Editor’s Word

Abstract

The civilization of East Asia has grown based on Chinese characters. Among the earliest writing systems invented by mankind, Chinese character is the only one still in use in the 21st century retaining its original appearance. For this reason, Chinese characters themselves are objects in the study of human civilization, whose trajectory of development will play a decisive role in identifying the characteristics of East Asian civilization. They originated in China and expanded to neighboring East Asian nations such as Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with numerous variations and new characters added over time. Even though the same characters and vocabulary have been used in East Asia, they have different pronunciations by country and differences in meaning. Changes in form are also observed. The comparative, diachronic, and synchronic studies of Chinese characters, vocabulary, and their variations accumulate cross-cultural resources, including their differences and similarities, and identify the creative forms of Chinese characters across countries. Furthermore, it is possible to identify the peculiar characteristics of the Hanja Civilization in East Asia in comparison with the Western alphabetic writing systems. This issue contains seven papers on the variations of Chinese characters and vocabulary in Korea and East Asian nations: Prof. Woong-chul Shin’s study of vocabulary related to “postal systems”; Prof. Jeong-a Jo’s research on the usage of the classifier “Ben (本)”; Prof. Hyun-suk Kwak’s analysis of “Pufferfish (鰒)” and related words; and Prof. Ji-Young Lee’s research on the mechanism for forming nouns. All of them are cross-cultural studies of Chinese characters from a comparative perspective. In addition, Prof. Guk-jo Jeon’s paper “A New Perspective on Hanja: Based upon the Multidialectical Analysis of the Four Ways of Writing (四體)” and Prof. Hyoun-Joo Shim’s “A Study of Cognitive Function of Chinese Characters Based on Semiotics of Writing” are new attempts to view new perspectives in the pursuit of future possibilities of Chinese characters. Moreover, Prof. Kyoo-kap Lee’s study on the restoration of The Stone Avatamsaka Sutra (華嚴石經), the first Buddhist stone script in East Asia, will enable the comparison of Buddhist scriptures, another foundation of East Asian civilization, in East Asia. The seven authors in this issue are full-time or adjunct professors from the Humanities Korea Plus (HK+) Hanja Civilization Research Project Group, Center for the Study of Chinese characters at Kyungsung University (CSCCK), Korea. I would like to express my special gratitude to the editorial committee for providing a special issue to publish these research articles. I hope that this project will develop beyond Korea as an international study, and beyond East Asia as part of world civilization research.