Comparision About The Position Word "Up,Down" In Jpanese And Chinese Proverbs

Language is a tool for thinking, and learning a language is helpful to learn the thinking methods of a nation. Between those languages, the proverb is one of cultural heritages left by the ancients, and it reflects the lifestyle, thinking method, language format, and many other contents for the people of that country. In the Edo period, there have been some proverbs in Japanese which comes from Chinese Poetry or the allusions. This situation happens because of the frequently increased communication of language between China and Japan, and the continuous development for the spread of Chinese. Based on the current domestic and international studies for the comparative of proverbs, Japanese and Chinese share similar customs and culture, and some Japanese proverbs are similar to Chinese, while the other Japanese proverbs have their own specific forms and meanings. The orientation recognition is the start point of the original human thinking, and it is the base for the learning of other concepts or things, besides, it is the most important element of human existence. In the development process of human knowledge, the first perception comes from its own movement and the environment surrounded with it, and this forms a series concept of spaces such as "up and down, left and right, front and back and so on", and those words is used to represent space, location and corresponding position. In our daily lives, the word "up" and "down" is widely used. However, because the using method is very simple, researcher’s attentions have never been paid on them. In addition, Japanese also have many proverbs come from the Western countries and its own country. So what are the similarities and differences between Japanese Proverbs and the proverbs comes from other countries? This paper explains this question by comparing the detailed area of proverb "up" and "down" from Chinese and Japan. This Japanese proverbs in this article come from the most authoritative Dictionary 『俗信故事ことわざ大辞典』(1982) This article choose some proverbs which contains "up","down", analyzing and comparing them from four areas:pronunciation, grammar, semantics and source.The differences between Chinese and Japanese "up, down" is from their origin. The words come from Chinese and spread to Japan. Before that, Japan has its own kana. Kana is a kind of phonogram. As the cultural communication between China and Japan, China words spread into Japan. Japanese added Japanese-style pronounce to these words. That why Chinese words in Japanese have more pronounce than its origin in China. Chinese have six method to create new word, self-explanatory characters, pictographs, pictophonetic characters, associative compounds, mutually explanatory characters and phonetic loan characters. The words "up, down" discussed in this paper is created in self-explanatory, to use symbols as words. The origin firm of "up" in inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells contains two arcs, shorter arc over the longer one, reflecting the meaning "on the ground". In bronze inscriptions, the under arc becomes a line. In another kind of ancient Chinese words Xiaozhuan, it developed more like it looks today. So the original meaning of the word "up" is to give the orientation, as the opposite of word "down". Through the developing of culture, the meaning of "up, down" has varied. They are now used to modify other things like caste, time, order or quality.I hope this article can make contribution to the study of "up, down". I also hope it draws others’ attention to this field so that people can understand Chinese and Japanese grammar better.