| The discovery of oracle-bone inscriptions have injected new vitality into the study of Yin and Shang history,the precious and rich records in the inscriptions are a microcosm of Yin and Shang society.These irreplaceable original language materials have become the most direct and powerful way to understand that era,among them,the oracle-bone font provides a unique perspective to show the social features of the Yin and Shang dynasties,the way in which the Yin people construct words contains their understanding of things or concepts,and the changes in the same font also reveal changes in thinking and cognition.Therefore,the font analysis of oracle-bone inscriptions is not only a necessary means to explore the sound and meaning of words,but also an important tool to understand the social situation.For more than 20 years,the font of oraclebone inscriptions has been a crucial first step in the study of oracle-bone inscriptions.The culture of phoenix has a long history,and the writing method of the Feng(凤)in divination shows people’s understanding of phoenix in the Yin and Shang dynasties.By analyzing the Feng characters in oracle bone inscriptions,that is,to classify the crown,body parts and tail shapes,we can provide some clues for exploring the prototype of phoenix in Yin and Shang dynasties.In terms of Feng’s crown,there are four interrelated forms of representation of Feng characters,and the frequency statistics show that there is a possibility of complexity between the four forms.At the same time,the difference in the trajectory of the shape clearly confirmed the difference between the Feng’s crown and the "Xin(辛)" shape in the divination,the crown of the Feng could not be a physical structure existing outside the phoenix shape,but should be a physiological structure possessed by the biological prototype of the phoenix itself.The shape of the body of the Feng is relatively stable,and feathers are its necessary decoration.However,due to the subjective factors in the engraving,the Feng body will omit feathers when writing,and is confused with the shape of “Zhui(隹)”,sometimes a semi-closed square Feng body is made,and sometimes small dots are added around the Feng body.These variants do not affect the use of Feng,but reveal the changes in the understanding of Yin people,the added dots are used to represent raindrops,reflecting people’s observation of the celestial phenomena accompanied by wind and rain at that time.The Feng tail decoration is the most characteristic and is the most marked part of the Feng font.The “Huang(皇)” and the phoenix tail decoration in the inscription have the same shape and evolution trend,it should be a pictograph separated from the tail of the phoenix character,because the imperial feather is larger in shape than other feathers,the "Huang" in the inscription has the meaning of "big".The Feng character tail decoration is not a necessary condition for the formation of Feng character,there are more Feng without tail decoration in the divination,and this difference should be the performance of the Yin people’s observations on the male and female forms of the phoenix.The Feng with a tail ornament may be the original word of "Feng " in later generations,because the " Feng " is pretended to be "Feng(风)" in the inscriptions,the use of the "Huang" sound is restricted by the " Feng(风)" sound.These features on the shape of the phoenix are the prototype of the phoenix in the period of the Yin and Shang dynasties.Therefore,from the perspective of the shape of the font,the Yin people believe that the phoenix is the most likely to be a peacock.From the perspective of configuration,the phoenix characters in the Yin and Shang Dynasties experienced a change from pictograph to phonogram.The appearance of the representation "Fan(凡)" is a key point in the evolution of the Feng character,and is still an important part of "Feng(凤)" and "Feng(风)".In the divination,"Fan" is the pictograph of "Pan(盘)",and the two vertical pens are not of equal length.But whether it is used alone or in a composite form,the "Fan" shape shows two trends when writing,that is,the long vertical is curved and the long vertical is straight,the latter is the inducement that the two vertical forms of "Fan" become equal length and then mix with the "Tong(同)" form.Judging from the examples,there are some cases in divination which use the voice character "Fan" to represent "Feng",but this kind of "Fan" is already the same as "Tong" in form.In addition,"Fan" will turn into "Xu(戌)" in the physical evolution,but there is no Feng character with "Xu" as the representation in the divination. |
