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151-402: The Erya or Erh-ya is the first surviving Chinese dictionary . The sinologist Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from the 3rd century BC." Chinese scholars interpret the first title character ěr ( 爾 ; "you, your; adverbial suffix") as a phonetic loan character for the homophonous ěr ( 邇 ; "near; close; approach"), and believe

302-411: A bureaucratic system that favored the land-holding class able to afford the best education. One of the greatest literary critics of this was the official and famous poet Su Shi . Yet Su was a product of his times, as the identity, habits, and attitudes of the scholar-official had become less aristocratic and more bureaucratic with the transition of the periods from Tang to Song. At the beginning of

453-436: A departure from the earlier Tang dynasty (618–907), when the government strictly regulated commercial markets and local affairs; now the government withdrew heavily from regulating commerce and relied upon a mass of local gentry to perform necessary duties in their communities. The gentry distinguished themselves in society through their intellectual and antiquarian pursuits, while the homes of prominent landholders attracted

604-578: A description, explanation, classification, or comparison. For example: "A woman calls her husband's father jiù ( 舅 ), and her husband's mother gū ( 姑 ). While alive they are called jūnjiù ( 君舅 ) and jūngū ( 君姑 ). After their death they are called xiānjiù ( 先舅 ) and xiāngū ( 先姑 ). Owing to its laconic lexicographical style, the Erya is one of a few Chinese classics that have not been fully translated into English. Chinese dictionary There are two types of dictionaries regularly used in

755-466: A dictionary generally depends upon its writing system . For a language written in an alphabet or syllabary , dictionaries are usually ordered alphabetically. Samuel Johnson defined dictionary as "a book containing the words of any language in alphabetical order, with explanations of their meaning" in his dictionary . But Johnson's definition cannot be applied to the Chinese dictionaries, as Chinese

906-583: A few foreign wailaici ( 外來詞 / 外来词 " loanwords ") during the Han dynasty , especially after Zhang Qian 's exploration of the Western Regions . The lexicon absorbed many Buddhist terms and concepts when Chinese Buddhism began to flourish in the Southern and Northern dynasties . During the late 19th century, when Western powers forced open China's doors, numerous loanwords entered Chinese, many through

1057-520: A few representative fields. Dictionaries of Ancient Chinese give definitions, in Modern Chinese, of characters and words found in the pre-Modern (before 1911) Chinese literature. They are typically organized by pinyin or by Zihui radicals, and give definitions in order of antiquity (most ancient to most recent) when several definitions exist. Quotes from the literature exemplifying each listed meaning are given. Quotes are usually chosen from

1208-436: A foreign language . These specialized Chinese dictionaries are available either as add-ons to existing publications like Yuan's 2004 Pocket Dictionary and Wenlin or as specific ones like Victor H. Mair lists eight adverse features of traditional Chinese lexicography, some of which have continued up to the present day: (1) persistent confusion of spoken word with written graph; (2) lack of etymological science as opposed to

1359-708: A great effect on people's lives, beliefs, and daily activities, and Chinese literature on spirituality was popular. The major deities of Daoism and Buddhism , ancestral spirits , and the many deities of Chinese folk religion were worshipped with sacrificial offerings. Tansen Sen asserts that more Buddhist monks from India traveled to China during the Song than in the previous Tang dynasty (618–907). With many ethnic foreigners travelling to China to conduct trade or live permanently, there came many foreign religions; religious minorities in China included Middle Eastern Muslims ,

1510-412: A high level of suspicion by the judge. Due to costly court expenses and immediate jailing of those accused of criminal offenses, people in the Song preferred to settle disputes and quarrels privately, without the court's interference. Shen Kuo's Dream Pool Essays argued against traditional Chinese beliefs in anatomy (such as his argument for two throat valves instead of three); this perhaps spurred

1661-687: A large population and productive agricultural land, sustaining a robust economy. In 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols , who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan , the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire , died in 1259 while besieging the mountain castle Diaoyucheng in Chongqing . His younger brother Kublai Khan

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1812-618: A literary flourishing in the Song period, which saw the publication of several major classical koan collections which remain influential in Zen philosophy and practice to the present day. A true revival of Buddhism in Chinese society would not occur until the Mongol rule of the Yuan dynasty, with Kublai Khan's sponsorship of Tibetan Buddhism and Drogön Chögyal Phagpa as the leading lama . The Christian sect of Nestorianism , which had entered China in

1963-461: A lower social tier than men according to Confucian ethics, they enjoyed many social and legal privileges and wielded considerable power at home and in their own small businesses. As Song society became more and more prosperous and parents on the bride's side of the family provided larger dowries for her marriage, women naturally gained many new legal rights in ownership of property. Under certain circumstances, an unmarried daughter without brothers, or

2114-503: A million a century later. This economic power also heavily influenced foreign economies abroad. In 1120 alone, the Song government collected 18,000,000 ounces (510,000 kg) of silver in taxes. The Moroccan geographer al-Idrisi wrote in 1154 of the prowess of Chinese merchant ships in the Indian Ocean and of their annual voyages that brought iron, swords, silk, velvet, porcelain, and various textiles to places such as Aden ( Yemen ),

2265-600: A new organization of classic texts that established the doctrine of Neo-Confucianism . Although civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty , they became much more prominent in the Song period. Officials gaining power through imperial examination led to a shift from a military-aristocratic elite to a scholar-bureaucratic elite. After usurping the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty , Emperor Taizu of Song ( r.  960–976 ) spent sixteen years conquering

2416-454: A number of others, including the (early 1st century) Erya Fanshi zhu ( 爾雅樊氏注 , "Mr. Fan 's Erya Commentary") by Liu Xin , and the (late 3rd century) Erya Yinyi ( 爾雅音義 , "Sounds and Meanings of Erya ") by Sun Yan , which popularized the fanqie system of pronunciation glosses. Most of these texts about the Erya were still extant in the Tang dynasty (618-907) but had disappeared by

2567-456: A philosophical point. Although an early form of the local geographic gazetteer existed in China since the 1st century, the matured form known as "treatise on a place", or fangzhi , replaced the old "map guide", or transl.  zho  – transl.  tujing , during the Song dynasty. The imperial courts of the emperor's palace were filled with his entourage of court painters, calligraphers, poets, and storytellers. Emperor Huizong

2718-585: A popular dictionary and has been frequently revised. The (1937) Guoyu cidian ( 國語辭典 "Dictionary of the National Language") was a four-volume dictionary of words, designed to standardize modern pronunciation. The main entries were characters listed phonologically by Zhuyin Fuhao and Gwoyeu Romatzyh . For example, the title in these systems is ㄍㄨㄛㄩ ㄘㄉ一ㄢ and Gwoyeu tsyrdean. Wei Jiangong's (1953) Xinhua Zidian ("New China Character Dictionary")

2869-680: A radicals index. Some of these pinyin dictionaries also contain indices of the characters arranged by number and order of strokes, by the four corner encoding or by the cangjie encoding . Some dictionaries employ more than one of these three methods of collation. For example, the Longkan Shoujian of the Liao dynasty uses radicals, which are grouped by tone. The characters under each radical are also grouped by tone. Besides categorizing ancient Chinese dictionaries by their methods of collation, they can also be classified by their functions. In

3020-458: A raid on Guangxi , the Song commander Guo Kui (1022–1088) penetrated as far as Thăng Long (modern Hanoi ). Heavy losses on both sides prompted the Vietnamese commander Thường Kiệt (1019–1105) to make peace overtures, allowing both sides to withdraw from the war effort; captured territories held by both Song and Vietnamese were mutually exchanged in 1082, along with prisoners of war. During

