The Year of the Dragon says that the traditional Chinese character for "dragon" is "dragon". "Shuowen Jie Zi" interprets "dragon" as "the length of the scale insect, which can be dark and bright, can be thin and huge, and can be short and long; The spring equinox ascends to the sky, and the autumn equinox dives into the abyss. From the shape of the meat fly, the sound of the child. "Dragon" is a italized glyph, and its oracle bone glyph is the shape of a beast-headed snake, which is a creature with a mysterious atmosphere, and its main function is to travel clouds and rain. "Erya Wing" said: "The dragon scales are long, and Wang Fuyan has nine similar shapes: the head is like a camel, the horns are like a deer, the eyes are like a rabbit, the ears are like a cow, the neck is like a snake, the belly is like a mirage, the scales are like a fish, the claws are like an eagle, and the palm is like a tiger"....It is generally believed that this image was formed over a long historical period. The earliest dragon-shaped pattern found in China comes from the Chahai site of the Xinglongwa culture 8,000 years ago.
The image of the dragon is considered by the mainstream to be like a snake. The snake is considered one of the totems of the ancient clan tribes. The statement is represented by Mr. Wen Yiduo. Wen Yiduo believes in "Fuxi Kao" that the Fuxi tribe uses snakes as totems. With the conquest, movement and migration of the Fuxi tribe from the Loess Plateau to the Central Plains, the Sichuan Basin, and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, many tribes in the Yellow River Wandering Area, the south, and even remote areas were conquered one by one. The totems of various tribes and clans were gradually absorbed by the Fuxi tribes, and a comprehensive dragon totem was slowly formed. It can be said that the image of the Chinese dragon is the result of the continuous superposition of the totems of various tribes on the snake in the process of conquest and integration of the ancient people. Even today, many parts of our country still call the snake in the zodiac "little dragon".
There is also an opinion that dragons come from celestial phenomena. Mr. Feng Shi took the site of Puyang Xishuipo 6,000 years ago as an example, and elaborated on the origin of the image of "dragon" from the investigation and recording of the starry sky by the ancients. He believes that the Qinglong White Tiger Vermilion Bird Xuanwu is essentially the division and visual description of the 28 nights of the sky by the ancients. The Seven Houses of the East, starting from the Horned Wood Jiao and ending with the Keishui Leopard, are connected to the image of a dragon. This dragon has horns and a head, a throat and a throat, a heart and a body, and a belly and a tail. By observing the "green dragon", the ancients learned the time of day such as the spring equinox and the autumn equinox to guide the practice of agricultural production. Therefore, dragons are closely related to celestial phenomena and time. The so-called "Chenlong" in the zodiac is related to this. "Chen" is the original word for clams, that is, "mirage". In ancient times, people used mirages for farming, so mirages are associated with the "morning" of early farming. This early ploughing time is between seven and nine o'clock. Therefore, "Chen" has become a noun used to keep time. When used as a proper title to denote the fifth place of the earthly branch, Chen belongs to the dragon, so "Chen Long" becomes a word.
Probably since the Shang and Zhou dynasties, dragons have been endowed with special meanings and have been worshiped by people. The oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, the bronzes of the Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period "Zhou Yi" and "Zuo Chuan" and other classics all have vivid descriptions and related records about dragons. There are as many as 14 different forms of dragons in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas". Sima Qian said in "Historical Records: The Five Emperors": "The Yellow Emperor has Tuderui, and the Yellow Dragon has earthworms." By this time at the latest, the dragon had slowly become a symbol of power. Since the Qin and Han dynasties, especially since the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the dragon has gradually become the monopoly symbol of the emperor. For thousands of years, the Chinese have referred to the emperor as the True Dragon Heavenly Son. Wearing a dragon robe and sitting on a dragon chair has become a privilege that only emperors can enjoy, and even formed a series of exclusive words, such as: the emperor is born called "Dragon Birthday", the appearance is called "Dragon Yan", when he is not enthroned, it is called "Dragon Qian", after ascending the throne, it is called "Long Fei", the establishment of the royal industry is called "Long Xing", and the descendants are called "Dragon Species".
In addition, as a special cultural symbol, the dragon can also be seen everywhere in the folk, such as the dragon lantern dance during the Spring Festival, and the dragon boat race during the Dragon Boat Festival. At this time, the dragon was actually a mythological image or folk belief. In fact, both from its inception and in its circulation, the dragon has long been believed to be the god of rain. The sound of the word dragon is also the same as the "rumble" of thunder. "Dragon" has a direct relationship with "Thor's Electric Mother". Whenever there is a drought and little rain, the common people will go to the Dragon King Temple to worship the gods and pray for rain. When the wind and rain are good, people will also worship the dragon king to pray for blessings and good fortunes. Things named after dragons are all over people's daily lives, such as dragon eyes, dragon bones, dragon beard noodles, dragon heads, dragon boats, dragon whisker crisps, ......
There are too many idioms and sayings related to dragons, such as: Longtan Tiger's Den, Dragon Fighting Fish Horror, Dragon Walking Tiger Change, Dragon Heart and Phoenix Liver, Dragon Tower Phoenix Que, Dragon and Phoenix in the People, Hidden Dragon Crouching Tiger, Riding the Dragon Fast Son-in-law, Flying Dragon in the Sky, Climbing the Dragon and Attaching the Phoenix, Coming and Out, Mixed Fish and Dragon, Tiger Standing on the Dragon Pan, Busy Traffic, Ye Gong Good Dragon, Wangzi Jackie Chan, and the Divine Dragon Seeing the Head Without Tail, The Strong Dragon Fighting the Head Snake, The Carp Jumping the Dragon Gate, The Great Flood Flooded the Dragon King Temple and Doesn't Recognize Its Own Family, and so on, and so on. It can be said that "dragon" has always been deeply worshiped and loved by the Chinese.
