Liding

Liding traditionally lacks a strictly-defined code of practice. While general definitions are given, Chinese palaeographers tends not to elaborate on methodological details.[3][6]

Sometimes, to specify how strictly the transcriptions adhere to the original graphs, the terms broad liding (Chinese: 寬式隸定; pinyin: kuānshì lìdìng) and narrow (strict) liding (Chinese: 嚴式隸定; pinyin: yánshì lìdìng) are used, although their exact meanings are left largely unclarified.[6] Chinese scholar Li Shoukui proposes the distinction between liding by strokes and liding by components:

• Liding by strokes is the strictest form of liding, converting the character to regular style while aiming to preserve every individual stroke in the graph, save that some stylistic details may be ignored. In practice, this method is used sparingly,often to preserve idiosyncrasies in certain graphs, or to transcribe unidentifiable characters. Even in the case of the latter, direct tracing is preferred over liding in order to avoid erroneous conversions.[3]
• In liding by components, the structure is preserved per component instead of stroke. More alternations are allowed, such as removing redundant strokes or completing ellipted parts. Liding by components is the main liding method, as it displays the composition of the graph in the most accessible manner.[3]

The following table provides some examples of liding. In the "Possible liding" column, the graphs in each box are shown in increasing order of broadness. As is evidenced, the liding to one graph is often not unique. The ones provided in the table are not in any way exhaustive.

Historical form in question	Possible liding	Interpretation	Character explanation with modern Mandarin pronunciation	Comment
		朕	zhèn “I”	The forms in question are in Shuowen seal script. The shape, 灷, became 关 after libian. The characters with the component may be either broadly identified as 关 (prioritizing the display of component correspondence) or narrowly as 灷 (prioritizing the recording of graphic structure) as needed. The majority of 辵 as a radical turned into ⻌, so it may be clerically identified by components as such.[7] The liding form of 朕 provided in this table gives the information that the left radical of 朕 used to be 舟 instead of 月.[8][9]
		送	sòng "to see someone off"[9]
[10]	[3]	賢[11]	xián "virtuous"	The form in question is excerpted from Guodian Chu slips. It was equivalent to 臤, but the function of the filled block in the top right corner is unclear.[3] In the narrower liding form in the list, it is transcribed as 口. Where this uncommon feature is of any importance, it can be necessary to transcribe the graph narrowly like such, whereas it may be ignored in other contexts where it is insignificant.
[12]		得	dé "to obtain"	Also from Guodian Chu slips. The liding form by components shows that the graph consisted of 目 and 又, therefore making clear the structure of the original graph to modern readers. The graph was a variant of the form (⿱貝又), the latter of which was the predecessor of 得 dé "to obtain".[13]
[14]		得	dé "to obtain"	From the inscriptions on Da Ke ding. The graph was another variant of that, as the liding-by-component form suggests, consisted of 貝 and 手. Compared with , one can see that two structurally distinct characters may be clerically identified distinctly from each other, although their interpretations might be the same.

Despite the lack of a rigorous definition, liding is generally considered distinct from the other two methods of transcription:

• The direct tracing (Chinese: 摹寫; pinyin: móxiě) of the graph.[2] Tracing, as its name suggests, is the practice of tracing the original graph with minimal or no alterations. This is done when the transcriber is unable to rewrite the graph in question as a clerical form (for instance, when the graph is purely pictorial, or when the transcriber cannot give a plausible interpretation of the structure of the graph).

• The interpretative transcription[2] or interpretation (Chinese: 釋文; pinyin: shìwén; lit. 'explanatory text')[15] of the graph. While liding preserves structure to some degree, interpretation only seeks to preserve meaning and completely disregards form. It substitutes the character in question with the corresponding character that is prevailing today to aid the understanding of the material. For example, in Cao Mei Zhi Chen (Chinese: 曹沬之陳; pinyin: Cáo Mèi zhī Chén; lit. 'Cao Mei went to Chen') slip, one of the Shanghai Museum bamboo slips, Li Ling transcribed the name (⿰告攵 ⿰禾蔑, if clerically identified by components) directly as 曹沬, as it was the currently prevailing writing of the name.[3]

However, it is worth noting that interpretative transcription is sometimes seen as a kind of broad liding.[3]

While liding refers to the transcription of archaic scripts in modern style, libian (Chinese: 隸變; pinyin: lìbiàn; lit. 'clerical change') is the natural evolution from ancient scripts to clerical scripts. As the graphs often underwent drastic structural changes in the process of libian, the liding of a character could be considerably different from the same character after libian. Taking 年 ("year; harvest") as an example:

Original and Liding forms of

	In oracle-bone script	In small seal script	In clerical script	In regular script
Route of evolution				年
The liding forms	秂[16]	秊
Comment	The graph in oracle-bone script illustrated a person (, regular counterpart 人) carrying grain (, regular counterpart 禾) on the back, which reflected its original meaning, "harvest".[16] The liding form, 秂, aims to reflect this, keeping the relative positions of the components unchanged, but changing the components to their regular counterparts. In small seal script, a dot or stroke was added to the middle of the "person" component. As a result, the bottom component was no longer 人, but instead coincides in shape with ("thousand", regular counterpart 千). This change is reflected in the corresponding liding form, 秊, where 人 is swapped out for 千.[16] During libian, the structure of the character was drastically altered. The original components were rendered unrecognizable in the process. 年, the actual regular form in use today, is immensely different from the liding forms shown above.

As a means of transcription, liding is an important part of the study of historical texts. It unearths structural information of the graph that was obscured by the archaic handwriting style, making it more accessible for modern uses. Additionally, the process of liding involves identifying the clerical counterparts of the various components of a character form, and thus in itself presents an analysis of the composition of the character in question. In research publications, liding is extensively used.[3]

Liding is also used for digitizing historical scripts. A number of historical text databases[17][18][19][20] with transcription provide liding versions of transcription.

Chinese dictionaries have, as a traditional practice, utilized the liding forms to record ancient variants in dictionaries. The Song dynasty saw the rise of epigraphy (Chinese: 金石學; pinyin: jīnshí xué; lit. 'the study of bronze and stone'); as a result, a number of character dictionaries and rime dictionaries at the time, including Leipian and Jiyun, preserved archaic variants in regular script. After Song, with the waning of traditional Chinese epigraphy, though the practice survived, lexicographers mostly took the archaic forms directly from earlier dictionaries like Yupian, Leipian, and Jiyun.[21]

For example, the image shown is the entry of the character 禱 excerpted from the Song version of Yupian.[22] As can be seen, a clerically identified zhouwen (Chinese: 籀文; pinyin: Zhòu wén; lit. 'the script of Shizhou'; a type of seal script from late-Western Zhou as recorded in the dictionary Shizhoupian) of 禱 is included.

The text in the image is read from top to bottom, right to left (the zhouwen liding graph is denoted by △ below):

禱。丁老切。請也，謝也，求福也。△。籀文。

("禱, 丁老 qie, which is to request; to thank; to pray for happiness. △ is the zhouwen.")

Entry form	Zhouwen as per Shuowen Jiezi	Zhouwen liding	Comment
禱	[23]		dǎo "to pray"