Xu Shen

Xu Shen was an Eastern Han scholar who compiled the Shuowen Jiezi, the earliest known Chinese dictionary to analyze characters through radicals and explain their forms.

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Shuowen Jiezi: A Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen that explains character forms, meanings, and pronunciations. This is Xu Shen’s defining work and the source of his lasting scholarly influence.
Duan Yucai: A Qing dynasty philologist known for his influential commentary on the Shuowen Jiezi. His annotations became one of the most influential guides to Xu Shen’s dictionary.
Eastern Han dynasty: The later period of the Han dynasty in China, lasting from 25 to 220 CE. Xu Shen lived and worked during this dynasty’s scholarly and political culture.
Oracle bone inscriptions: Texts carved on animal bones and turtle shells, chiefly used for divination in Shang China. They preserve early character forms unavailable to Xu Shen and sometimes contradict his historical analyses.
Chinese characters: The logographic writing system used to write Chinese and several other languages. Xu Shen analyzed the forms and meanings of these characters.
Shuowen Jiezi Zhu: Duan Yucai’s detailed Qing dynasty commentary on the Shuowen Jiezi. It examines Xu Shen’s definitions and readings character by character.
Five Classics: A canon of five ancient Chinese texts central to Confucian learning. Xu Shen’s scholarship arose within the classical textual tradition these works defined.
Bronze script: Chinese writing inscribed on bronze vessels, especially during the Shang and Zhou dynasties. These inscriptions provide earlier forms against which Xu Shen’s seal-script explanations can be compared.
Chinese radicals: Recurring graphic components used to classify and look up Chinese characters. Xu Shen organized the Shuowen Jiezi around 540 radicals.
Guangyun: An 11th-century rime dictionary that organizes Chinese characters by pronunciation and rhyme. It preserves a complementary tradition of character reference beyond Xu Shen’s form-centered dictionary.