3171-590: A repository of late Qing documentary Chinese, although there is little or no indication of the citations, mainly from the Kangxi Zidian [ Kangxi Dictionary ]." Giles modified the Chinese romanization system of Thomas Francis Wade to create the Wade-Giles system, which was standard in English speaking countries until 1979 when pinyin was adopted. The Giles dictionary was replaced by the 1931 dictionary of

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3322-424: A small scale during the Sui and Tang dynasties, but by the Song period, it became virtually the only means for drafting officials into the government. The advent of widespread printing helped to widely circulate Confucian teachings and to educate more and more eligible candidates for the exams. This can be seen in the number of exam takers for the low-level prefectural exams rising from 30,000 annual candidates in

3473-517: A standard reference database. The CEDICT is the basis for many Internet dictionaries of Chinese, and is included in the Unihan Database . Chinese publishing houses print diverse types of zhuanke cidian ( 專科詞典 / 专科词典 " specialized dictionary "). One Chinese dictionary bibliography lists over 130 subject categories, from "Abbreviations, Accounting" to "Veterinary, Zoology." The following examples are limited to specialized dictionaries from

3624-455: A straightforward way find a term whose pronunciation is known rather than searching by radical or character structure, the latter being a 2-tiered approach. This project had long been advocated by another pinyin proponent, Victor H. Mair . When the Republic of China began in 1912, educators and scholars recognized the need to update the 1716 Kangxi Dictionary . It was thoroughly revised in

3775-541: A surviving mother without sons, could inherit one-half of her father's share of undivided family property. There were many notable and well-educated women, and it was a common practice for women to educate their sons during their earliest youth. The mother of the scientist, general, diplomat, and statesman Shen Kuo taught him essentials of military strategy. There were also exceptional women writers and poets, such as Li Qingzhao (1084–1151), who became famous even in her lifetime. Religion in China during this period had

3926-512: A system of 200 radicals. In recent years, the computerization of Chinese has allowed lexicographers to create dianzi cidian ( 電子詞典 / 电子词典 "electronic dictionaries") usable on computers, PDAs, etc. There are proprietary systems, such as Wenlin Software for learning Chinese , and there are also free dictionaries available online. After Paul Denisowski started the volunteer CEDICT (Chinese–English dictionary) project in 1997, it has grown into

4077-458: A total of 13,113 characters. It is divided into nineteen sections, the first of which is subdivided into two parts. The title of each chapter combines shi ("explain; elucidate") with a term describing the words under definition. Seven chapters (4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 18, and 19) are organized into taxonomies. For instance, chapter 4 defines terms for: paternal clan ( 宗族 ), maternal relatives ( 母黨 ), wife's relatives ( 妻黨 ), and marriage ( 婚姻 ). The text

4228-588: A tribute to Song. Champa rice was drought-resistant and able to grow fast enough to offer two harvests a year instead of one. Song restaurant and tavern menus are recorded. They list entrees for feasts, banquets, festivals, and carnivals. They reveal a diverse and lavish diet for those of the upper class. They could choose from a wide variety of meats and seafood, including shrimp, geese, duck, mussel, shellfish, fallow deer , hare, partridge, pheasant, francolin, quail, fox, badger, clam, crab, and many others. Dairy products were rare in Chinese cuisine at this time. Beef

4379-515: A variety of courtiers , including artisans, artists, educational tutors, and entertainers. Despite the disdain for trade, commerce, and the merchant class exhibited by the highly cultured and elite exam-drafted scholar-officials, commercialism played a prominent role in Song culture and society. A scholar-official would be frowned upon by his peers if he pursued means of profiteering outside of his official salary; however, this did not stop many scholar-officials from managing business relations through

4530-524: Is a much older and more common word than cidian , and Yang notes zidian is often "used for both 'character dictionary' and 'word dictionary'. The precursors of Chinese dictionaries are primers designed for students of Chinese characters. The earliest of them only survive in fragments or quotations within Chinese classic texts . For example, the Shizhoupian was compiled by one or more historians in

4681-421: Is a pocket-sized reference, alphabetically arranged by pinyin. It is the world's most popular reference work . The 11th edition was published in 2011. Lü Shuxiang 's (1973) Xiandai Hanyu Cidian ("Contemporary Chinese Dictionary") is a middle-sized dictionary of words. It is arranged by characters, alphabetized by pinyin, which list compounds and phrases, with a total 56,000 entries (expanded to 70,000 in

Erya - Misplaced Pages Continue

4832-487: Is by semantic categories. The circa 3rd-century BCE Erya ("Approaching Correctness") is the oldest extant Chinese dictionary, and scholarship reveals that it is a pre-Qin compilation of glosses to classical texts. It contains lists of synonyms arranged into 19 semantic categories (e.g., "Explaining Plants", "Explaining Trees"). The Han dynasty dictionary Xiao Erya ("Little Erya") reduces these 19 to 13 chapters. The early 3rd century CE Guangya ("Expanded Erya"), from

4983-482: Is divided between the first three heterogeneous chapters defining abstract words and the last sixteen semantically arranged chapters defining concrete words. The last seven – concerning grasses , trees , insects and reptiles , fish , birds , wild animals , and domestic animals – describe more than 590 kinds of flora and fauna . It is a notable document of natural history and historical biogeography . The format of Erya definitions varies between

5134-429: Is interchangeably written ( 辭典 / 辞典 ; cídiǎn ; tzʻŭ²-tien³ ; "word dictionary") or ( 詞典 / 词典 ; cídiǎn ; tzʻŭ²-tien³ ; "word dictionary"); using cí ( 辭 ; "word, speech; phrase, expression; diction, phraseology; statement; a kind of poetic prose; depart; decline; resign"), and its graphic variant cí ( 詞 ; "word, term; expression, phrase; speech, statement; part of speech; a kind of tonal poetry"). Zidian

5285-507: Is now available online. The author Liang Shih-Chiu edited two full-scale dictionaries: Chinese-English with over 8,000 characters and 100,000 entries, and English-Chinese with over 160,000 entries. The linguist and professor of Chinese John DeFrancis edited the ABC Chinese–English Dictionary (1996), giving more than 196,000 words or terms alphabetically arranged in a single-tier pinyin order. The user can therefore in

5436-473: Is the world's oldest known dialectal dictionary. The circa 200 CE Shiming ("Explaining Names") employs paranomastic glosses to define words. The second system of dictionary organization is by recurring graphic components or radicals . The famous 100–121 CE Shuowen Jiezi ("Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters") arranged characters through a system of 540 bushou ( 部首 ; "section header") radicals. The 543 CE Yupian ("Jade Chapters"), from

5587-517: Is unknown. Although it is traditionally attributed to the Duke of Zhou , Confucius , or his disciples, scholarship suggests that someone compiled and edited diverse glosses from commentaries to pre-Qin texts, especially the Shijing . Joseph Needham et al. place the Erya' s compilation between the late 4th and early 2nd centuries BCE, with the possible existence of some core text material dating back to

5738-532: Is written in characters or logograph , not alphabets. To Johnson, not having an alphabet is not to the Chinese's credit, as in 1778, when James Boswell asked about the Chinese characters, he replied "Sir, they have not an alphabet. They have not been able to form what all other nations have formed". Nevertheless, the Chinese made their dictionaries, and developed three original systems for lexicographical ordering: semantic categories, graphic components, and pronunciations. The first system of dictionary organization

