Source Han Serif NW
digital font family
2021/02
65535 characters
Different from English, Chinese as a logogram with almost 100000 characters (6000 commonly used) has a really small space for creating new words — there are two important parts for the meaning forming mechanism of a Chinese word: the word itself, usually as a composition of two or more characters; and the basic element of each individual significative characters (thus characters can be also used singularly).
Another important fact is, Chinese can be only typed through alphabets in computers, through the pre-formed alphabet-intermedia(Chinese Pinyin, radicals, “Bopomofo”)-Chinese system. This means, as the basic unit of Chinese, a character, significative, is not editable especially through computers. The deep structure of a word, a sentence is always fixed (comparing with phonetic alphabets); words can be formed, but the meaning of it is still defined a priori, ambiguities are thus made. Obviously, fixations are always controlled by the power: only authorities are able to devise, to modify characters and as well as to publish.
In this process, individuals unconsciously confirm the ideology behind current characters by daily using.
The post-colonial problem of Chinese is also significant:
Chinese characters, like ghosts behind the pre-formed system of alphabets, are something we can not touch. In the alphabets determined system of Chinese typing, Chinese characters are confined with 26 alphabets and hide behind the keyboard.
But, inside this most stable and most power-related system, is there a chance for a possible powerful change? In this most determined system, a change can be a crucial strike.
I changed the appearance of an abandoned character “牠”, prounouced the same with “他”“她” , and reserved the original “unicode” (example of pinyin typing: Chinese is typed through the sound of alphabets, and then the typer can choose the character he or she want inside many characters with the same sound, and each Chinese character has its own “unicode” in a font file, thus it can be located and fixed). But different with font designers, I changed the radical of the character, therefore, essentially, the character is the same character in the digital world, can be digitally recognized equally with the former legal character, but it just “looks” to be a new character — thus the new “he” I invited can be used, promoted, recognized (both digital and linguistic) universally.
Display Vedio:
https://files.cargocollective.com/c586859/-2021-02-02--3.27.52.mov
Research about the devising of “子也”
1. About “他” (modern Chinese: he, they; left radical means ‘human’) :
Kangxi Dictionary (an 1716 official dictionary):
“《广韵》托何切《正韵》汤何切，𠀤音拖。与佗它通。彼之称也，此之别也。”
That means it is the signifier of all the third person objects. Actually that is really common in ancient Chinese and classical Chinese, especially novels since Ming Dynasty, which wording is relatively oral than other literary form.
“王顾左右而言他” is a famous sentence (and also saying now) written in classical Chinese, from <Mencius>, around 250-150 B.C, means “The King looked around and mentioned something other”.
2. About “她” (modern Chinese: her; left radical means ‘woman’):
<Jiyun> (precisely,《集韵·上声．马韵》, a 1039 official dictionary ): “姐毑她媎”并列，云：“子野切，《说文》蜀谓母曰姐，淮南谓之社，古作毑，或作她、媎。”
“她” means originally “sister” in Sichuan dialect, but is not aware for most Chinese users now.
In August 9th, 1920, Liu Bannong, an intellectual learning experimental phonetics in the University of London, published an article called “ The Problem of ‘她’ ”, raised the debate of a specific pronoun for women officially. But actually, he had claimed this new usage of ‘她’ in 1917, and one of the most famous figure in the New Culture Movement, Zhou Zuoren mentioned Liu Bannong’s advise in the most important magazine in the New Culture Movement <New Youth>. In that article, one of the most important reason for using “她” as ‘her’ is: There is no any counterpart of “her”(in English) in Chinese, so it is inconvenient to translate English materials into Chinese.
Lu Xun, the most important figure in the New Culture Movement highly complimented his invention (actually, the invention of a new usage, this character was not commonly used, but has existed for a long histroy; Liu Bannong thought that he invented this character, it is a mistake)
The problem is evident: this distinction distinguishes females from human at least literally, the reason of this distinction are basically two: 1. This is an (not successful) attempt to raise female status 2. Due to the convenience of translation.
The other problem is, it should still use “他们” (they) to refer to the third person plural objects with even one male. I think comparing with the change of “她”, of female subjectivity, it is more powerful to change “他”, the seemed strong male subjectivity, in this change, a strong political power towards the authority power fixed in the language will emerged, as well as the continuing of cultural anti-colonial struggle.
3. About “子也”：
its left radical “子”:
The usage of “子” has a long history since oracle bones inscriptions, and it has a long history of its changing of meaning. Even in modern Chinese, it has several different meanings, but the most commonly used one is ‘son'
In classical Chinese, “子” is:
1. The second personal pronoun of both men and women, but mostly male due to the male-dominated literature writing. Like “Confucius”“Mencius”，the“cius” is “子”, but this “子” is meanwhile a historical honorific when added to a family name.
2. Children. But “子” means “son” meanwhile. In the meaning of “children”:“子孙” (descendant, offspring). In the meaning of “son”:“子女” (sons and daughters). Additionally, “好”, the “good” in Chinese is literally “子女”.
In modern Chinese the second meaning and its usages remains almost the same. “子女”, sons and daughters. A remarkable distinction is, “儿子”“女儿” means respectively “son(s)” and “daughter(s)”.
Using “子” to create the new “he/him” is both valid historically and linguistically. Meanwhile, the character “好” offered another structural reason both in the history of Chinese and the practical using of Chinese.
To Download Source Han Serif NW family, please email dynastietang@qq.com.