Exploring World's First Dictionary in Luohe
你知道中国最早的字典是哪一部吗？
Click on the video above
Xu Shen was a famous philologist in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD) who compiled the world's first dictionary Shuo Wen Jie Zi or Analytical Dictionary of Chinese Characters, thus enjoying a reputation of the Sage of Chinese Characters. Today, let's go to the hometown of Xu Shen to explore his stories.
许慎是我国东汉时期著名的文字学家，编撰了世界上第一部字典《说文解字》，被后世尊为“字圣”。今天让我们一起走进许慎的家乡，聆听他的故事。
Hello, everyone! Now, we're at the Xu Shen Cultural Park in Luohe city of Central China's Henan province – the hometown of Xu Shen and the birthplace of Shuo Wen Jie Zi.
大家好！我现在所处的位置是位于河南省漯河市的许慎文化园，漯河是许慎的家乡和《说文解字》的诞生地。
Xu Shen's compilation of Shuo Wen Jie Zi conformed to the trend of society at that time. The Eastern Han Dynasty was a period of fierce debate between the ancient and the modern classics (the former refers to the classics written in ancient characters before the Han Dynasty, while the latter to those written in new characters after the founding of the Han Dynasty). To enhance the ancient classics' influence and refute the false claims in the new classics caused by the misunderstanding of the ancient characters, Xu Shen determined to make the structure, pronunciation and meaning of the ancient characters clear. Based on his study of the ancient characters, Xu Shen started compiling Shuo Wen Jie Zi. About 30 years later, the compilation of Shuo Wen Jie Zi was completed, becoming the world's first dictionary.
可以说许慎编撰《说文解字》是顺应时代的需要。东汉时期，正是我国古文经和今文经争论激烈的时代。为了提高古文经的地位，驳斥今文经学家篡改经义的说法，许慎立志要弄懂古文字的结构、读音及其意义。许慎在研究古文字的基础上开始撰写《说文解字》，后经反复校对，耗时30余年，终于撰就了被誉为“世界上第一部字典”的经典著作。
Shuo Wen Jie Zi is not only China's first dictionary compiled by the radicals of Chinese characters, but also records many Chinese character variants, thus providing lots of key materials for studying Chinese characters.
《说文解字》开启了汉字按部首编排的汉字字典编排方法，收录了汉字形体的多种写法，为研究汉字提供了宝贵的古文字资料。