{"title":"A research on an intelligent recognition tool for bronze inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasties","authors":"Rui Guo","doi":"10.1177/2513850220967756","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850220967756","url":null,"abstract":"The intelligent recognition tool for bronze inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasties—the “Shang Zhou Bronze Inscriptions Intelligent Mirror”—was successfully invented in Shanghai. This mirror, based on the computer technology of artificial intelligence (AI) image recognition and image retrieval, succeeds in automagical recognition of bronze inscriptions, both single letters and full texts. This research leads the trend of the AI recognition of Ancient Chinese characters and accumulates valuable experience for the development of inter-disciplinary research on Chinese character recognition. This essay emphasizes the importance of the bronze inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasty database in the AI recognition of bronze inscriptions, introduces the functional components of this tool, and shares the whole research process in order to offer experience for the related research on AI recognition of other types of Ancient Chinese characters as well as ideographs in the world scope. “Shang Zhou Bronze Inscriptions Intelligent Mirror” as a tool for bronze inscription recognition also has room for improvement and support, and guidance from experts in similar areas is greatly welcomed.","PeriodicalId":36639,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Writing Systems","volume":"102 1","pages":"271 - 279"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89571653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Artificial intelligence and innovation in the research of ancient Chinese scripts","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/2513850220980317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850220980317","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36639,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Writing Systems","volume":"149 1","pages":"253 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80748418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Analyzing graphic structure of phono-semantic characters: A Vietnamese method of teaching and learning Chinese characters","authors":"Trọng-Dương Trần","doi":"10.1177/2513850221945392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850221945392","url":null,"abstract":"From the perspective of graphological structure, this article examines Vietnamese methods of teaching and learning Chinese characters by analyzing their phonetic and semantic elements. The selected sample for the survey is taken from characters collected from Thiều Chửu’s Dictionary of Chinese Script with Sino-Vietnamese Reading—the most useful dictionary in Vietnam in nearly 100 years. The resulting statistics reveal that, out of the 14,950 characters in this dictionary, there are 931 phonetic elements in which 455 are strong ones, producing 10–20 phono-semantic characters. This article argues that analyzing the relationship between the characters and their phonetic elements read in Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation is a good method for Vietnamese people to teach and learn Chinese characters. The method of learning Chinese characters has been applied in teaching Chinese characters for more than 1000 monks and nuns at the Vietnam Buddhist Academy in Hanoi. The experimental results show that students were able to improve their vocabulary very quickly, and could apply this to learning and teaching Chinese characters.","PeriodicalId":36639,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Writing Systems","volume":"5 1","pages":"135 - 143"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78016510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What regions of Chinese characters are crucial for recognition? A web-based study","authors":"Qi Zhang, R. Reilly","doi":"10.1177/2513850220950020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850220950020","url":null,"abstract":"The study involves approximately 250 Chinese university students from eight institutions to determine what parts of a representative sample of Chinese characters are crucial to their correct identification. A web-based experimental platform was used to present 102 simplified characters to participants. The characters were partially obscured using a Gaussian blurring technique. The direction of maximum blur could either be from top to bottom, bottom to top, left to right, or right to left. Participants were asked to identify the blurred character and type its pinyin. Overall, participants correctly identified 88% of characters. The effects of all forms of blurring on correct recognition were correlated with character structures. Phonetic radicals seem to be more sensitive to the blurring than semantic radicals, while the radical transparency and radical frequency also play a role in the recognition accuracy. The blurring conditions that impacted most significantly on correct recognition were top to bottom and bottom to top, which caused, respectively, the upper and lower parts of the character to be obscured.","PeriodicalId":36639,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Writing Systems","volume":"50 1","pages":"297 - 311"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86769226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Continuance and innovation: A study of Chinese character variants in late modern Vietnam’s village customs texts","authors":"Phương Chi Đào","doi":"10.1177/2513850220936775","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850220936775","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the reception and creation of Chinese character variants in Vietnam within a small scale of eight hand-written village customs texts in Bắc Ninh province dating from 1889 to 1915. The article focuses on the four following main issues: (a) the continuance and innovation rate of variants in Vietnam; (b) the method of innovation of variant characters; (c) the behavior of the writers regarding variant characters; (d) supplementing 71 unrecorded variants to dictionaries of variant characters and previous studies.","PeriodicalId":36639,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Writing Systems","volume":"51 1","pages":"227 - 243"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90816833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chinese character variants in Vietnam: A case study of characters in The Complete Secrets for Buddhist Monks in Practice of Precious Rites","authors":"Khắc Mạnh Trịnh","doi":"10.1177/2513850220937817","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850220937817","url":null,"abstract":"Based on the approaches of graphology and positivism, the paper enumerates and analyses the Chinese character variants in the book titled The