秦「書同文字」新探

New Assessment of the Qin "Unification of Script"

陳昭容(Chao-Jung Chen)

《中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊》 68本3分 (1997/09) Pp. 589-641

摘要

「書同文」是歷史評價秦始皇時的重要指標之一，但爭議甚多，或大事稱揚秦始皇在文字統一上的貢獻，或認爲這是一次徹底失敗的錯誤政策，意見呈現兩極的差異。本文先檢討文厭相關資料，並對近代學者的研究作學史回顧，文中著重以秦統一天下前一百年（約戰國晚期）與統一後一百年（西漢早期）之間的具體文字材料爲基礎，前後對照，發現大量戰國東土區域性異體字在西漢早期基本上消失，存留的異體字屈指可數，出現次數也少，「正字形」取得極佳的成績；大量例證顯示秦漢初的通假以聲音（音同音近）爲約制，並不以秦文通假的用字習慣爲準則，「正用字」收效蓋微。秦始皇「書同文字」是以廢除戰國東土文字中結構與秦式寫法相異的區域性異體字爲主，秦官方正式的文書以篆爲主，實際運用較廣的是隸書，秦統一文字，並不限於篆或隸，「罷其不與秦文合者」才是其實質意義，且秦統一文字的工作是隨著秦武力及政治努力的擴張逐步實施，非於秦王政二＋六年統一天下時才開始。

關鍵字

書同文字 ； 統一文字 ； 秦文字 ； 秦始皇 ； 漢字史

並列摘要

The ”unification of script” is one of the important indicators used in historical evaluations of the First Emperor of the Qin, though this is a highly contested issue. Some praise the First Emperor’s contribution to the unification of the Chinese writing system, while others consider Qin reforms to have been an improper policy and a complete failure. Scholarly assessments tend to manifest one of these two extreme views.
This article first examines the relevant data and primary documents and then provides a retrospective assessment of modem scholarly research on this topic. The article focuses on the hundred years prior to the Qin consolidation of the empire (late Warring States period) as well as the hundred years after political unification (the early Western Han Dynasty). taking the concrete written texts from this period as my foundation and comparing them back and forth with each other. l have discovered that in the script of eastern China from the Warring States period, a large quantity of regional graphs different from their counterparts in Qin script disappeared during the early years of the Western Han Dynasty.
The number of these regional graphs still in existence in the early Han is extremely small, and the frequency of appearance is also limited. This suggests that the written form of the unified Qin script obtained extremely good results. A large body of evidence shows that Qin and early Han graph interchangeability was constrained by phonetics (i.e., the closeness of graph sounds) and not as a consequence of adhering to Qin principles for interchangeability in customary usage. Thus, the effectiveness of Qin's unified loan characters was probably rather limited.
The First Emperor's script unification was based primarily on the elimination in Warring States eastern China script of those regionally-specific graphs whose structure was different from the written forms in Qin script. The standard Qin official script was primarily the seal script, but the form that was actually more widely employed was the clerical script. The Qin unification of script did not limit written language to either the seal script or the clerical script. Rather, the actual meaning of this unification should be found in the ”elimination of that which did not conform.” Furthermore, the work of the Qin unification project was carried out in conjunction with the gradual expansion of the military and political influence of the Qin. It did not begin with the consolidation of the empire by the Qin King in the 26th year of his reign.