5889-736: The Chinese and English Dictionary in 1842. Both were flawed in their representation of pronunciations, such as aspirated stops. In 1874 the American philologist and diplomat Samuel Wells Williams applied the method of dialect comparison in his dictionary, A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language , which refined distinctions in articulation and gave variant regional pronunciations in addition to standard Beijing pronunciation . The British consular officer and linguist Herbert Giles criticized Williams as "the lexicographer not for

6040-467: The Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute from the life story of Cai Wenji (b. 177). This art project was a diplomatic gesture to the Jin dynasty while he negotiated for the release of his mother from Jurchen captivity in the north. In philosophy, Chinese Buddhism had waned in influence but it retained its hold on the arts and on the charities of monasteries. Buddhism had a profound influence upon

6191-489: The Chinese language : 'character dictionaries' ( 字典 ; zìdiǎn ) list individual Chinese characters , and 'word dictionaries' ( 辞典 ; 辭典 ; cídiǎn ) list words and phrases. Because tens of thousands of characters have been used in written Chinese , Chinese lexicographers have developed a number of methods to order and sort characters to facilitate more convenient reference. Chinese dictionaries have been published for over two millennia, beginning in

Erya - Misplaced Pages Continue

6342-661: The Erya text and concluded it originated in the early Warring States period, with the Jixia Academy having a considerable hand in it from c. 325 BCE onwards, and the text was enlarged and stabilized during the Qin and Western Han dynasty . Naitō connects the Shigu chapter (1) with the first generations of the Confucian School (450-400 BCE), places the family relationships, astronomy, and meteorology chapters (4-8) in

6493-463: The Erya "). In the history of Chinese lexicography, nearly all dictionaries were collated by graphic systems of character radicals , first introduced in the Shuowen Jiezi . However, a few notable exceptions, called yashu 雅書 " [Er]ya -type books", adopted collation by semantic categories such as Heaven and Earth. The Ming dynasty scholar Lang Kuijin ( 郎奎金 ) categorized and published

6644-553: The Fangyan was the first Chinese specialized dictionary. The usual English translation for fangyan ( 方言 ; lit. "regional/areal speech") is " dialect ", but the language situation in China is said to be uniquely complex. In the "dialect" sense of English dialects , Chinese has Mandarin dialects , yet fangyan is also used to mean "non-Mandarin languages, mutually unintelligible regional varieties of Chinese ", such as Cantonese and Hakka . Some linguists like John DeFrancis prefer

6795-860: The Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt, Srivijaya , the Kara-Khanid Khanate in Central Asia , the Goryeo Kingdom in Korea, and other countries that were also trade partners with Japan . Chinese records even mention an embassy from the ruler of "Fu lin" (拂菻, i.e. the Byzantine Empire ), Michael VII Doukas , and its arrival in 1081. However, China's closest neighbouring states had the greatest impact on its domestic and foreign policy. From its inception under Taizu,

6946-550: The Han and Tang dynasties. It is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of 90 million people, and 200 million by the time of the Ming dynasty . This dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China . The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and emergence of a national economy led to the gradual withdrawal of the central government from direct intervention in

7097-1326: The Han dynasty . This is the longest lexicographical history of any language. In addition to works for Mandarin Chinese , beginning with the 1st-century CE Fangyan dictionaries also been created for the many varieties of Chinese . One of the most influential Chinese dictionaries ever published was the Kangxi Dictionary , finished in 1716 during the Qing dynasty , with the list of 214 Kangxi radicals it popularized are still widely used. The general term cishu (Chinese: 辭書 ; pinyin: císhū ; lit. 'lexicographic books') semantically encompasses "dictionary; lexicon; encyclopedia; glossary". The Chinese language has two words for dictionary: zidian (character dictionary) for written forms, that is, Chinese characters , and cidian (word/phrase dictionary), for spoken forms. For character dictionaries , zidian ( Chinese : 字典 ; pinyin : zìdiǎn ; Wade–Giles : tzŭ⁴-tien³ ; lit. 'character dictionary') combines zi ( 字 ; "character, graph; letter, script, writing; word") and dian ( 典 "dictionary, encyclopedia; standard, rule; statute, canon; classical allusion"). For word dictionaries, cidian

7248-750: The Indus River , and the Euphrates . Foreigners, in turn, affected the Chinese economy. For example, many West and Central Asian Muslims went to China to trade, becoming a preeminent force in the import and export industry, while some were even appointed as officers supervising economic affairs. Sea trade with the South-west Pacific, the Hindu world, the Islamic world, and East Africa brought merchants great fortune and spurred an enormous growth in

7399-615: The Japanese language . While some foreign borrowings became obsolete, others became indispensable terms in modern vocabulary. The 20th century saw the rapid progress of the studies of the lexicons found in the Chinese vernacular literature, which includes novels, dramas and poetry. Important works in the field include: Employing corpus linguistics and lists of Chinese characters arranged by frequency of usage (e.g., List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese ) , lexicographers have compiled dictionaries for learners of Chinese as

7550-916: The Kaifeng Jews , and Persian Manichaeans . The populace engaged in a vibrant social and domestic life, enjoying such public festivals as the Lantern Festival and the Qingming Festival . There were entertainment quarters in the cities providing a constant array of amusements. There were puppeteers, acrobats, theatre actors, sword swallowers, snake charmers, storytellers , singers and musicians, prostitutes, and places to relax, including tea houses, restaurants, and organized banquets. People attended social clubs in large numbers; there were tea clubs, exotic food clubs, antiquarian and art collectors' clubs, horse-loving clubs, poetry clubs, and music clubs. Like regional cooking and cuisines in

7701-527: The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty , became the standard dictionary for Chinese characters, and popularized the system of 214 radicals . As most Chinese characters are semantic-phonetic ones ( 形聲字 ), the radical method is usually effective, thus it continues to be widely used in the present day. However, sometimes the radical of a character is not obvious. To compensate this, a "Chart of Characters that Are Difficult to Look up" ( 難檢字表 ), arranged by

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7852-523: The Liang dynasty , rearranged them into 542. The 1615 CE Zihui ("Character Glossary"), edited by Mei Yingzuo  [ zh ] during the Ming dynasty , simplified the 540 Shuowen Jiezi radicals to 214. It also originated the "radical-stroke" scheme of ordering characters on the number of residual graphic strokes besides the radical. The 1627 Zhengzitong ("Correct Character Mastery") also used 214. The 1716 CE Kangxi Dictionary , compiled under

8003-476: The Liyun ( 隸韻 ) of the Song dynasty. Although these dictionaries center upon the graphic properties of Chinese characters, they do not necessarily collate characters by radical. For instance, Liyun is a clerical script dictionary collated by tone and rime. The Yinyun type, called yùnshū ( 韻書 "rime book"), focuses on the pronunciations of characters. These dictionaries are always collated by rimes. While

8154-599: The Northern Wei dynasty, followed the Erya ' s original 19 chapters. The circa 1080 CE Piya ("Increased Erya"), from the Song dynasty , has 8 semantically based chapters of names for plants and animals. For a dictionary user wanting to look up a character, this arbitrary semantic system is inefficient unless one already knows, or can guess, the meaning. Two other Han dynasty lexicons are loosely organized by semantics. The 1st century CE Fangyan ("Regional Speech")

8305-487: The Pearl River Delta in 1279, the Yuan army, led by the general Zhang Hongfan , finally crushed the Song resistance. The last remaining ruler, the 13-year-old emperor Zhao Bing , committed suicide, along with Prime Minister Lu Xiufu and 1300 members of the royal clan. On Kublai's orders, carried out by his commander Bayan, the rest of the former imperial family of Song were unharmed; the deposed Emperor Gong

