A Story of Chinese Character

Nearly all languages had a legend about how the character appeared. Such as Greece alphabetic letters brought by the Phoenician prince Cadmus who could not fulfil the order of his father to carry his sister Europa home, because she was seized by Zeus, so he stayed in Europe. The Phoenician letter came from a carpenter named Card Moose. And the ancient Egyptians believed that writing system was invented by the god Thoth.

The inventor of Chinese character was 仓吉CangJi. He was an officer of 黄帝 Yellow Emperor (around 2600 BC.) the first ruler of China. His job was recording history. In Chinese term 史官was ‘history officer’. The legend said that he had four eyes and each eye had two pupils. http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BB%93%E9%A2%89

This imagination came from that ancient Chinese believed if someone had more eyes and ears he would smarter than other. The word ‘smart’ translate into Chinese is 聪明, it means good auditory and vision.

The legend said, when he was inventing the characters, 天雨粟, it is raining cereal, and夜鬼哭, the ghost crying in the night. The writer wanted to send the message as: when the civilization realized people could know the weather and seasons by record, so more and more bumper harvest producing more cereal. Besides, the ghost and devil knowing that once human being writing down the legal safeguards, they have no room to be evildoer, so they cry.