Shuowen Jiezi
Shuowen Jiezi (Chinese: 說文解字; literally: "Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters"), often shortened to Shuowen, was an early 2nd-century Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the Erya predates it), it was still the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them (sometimes also the etymology of the words represented by them), as well as the first to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components, called radicals (bùshǒu 部首, lit. "section headers").
Circumstances of compilation
Xu Shen, a Han Dynasty scholar of the Five Classics, compiled the Shuowen Jiezi. He finished editing it in 100, but due to an unfavorable imperial attitude towards scholarship, he waited until 121 before having his son Xǔ Chōng present it to Emperor An of Han along with a memorial.
In analyzing the structure of characters and defining the words represented by them, Xu Shen strove to disambiguate the meaning of the pre-Han Classics, so as to render their usage by government unquestioned and bring about order, and in the process also deeply imbued his organization and analyses with his philosophy on characters and the universe. According to Boltz (1993:430), Xu's compilation of the Shuowen "cannot be held to have arisen from a purely linguistic or lexicographical drive." His motives were more pragmatic and political. During the Han era, the prevalent theory of language was Confucianist Rectification of Names, the belief that using the correct names for things was essential for proper government. The postface (xù 敘) to the Shuowen Jiezi (tr. Thern 1966:17) explains: "Now the written language is the foundation of classical learning, the source of kingly government." Compare how the postface describes the legendary invention of writing for governmental rather than for communicative purposes:
Shuowen Jiezi (television program)
Shuowen Jiezi (simplified Chinese: 说文解字; traditional Chinese: 說文解字; pinyin: Shuōwén Jiězì) is the title of an educational television series broadcast daily on China's Sun TV channel and presented by Zhuang Jing (庄婧). The title is taken from the ancient Chinese etymological dictionary Shuowen Jiezi, and each episode briefly explains a Chinese character.
For scheduling purposes the series is also given an English title, Hanzi Tracing, but this is not a translation of the Chinese title. There is no English in the programs themselves.
Broadcast times
The program is 5 minutes in length and a new episode is broadcast each day. The day's episode is repeated up to 4 times during the next 24 hours. As of December 2010, the usual broadcast times were 04:07, 11:18, 16:53 and 19:55UTC+08:00 (= 03:18, 08:53, 11:55 and 20:07 UTC) but these do vary.
A selection of some of the previous episodes is also available to view on the program's Web archive.
Opening and closing lines
