幽玄之谜：商周时期表达青色的字汇及其意义

The Mystery Surrounding the Words 幽 (you) and 玄 (xuan):Color Terms and their Meanings in the Shang and Zhou Period

先秦时期已有白、黑、■、黄、幽五种基本颜色的结构性概念,其中"■"表示血红色,"幽"则表示青色。将"幽"理解为"黝",应是汉代以来的颜色观念。殷商祭礼中,牺牲的颜色受到特别关注,具有神秘的象征意义。"幽"色在殷商时期的语言中,可以涵盖天之苍蓝与草叶碧绿等色。在形象上,"幽"为高山之景,故其字形始终从山,这也影响了"幽"的字义向昊天不明、黝冥的方向转化。从文字发展脉络看,"玄"与"幽"原为同一字;两者字义直到周代才开始出现分歧,"玄"被用以指称昊天的颜色,"幽"的表意范围被缩限为草木的青色。在周礼中,"幽"或许意味东方木青之色;然而此一"木青"的含义,在从"生"的"青"字被创造出来后即被取代。

Structural concepts for the five basic colors (white,black,blood red,yellow and blue) existed as early as the pre-Qin period.Blood red was indicated by the word (xing) and blue by the word 幽 (you).The interpretation of you as dark-colored should be traced to color concepts from the Han dynasty onwards.In the sacrificial rites of the Shang dynasty,sacrificial colors received special attention and had a mysterious symbolic significance.In the language of the Shang dynasty,the color you referred to both blue,the color of the sky,and green,the color of grass and leaves.In terms of image,the character for you represented a landscape of high mountains;the fact that it contained the radical 山 (shan) was a factor in its change of meaning to 'dark' and 'gloomy.' In terms of etymology,玄 (xuan) and you were originally the same word.It was not until the Zhou dynasty that the two began to have different meanings,with xuan being used to refer to the color of the sky and you being confined to the green of grass and trees.In Rites of Zhou,you might mean the color of green,but with the appearance of the Chinese word 青 (qing),this meaning of you disappeared.