Were there punctuation marks in ancient China? The history of punctuation?

The history of China without punctuation in ancient times—

1February 2, 920, the Ministry of Education of Beiyang Government issued the No.53 instruction-"Use New Punctuation Symbols in General Orders", and approved the "Please Issue New Punctuation Symbols" jointly proposed by six professors in Peking University. The birth of the first set of legal new punctuation marks in China has become a record in the history of language and culture development.

19 19 In April, six professors headed by Hu Shi, such as Qian,,, Zhou Zuoren and Ma Yuzao, were extremely reluctant to read "all kinds of newspapers, books and articles, which were so dense that they not only ignored the grammatical differences, but also lost the meaning of appreciation". At the first meeting of the preparatory meeting of the national unified language, they put forward a "plan" and asked the government to issue a pass. ; :? ! -() ""Equipunctuation. 165438+1At the end of October, Hu Shi revised the above scheme and named the symbols listed in the original scheme as "new punctuation marks", which was approved this year.

In ancient times, jokes were often made because of punctuation.

Punctuation marks seem small, but they play a very important role in written communication. Now the ancestors of punctuation we use are in Europe. Although the concept of punctuation appeared in China before the Han Dynasty, such as "distinguishing classics", that is, writing a word or two between two sentences, or marking the end of a sentence with vertical lines and short horizontal lines, it was not widely used, and jokes of one kind or another often appeared.

Did everything wrong? The foreign reserve said lower left? "Shuo Er" recorded such a story: Ai Gong asked Confucius, "I have heard of it. Do you believe it? " Yue: "Hey, people, why is it enough?" There is no difference between them, just by sound. Yao said, one is enough. Make it interesting. So the gentleman said,' Only one foot, no foot. "Yes, Lu Aigong was surprised to hear that Wei Xiao had one foot, so he asked Confucius. Confucius told him that Wei Xiao was a music official who was well versed in temperament and made great contributions to the world music education in the Yao period. After Shun succeeded to the throne, he wanted to find someone else to be a music officer. Yao advised Shun that one person like Wei Xiao was enough. It happened that Lu Aigong read ancient books and didn't know how to read sentences. He understood Wei Xiao as a monster with one foot, and it was inevitable that he would make a joke when he became a monarch.

In the Han dynasty, "sentence reading" was used as a pause sign, which is similar to our sentence breaking today. There are two symbols: "↓" and "and". For example, Shuo Wen Jie Zi explains that "↓" means "knowing, living in the moon and cutting", and "knowing only is the master of cutting". In other words, all the places that can be stopped at the end of the text are marked with "↓", and all the places that can be read in the text are marked with ",",which is today's period and comma.

In the Song Dynasty, the hook became a circle with the shape of "○", which was divided into three types: large, medium and small. Zhu used a big "○" before each chapter and "○" after each sentence when he annotated Four Books and Chapters. During this period, paragraph numbers appeared, which were indicated by "∨" or "∧", painted in the lower right corner of the last word of each paragraph, and even appeared. " . . . . . ""... "This dense circle is added to the right of the word to emphasize the wonderful part of the sentence. This usage remained in use until the 1920s. The "_ _ _ _ _ _" next to a person's name or place name appeared in the Ming Dynasty at the latest. However, it is worth noting that punctuation marks in ancient times are mostly used to indicate pauses, and there is not much difference in meaning. Books without punctuation marks account for the vast majority.

Students from Wentong Museum introduce new punctuation marks.

After the Opium War, new ideas were introduced, and western punctuation marks followed. The first person who introduced punctuation marks from abroad was Zhang Deyi, a student of Wentong Museum in the late Qing Dynasty. Wentong Pavilion was established by the Qing government to train foreign language talents in the Westernization Movement. Zhang Deyi is one of the first students in the English class.

In February of the seventh year of Tongzhi (1868), the retired ambassador to China Pu led the "China Mission" to visit Europe and America and became a member of the delegation. Zhang Deyi has a habit, that is, no matter which country you go to, you like to record the local scenery, famous things, local conditions and customs, and compile a booklet in the name of "telling anecdotes". During the period of 1868- 1869, he finished "Talking Strange Words". This book is now called Travels in Europe and America, and there is a passage introducing western punctuation. It says, "Thailand's western books are boring to read, summarizing sentences." If this sentence is meaningful enough, remember it. ; If not satisfied, remember; Although the meaning is insufficient, the meaning is bonded with the previous sentence and recorded; ; If the meaning is not enough, add another sentence outside, and then remember: If you are amazed, remember! ; Remember the question? ; Quote the classics and write ""before and after the sentence. In the sentence (); "Before adding a note at the junction of these two paragraphs, add a horizontal line, like-"

Although Zhang Deyi unconsciously introduced punctuation marks to domestic intellectuals, he even had a tone of opposition, thinking that these punctuation marks were cumbersome. However, in the process of inadvertently planting willows, it has brought a new wind to the development of China language symbols.

Hu Shi's new punctuation is that qi Zhang is too inflammatory.

Before and after the New Culture Movement, the intelligentsia made a comprehensive reflection on China's language and writing. At the same time, the demand for new punctuation marks comes at the right time. 19 16 In August, Hu adapted to the invitation of Science magazine and wrote the article Sentence Reading and Writing Symbols, which comprehensively expounded his theoretical thinking on sentence reading and writing symbols and became the cornerstone of New Punctuation.

Science magazine was founded in the summer of 19 14 by Zhao Yuanren, a foreign student who is far away from Cornell University in the United States (who later became one of the four tutors of Tsinghua University, with the same fame as Wang Guowei, Chen Yinque and Liang Qichao) and Yang Xingfo with the concept of "saving the country through science". As the second batch of G class students, Hu Shi arrived at Cornell University in the United States at the end of 19 10, became good friends with science promoters, and often published his own compositions, including one on sentence reading and character symbols. In fact, before this, in 19 14, Hu Shi created a set of "sentence reading symbols" he used in his diary: "single straight"? ",double brackets" (()) ",abstract number"-"and so on. On this basis, the article on sentence reading and character symbols has been added and rewritten.

19 18 The Outline of China's Philosophy written by Hu Shi used this new set of punctuation marks. After the publication, he specially sent a book to Zhang Taiyan (a master of Chinese studies), which read "Mr. Taiyan refers to fallacies", signed "Hu Shijing gave" and added a black bar symbol next to their names. However, punctuation was not a legal thing at that time. After reading it, Zhang Taiyan didn't understand why Hu Shi painted this symbol. When he saw a black bar next to his name, he was very angry and couldn't help cursing: "Hu Shi is nothing! How dare you scribble in my name! " Seeing a black bar next to Hu's name, I felt that it should not be embarrassing, and my anger was half gone. It seems that there are still many twists and turns in the application of new punctuation.

After science, New Youth became an important place to publicize new symbols. Qian, Chen Duxiu, Liu Bannong, Lu Xun and other literary celebrities have made great contributions to the spread of new symbols.

(Excerpted from The Book of Light)

There are punctuation marks.