nian glanced to his left, and immediately two chamberlains moved a black wooden board onto the high platform.
Walking to the black wooden board, Li Nian took a white object from a chamberlain and quickly wrote sixteen characters on the white wooden board, eight Qin seals, eight on paper. Character.
Some people who know Qin Zhuan saw that it says "Heaven and earth are black and yellow, the universe is primitive".
Each word is marked with strange symbols, such as a "tian" on the word "天" and a "di" on the word "地".
Li Nian pointed to these symbols and said: "It is not easy to read and read today. Another big reason is that when teaching students, the teacher often reads each word and the students follow. This method is difficult to teach, and it is not easy for students to learn. ”
"But with this phonetic notation, it can be much simpler. The pronunciation of a word is divided into initial consonants, medial vowels, finals, and tones. As long as you master the rules and have a dictionary, you can learn it even without a teacher. The pronunciation of the word. "
"For example, the word '天' has an initial consonant of 't' and a final consonant. 'ian', when combined, is spelled 'tian'"
Li Nian taught it on the spot, and most people understood it immediately. He just divided the pronunciation of the characters according to certain rules. , as long as you master this spelling rule and know the phonetic notation of the word, you can spell it yourself.
The ancients were not stupid at all. They also thought of notating characters, but it was not as good as modern pinyin. It had many shortcomings and was troublesome to learn.
This method of phonetic notation not only allows people to learn to read words faster, but everyone also sees another effect: it can popularize a standard pronunciation throughout the world, realizing what Li Nian calls "the same language" .
In the future, whether people come from the south or the north, as long as people learn to read and write through this method, they will also learn the same language.
There are just so many words that need to be phoneticized one by one. Even if it cannot be completed by one person, it will be a waste of time and energy. No wonder this person wants to invite them to help complete the phonetic notation of the words.
But in addition to these, this person probably also wants them to be the first batch of learners of new characters, right? Let them cheer for the new words!
Li Nian added: "The meaning of notes is to explain the meaning of each word. Many places have different understandings of certain words. For example, a word means praise in one place, but it means praise in another place. It is not good to belittle and there is no unified standard.”
“So, annotation is to give a unified explanation of the meaning of each word, so that a certain word or sentence can be spread to the world. At that time, there is no ambiguity and you can know exactly what it means. ”
Indeed, words and sentences have different meanings in different places, which not only hinders communication between people in different places, but also affects the communication and understanding of government orders.
“Whether it is phonetic notation or annotation, it is very difficult for Li to complete it alone, so we need your help to complete this matter together.”
“The phonetic notation and annotation of all characters will be completed by Li. Entered into a book, this book is called "Dictionary", the function of the dictionary is to provide reference for readers and literate people all over the world. "The pronunciation and meaning of the word."
"That is, when a student who starts reading and literacy encounters a word that he does not know, he can find its pronunciation and meaning through the dictionary, so he can recognize it." , some people have questions: Since it is an unknown word, how can you find this word in the dictionary?
But Li Nian immediately answered the question, "Some people may wonder, since it is an unknown character, how can you find it in the dictionary? This also involves another key thing in this compilation, the radical." < br>
"New words will not only have The phonetic notation will also have radicals, such as these words..."
Li Nian wrote a few more words on the blackboard, which according to the corresponding Qin seal script were "wolf", "dog", "Fox", "raccoon dog", "yin", "yang", "level", "yuan".
No need for Li Nian to explain, everyone already almost understood the meaning of the radicals.
Li Niandao: “The radicals are ‘犭’ and ‘阝’, and the radicals are also ‘犭’ and ‘阝’.”
"Such words with common radicals can be grouped into one category in the dictionary, and marked on which page they are on for easy reference."
"But radicals and radicals are not exactly the same thing. Some words It is difficult to classify it into certain types of radicals, such as '九', '千', '我', '五'..."
"But these characters have the same strokes, and they are also the first word in writing. One stroke, '丿' can be used as its radical, and they can be grouped together in the dictionary for easy query."
As soon as the concept of dictionary came out, everyone felt that it was not easy to compile new characters this time. , the real difficulty lies not in annotating the pronunciation and meaning of the words, but in categorizing the words so that when future readers encounter an unknown word, they can quickly look it up in the dictionary.
But if a dictionary can really be produced, it will be of great benefit to the world and will make teaching much easier.
This is his contribution to enlightening the world and will definitely leave his name in the annals of history!
What the scholars failed to do, to educate the world and make everyone learn from it, may be realized in the future. This dictionary must be compiled into it.
Many people looked at Li Nian with more and more admiration and complex eyes, because it was this man who thought of phonetic notation and meaning of words and compiling a dictionary.
Even people like Fan Zeng who still harbor hatred for Qin admire Li Nian's talent.
Li Nian smiled and said: "It is said that I am compiling new characters, but in fact, Li wants to invite you to compile a dictionary. If it were bamboo slips in the past, compiling this dictionary would not be appropriate, because even if it could be compiled, it would be based on the words in the dictionary. The number of words to be entered is probably not enough for a cart of bamboo slips.”
Everyone thought about it and realized that if a dictionary was made from bamboo slips, it would be inconvenient to carry and look up. Only paper is the best material for making a dictionary.
Fan Zeng and others who attended the banquet last night thought of what Li Nian said at the banquet, that studying objects and arithmetic really changed the world.
If you don’t have the knowledge to make paper, how can you talk about making a dictionary?
Li Niandao: "The second thing is to compile teaching materials. I talked about it once last night, but many of you were not there at the time, so I will talk about it again now."
"Now that the world is unified, for A unified country should have unified writings, unified words, and unified meanings, and it should also have unified learning. ”
"This is what Li said about compiling textbooks. He wanted to compile a number of books for students all over the world to learn from. But please don't misunderstand. Li has no intention of eliminating hundreds of schools of thought!"
(This chapter End)