Four-corner method: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:13, 21 December 2018

Revision as of 10:33, 26 June 2019

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==Origin==

The Four-Corner Method was invented in the 1920s by [[Wang Yunwu]] (王雲五), the editor in chief at Commercial Press Ltd., China. Its development was based mainly on contributions by the Russian orientalist scholar [[Otto Rosenberg]] in the 20th century,<ref>Karenina Kollmar-Paulenz (ed.). "Otto Ottonovich Rosenberg and his Contribution to Buddhology in Russia," Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde. Heft 41, 1998.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://wason.library.cornell.edu/iaol/Vol.44/barlow_3.pdf |title=The Mysterious Case of the Brilliant Young Russian Orientalist... |author=John Barlow |accessdate=2007-04-12 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609113225/http://wason.library.cornell.edu/iaol/Vol.44/barlow_3.pdf |archivedate=2007-06-09 |deadurl=yes |df= }}</ref> as well as experiments by [[Lin Yutang]] and others.{{Citation needed|date=April 2007}} Its original purpose was to aid telegraphers in looking up [[Chinese telegraph code]] (CST) numbers in use at that time from long lists of characters. This was mentioned by Wang Yunwu in an introductory pamphlet called "Sijiaohaoma Jianzifa" in 1926. Introductory essays for this pamphlet were written by [[Cai Yuanpei]] and [[Hu ShiShih]].

==How it works==

The four digits used to encode each character are chosen according to the "shape" of the four corners of each character. In order, these corners are upper left, upper right, lower left and lower right. The shapes can be memorized using a Chinese poem that Hu ShiShih composed, called ''Bihuahaoma Ge'', as a "memory key" to the system:

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In the 1950s, [[lexicographer]]s in the [[People's Republic of China]] changed the poem somewhat in order to avoid association with Hu ShiShih, although the contents remain generally unchanged. For various reasons, his name was "unmentionable" at the time the new version was composed. The 1950s version is as follows:

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