Saturday 12 September 2020

palabra jot

Probably at least a semi-legendary figure though charged with an onerous task nonetheless, court historian, secretary and studious bureaucrat Cangjie (ๅ€‰้ ก) was tasked with the job of inventing written language around forty-six centuries ago when the Yellow Emperor expressed his dissatisfaction with the available method of recording information—that is, knots in string.
Though gifted and determined, Cangjie was at a loss until he began to contemplate the tracks and footprints left by animals and humans. Encountering an unfamiliar impress, Cangjie inquired with a hunter what sort of animal could leave such a mark. On learning it was the print of a Pixiu (่ฒ”่ฒ…, the equivalent of a chimera), Cangjie was inspired to create a set of logograms that would become written Chinese. Traditionally depicted with four eyes, it is said that at his eureka moment, the deities and ghosts wailed and wept as the living could be duped no longer thanks to a written record and the heavens rained down millet and grain. This figure is the namesake of the first Chinese language dictionaries and the method for adapting Chinese for Western keyboards.