China: Empire of Living Symbols [平装]

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This book presents a fascinating and stunningly beautiful introduction to Chinese language and culture.The origins of Chinese ideographs were not known until 1899 when a scholar went to an apothecary for some medicine made of "dragon bone". To his surprise the bone, which had not yet been ground into powder, contained a number of carved inscriptions. Thus began the discovery of the 3000 year old sources of the written characters still in use in China today.In this unparalleled and beautiful book, Cecilia Lindqvist tells the fascinating story of these origins, and shows how their shapes and concepts permeate Chinese thought, architecture, art and culture. Illustrations in two-colour throughout, and a four-colour insert, make vivid each stage of the story, and the beauty of the characters themselves.

From Publishers Weekly
Many of the 50,000 Chinese characters in use today can be traced back to ancient, inscribed oracle bones and bronzes. Drawing on archeological finds of recent decades, Lindqvist, a Swedish scholar who studied Chinese writing in Beijing, tells the fascinating stories behind the meaning and evolution of scores of Chinese characters. She notes that the original character for "hand" may well have been a picture of a hand with five fingers; neolithic jars were prototypes for the character for "wine"; the character for "speak or word" has a basic meaning, "large flute." Other characters relate to everyday life (houses, carts, clothes) or to the countryside, plants and animals. A testament to the continuity of Chinese culture, this beautiful book is illustrated with ancient inscriptions, 18th-century woodcuts and photographs of contemporary life demonstrating how ideogrammatic images recur as archetypes through the centuries.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"Guardian" 7/5/08
"An evocative, compelling celebration of language as a carrier of culture."

"Toronto Globe & Mail" 7/5/08
"[A] delightful cultural and linguistic history."


Review