百家姓·英语

The Hundred SurnamesBrief:“Zhao Qian Sun Li, Zhou Wu Zheng Wang; Feng Chen Chu Wei,Jiang Shen Han Yang"most Chinese would be familiar with such 4-word cramboes, even an illiterate person would probably have heard of the it.We all know that the sentence which is mentioned above is come from The Hundred Surnames. The Hundred Surnames is a classic Chinese document composed of common surnames in ancient China. The word hundred in the title is used to mean that there are just a few common surnames in China, and a large percentage of the population have those names. Thu s many old books use the term “hundred surnames” to mean the whole population.Key words:The Hundred Surnames, author, content, feature, sequence, social position.A.Introduction of The Hundred Surnames1. The Author of the BookAccording to the results of the textual research done by academics since the Ming and the Qing Dynasties, Qian Yan [1]in Wuyue district (somewhere in present day Hangzhou of Zhejiang province) edited and compiled it required by the emperor during the tenth century, the early years of the Song Dynasty. He successfully combined the study of family names, philology, sociology and pedagogy into one book, making it one of the most popular books in history.2. The Main Content of the BookIt originally contained 411 surnames, but was later expanded to 504. Of these, 444 are single-character surnames, and 60 are double-character surnames. And the last sentence of the book is “The hundred surnames finished”, which is not part of the list of surnames. [2]3. The Features of the BookThe Hundred Surnames is arranged in a rhyming poem without repetitions. The work was skillfully composed into rhyming couplets of eight characters with each eighth character carefully rhymed so as to roll melodiously off the tongue. It still does, over a millennium later.Furthermore, the last character of every second line rhymes with ang (Pinyin).In a word, The Hundred Surnames are given in a prescribed order and arranged in the form of a poem to facilitate memorization by school children.4. The Sequence Reason of Some WordsThe surnames are in no particular order but there are two exceptions.The first four surnames listed are believed to derive from the most important families at that time. The surname leading the pack is Zhao, which happens to be the surname of the Song dynasty emperors, the ruling dynasty of the time. Qian is come from the king of the Wuyue Kingdom during the era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. During the Song Dynasty, a scholar believed that Sun was the surname of imperial concubines. Li was the surname of the ruler, Li Houzhu, of the Nantang period. All these account for the order of the opening line of the The Hundred Surnames “Zhao Qian Sun Li”. [3]The second exception is that all double-character surnames are grouped near the end of the document.B. Social Position of the Book[4]The Hundred Surnames was one of the earlier surnames books written, and it is an excellent reading material of profound influence. It has a history of a thousand years and has been widely circulated in China since the start of the Northern Song Dynasty in the10th century.1. To that Time:The Hundred Surnames received a warm welcome in the village schools of its time, taking its place next to the long-established “Thousand Character Essay” as a primary character literacy text, soon to be joined by the San Zi Jing or Three Character Classic, another product of the Song, until the early 20th century.2. To Ethic People:The Hundred Surnames not only circulated for generations in the Han Tribe. Translated copies of The Hundred Surnames such as Meng Gu Zi Mu Bai Jia Xing and Nu Zhen Zi Mu Bai Jia Xing also surfaced in minority tribes who were on friendly terms with the Han Tribe.3. To Other Surname Books:In the past, there were several revised versions of the Bai Jia Xing including Huang Zhouxing's (created during the last years of the Ming Dynasty), Yu Zhi Bai Jia Xing (which was written in the name of Emperor Kangxi during the Qing Dynasty), Bai Jia Xing San Bian by Ding Yan during the reign of Emperor Xianfeng (A.D. 1851-1861). These new versions of the Bai Jia Xing required a lot of effort in their layouts and each has its own distinctive features. However, they are still unable to replace the original version The Hundred Surnames, reflecting the extent of the influence of the original.4. To Nowadays: In the one thousand years since the document was produced, there have been many new surnames in use. Recent surveys have identified over ten thousand surnames but the importance of the document has not diminished. Surnames for The Hundred Surnames still account for 90% of all Chinese surnames in use. In fact, the top ten surnames account for 40% of the population.C. AssessmentFrom what I have said above, I learn that The Hundred Surnames really hold an important role in China. Although it was written in song dynasty, it still influences us in some extent. But nowadays, there are more and more people being poisoned by a "junk culture" because a growing number of authors compiled books, most are written in a short time, mainly for going after commercial profit, omitting the books’value and influence. In my opinion, writers should learn from the ancient writers to write valuable books with heart. Due to books are public, authors are responsible to the society. They should improve their writing skill and value standard and provide well-written and well-organized books to the public, helping the masses to form correct value and idea.Bibliography：[1]钱征.《百家姓》著者考,江苏教育学院学报(社会科学版)[J].2009.9[2]中央电视台社教中心.百家姓—由来·趣闻·轶事，中国水利水电出版社[M],北京，2003[3]百家姓按什么排列, 中国工会财会[J].1998.5[4]王大良.姓氏探源与取名艺术（修订版），气象出版社[M]，北京，2001。