This book is the foundation work of scientific philology and bibliographic linguistics of Chinese language and Chinese characters, and plays a very important role in the history of Chinese linguistics.

There are several aspects that can illustrate its importance.

First of all, it was the key to interpreting the Five Classics and explaining every word in the book in a dictionary format.

The second is the font shape. For the purpose of rigorous academic research, Xu Shen tried his best to find the oldest form of each character as much as possible.

These include the "tadpole text" in the Book of Confucius's Biography and the "Zuoshi Zhuan" in the "Spring and Autumn Period"; the Zhuan text in the "Shi Zhuan" of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the regular seal scripts in the "Cangjie Pian", the "Yuanli Pian" and the "Boxue Pian", as well as the "Er Ya" in the Western Han Dynasty, the "Fan Jiang Pian", the "Jijiu", the "Yuan Shang Pian", the "Xunzan Pian", and the "Dialects" of the Eastern Han Dynasty; and inscriptions carved from steles and tripods on the Yi.

This preserved the oldest writing system known at that time for the Chinese civilization.

What is even more valuable is that this book has preserved a large amount of ancient pronunciation materials for us, which is of great value to the study of Chinese pronunciation history, especially the study of ancient pronunciation.

There are two main materials that the Institute of Ancient Music can be based on: the first is the rhyme of pre-Qin literature such as the Book of Songs, and the second is the homophone of "Shuowen".

According to the actual situation of the rhyme of pre-Qin rhyme, the results obtained are relatively reliable, but on the one hand, the results summarized in this way require other materials to be tested. On the other hand, due to the limited rhyme characters in ancient rhyme, it is not enough to determine the ancient rhyme of each Chinese character, the materials of rhyme alone are still not enough.

This requires verification and supplementation using the homophonic system of "Shuowen".

"Shuowen" has more than 7,000 phonographs, and more than 1,000 homophone radicals can be analyzed from them.

Although the pronunciation of characters with the same homophonic radicals was very different in later generations, either the sound had shifts, the rhymes had changed, or the sounds were both lost, but when characters were created in ancient times, the pronunciation was the same.

Therefore, the homophonic sound of "Shuowen" is like the rhyme of pre-Qin rhymes, and also reflects the basic appearance of ancient sounds. Combining the two, the pronunciation of ancient sounds can be roughly restored.

Of course, with the introduction of scientific means, the dialect that Zhou Zhi is currently studying is actually first-hand information.

Zhou Zhi believes that Xu Shen has another very important contribution, that is, his academic attitude and academic thought that deserve to be imitated by researchers of any knowledge.

First of all, it is "learning knowledgeable" and "believe and have strength".

"Shuowen Jiezi" contains everything in the world. Xu Shen's method is to "learn from others and be knowledgeable about small and big, and believe in others and have signs", "".

The theory of Xianzong Cheng has its origin, which is faith;

All things are seen and all are collected, which is a sign.

When translated, it means the argument is accurate, credible, detailed and comprehensive.

The second is "when hearing doubts", "not knowing the concealment".

Xu Shen said that the characters of the text are based on the old text. If there are differences in interpretation in the old text itself and it is possible to distinguish it, it is distinguished; if it cannot be distinguished, it is coexisted; if the old text does not exist or does not know anything, it is better to let it be vacant than to interpret it randomly.

Know what you know, know what you don’t know, and make it unaware, and make controversies together, and leave it to future generations.

This is a very rigorous and scientific compilation ideological system. Xu Shen defined it as "the foundation is established and the Tao is born."

Only by being invincible in theory can one establish its absolute lofty position.

The third is flexibility. Although Xu Shen collected a lot of ancient characters, he finally chose "Xiaozhu" as the word "Gu Zhuan" that can understand "Gu Zhuan" as the object of explanation.

Because the small seal script can uniformly cover all the texts on the Five Classics, Xu Shen first considered the overall needs in this regard, only requiring "understanding the ancients" and not blindly "respecting the ancients".

The achievement was too high, so Yan Zhitui, a writer of Northern Qi, commented on Xu Shen: "Check the six articles and follow the parts so that they will not be mistaken. If you mistake them, you will realize it. I accept it as a book, and I hide it in an orderly manner, and analyze the root cause. Zheng Xuan's annotations often cited it as evidence. If you do not believe in the statement, you will not know what the point is."

Li Wenzhong, a scholar in the Yuan Dynasty, believed that: "Those who are ahead of "Shuowen" cannot be clarified without "Shuowen"; those who are behind "Shuowen" cannot be legitimate without "Shuowen"."

Yao Wentian, a writer in the Qing Dynasty, focused on "Shuowen" from ancient pronunciations: "The ancient pronunciations changed from Jiangzuo to the end, and the only thing that depends on them is the book "Shuowen Jiezi". Its branches and branches are divided into different branches and orderly."

This academic style has been passed down from generation to generation and spread to the Gu family, and the same is true.

I heard Gu Youwen say, "If you read five points of sentences, you can recite most of the paragraphs in "Shuowen"?"

Zhou Zhi nodded: "Six or seven out of ten."

"Okay." Gu Youwen patted his palm with bamboo slices: "Open one, a celebration wish."

"Book, the sacrificial master praises the words. Follow the instructions and follow the people. One said: Follow the Dui Province. The Book of Changes says: 'Dui is the mouth and the witch.'" Zhou Zhi came and opened his mouth.

"Well, emperor, emperor's emperor."

"The emperor is great. From the first, from the first, from the first. The first emperor is the great king of the Three Emperors. It is said to be like the nose, but now it is common to use the first child as the nose."

"Winter, winter in winter."

Zhou Zhi was about to speak, but Gu Youwen raised the bamboo piece: "Go and write it down."

"Shuowen Jiezi" has incomplete information on the memorization of "Shuowen Jiezi" because there are also ancient characters inside.

Zhou Zhi took the paper and pen and wrote two strange characters: "This is Xiaozhang, this is ancient Chinese. Dong, Du Zong, the characters in Xiaozhang are like this. The explanation is: the end of the four hours. From the four hours, from the qi, from the qi. From the qi, from the qi. From the qi, from the qi, from the qi, from the qi, from the qi, from the qi. The second is the ancient Chinese of Dong, from the qi."

"Do you think the statement from Shuowen is correct?"

"The character "Winter" that Xu Shen can get is from bronze inscriptions, but that is not the earliest character "Winter"."

Zhou Zhi said that, drawing another graphic on the paper, like a jump rope hanging on a nail: "This is the first word "Winter" in the oracle bone inscriptions, which means "end, end"."

"The characters "Monday" collected by Xu Shen are still retained in the knot pattern, but in the middle of the rope, a 'day' representing the sun is added to represent the concept of 'winter', which means the end of the day of the year."

"Xu Shen believes that '分', ancient Chinese word end' and 'ancient Chinese word from the sun' are actually correct, but he has not said it completely, that is, '分' comes from the knots tied to the beginning and the end."

"Later, the font evolved, and everyone thought that this would not express the impression of cold winter, so two strings of ice ling were added below the character, which is the origin of the two points below the character "Winter."

"Later, in order to facilitate writing, Xiaozhuan evolved into a winter that replaced the sun with ice, and based on it, it developed into the word "winter" used today."

"Master, am I right?"

"Hahahaha..." Gu Youwen laughed happily and threw the bamboo piece on the table: "We have someone to succeed!"

The godfather was immediately overjoyed: "Elder, thank you Master Zuzu. Master Zuzu has agreed to include you in the wall!"
Chapter completed!