8456-409: The Song dynasty (960-1279), when there was a revival of interest in the Erya . The Northern Song dynasty scholar Xing Bing ( 邢昺 ) wrote the (c. 1000) Erya shu ( 爾雅疏 , " Erya Subcommentary"), which quoted many descriptions from both ordinary literature and medicinal bencao ( 本草 , "pharmacopoeia; herbal") texts. A century later, Lu Dian ( 陸佃 ) wrote the (1096) Piya ("Increased [Er]ya") and

8607-728: The Wuya ( 五雅 "Five [Er]yas"): Erya , (c. 150 BCE) Xiao Erya ("Little Erya"), (c. 200) Yiya ("Lost Erya" or the Shiming ), (c. 230) Guangya ("Expanded Erya"), and (1125) Piya ("Increased Erya"). The more important Erya- type books of the subsequent period are the 1579 Tongya ( 通雅 , Analogous to Erya ) compiled by Fang Yizhi ( 方以智 ), 1587 Pianya ( 駢雅 , A Book of Two-Syllable Words) by Zhu Mouwei ( 朱謀㙔 ), c. 1745 Bieya ( 別雅 , Another Erya ) by Wu Yujin ( 吴玉搢 ), and 1864 Dieya ( 疊雅 , A Book of Double-Syllable Words) by Shi Menglan ( 史夢蘭 ). Chinese leishu encyclopedias, such as

8758-628: The Yangtze to establish a new capital at Lin'an (modern Hangzhou). The Jurchen conquest of North China and shift of capitals from Kaifeng to Lin'an was the dividing line between the Northern and Southern Song dynasties. After their fall to the Jin, the Song lost control of North China. Now occupying what has been traditionally known as "China Proper", the Jin regarded themselves the rightful rulers of China. The Jin later chose earth as their dynastic element and yellow as their royal color. According to

8909-411: The go and xiangqi board games. During this period greater emphasis was laid upon the civil service system of recruiting officials; this was based upon degrees acquired through competitive examinations , in an effort to select the most capable individuals for governance. Selecting men for office through proven merit was an ancient idea in China . The civil service system became institutionalized on

9060-417: The shipbuilding industry of Song-era Fujian . However, there was risk involved in such long overseas ventures. In order to reduce the risk of losing money on maritime trade missions abroad, wrote historians Ebrey, Walthall, and Palais: [Song era] investors usually divided their investment among many ships, and each ship had many investors behind it. One observer thought eagerness to invest in overseas trade

9211-461: The universal history text of the Zizhi Tongjian , compiled into 1000 volumes of 9.4 million written Chinese characters . The genre of Chinese travel literature also became popular with the writings of the geographer Fan Chengda (1126–1193) and Su Shi, the latter of whom wrote the 'daytrip essay' known as Record of Stone Bell Mountain that used persuasive writing to argue for

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9362-527: The (1099) Erya Xinyi ( 爾雅新義 "New Interpretations of the Erya ") commentary. The Southern Song dynasty scholar Luo Yuan ( 羅願 ) subsequently wrote the (1174) Eryayi ( 爾雅翼 , "Wings to the Erya ") interpretation. During the Qing dynasty , Shao Jinhan ( 邵晋涵 , 1743–1796) published the Erya Zhengyi ( 爾雅正義 , "Correct Meanings of the Erya ") and the naturalist Hao Yixing ( 郝懿行 ) wrote the (1808-1822) Erya yishu ( 爾雅義疏 , "Subcommentary on Meanings of

9513-506: The (1408) Yongle Encyclopedia , were also semantically arranged. Needham takes the Erya' s derivative literature as the main line of descent for the encyclopedia in China. The Erya has been described as a dictionary , glossary , synonymicon, thesaurus , and encyclopaedia . Karlgren explains that the book "is not a dictionary in abstracto , it is a collection of direct glosses to concrete passages in ancient texts ." The received text contains 2094 entries, covering about 4300 words, and

9664-562: The (1915) Zhonghua Da Zidian ("Comprehensive Chinese-Character Dictionary"), which corrected over 4,000 Kangxi Dictionary mistakes and added more than 1,000 new characters. Lu Erkui's (1915) Ciyuan ("Sources of Words") was a groundbreaking effort in Chinese lexicography and can be considered the first cidian "word dictionary". Shu Xincheng's (1936) Cihai ("Sea of Words") was a comprehensive dictionary of characters and expressions, and provided near-encyclopedic coverage in fields like science, philosophy, history. The Cihai remains

9815-473: The 11th century, political rivalries divided members of the court due to the ministers' differing approaches, opinions, and policies regarding the handling of the Song's complex society and thriving economy. The idealist Chancellor , Fan Zhongyan (989–1052), was the first to receive a heated political backlash when he attempted to institute the Qingli Reforms , which included measures such as improving

9966-405: The 11th-century innovation of the use of coal instead of charcoal in blast furnaces for smelting cast iron . Much of this iron was reserved for military use in crafting weapons and armouring troops, but some was used to fashion the many iron products needed to fill the demands of the growing domestic market. The iron trade within China was advanced by the construction of new canals, facilitating

10117-615: The 2016 edition). Both the Xinhua zidian and the Xiandai Hanyu cidian followed a simplified scheme of 189 radicals. Two outstanding achievements in contemporary Chinese lexicography are the (1986–93) Hanyu Da Cidian ("Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Words") with over 370,000 word and phrase entries listed under 23,000 different characters; and the (1986–89) Hanyu Da Zidian ("Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters") with 54,678 head entries for characters. They both use

10268-545: The 6th century BCE, and the continued additions to the text as late as the 1st century BCE. The first attempts to date the different parts of the Erya separately began when the Tang scholar Lu Deming (556–627) suggested that the Duke of Zhou only compiled the Shigu ( Chinese : 釋詁 ; pinyin : Shìgǔ ) chapter (1), while the rest of the text dated from later. The Japanese historian and sinologist Naitō Torajirō analyzed

10419-685: The Australian missionary Robert Henry Mathews . Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary , which was popular for decades, was based on Giles and partially updated by Y.R. Chao in 1943 and reprinted in 1960. Trained in American structural linguistics , Yuen Ren Chao and Lien-sheng Yang wrote a Concise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese (1947), that emphasized the spoken rather than the written language. Main entries were listed in Gwoyeu Romatzyh , and they distinguished free morphemes from bound morphemes . A hint of non-standard pronunciation

10570-531: The Chinese classics. The Wenzi dictionaries, called zìshū ( 字書 "character book"), consist of Shuowen Jiezi , Yupian , Zihui , Zhengzitong , and the Kangxi Dictionary . This type of dictionary, which focuses on the shape and structure of the characters, subsumes both " orthography dictionaries", such as the Ganlu Zishu ( 干祿字書 ) of the Tang dynasty, and " script dictionaries", such as

10721-618: The Confucian classics of the Four Books as an introductory corpus to Confucian learning formed the basis of the Neo-Confucian doctrine. By the year 1241, under the sponsorship of Emperor Lizong , Zhu Xi's Four Books and his commentary on them became standard requirements of study for students attempting to pass the civil service examinations. The neighbouring countries of Japan and Korea also adopted Zhu Xi's teaching, known as

10872-423: The Jin dynasty. It had able military officers such as Yue Fei and Han Shizhong . The government sponsored massive shipbuilding and harbor improvement projects, and the construction of beacons and seaport warehouses to support maritime trade abroad, including at the major international seaports , such as Quanzhou , Guangzhou , and Xiamen , that were sustaining China's commerce. To protect and support

11023-580: The Liao forces, who engaged in aggressive yearly campaigns into Northern Song territory until 1005, when the signing of the Shanyuan Treaty ended these northern border clashes. The Song were forced to provide tribute to the Khitans, although this did little damage to the Song economy since the Khitans were economically dependent upon importing massive amounts of goods from the Song. More significantly,

