Cāngjié or Cāng Jié (蒼頡, 倉頡, or 仓颉), also known as Chongkit (the Cantonese pronunciation of his name), is a legendary figure in ancient China, claimed to be an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of the Chinese characters. He is not considered to be a historical figure, or at least, not considered to be sole inventor of Chinese characters. The Cangjie method, a Chinese character input method with computer keyboards, is named after him.

Legend

According to the legend, Chinese people used ropes for recording like quipu, and when Cangjie observed how birds and animals could be represented by their footprints, he understood words could be represented by written shapes, and created characters. He was said to have four double-pupil eyes. There are three men said to have double-pupil eyes in the Chinese fable: Emperor Shun, Cāngjié, and Xiàng Yǔ.

The fable of Cāngjié was already popular in the time of the Warring States. It is writtin in Huáinánzǐ (淮南子) that "when Cāngjié created characters, millet fell like rain and ghosts cried in the night. As human intelligence increases, their virtue decreases." Xǔ Shèn wrote in the foreword of Shuōwén Jiězì, the first Chinese character dictionary, that "the first characters Cāngjié created were based on shapes, and are called wén (文); compound characters were created later, and are called zì (字)."

External links

• 仓颉在河南南乐的遗迹考察：造字圣人光耀南乐”之一：仓颉陵原是古遗址
• 系列之二：四目灵光的仓颉
• 系列之三：不废江河万古流
• 图书的起源