It is worth mentioning that the Chinese "dragon" and the Western dragon are very different in terms of image and meaning. Generally speaking, the Chinese dragon snake has a four-legged body, and the Western dragon has a large belly and wings; The dragon of China spews water and rain, and the dragon of the West breathes fire and does evil. In the Chinese cultural system, the dragon is an auspicious beast; In Western cultural systems, dragons are evil beasts. Because of these significant differences, some scholars have suggested that the Chinese cultural system should use the Chinese pinyin long to translate the word "dragon" into English to distinguish it from the dragon inherent in English. But at present, this opinion does not seem to have received widespread agreement.
Whether there is such an animal as a dragon or not has been debated endlessly. Judging from the transcript alone, it seems that there are still some. For example, the word "Gong", some people think that it is from the dragon from the Gonggong Yisheng, which is a word that has both shape and sound, which means that the dragon pulls the car or controls the dragon. In addition, the "pig" and "cow" in the words "home" and "prison" are all animals that exist in the real world, so it seems that "pet" should also exist. "Shuowen Jie Zi" believes that "pet, respect and residence", and by extension, "honor and favor". It is indeed reasonable to have a pig as a home, a cow as a prison, and a dragon as a pet. The same goes for "Pang". "Shuo Wen Jie Zi" interprets "Pang" as "high house". Dragons soar all over the world, dragons soar and phoenixes, so a house with a dragon must be a high house, which is also conceivable. These three words tell people that dragons may have really existed.
"Dragon" can be used both as a symbol and as a musical note to participate in the formation of words. The "dragon" in the above three characters is mainly used as a symbol to participate in the construction of words. In addition, the dragon as a symbol also involved in the construction of the following words: two dragons put together to write 龖dá, three dragons put together to write 龘dá, these two words are considered variant words, both indicate the shape of the dragons soaring, or the sound of the dragons, literally the meaning of the dragons soaring, metaphor for the thousands of sails competing for the stream, thousands of horses rushing together to the dragon and the tiger leaping vivid situation. This year, the word "Long Xing Lang" was used in the New Year speech of ** TV station, and as a result, this word became popular all of a sudden. In fact, in addition to the two dragons' 龖 and the three dragons' 龘, the four dragons are also put together ——, one word, which is pronounced as zhé, which is a variant of "讋", which means that the dragon has more to gather together and call. The character with four dragons together is also the character with the largest number of strokes in Chinese characters, more than the biáng on the biángbiáng side.
One dragon is fierce enough, and so many dragons together must be even more terrifying. As the saying goes: when dragons fight in the sky, people on earth suffer. Therefore, the word zhé means "fear" and "horror".
There are many more characters that use dragon as a symbol. For example, from the dragon from the sky will mean "flying dragon in the sky" that is also the meaning of "high", from the dragon from the existing 龓 lóng meaning is "horse halt", from the 霝 from the dragon 龍 is a variant of the spirit, from the dragon from the show 龒 is the variant of the dragon, from the dragon from the dragon from the dragon is the variant of the dragon, from the dragon from the dragon is the variant of gong, from the factory from the dragon of the dragon is the variant of the dragon (pang).
More of the "dragon" in Chinese characters is used as a musical note to participate in the construction of words, that is, as a sound in the shape and sound of the word formation. As we have said before, the phonetic notes of morphophonetic characters often carry implicit semantic information. This implicit semantic information is often related to the original imagery of the word. First of all, as a "dragon" that travels clouds and rains, it is directly related to the "rumble" of thunder. Therefore, there are some words with "dragon" as the sound, which are often related to sounds, such as: throat (the sound of swallowing), deaf (silent), and tong (a tool for tapping to remove chaff). In addition, the words next to the sound of "dragon" may also be related to other imagery characteristics of "dragon", such as: like a dragon slender and long: ridges, ridges like dragons shuttling and staggering: close, cage, oak, long, and long because of the dragon cloth rain moist: long long xing clouds are not clear: 昽, hazy, 眬.
It is worth mentioning that "尨" and the simplified word "dragon" look more similar, so everyone should distinguish clearly. Actually, this "尨" is a word that is understood from the dog from 彡, which means hairy dog. This word has nothing to do with "dragon". Most of the words from "尨" are next to it. The "especially" in "especially" also looks similar to the simplified character "dragon", but this character seems to be easier to distinguish from "dragon", so we will discuss it here.
Finally, a fun thing to do. There are many people with obsessive-compulsive disorder who have been struggling with whether the dragon's claws have four or five fingers. In fact, the ancients have long said that dragons are "clawed like eagles". Therefore, the claws of an eagle have several fingers, and the claws of a dragon should also have several fingers. As for how many fingers the eagle's talons have, you can check them yourself, so I won't be verbose here.
On the occasion of the Year of the Dragon, we wish all our good friends:
Dragon and Tiger Roar, Dragon Xiang Tiger Leap, Dragon Mighty Tiger Shock, Dragon Horse Spirit; The dragon face and phoenix posture, the dragon posture and the phoenix cai, the pen walks the dragon and the snake, and the dragon lifts the clouds; Giving birth to dragons and living tigers, subduing dragons and subduing tigers; The flying dragon rides the clouds, and the fish leaps over the dragon gate; The dragon flies and the phoenix dances, and the dragon and the phoenix are auspicious; The finishing touch, the clouds rise from the dragon;
Congratulations to all my good friends:
Happy New Year, auspicious Year of the Dragon, all the best, longevity and good health!