古文字 硏究에 있어서 『說文解字』의 가치 - 甲骨文字考釋을 中心으로

The Value of 『Shuowenjiezi(說文解字)』 in the Study of Paleography

『Shuowenjiezi(說文解字)』 is a book written by a man named Hsin during the Han Dynasty in China. This book was made because of the controversy over ancient documents. And it's also the first theoretical book on letters. Due to the restrictions of the times, XuShen(許慎) was forced to use only a fraction of the ancient text material. Many ancient textual materials were discovered after the age of 19. With the development of paleography, many people pointed out the errors in 『Shuowenjiezi(說文解字)』. However, since the Qing Dynasty of China, no scholar has used 『Shuowenjiezi(說文解字)』 to decipher ancient texts. Although 『Shuowenjiezi(說文解字)』 was criticized for its development in excavated documents and paleography, many scholars still use 『Shuowenjiezi(說文解字)』 to decipher ancient texts. So we have to remember, at this moment, that 『Shuowenjiezi(說文解字)』 is the most important key to deciphering ancient texts.

『說文解字』是東漢許愼的著作，是在漢代今古文論證和對古文經的解讀的絕對要求中，最早製作的中國文字學理論書，也是工具書。由於時代的局限，許慎在分析文字的時候所利用的材料，都是從周代到秦漢時期的部分古文字材料。19世紀末以來，發掘出了許多古文字資料，隨著古文字學的發展，古文字學家都指出了『說文解字』中在內的很多錯誤。但從清代早期到現在，無有不利用『說文解字』去考釋古文字的學者。隨着出土文獻的發掘和古文字學的發掘，雖然對『說文解字』提出了很多批評，但至今仍在對古文字進行解讀時，『說文解字』對解讀古文字的過程中提供了很重要的線索。因此，我們應該時刻銘記『說文解字』是考釋古文字的過程中不可缺少的古文字學工具書。