Complete Secrets for Buddhist Monks in Practice of Precious Rites 釋氏寶鼎行持秘旨全章, compiled by Zen Master Huyền Quang (1254–1334). Thus, the paper focuses on analysing 56 Chinese character variants found in the book and comes to the conclusion that the number of Chinese character variants created in Vietnam is double the number of those imported from China.","PeriodicalId":36639,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Writing Systems","volume":"39 1 1","pages":"215 - 225"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75862705","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Optical character recognition and the smart ancient script database","authors":"Zhi-Ji Liu","doi":"10.1177/2513850220967758","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850220967758","url":null,"abstract":"The initial success of optical character recognition (OCR) for ancient scripts has opened the floodgates for ‘smart’ ancient script research. ‘Smart’ ancient script research requires the support of a smart ancient script database. \u2028In order to compile the big data necessary for this smart research, smart ancient script database software must be able to recognize all aspects and all levels of all ancient script materials. Therefore, in addition to the integration of OCR functionality into this software, the other primary imperative moving forward is to innovate a new digitized ancient script data system, one that includes full-scale supplementation to include all available materials, as well as newly inputted image data. This data must include variant graphic forms, variant written forms, handwriting, graphic components, calligraphic styles, and other of the inexhaustible different variations in script construction. This database must contain a multi-level framework with an annotated arrangement of the fullest range of meanings for words within linguistic context. It must also contain a digitally integrated multiple-path indexed arrangement of the important paleographical interpretations in the field. Our strategy for the construction of this smart ancient script database is to push forward with both algorithm writing and data input work simultaneously and in mutual support, following an open-sourced community supported model, making this project an exercise in interdisciplinary collaboration within the paleography community.","PeriodicalId":36639,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Writing Systems","volume":"15 1","pages":"255 - 269"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74982272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sino-Vietnamese initials reflected in the phonetic components of 15th-century Nôm characters","authors":"Masaaki Shimizu","doi":"10.1177/2513850220936774","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850220936774","url":null,"abstract":"The Chữ Nôm (CN) characters contained in the Sino-Vietnamese (SV) version of the apocryphal scripture Phật Thuyết Đại Báo Phu ̣Mẫu Ân Trọng Kinh 佛説大報父母恩重經 are quite unique in that they show obvious evidence of the ancient sesqui-syllabicity of the Vietnamese language. This study aims to point out their utility in the study of Vietnamese and SV history and to conduct a tentative reconstruction of 15th-century SV initials through comparisons of the CN readings and the SV readings of their phonetic components.","PeriodicalId":36639,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Writing Systems","volume":"25 1","pages":"183 - 195"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81532202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Chinese script, Confucian script, and Nôm script: Some reflections on writing and politics in monarchical Vietnam","authors":"Tuan Nguyen, Anh-Chưởng Bùi","doi":"10.1177/2513850220952175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850220952175","url":null,"abstract":"“Confucian script” 儒字 (chữ Nho) has become a unique name used to refer to the “Chinese script” 漢字 (chữ Hán) in Vietnamese. The integration between Chinese script and Confucianism had progressed through monarchical centuries, motivated by Vietnam’s political tradition. Supported by rulers of the country, Chinese script overwhelmed the difference of languages, became the official writing system, and therefore held great influence on important activities of government such as administration, diplomacy, education, and employment. By looking carefully at how Vietnamese monarchs managed to manipulate the Chinese script, Nôm script, and Confucianism to serve their political purposes, we stress that it was Confucianism that served as the link tying the Chinese script with Vietnamese rulers. This link was so strong that the Chinese script remained the dominant form of writing even with the invention of the “Nôm script” 喃字 (chữ Nôm), which was a vernacular system developed to write the Vietnamese language. Furthermore, because Confucianism itself was the spiritual core of the Chinese monarchical structure, Vietnamese rulers learned from the Chinese model by way of the Chinese script when building their own independent state. Confucianism was viewed as the core of Chinese culture.","PeriodicalId":36639,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Writing Systems","volume":"40 1","pages":"146 - 160"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77714898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Tày and Zhuang vernacular scripts: Preliminary comparisons","authors":"D. Holm","doi":"10.1177/2513850220940044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850220940044","url":null,"abstract":"The author has conducted a survey of the vernacular character scripts of the Tai-speaking ethnic groups of southern China, including the Zhuang, Bouyei, Nong and Sha. The survey analysed traditional texts from 45 different locations, including four texts from northern Vietnam. The results of that survey were published in Mapping the Old Zhuang Character Script (Holm 2013). In recent years the author has extended the coverage of this survey further into northern Vietnam, looking specifically at traditional texts in the vernacular character scripts of the Tày and Nùng peoples, who speak Tai-Kadai languages closely related to Zhuang. The present article will compare the vernacular scripts of the Zhuang and Tày, and point out how they may be related. The survey data allow us to quantify degrees of commonality and difference, and generate hypotheses on the relative dates of the Zhuang and Tày scripts. Our preliminary finding is that the Tày script is a script of mixed origins, with a layer of older readings dating back to the Middle Chinese period (Sui-Tang), as well as a more recent layer dating from around the 17th century.","PeriodicalId":36639,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Writing Systems","volume":"83 1","pages":"197 - 213"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83441940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}