Chinese myth · 声匠改编 · 4:13
Cangjie Invents Writing
Knotted ropes can't tell what happened. Cangjie watches a hunter read tracks and draws the first characters. That day, millet rains and ghosts weep.
Narrator
Cangjie
The Yellow Emperor
The Young Hunter
The Little GhostsOther languages · 2 languages
About this story
Cangjie Invents Writing is the best-known legend about where Chinese characters came from. The Xunzi (3rd century BC) says many people loved writing but only Cangjie's name was handed down, because he was single-minded; the Huainanzi (2nd century BC) records that when Cangjie made writing, millet rained from the sky and ghosts wept at night; and Xu Shen's dictionary Shuowen Jiezi (around AD 100) says that Cangjie, historian to the Yellow Emperor, saw the tracks of birds and beasts and realised that different marks could stand for different things. This version weaves the muddled knotted ropes, the hunter's footprints, the first picture-characters and the rain of millet into one story.
What it teaches
Writing lets knowledge be kept, sent far away and handed down to people not yet born. Cangjie finds his idea by watching a hunter read tracks, a reminder that paying close attention to small things can solve a big problem.
Suits
Ages 5–12
Tips for telling it
- When the narrator describes sun, moon, mountain and water, draw the old picture-characters on paper and compare them with today's 日, 月, 山 and 水.
- Play the little ghosts for laughs, not scares.
- Afterwards, ask: before writing, how did people remember things? Can you invent a sign of your own?
Questions people ask
- Who invented Chinese writing?
- Legend credits Cangjie, historian to the Yellow Emperor. In fact Chinese characters grew over many centuries through the work of many people; the oldest large body of Chinese writing is the oracle-bone inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty, about 3,200 years ago.
- What does 'millet rained from the sky and ghosts wept at night' mean?
- The phrase comes from the Huainanzi and means that the invention of writing shook heaven and earth. The Eastern Han scholar Gao You explained that Heaven foresaw people leaving their farms for clever pen-work and going hungry, so it rained millet, and the ghosts feared being exposed in writing, so they wept.
- Was Cangjie a real person?
- No one knows. Books from the 3rd century BC already name him as the maker of writing, and later legend gives him four eyes, but scholars agree that writing was built up by many people over a long time. Cangjie may stand for the early record-keepers who gathered and organised the first signs.
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