“懿”及“壹”的来源试析

On originality of an allophone yi

自《说文解字》对"懿"及"壹"作出解释以来,大多数学者都认为"懿"字所从为"壹",并且"壹"为"壶"之省。但据目前所见古文字材料,"懿"字最早见于西周早期金文,而"壹"则最早见于战国,并为秦国专用,故古文字"懿"字形所从并非"壹",而且壹字形也不是"壶"之省形。"懿"字字形由从"欠"而发展为从"恣"声,是一个变形音化的过程。推测"懿"字最初字形"亞欠"为"噎"本字,后假借表"懿德"之"懿"。

Since the explanation of an allophone yi in his Word Power Made Easy by Xu Shen, most scholars believe that the meaning and symbols of the character have undergone a change. But through the analysis of the ancient Chinese writing materials, the character ＂shaped 懿＂ is used in the Western Zhou dynasty, but the character ＂shaped ：壹＂ in the Warring States Period. And it is only used by the state of Qin. We speculate that the initial meaning of the character ＂懿＂ is ＂choke＂ , after a period, it was borrowed to express the meaning of ＂virtuous＂.