11174-441: The Mongols as vassals ; when the Jin suddenly moved their capital city from Beijing to Kaifeng, the Mongols saw this as a revolt. Under the leadership of Ögedei Khan (r.1229–1241), both the Jin dynasty and Western Xia dynasty were conquered by Mongol forces in 1233/34. The Mongols were allied with the Song, but this alliance was broken when the Song recaptured the former imperial capitals of Kaifeng, Luoyang , and Chang'an at

11325-519: The New Policies and pursued political opponents, tolerated corruption and encouraged Emperor Huizong (1100–1126) to neglect his duties to focus on artistic pursuits. Later, a peasant rebellion broke out in Zhejiang and Fujian, headed by Fang La in 1120. The rebellion may have been caused by an increasing tax burden, the concentration of landownership and oppressive government measures. While

11476-651: The Shushigaku (朱子學, School of Zhu Xi) of Japan, and in Korea the Jujahak (주자학). Buddhism's continuing influence can be seen in painted artwork such as Lin Tinggui 's Luohan Laundering . However, the ideology was highly criticized and even scorned by some. The statesman and historian Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) called the religion a "curse" that could only be remedied by uprooting it from Chinese culture and replacing it with Confucian discourse. The Chan sect experienced

11627-673: The Song dynasty alternated between warfare and diplomacy with the ethnic Khitans of the Liao dynasty in the northeast and with the Tanguts of the Western Xia in the northwest. The Song dynasty used military force in an attempt to quell the Liao dynasty and to recapture the Sixteen Prefectures , a territory under Khitan control since 938 that was traditionally considered to be part of China proper (Most parts of today's Beijing and Tianjin ). Song forces were repulsed by

11778-409: The Song dynasty was able to hold back the Jin, a new foe came to power over the steppe, deserts, and plains north of the Jin dynasty. The Mongols , led by Genghis Khan (r. 1206–1227), initially invaded the Jin dynasty in 1205 and 1209, engaging in large raids across its borders, and in 1211 an enormous Mongol army was assembled to invade the Jin. The Jin dynasty was forced to submit and pay tribute to

11929-447: The Song dynasty was unparalleled with a gross domestic product three times larger than that of Europe during the 12th century. China's population doubled in size between the 10th and 11th centuries. This growth was made possible by expanded rice cultivation , use of early-ripening rice from Southeast and South Asia, and production of widespread food surpluses. The Northern Song census recorded 20 million households, double that of

12080-519: The Song dynasty, but also the last instance where a war elephant corps was employed as a regular division within a Chinese army. There was a total of 347 military treatises written during the Song period, as listed by the history text of the Song Shi (compiled in 1345). However, only a handful of these military treatises have survived, which includes the Wujing Zongyao written in 1044. It

12231-464: The Song dynasty, it was expanded into the 1011 CE Guangyun ("Expanded Rimes") and the 1037 CE Jiyun ("Collected Rimes"). The clear problem with these old phonetically arranged dictionary is that the would-be user needs to have the knowledge of rime. Thus, dictionaries collated this way can only serve the literati. A great number of modern dictionaries published today arrange their entries by pinyin or other methods of romanisation, together with

12382-416: The Song forces only 3,000 men on 120 warships, the Song dynasty forces were victorious in both battles due to the destructive power of the bombs and the rapid assaults by paddlewheel ships . The strength of the navy was heavily emphasized following these victories. A century after the navy was founded it had grown in size to 52,000 fighting marines. The Song government confiscated portions of land owned by

12533-527: The Song navy that could carry 1,000 soldiers aboard their decks, while the swift-moving paddle-wheel craft were viewed as essential fighting ships in any successful naval battle. In a battle on January 23, 971, massive arrow fire from Song dynasty crossbowmen decimated the war elephant corps of the Southern Han army. This defeat not only marked the eventual submission of the Southern Han to

12684-530: The Song state recognized the Liao state as its diplomatic equal. The Song created an extensive defensive forest along the Song-Liao border to thwart potential Khitan cavalry attacks. The Song dynasty managed to win several military victories over the Tanguts in the early 11th century, culminating in a campaign led by the polymath scientist, general, and statesman Shen Kuo (1031–1095). However, this campaign

12835-492: The Song, the era was known for its regional varieties of performing arts styles as well. Theatrical drama was very popular amongst the elite and general populace, although Classical Chinese —not the vernacular language —was spoken by actors on stage. The four largest drama theatres in Kaifeng could hold audiences of several thousand each. There were also notable domestic pastimes, as people at home enjoyed activities such as

12986-475: The Tang era, would also be revived in China under Mongol rule. Sumptuary laws regulated the food that one consumed and the clothes that one wore according to status and social class. Clothing was made of hemp or cotton cloths, restricted to a color standard of black and white. Trousers were the acceptable attire for peasants, soldiers, artisans, and merchants, although wealthy merchants might choose to wear more ornate clothing and male blouses that came down below

13137-597: The above traditional pre-20th-century Chinese dictionaries focused upon the meanings and pronunciations of words in classical texts, they practically ignored the spoken language and vernacular literature. The Kangxi Dictionary served as the standard Chinese dictionary for generations, is still published and is now online. Contemporary lexicography is divisible between bilingual and monolingual Chinese dictionaries. The foreigners who entered China in late Ming and Qing dynasties needed dictionaries for different purposes than native speakers. Wanting to learn Chinese , they compiled

13288-479: The analysis of script; (3) absence of the concept of word; (4) ignoring the script's historical developments in the oracle bones and bronze inscriptions; (5) no precise, unambiguous, and convenient means for specifying pronunciations; (6) no standardized, user-friendly means for looking up words and graphs; (7) failure to distinguish linguistically between vernacular and literary registers, or between usages peculiar to different regions and times; and (8) open-endedness of

13439-528: The arts as accepted pastimes of the cultured scholar-official, including painting , composing poetry , and writing calligraphy . The poet and statesman Su Shi and his associate Mi Fu (1051–1107) enjoyed antiquarian affairs, often borrowing or buying art pieces to study and copy. Poetry and literature profited from the rising popularity and development of the ci poetry form . Enormous encyclopedic volumes were compiled, such as works of historiography and dozens of treatises on technical subjects. This included

13590-579: The assault against the Song, gaining a temporary foothold on the southern banks of the Yangtze. By the winter of 1259, Uriyangkhadai's army fought its way north to meet Kublai's army, which was besieging Ezhou in Hubei . Kublai made preparations to take Ezhou , but a pending civil war with his brother Ariq Böke —a rival claimant to the Mongol Khaganate—forced Kublai to move back north with

13741-517: The authoritative lexicographic guide to Chinese classic texts during the Han dynasty , and Song dynasty Confucians officially categorized it as one of the Thirteen Classics , "making it one of the more revered works in the history of Chinese literature, not to mention lexicography". Although the only ancient Erya commentary that has come down to us is the (c. 310) Erya zhu ( 爾雅注 , " Erya Commentary") by Guo Pu (276–324), there were

13892-461: The budding movement of Neo-Confucianism , led by Cheng Yi (1033–1107) and Zhu Xi (1130–1200). Mahayana Buddhism influenced Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi through its concept of ethical universalism , while Buddhist metaphysics deeply affected the pre–Neo-Confucian doctrine of Cheng Yi. The philosophical work of Cheng Yi in turn influenced Zhu Xi. Although his writings were not accepted by his contemporary peers, Zhu's commentary and emphasis upon

