英文本《汉字》的序言
冯志伟 詹宏伟
我们应外语教学与研究出版社之约，用英文写成《Chinese Characters》一书，即将出版。这里我们把本书序言的英文和中文转载如下，供大家参考。
Preface
Writing script constitutes an important portion of culture and it is the cultural treasure which is invaluable. Written symbols are considered to be the carriers of culture, to be the crystals of human wisdom, to be the genes of human civilization, to be a pearl-like artifact illuminating the progression of human beings. In this sense, writing script is highly noteworthy.
Nowadays, Chinese culture and its carriers are increasingly appealing to international scholars and friends, who are eager to have an overall and in-depth understanding of Chinese characters. In teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages, current and future learners of Chinese language also show their interest in learning Chinese characters. This book, written in English, presents to them the basics about the development and structure of Chinese characters, in the hope of facilitating their learning of Chinese characters and Chinese culture, which in turn promoting international communication and dialogue.
The book consists of ten chapters.
Chapter 1 explores the origin of Chinese characters, introducing neolithic signs as embryonic forms of Chinese characters and ancient pottery signs as the precursor of Chinese characters, differentiating between linguistic and non-linguistic symbols.
Chapter 2 sketches the forms of Chinese characters along the history of evolution, including oracle scripts, bronze scripts, great seal scripts, small seal scripts, clerk scripts, cursive hand scripts, regular scripts, and running hand scripts.
Chapters 3-8 are devoted to the “Liu Shu” principles (six logographic principles), one principle for each chapter. The compositional motivation of characters are explained and illustrated with sample characters. For the majority of the samples, we provide the form variation of oracle scripts, bronze scripts, and small seal scripts. For some characters, there is no final conclusion about the particular forms, the relevant forms are left out.
Chapter 3 explains the pictographs denote human body, animals, plant, dresses and implements, astronomical and geographical phenomena.
Chapter 4 explains indicative characters, by dividing them into two categories: indicative characters as the pure symbols and those composed by pictograph plus symbol
Chapter 5 analyzes ideographs, distinction is made according to whether their compositional elements are identical or different.
Chapter 6 presents signific-phonetic Characters, their internal structures are presented in terms of the following categories: left signific and right phonetic element, left phonetic and right signific element, top signific and bottom phonetic element, top phonetic and bottom signific element, outside signific and inside phonetic element, outside phonetic and inside signific element, cornered signific element, cornered phonetic element. We further explore the horizontal expansion and vertical expansion of signific-phonetic characters, to demonstrate the systematic nature of signific-phonetic characters.
Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 present mutually defining characters and phonetic loan characters respectively with examples.
Chapter 9 presents the components of Chinese characters, analyzes construction types of compound-element characters, including the basic and complex construction types. We adopt the computational linguistic approach and draw tree graphs to analyze the compositional configuration of compound-element characters, according to the number of components, including three-components, four-components, five-components, six-components, seven-components, eight-components, and nine-components.
Chapter 10 present strokes of Chinese characters, classifies the strokes of Chinese characters, explains the rules of writing order of Chinese characters, including the order of components in Chinese characters and the order of strokes in the component.
In the process of preparing the book, we strive to observe the following four principles (WWWA):
1. Well-illustrated with figures and graphs. A great number of pictures and figures are employed to show the ancient forms of Chinese characters, tree graphs to show the internal structure and organizing mechanism of Chinese characters, so as to make the book more vivid, interesting and readable.
2. Well-supported with examples. In order to avoid subjective speculations and assumptions, Chinese characters are analyzed by a large quantity of examples, so as to increase the degree of objectivity.
3. Well-organized. The chapters in the first half of the book is devoted to the evolution of Chinese characters, with the second half to the structural and compositional patterns of Chinese characters. The contents unfold from remote to proximate, the transition and connection between the chapters being natural and logical.
4. Academically rigorous. This book is solidly based on the findings of previous research. Arbitrary interpretation is avoided for the motivation of Chinese characters. When faced with a controversial issue, our stance is not biased toward any argument, precluding any hasty conclusion. In this sense, this book appears to be more scientific.
The above-mentioned four features are the aims at which we took with efforts. It's up to you readers to judge how far we go and where we are on the way to the goal.
Jan. 1st, 2016
《汉字》序言
文字是人类文化的宝贵财富，是人类文化的重要载体，是人类文化发展过程中创造出来的光辉灿烂的明珠，是人类智慧的结晶，是人类文化的基因，值得我们高度关注。
目前，越来越多的外国学者和友人对于中华文化和它的载体产生了浓厚的兴趣，希望更全面、更进一步地了解汉字，在汉语的国际教育中，正在学习汉语和将要学习汉语的学生们也希望了解汉字。本书用英文介绍汉字的发展与结构的基本知识，希望有助于他们通过英文来了解汉字，进而全面地了解中华文化，推动国际间的交流和对话。
本书共10章。
第1章讲述汉字的起源，介绍了汉字的萌芽形式（新石器时代的刻符）和汉字的雏形（陶器刻符），说明了非语言符号和文字符号之间的差别。
第2章讲述汉字形体的演变，分别介绍了甲骨文、金文、大篆、小篆、隶书、草书、楷书、行书的性质和特点。
第3，4，5，6，7，8章分别讲述汉字的六书，除了论述六书的理论之外，还列举一些有代表性的汉字，就它们的构形原理进行了分析。对于大多数的汉字例子，都给出了它们的甲骨文、金文和小篆的字形；不过，对于学术界尚未定论的某些字形，为慎重起见，只好暂付阙如。
第3章讲述象形字，解释了一些表示人体、动物、植物、衣饰、器具、天文地理现象的象形字。
第4章讲述指示字，分析了由图形加符号构成的指示字以及由纯符号构成的指示字。
第5章讲述会意字，分析了由相同成分构成的会意字，也分析了由不同成分构成的会意字。
第6章讲述形声字，分别从左形右声、右形左声、上形下声、下形上声、外形内声、内形外声、形在一角、声在一角等8个方面，对形声字的结构进行了分析，并研究了形声字的纵向扩张和横向扩展，指出了形声字的系统性。
第7章讲述转注字，给出了若干转注字的例子。
第8章讲述假借字，给出了若干假借字的例子。
第9章讲述汉字的部件，分析了合体字的基本结构类型和复杂结构类型，并使用计算语言学中的树形图分析法，举例分析了由3个、4个、5个、6个、7个、8个、9个部件构成的一些合体字，给出了这些合体字的树形图结构。
第10章讲述汉字的笔画，分析了汉字的笔画类型，分别给出了汉字部件的书写顺序规则和汉字笔画的书写顺序规则。
在写作本书时，我们对自己提出了4项要求：
1. 图文并茂：本书使用大量的古代汉字图形、现代汉字图形和它们的组成成分图形来揭示汉字的组成方式和结构机理，使得全书生动有趣，从而增强本书的可读性。
2. 实例丰富：本书使用大量的实例来分析汉字，尽量避免主观的猜测和臆断，从而增强本书的客观性。
3. 结构清晰：本书前半部分讲汉字的演变历程，后半部分讲汉字的结构规律，由远及近，前后相依，从而增强本书的逻辑性。
4. 学术严谨：本书尊重学术界的研究成果，对于汉字构形的理据，不妄加随意的解释，对于有争议的问题，不轻信一家之言，不忙做仓促结论，从而增强本书的科学性。
我们水平有限，虽然已经尽了自己的努力，希望能达到这4项要求，然而是否真正实现了我们的意愿，还请读者批评指正。
2016-01-01
