The New Six Scripts

New Six Scripts = the Two Modes of form and meaning + the Four Images of rationale, form, sound and intent, extended by the Five-Phase method (a dimension of classification) and the trigrams of characters (levels of yin and yang). It does not overturn Xu Shen's six scripts; it explains why they come in that order and how they generate one another.

Strokes and layoutWorked examples

The framework Axiom

The New Six Scripts and Xu Shen's six
Class Subdivision Xu Shen Gist
Two Modes of form and meaning (independent of sound) meaning → form / form → meaning indicative / pictographic The core; mostly single-unit characters with joined strokes; paired characters designed in pairs (up/down, left/right, big/small, open/shut)
Four Images of rationale, form, sound and intent (sound-related) rationale → form / form → sound / sound → intent / intent → rationale compound-ideative / phono-semantic / transfer / loan Born where the two modes cross: meaning divides into rationale and intent, form into shape and sound; the four images generate one another in a cycle
Five-Phase method five radicals: metal, wood, water, fire, earth — A dimension of classification; to be read from cultivation, not from the popular generating-and-overcoming scheme; valid only for certain radicals
Trigrams of characters yin and yang divided again, level by level — Innate meanings divide into true and false, acquired ones into good and evil; strokes, components and tones all divide into yin and yang

The modern “two scripts” theory (soundless vs sound-bearing characters) maps exactly onto the two modes and the four images — one interface between this framework and traditional philology. Phono-semantic characters make up more than 85% of common characters; in the four-image framework the phonetic component also carries intent and rationale rather than merely recording a sound.

The Two Modes

A character's meaning (yin, inner) and form (yang, outer) are not sign and referent but arise from each other like yin and yang: meaning can give rise to form (indicative), form to meaning (pictographic). The two modes are the core of formation and have nothing to do with sound.

The Four Images

The two modes cross to give four images: rationale → form (compound-ideative), form → sound (phono-semantic), sound → intent (transfer), intent → rationale (loan). The rationale — the reason of the character, the principle of the world — is the facet the old triad of sound, form and meaning left out, and the most fundamental one.

The Five-Phase method

The five radicals metal, wood, water, fire and earth mark classes. The popular scheme of generating and overcoming cannot explain the forms; they are read from cultivation: “metal” as the golden body of a Buddha, “water” as the virtue of water, “wood” as the Jianmu world-tree (the ten directions plus yin and yang). The five phases can be seen as the four images with one more dimension.

Trigrams of characters

Yin and yang divide again at every level: innate meanings into true and false, acquired ones into good and evil. Strokes, components and tones all divide again; the eight tones of Tang and Song phonology (yang and yin of level, rising, departing and entering) follow the trigrams.

The character rotor: the key concept Axiom

A character's meaning is itself the rule of its formation. The rule is not outside the character; it is built into the form by definition-through-example, a cyclic, self-embedding and self-propagating mechanism.

Three properties follow. Chinese needs no external, global grammar: the core character set defines the rules of characters, words, sentences and texts itself. As long as the common characters and strokes are handed down, the rules are handed down with them — which is why the script has stayed stable for millennia. And learning can retrace the path of creation backwards: knowing the strokes, one can infer the components; knowing the components, the single-unit characters; knowing those, one can take compounds apart.

The book uses an analogy: alphabetic scripts are like HTML (an external, global grammar), Chinese is like XML (self-defined rules embedded in the text).

Computationally the rotor can be stated as a composition function — whole meaning = f(component meanings, mode of combination) — run bottom-up over the tree stroke → component → character. Stated so, “characters are generated iteratively from components” becomes a measurable proposition. Method

In one sentence

The script takes truthfulness, compassion and forbearance as its deepest rationale, form-meaning mutual arising as its basic relation, the New Six Scripts as its framework, the five phases and trigrams as extensions, the basic strokes and nine-square layout as its graphics, one set of rules for characters, words and sentences, and the rotor for self-propagation.

Key conceptsResearch method

Read on · The discipline

About the disciplineSubject mapStrokes and layoutKey conceptsHistory of the script