14043-528: The bulk of his forces. In Kublai's absence, the Song forces were ordered by Chancellor Jia Sidao to make an immediate assault and succeeded in pushing the Mongol forces back to the northern banks of the Yangtze. There were minor border skirmishes until 1265, when Kublai won a significant battle in Sichuan . From 1268 to 1273, Kublai blockaded the Yangtze River with his navy and besieged Xiangyang ,

14194-511: The central Song court remained politically divided and focused upon its internal affairs, alarming new events to the north in the Liao state finally came to its attention. The Jurchen , a subject tribe of the Liao, rebelled against them and formed their own state, the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) . The Song official Tong Guan (1054–1126) advised Emperor Huizong to form an alliance with the Jurchens, and

14345-464: The cities of Huizhou , Chengdu , Hangzhou , and Anqi. The size of the workforce employed in paper money factories was large; it was recorded in 1175 that the factory at Hangzhou employed more than a thousand workers a day. The economic power of Song China can be attested by the growth of the urban population of its capital city Hangzhou. The population was 200,000 at the start of the 12th century and increased to 500,000 around 1170 and doubled to over

14496-469: The collapse of the Jin dynasty. After the first Mongol invasion of Vietnam in 1258, Mongol general Uriyangkhadai attacked Guangxi from Hanoi as part of a coordinated Mongol attack in 1259 with armies attacking in Sichuan under Mongol leader Möngke Khan and other Mongol armies attacking in modern-day Shandong and Henan . On August 11, 1259, Möngke Khan died during the siege of Diaoyu Castle in Chongqing . His successor Kublai Khan continued

14647-510: The court of King Xuan of Zhou (r. 827 BCE – 782 BCE), and was the source of the 籀文 zhòuwén variant forms listed in the Han dynasty Shuowen Jiezi dictionary. The Cangjiepian ("Chapters of Cang Jie "), named after the legendary inventor of writing, was edited by Li Si , and helped to standardize the Small seal script during the Qin dynasty . The collation or lexicographical ordering of

14798-470: The court. Wang Anshi's "New Policies Group" ( Xin Fa ), also known as the "Reformers", were opposed by the ministers in the "Conservative" faction led by the historian and Chancellor Sima Guang (1019–1086). As one faction supplanted another in the majority position of the court ministers, it would demote rival officials and exile them to govern remote frontier regions of the empire. One of the prominent victims of

14949-413: The dynasty, government posts were disproportionately held by two elite social groups: a founding elite who had ties with the founding emperor and a semi-hereditary professional elite who used long-held clan status, family connections , and marriage alliances to secure appointments. By the late 11th century, the founding elite became obsolete, while political partisanship and factionalism at court undermined

15100-511: The early 11th century to 400,000 candidates by the late 13th century. The civil service and examination system allowed for greater meritocracy , social mobility , and equality in competition for those wishing to attain an official seat in government. Using statistics gathered by the Song state, Edward A. Kracke, Sudō Yoshiyuki, and Ho Ping-ti supported the hypothesis that simply having a father, grandfather, or great-grandfather who had served as an official of state did not guarantee one would obtain

15251-561: The economy. The lower gentry assumed a larger role in local administration and affairs. Song society was vibrant, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. Citizens gathered to view and trade artwork, and intermingled at festivals and in private clubs. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the rapid expansion of woodblock printing and the 11th-century invention of movable type printing. Philosophers such as Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi reinvigorated Confucianism with new commentary, infused with Buddhist ideals, and emphasized

15402-591: The educational system and state bureaucracy. Seeking to resolve what he saw as state corruption and negligence, Wang implemented a series of reforms called the New Policies . These involved land value tax reform, the establishment of several government monopolies, the support of local militias, and the creation of higher standards for the Imperial examination to make it more practical for men skilled in statecraft to pass. The reforms created political factions in

15553-402: The empire. In one such project, cartographers created detailed maps of each province and city that were then collected in a large atlas . Emperor Taizu also promoted groundbreaking scientific and technological innovations by supporting works like the astronomical clock tower designed and built by the engineer Zhang Sixun . The Song court maintained diplomatic relations with Chola India ,

15704-586: The establishment of retirement homes , public clinics , and paupers ' graveyards . The Song dynasty supported a widespread postal service that was modeled on the earlier Han dynasty (202 BCE – CE 220) postal system to provide swift communication throughout the empire. The central government employed thousands of postal workers of various ranks to provide service for post offices and larger postal stations. In rural areas, farming peasants either owned their own plots of land , paid rents as tenant farmers , or were serfs on large estates. Although women were on

15855-447: The famed Bao Zheng (999–1062) embodied the upright, moral judge who upheld justice and never failed to live up to his principles. Song judges specified the guilty person or party in a criminal act and meted out punishments accordingly, often in the form of caning . A guilty individual or parties brought to court for a criminal or civil offense were not viewed as wholly innocent until proven otherwise, while even accusers were viewed with

16006-419: The first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy . This dynasty saw the first surviving records of the chemical formula for gunpowder, the invention of gunpowder weapons such as fire arrows , bombs, and the fire lance . It also saw the first discernment of true north using a compass, first recorded description of the pound lock , and improved designs of astronomical clocks . Economically,

16157-540: The first grammar books and bilingual dictionaries. Westerners adapted the Latin alphabet to represent Chinese pronunciation, and arranged their dictionaries accordingly. Two Bible translators edited early Chinese dictionaries. The Scottish missionary Robert Morrison wrote A Dictionary of the Chinese Language (1815–1823). The British missionary Walter Henry Medhurst wrote a Hokkien ( Min Nan ) dialect dictionary in 1832 and

16308-528: The first section treating common terms (chapters 1–3) and the second treating specialized terms (4-19). Entries for common terms are defined by grouping synonyms or near-synonyms and explaining them in terms of a more commonly used word, and additional explanations if one of the words had multiple meanings. For instance, " Qiáo ( 喬 ), sōng ( 嵩 ), and chóng ( 崇 ) all mean 'high' ( 高 ). Chóng also means 'to fill' ( 充 )." (ch. 1). Entries for specialized terms are defined by grouping related words and giving them

16459-451: The flow of iron products from production centres to the large market in the capital city. The annual output of minted copper currency in 1085 reached roughly six billion coins. The most notable advancement in the Song economy was the establishment of the world's first government issued paper-printed money, known as Jiaozi (see also Huizi ). For the printing of paper money , the Song court established several government-run factories in

16610-452: The future but of the past", and took nearly twenty years to compile his A Chinese-English Dictionary (1892, 1912), one that Norman calls "the first truly adequate Chinese–English dictionary". It contained 13,848 characters and numerous compound expressions, with pronunciation based upon Beijing Mandarin, which it compared with nine southern dialects such as Cantonese , Hakka , and Fuzhou dialect . It has been called "still interesting as

16761-400: The government relied upon the cooperation of the few or many local gentry in the area. For example, the Song government—excluding the educational-reformist government under Emperor Huizong—spared little amount of state revenue to maintain prefectural and county schools; instead, the bulk of the funds for schools was drawn from private financing. This limited role of government officials was

16912-521: The hierarchic social order, a person could gain status and prestige in society by becoming a high-ranking military officer with a record of victorious battles. At its height, the Song military had one million soldiers divided into platoons of 50 troops, companies made of two platoons, battalions composed of 500 soldiers. Crossbowmen were separated from the regular infantry and placed in their own units as they were prized combatants, providing effective missile fire against cavalry charges. The government

17063-414: The importance of proper coroner 's conduct during autopsies and the accurate recording of the inquest of each autopsy by official clerks. The Song military was chiefly organized to ensure that the army could not threaten Imperial control, often at the expense of effectiveness in war. Northern Song's Military Council operated under a Chancellor, who had no control over the imperial army. The imperial army

