Every design reading draws on the meanings of the basic strokes, the ways they join and the nine-square layout. These are input axioms of the system, used as fixed look-up values in research and teaching, not outputs awaiting proof.
The meanings of the basic strokes Axiom
| Stroke / component | Meaning in formation |
|---|---|
| Horizontal (一) | The Way, the law; a long stroke a more basic law, a short one a particular, lesser way |
| Vertical (丨) | Cultivation, application, passing through, relation |
| Cross (十) | The world of the ten directions |
| Left-falling | From inside out, from hidden to manifest; appearing (yang) |
| Right-falling | From outside in; hiding (yin) |
| Dot | Looking inward; a point in time and space |
| Rising | Cultivating inward; a class attribute one dimension higher |
| Hook | Saving help from outside, or a cutting force |
| Horizontal-turning | Qualitative change; cultivating according to the law |
| Enclosure 囗 | A closed space-time (the three realms, a universe, a bounded material space) |
| Small mouth 口 | A person, the body as a small universe, the speaking mouth |
How strokes join
The way strokes join carries meaning too: the horizontal-turning-hook, for instance, is the cultivation method made manifest to save people, and forms 力 (strength). The eight basic strokes are understood as abstractions of different parts of a three-dimensional cube: the curves of the seal script answer to the way of heaven (heaven is round; the innate trigrams), the straight lines of the regular script to the way of earth (earth is square; the acquired trigrams), with the clerical script between them, answering to the way of humans.
The nine-square layout
The spatial layout of components and whole characters falls under the nine-square number chart: the odd numbers and the central five form a cross, the even numbers sit at the corners where yin and yang change places. The familiar layouts — top-bottom, left-right, three-tier, enclosed, half-enclosed — are one layer of structure and all reduce to the nine squares: a basic character has the full nine-square structure, a compound takes part of it, most often “radical left + basic character”, “radical right”, “radical on top” or “radical below”.
Yang left, yin right. In a two-mode layout the left is yang and the right yin: left is substance and class, right is function and instance. Hence most phono-semantic characters put the meaning component on the left and the sound component on the right.
Two kinds of layout
The same components in different positions make different characters, because the layout itself carries meaning. Concepts built on yin-yang — mutual generation and dependence — give characters whose yin and yang components cross or join, layered as two modes, four images and eight trigrams. Concepts of membership or of the five phases give just two layers, class and individual, and the components may stand apart: every character with 氵 has to do with water, the radical marking the class and the rest the individual.
囗 and 口
The large enclosure 囗 stands for a closed region (the three realms, a universe, a country), the small 口 for the enclosed small universe of the human body. The book takes 回 as its example: early forms of 回 were open; after Zhuanxu “cut the passage between heaven and earth” the human world became closed, and 回 became a closed small mouth inside a closed large one.
Order of learning
Knowing the strokes, the components can be inferred; knowing the components, the single-unit characters; knowing those, compounds can be taken apart. That is why the curriculum begins with L1, strokes and the two modes.
The world of Chinese
- The New Six Scripts and the Character Rotor: A Cultural Reading of the Design Principles of Chinese Characters
- Chinese 365: Day 13
- Three Secrets Hidden in Chinese Surnames
- Breaking the Seal on Chinese Characters, Part 4: Why Understanding the Origin of Chinese Characters Matters (Continued)
- (Original, First Published) Exploring the Sealed-Away Design Principles of Chinese Characters, Part 3: Understanding the Origin of Chinese Characters Matters (Continued)
- Exploring the Sealed Design Principles of Chinese Characters, Part 2: Understanding the Origin of Chinese Characters Matters