江永「女書」文字之源始

Origin of Nushu Characters in Jiangyong

文字是記錄語言的工具，欲了解「女書」文學作品的內容，探求文字的來源及其結構、用字的方式，便成了基本的工作。歷來探究「女書」文字的來源，諸家說法莫衷一是，關於創製者的說法，因無傳世文獻的記載，而據當地的傳說，亦眾說紛紜。本文從「女書」文字創製的傳說、起源，及其構形的現象，加以觀察、辨析，並佐以清代以來的文獻，以為「女書」文字的創製，蓋為當地的某個人所為，或集合眾人的智慧而產生；此外，從文字的構形言，它一方面取材於漢字的形體而略加改易，一方面又自創字形，應為文獻所載江永一帶瑤族所見的「蚊形字」，創製的時間，最遲在康熙四十三年之前，其年代的下限可能在明末清初。

Since characters are used to record a language, the purpose of this study is to comprehend the content of Nushu(Female Scripts) and explore its origin, structure and characters. There have been many arguments regarding the origin of Nushu characters, in addition to the local people’s different versions of legends, as no ancient literature described it. This study reaches the conclusion that the creation of Nushu characters is the work of someone or some people in the place of origin based on the legends of creation of these characters, observations and analyses on the conformation of these characters and relevant literature since the Qing Dynasty. From the point of view of the conformation of these characters, these characters originated from a variant of form of Chinese characters, but also contain self-created patterns. These characters in self-created patterns are ''mosquito-shaped characters” of the Yao Nationality in Jiangyong that has been recorded in some literature. As for the time of creation of these characters, this study has determined that is was no later than the 43rd Year of the Kangxi Period(1704) and may have started as early as the late period of the Ming Dynasty or early period of the Qing Dynasty.