17214-413: The interest in the performance of post-mortem autopsies in China during the 12th century. The physician and judge known as Song Ci (1186–1249) wrote a pioneering work of forensic science on the examination of corpses in order to determine cause of death (strangulation, poisoning, drowning, blows, etc.) and to prove whether death resulted from murder, suicide, or accidental death. Song Ci stressed

17365-495: The joint military campaign under this Alliance Conducted at Sea toppled and completely conquered the Liao dynasty by 1125. During the joint attack, the Song's northern expedition army removed the defensive forest along the Song-Liao border. However, the poor performance and military weakness of the Song army was observed by the Jurchens, who immediately broke the alliance, beginning the Jin–Song Wars of 1125 and 1127. Because of

17516-487: The knee, skirts, and jackets with long or short sleeves, while women from wealthy families could wear purple scarves around their shoulders. The main difference in women's apparel from that of men was that it was fastened on the left, not on the right. The main food staples in the diet of the lower classes remained rice, pork, and salted fish. In 1011, Emperor Zhenzong of Song introduced Champa rice to China from Vietnam 's Kingdom of Champa , which sent 30,000 bushels as

17667-451: The landed gentry in order to raise revenue for these projects, an act which caused dissension and loss of loyalty amongst leading members of Song society but did not stop the Song's defensive preparations. Financial matters were made worse by the fact that many wealthy, land-owning families—some of which had officials working for the government—used their social connections with those in office in order to obtain tax-exempt status. Although

17818-471: The last obstacle in his way to invading the rich Yangtze River basin. Kublai officially declared the creation of the Yuan dynasty in 1271. In 1275, a Song force of 130,000 troops under Chancellor Jia Sidao was defeated by Kublai's newly appointed commander-in-chief, general Bayan . By 1276, most of the Song territory had been captured by Yuan forces, including the capital Lin'an. In the Battle of Yamen on

17969-558: The major cause of Song economic prosperity. Artisans and merchants formed guilds that the state had to deal with when assessing taxes, requisitioning goods, and setting standard workers' wages and prices on goods. The iron industry was pursued by both private entrepreneurs who owned their own smelters as well as government-supervised smelting facilities. The Song economy was stable enough to produce over 100,000,000 kg (220,000,000 lb) of iron products per year. Large-scale Deforestation in China would have continued if not for

18120-412: The marriage strategies of the professional elite, which dissolved as a distinguishable social group and was replaced by a multitude of gentry families. Due to Song's enormous population growth and the body of its appointed scholar-officials being accepted in limited numbers (about 20,000 active officials during the Song period), the larger scholarly gentry class would now take over grassroots affairs on

18271-727: The most prosperous and advanced economies in the medieval world. Song Chinese invested their funds in joint stock companies and in multiple sailing vessels at a time when monetary gain was assured from the vigorous overseas trade and domestic trade along the Grand Canal and Yangtze River. Both private and government-controlled industries met the needs of a growing Chinese population in the Song; prominent merchant families and private businesses were allowed to occupy industries that were not already government-operated monopolies. Economic historians emphasize this toleration of market mechanisms over population growth or new farming technologies as

18422-597: The multitude of ships sailing for maritime interests into the waters of the East China Sea and Yellow Sea (to Korea and Japan ), Southeast Asia , the Indian Ocean , and the Red Sea , it was necessary to establish an official standing navy . The Song dynasty therefore established China's first permanent navy in 1132, with a headquarters at Dinghai . With a permanent navy, the Song were prepared to face

18573-460: The naval forces of the Jin on the Yangtze River in 1161, in the Battle of Tangdao and the Battle of Caishi . During these battles the Song navy employed swift paddle wheel driven naval vessels armed with traction trebuchet catapults aboard the decks that launched gunpowder bombs . Although the Jin forces commanded by Wanyan Liang (the Prince of Hailing) boasted 70,000 men on 600 warships, and

18724-445: The number of strokes of the characters, is usually provided. The third system of lexicographical ordering is by character pronunciation. This type of dictionary collates its entries by syllable rime and tones , and produces a so-called " rime dictionary ". The first surviving rime dictionary is the 601 CE Qieyun ("Cutting [Spelling] Rimes") from the Sui dynasty ; it became the standard of pronunciation for Middle Chinese . During

18875-648: The period following the loss of control over the northern half of Song territory to the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song wars . At that time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze and established its capital at Lin'an (now Hangzhou ). Although the Song dynasty had lost control of the traditional Chinese heartlands around the Yellow River , the Southern Song Empire contained

19026-401: The political rivalry, the famous poet and statesman Su Shi (1037–1101), was jailed and eventually exiled for criticizing Wang's reforms. The continual alternation between reform and conservatism had effectively weakened the dynasty. This decline can also be attributed to Cai Jing (1047–1126), who was appointed by Emperor Zhezong (1085–1100) and who remained in power until 1125. He revived

19177-741: The pre-Han Classical literature when possible, unless the definition emerged during the post-Classical period. Dictionaries intended for historians, linguists, and other classical scholars will sometimes also provide Middle Chinese fanqie readings and/or Old Chinese rime groups, as well as bronze script or oracle bone script forms. While dictionaries published in mainland China intended for study or reference by high school/college students are generally printed in Simplified Chinese , dictionaries intended for scholarly research are set in Traditional Chinese . Twenty centuries ago,

19328-407: The recruitment system of officials, increasing the salaries for minor officials, and establishing sponsorship programs to allow a wider range of people to be well educated and eligible for state service. After Fan was forced to step down from his office, Wang Anshi (1021–1086) became Chancellor of the imperial court. With the backing of Emperor Shenzong (1067–1085), Wang Anshi severely criticized

19479-573: The removal of the previous defensive forest, the Jin army marched quickly across the North China Plain to Kaifeng. In the Jingkang Incident during the latter invasion, the Jurchens captured not only the capital, but the retired Emperor Huizong, his successor Emperor Qinzong , and most of the Imperial court. The remaining Song forces regrouped under the self-proclaimed Emperor Gaozong of Song (1127–1162) and withdrew south of

19630-727: The rest of China proper , reuniting much of the territory that had once belonged to the Han and Tang empires and ending the upheaval of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. In Kaifeng , he established a strong central government over the empire. The establishment of this capital marked the start of the Northern Song period. He ensured administrative stability by promoting the civil service examination system of drafting state bureaucrats by skill and merit (instead of aristocratic or military position) and promoted projects that ensured efficiency in communication throughout

19781-459: The same level of authority. Robert Hartwell and Robert P. Hymes criticized this model, stating that it places too much emphasis on the role of the nuclear family and considers only three paternal ascendants of exam candidates while ignoring the demographic reality of Song China, the significant proportion of males in each generation that had no surviving sons, and the role of the extended family . Many felt disenfranchised by what they saw as

19932-507: The second yǎ ( 雅 ; "proper; correct; refined; elegant") refers to words or language. According to W. South Coblin : "The interpretation of the title as something like 'approaching what is correct, proper, refined' is now widely accepted". It has been translated as "The Literary Expositor" or "The Ready Rectifier" (both by Legge ), "Progress Towards Correctness" (von Rosthorn), "Near Correct" (Xue), "The Semantic Approximator" ( Needham ), and "Approaching Elegance" ( Mair ). The book's author

20083-655: The theory of the Five Elements (wuxing), the earth element follows the fire, the dynastic element of the Song, in the sequence of elemental creation. Therefore, their ideological move showed that the Jin considered Song reign in China complete, with the Jin replacing the Song as the rightful rulers of China Proper. Although weakened and pushed south beyond the Huai River , the Southern Song found new ways to bolster its strong economy and defend itself against

