Abstract

HuaXiangXu is a simple and easy to use system for arranging Chinese words. It only requires knowing the order of nine stroke directions to arrange most of the Chinese words into a proper order. The RAW database (References, Artifacts & Words) is able to orderly arrange over 160,000 Chinese words, without overlapping, using HuaXiangXu. In the RAW database the two dimensional structure of Chinese words is converted to a more computer friendly linear format, and with HuaXiangXu, made computer aided word searching a quick and precise task.

The RAW database is composed of three databases. The ‘References’ database holds information on books and publication published in the last two to three hundred years related to Chinese words. Examples are dictionaries and academic publications. These provide information on the form and usage of the Chinese words present today. The ‘Artifacts’ database relates to information on objects passed down from antiquity that have Chinese words on them. These provide information on the age, form and meaning of the Chinese words used in the past. The ‘Words’ database collates the information from these two sources and incorporate the information into the list of Chinese words in the database, information such as pronunciations, stroke sequences, age of the words, Unicode, variant scripts, reference paginations, related word phrases etc. In the course of four thousand years of word development, many Chinese words with similar meaning were created. The RAW database listed over 100,000 such variant forms, and grouped words with similar meaning together in the database to make them useful for future research.

Currently there are two major written word systems, phonographic system and ideographic system. Most western languages use phonographic system, a system that uses phonetic symbols to create their written words, for example Latin alphabets used by Europe and Americas. Thus this system is tightly tied with their own language, and cannot be used by others using a different language. Chinese is unique in that it created an ideographic system over a period of three to four thousand years. Because written words by its structure conveys a meaning, it can be used by communities with different languages or dialects. In fact, for over a long period, Chinese words were used by Korea and Vietnam and even currently by Japan, even when these countries all have very different languages.

To create a universal written word system, the approach has to be an ideographic one. In the internet, there is a form called ‘Emoji’ which uses pictures to present emotions. For example, means frustration. Going from pictures to written words, Chinese has extensive experience. Thus China should start with motivating the surrounding countries who have used Chinese characters in the past to create a completely new ideographic word system based on modern ideas and sensibilities. Hopefully this will lead to a really universal written language used by all.

To lead this campaign off, I here propose five ideowords as follows

三文漢字數據
畫向序排字法
   畫向序
   筆畫序
   動作走向序
   排字法
文字數據
   找字鍵盤
      畫向序找字法
      813 字件
      拼音找字
      粤音找字
      聯合碼找字
      列其他字體
      常用字表
   資料篇
      資訊頁
      異體頁
      字齡頁
      相關詞頁
   搜資料
文物數據
文獻數據
Abstract