Investigating into the Culture Connotations of the Radical of Yu in the ShuoWenJieZi

Abstract

As the first dictionary analyzing the structures of Chinese characters, explaining the meanings and identifying the pronunciations, the book ShuoWenJieZi (literally means discussing writing and explaining characters) compiled by Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty is of important significance in the Chinese language history as well as social language history. By means of researches on the section headers related to “fish” in the book, the development of both the fishery and fish food culture in the Qin and Han Dynasties can be discussed. Based on the section headers related to “fish” in the book ShuoWenJieZi, this paper analyzes the fishery development in the Qin and Han dynasties and examines the tradition of food culture reflected by the section headers related to “fish” as well as the prosperity and development of fish-eating culture.