20234-408: The time of Xun Qing 荀卿 (300-230 BCE) with additions as late as 90 BCE, allocates the geographical chapters (9-12) to the late Warring States, Qin, and beginning of Han (300-200 BCE), puts the natural history chapters (13-18) between 300 and 160 BCE, and ascribes the last chapter (19) on domestic animals to the time of Emperor Wen or Emperor Jing of Han (180 to 140 BCE). The Erya was considered

20385-831: The traditional bibliographic divisions of the imperial collection Complete Library of the Four Treasuries , dictionaries were classified as belonging to xiǎoxué ( 小學 , lit. "minor learning", the premodern equivalent of " linguistics "), which was contrasted with dàxué ( 大學 , "major learning", i.e., learning that had moral implications). Xiaoxue was divided into texts dealing with xùngǔ ( 訓詁 , "exegesis" similar to " philology "), wénzì ( 文字 , "script", analogous to " grammatology "), and yīnyùn ( 音韻 , "sounds and rhymes," comparable to " phonology "). The Xungu type, sometimes called yǎshū ( 雅書 , "word book"), comprises Erya and its descendants. These exegetical dictionaries focus on explaining meanings of words as found in

20536-795: The translation "topolect", which are very similar to independent languages. (See also- Protection of the Varieties of Chinese .) The Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwan Minnan is an online dictionary of Taiwanese Hokkien . Here are some general fangyan cidian ( 方言词典 ; "topolect dictionary") examples. Chinese has five words translatable as " idiom ": chengyu ( 成語 / 成语 "set phrase; idiom"), yanyu ( 諺語 / 谚语 ; "proverb; popular saying, maxim; idiom"), xiehouyu ( 歇後語 / 歇后语 ; "truncated witticism, aposiopesis ; enigmatic folk simile"), xiyu ( 習語 / 习语 ; "idiom"), and guanyongyu ( 慣用語 / 惯用语 ; "fixed expression; idiom; locution"). Some modern dictionaries for idioms are: The Chinese language adopted

20687-472: The use of intermediary agents. The Song judicial system retained most of the legal code of the earlier Tang dynasty, the basis of traditional Chinese law up until the modern era. Roving sheriffs maintained law and order in the municipal jurisdictions and occasionally ventured into the countryside. Official magistrates overseeing court cases were not only expected to be well-versed in written law but also to promote morality in society. Magistrates such as

20838-404: The vast local level. Excluding the scholar-officials in office, this elite social class consisted of exam candidates, examination degree-holders not yet assigned to an official post, local tutors, and retired officials. These learned men, degree-holders, and local elites supervised local affairs and sponsored necessary facilities of local communities; any local magistrate appointed to his office by

20989-518: The waist. Acceptable apparel for scholar-officials was rigidly defined by the social ranking system. However, as time went on this rule of rank-graded apparel for officials was not as strictly enforced. Each official was able to display his awarded status by wearing different-colored traditional silken robes that hung to the ground around his feet, specific types of headgear, and even specific styles of girdles that displayed his graded-rank of officialdom. Women wore long dresses, blouses that came down to

21140-530: The waving of banners and to halt at the sound of bells and drums. The Song navy was of great importance during the consolidation of the empire in the 10th century; during the war against the Southern Tang state, the Song navy employed tactics such as defending large floating pontoon bridges across the Yangtze River in order to secure movements of troops and supplies. There were large ships in

21291-410: The writing system, with current unabridged character dictionaries containing 60,000 to 85,000 graphs. Footnotes Song dynasty The dynasty's history is divided into two periods: during the Northern Song ( 北宋 ; 960–1127), the capital was in the northern city of Bianjing (now Kaifeng ) and the dynasty controlled most of what is now East China . The Southern Song ( 南宋 ; 1127–1279) comprise

21442-522: Was also given, by marking final stops and initial voicing and non-palatalization in non-Mandarin dialects. The Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren wrote the seminal (1957) Grammata Serica Recensa with his reconstructed pronunciations for Middle Chinese and Old Chinese . Chinese lexicography advanced during the 1970s. The translator Lin Yutang wrote the semantically sophisticated Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage (1972) that

21593-452: Was an era of administrative sophistication and complex social organization. Some of the largest cities in the world were found in China during this period (Kaifeng and Hangzhou had populations of over a million). People enjoyed various social clubs and entertainment in the cities, and there were many schools and temples to provide the people with education and religious services. The Song government supported social welfare programs including

21744-462: Was demoted, being given the title 'Duke of Ying', but was eventually exiled to Tibet where he took up a monastic life. The former emperor would eventually be forced to commit suicide under the orders of Kublai's great-great-grandson, Gegeen Khan , out of fear that Emperor Gong would stage a coup to restore his reign. Other members of the Song imperial family continued to live in the Yuan dynasty, including Zhao Mengfu and Zhao Yong. The Song dynasty

21895-476: Was divided among three marshals, each independently responsible to the Emperor. Since the Emperor rarely led campaigns personally, Song forces lacked unity of command. The imperial court often believed that successful generals endangered royal authority, and relieved or even executed them (notably Li Gang, Yue Fei, and Han Shizhong ). Although the scholar-officials viewed military soldiers as lower members in

22046-582: Was eager to sponsor new crossbow designs that could shoot at longer ranges, while crossbowmen were also valuable when employed as long-range snipers . Song cavalry employed a slew of different weapons, including halberds, swords, bows, spears, and ' fire lances ' that discharged a gunpowder blast of flame and shrapnel . Military strategy and military training were treated as sciences that could be studied and perfected; soldiers were tested in their skills of using weaponry and in their athletic ability. The troops were trained to follow signal standards to advance at

22197-464: Was proclaimed the new Great Khan and in 1271 founded the Yuan dynasty. After two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khan's armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279 after defeating the Southern Song in the Battle of Yamen , and reunited China under the Yuan dynasty. Technology , science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished during the Song era. The Song dynasty was the first in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money and

22348-498: Was rarely consumed since the bull was a valuable draft animal, and dog meat was absent from the diet of the wealthy, although the poor could choose to eat dog meat if necessary (yet it was not part of their regular diet). People also consumed dates , raisins, jujubes , pears, plums, apricots, pear juice, lychee -fruit juice, honey and ginger drinks, spices and seasonings of Sichuan pepper , ginger , soy sauce, vegetable oil, sesame oil, salt, and vinegar. The Song dynasty had one of

22499-565: Was the eighth emperor of the Song dynasty and he was a renowned artist as well as a patron of the art and the catalogue of his collection listed over 6,000 known paintings. A prime example of a highly venerated court painter was Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145) who painted an enormous panoramic painting , Along the River During the Qingming Festival . Emperor Gaozong of Song initiated a massive art project during his reign, known as

22650-512: Was the first known book to have listed formulas for gunpowder; it gave appropriate formulas for use in several different kinds of gunpowder bombs. It also provided detailed descriptions and illustrations of double-piston pump flamethrowers , as well as instructions for the maintenance and repair of the components and equipment used in the device. The visual arts during the Song dynasty were heightened by new developments such as advances in landscape and portrait painting. The gentry elite engaged in

22801-503: Was ultimately a failure due to a rival military officer of Shen disobeying direct orders, and the territory gained from the Western Xia was eventually lost. The Song fought against the Vietnamese kingdom of Đại Việt twice, the first conflict in 981 and later a significant war from 1075 to 1077 over a border dispute and the Song's severing of commercial relations with Đại Việt. After the Vietnamese forces inflicted heavy damages in

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