A Study of Relationship Between Characters of “虫” Radical From Reptiles to Arthropods in Shuowen Jiezi

Abstract

This qualitative documentary research 1) studies conditions and factors in the use of the Chinese radical 虫 to create animal names in diverse categories; and 2) investigates and explains the semantic relationship between animal names appearing in the Chinese radical 虫, from the meaning of “snake” (the original meaning of “虫”) to the current meaning “insect or worm” based on positivistic zoological criteria and evidence. Results are that 1) animal name creation in the Chinese radical 虫 in the Shuowen Jiezi is significantly influenced by morphology, genetics and evolution; growth; and movement of animals noted by ancient Chinese observers; 2) the Chinese radical 虫 in the Shuowen Jiezi contains most animal names, accounting for 57.89%. Therefore, the number of arthropod names in modern Chinese remains the highest, and the meaning of the word 虫 (chong) eventually changed from “poisonous snake” to “insect or worm”. These findings reflect intellectual crystallization in forming Chinese characters based on Chinese character morphological principles (汉字构形学) and systematic classification of character groups according to semantic class (义类) of the Chinese population over time.