Chapter 33 Section 9 "Tabu" in Chinese Characters - Taboo

There is a "tabu" phenomenon in human social life.Taboo is a transliteration of English taboo or tabu, which means "taboo", that is, people or things that are "sacred" or "unclean" should not be approached or directly contacted, otherwise they will be punished by supernatural forces (ghosts and gods).This is the negative reaction of primitive peoples' lack of understanding and incomprehension of the objective world and natural phenomena.This taboo phenomenon is also manifested in language and writing, that is, the names of taboo people or things cannot be directly spoken or written.For a long time, certain expression habits have been formed in many ethnic groups. Even in modern civilized society, there are still many euphemisms (such as "death" means "passed away, gone"; "menstruation" means "period", etc.), that is, A remnant of the language "tabu".

Ancient Chinese ancestors also worshiped language and characters because of Tabu psychology. The ancient book at the beginning of this book records the story about Cangjie's creation of characters, "It rains millet in the sky, and ghosts cry at night", which is an obvious example. .Since entering the feudal society, in order to maintain the dignity of the feudal concept and the hierarchical system, the rulers have paid more attention to the "tabu" of the use of Chinese characters, and formulated and implemented various "taboo" regulations.This is not only an aspect of ancient Chinese culture, but also has some influence on the development of Chinese characters and the appearance of ancient documents, and at the same time caused some peculiar social phenomena.

The taboo in feudal society mainly refers to not directly writing the names of the contemporary monarch and his elders, and various methods must be used to avoid it.One is to change the name. For example, Qin Shihuang's surname was Ying [ying Ying] and his name was Zheng. Therefore, the word "Zheng" could not be pronounced in a flat tone, but changed to a flat tone.The father of Sima Yan, the founding emperor of the Jin Dynasty, was Sima Zhao, so for a long time, the word "Zhao" was pronounced as "Shao".The second is to reshape, such as the name of Confucius named Qiu, who was a sage in the feudal era.

After the death of the emperors of all dynasties, their names are called "miaoji" (the "temple" here refers to the place where the ancestors are worshiped).Taboos were prevalent in the Song Dynasty, and there were more than 50 temple taboo characters.The names of the distant ancestors, first ancestors, high ancestors, great ancestors, ancestors, fathers, etc. of Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin (yin Yin) are all listed in the temple taboo.Not only are these taboos of the original characters, but also the so-called "dislike names", that is, characters with the same or similar pronunciation as the original characters. For example, Zhao Gou, Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty, had 53 characters for the dislike names, such as 遘, 言, 柯, gou, and 苏. .These must be announced to the world and avoided.If a scholar inadvertently offends in the answer sheet of the imperial examination, he will naturally lose his name.

The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty originally spoke Mongolian, but under the influence of Han culture, they also learned the taboo system of using Chinese characters. ", a total of more than 160.Since their mother tongue has no distinction between tones, many characters in Chinese that have different pronunciations due to different tones are regarded as homophones.In this way, the number of "avoiding characters" together with "avoiding with the sound" is unknown!Of course, if there are too many regulations, it will not work in practice. Furthermore, ordinary people, especially scholars, should also avoid using the names of their fathers and grandparents casually.The father of Sima Qian in the Han Dynasty was named Tan, so in the first large-scale general history of our country "Historical Records" written by him, there is no word "Tan" from the beginning to the end. It is really necessary to mention a character named Zhao Tan in the early Han Dynasty, so he changed his name to "Zhao Tan". same".What's more, Li He, a young poet in the Tang Dynasty, refused to take the imperial examination all his life because his father's name was Jin Su, and "Jin" and "Jin" have the same pronunciation!

Those who do not follow the taboo or do not conform to the wishes of the ruler will be deposed at the least, and beheaded and exterminated at the worst.Some "literary inquisitions" in history are also related to this.For example, a case occurred in the forty-second year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (AD 1777): Jiangxi Juren Wang Xihou compiled a dictionary called "Zi Guan", and "Fan Li" listed the names and taboos of Confucius and the emperors of the dynasty. Being reprimanded by Emperor Qianlong as "deeply heinous, treacherous and lawless, and a crime that cannot be punished", he beheaded and exterminated his family, implicated, killed and imprisoned more than a hundred people. It is really appalling!

Although such material is very rich, we should not introduce too much, so as not to exceed the main purpose and space of this book.However, the above-mentioned examples are enough to enable us to further understand the characteristics of Chinese characters and their connection with Chinese society.These characteristics, this connection, can be said to be unique in the history of writing development all over the world.