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alternative etymologies for the same graph. Thanks to the cumulative efforts of scholars
both premodern and modern, a vast amount of knowledge on historical stages of
both the Chinese language and the script has been built up, but even so, much of that
knowledge is as yet tentative and incomplete, and further work is needed.
The above summary of word-families in Chinese in relation to the script has
been presented in as straightforward a way as possible, but this is a complicated
area involving significant linguistic technicalities and interpretation of material.
Scholars often diverge in their analysis of the phonetic component of graphs, hence
frequently several different interpretations are made. In the analysis of the graphs
in this book, for word-families reliance has been placed on the published work of
established scholars, particularly Tōdō, Mizukami, and Katō.
4 Fluctuation in the Script: Variant Forms
In handwritten texts, even in an alphabetical script with a modest number of different
symbols, some degree of variation in the shape of individual signs is common.
The potential for shape variation naturally increases in the case of a script that uses
hundreds if not thousands of separate symbols or graphs. In Chinese and Japanese
texts, variation in graph shape from the earliest period onwards is often seen. This
situation is normally handled by taking one form of a graph as representative, and
other forms as variants. The earliest major dictionary of Chinese characters compiled
in China, the Shuowen jiezi, sets out over 9,000 characters. Each entry begins
with a character in seal form which served as the standard, but in some cases an
alternative form is noted. Thus, for instance, the Shuowen has 鬽 as the entry heading—and
hence main form—for a word meaning ‘malevolent spirit, demon’, and
notes (the standard form in modern Japanese usage) as an alternative form. This
illustrates the point that the standard form of a graph in one period can change to
be regarded as the variant form in another period. An early example of a dictionary
focused on character shapes, prescribing which ones were to be used in official texts
as opposed to corresponding variants, is Ganlu zishu (Character Dictionary
for Seeking a [Government] Stipend; J.: Kanroku jisho), a work compiled around
the beginning of the eighth century by Yan Yuansun (? – 714 AD). What
is a variant form in one country or jurisdiction can occupy the position of standard
in another. Variant forms are in fact very common in all historical periods, though
possibly less prominent today due to such factors as widespread education, official
script simplification in countries/jurisdictions such as Japan and mainland China,
and the regularizing influence of computerization of text with its relatively limited
support of variant forms. Other examples of variant forms, selected here at random,
are for ‘stop’, and