【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.
东亚文明以中国汉字为基础发展而来。在早期人类书写体系中，汉字是唯一一种仍保持原有形态、并沿用至今的文字。故汉字既是研究人类文明的线索之一,也是确定东亚文明特征的关键因素。
汉字起源于中国，随后流传到韩国、日本和越南等东亚各国，在这期间汉字也衍生出了多种变体，在不同维度进行创作和衍生。尽管东亚地区使用着相同的汉字和汉字词，但在字形、字义、词形、词义上各具特色，同样的字形对应各个国家的发音也各有不同。从这个意义上说，对中国汉字和汉字词的研究成为探究汉字文化圈共性和特性的最直接的材料之一。在这个基础上继续发展，如果将其与西方的字母文明进行对比研究，则可以从人类文明史的宏观角度发现东亚汉字文明的独特特征。
由此，本期特别安排专辑，总共收录了七篇与汉字、汉字词在东亚诸国内的变体有关的论文。其中，申雄哲教授根据“邮政”的变体对汉字、汉字词进行研究；曹禎我教授对类别词“本”进行了使用比较分析；郭铉淑教授根据“河豚鱼”的异名进行比较分析；李智瑛教授对东亚各国语言中表人名词的形成机制做了相关研究。另外，全国鸟教授提出了对汉字本质的新认识；沈贤珠教授对汉字认知功能进行了相关研究。这两篇论文可以说是揭示了汉字的另一种未来发展的可能性。此外，李圭甲教授首次对佛教石经“华严经”的修复进行了研究，这项研究成果为我们开启了另一个对比研究的领域——对各国佛教经文的对比研究。（汉文佛教经典作为东亚文明的另一共性，在东亚各国具有悠久的历史。因此这也是一个对比研究的庞大资料库。）
上述七位作者都是韩国庆星大学韩国汉字研究所人文韩国（HK+）汉字文明研究事业团所属的专职或兼职教授。该所的此项科研项目通过汉字和汉字词在东亚诸国的传播、吸纳和变体过程比较进行了实证研究，探究东亚诸国“汉字文明”的文化特征以作最终目标。
本人以本期轮值主编的身份，向编辑部为我特别安排的此项特辑表示深深感谢。并恳望借此机会，将汉字和汉字词的研究加以推动，发展成为一个跨国、跨领域的融合研究，同时将此发展为东亚文明研究的有效方法之一。
Guest Editor
Young-Sam Ha (河永三)
Director of Humanities Korea Plus, CSCCK
Kyungsung University
【Keywords】
【About the Author】
