Friends who’d love to learn Chinese in China must be quite interested about the use of the Chinese abaci, the exact date of the origin of the abaci are still unknown, and it is for certain that their usages must date back from a long time ago.
In the documentation the Remnant Records of the Mathematical Techniques which was written by the mathematicians of the East Han Dynasty, there is a saying describing the uses and functions of the early Chinese abaci. There are books illustrating the use of the abacus during the Han Dynasty, readers who’d love to study Chinese in China must be quite interested about them.
Well, in the documentations on the use of abacus during the Zhou Dynasty, which are going to be shared with readers who’d love to study Mandarin in China, it stated that the counting tray are separated in three decks, each had more than five beads with the upper one in different color with the other four ones below, and the upper one in differentiated color are used to show five, and the four below to represent one, however, the usages of the upper deck which are all used to show five are the similar to that of today.
Readers who’d love to study Mandarin in China may come to see that the Chinese people’s first using of the abaci was during the Han Dynasty. The Chinese abaci, known as the “suàn pán”, having more than seven rods, with two beads on each rod in the upper deck and five beads each in the bottom, which are used for both decimal and hexadecimal computation.
Then readers who’d love to learn Chinese in China may be quite interested about the appearance of the name of the abacus “suàn pán”, well, the first written document about the abacus was on the Jingxiu’s Collected Works written by Liuyin of the Yuan Dynasty (1249-1293).
A verse in the Selected Yuanqu had also mentioned about the abacus to be shared with readers who’d love to study Chinese in China, which reads, “Since I am available right now, I am going to show my age with the abacus”. The Mathematical Enlightenments written by Zhu Shijie in 1299 had taken down relevant Jiugui Division method; the book Jiǔ zhāng xiáng zhù bǐ lèi suàn fǎ dà quán had detailed information on the usages of the abacus on clustering algorithms.
What’s interesting for readers who’d love to study Mandarin in China to discover is the appearance of the Chinese abaci in the masterpiece Riverside Scene at Tomb-sweeping Festival, which clearly indicates the prevalence of the abaci during the North Song Dynasty.
Readers who’d love to learn Chinese in China must be quite curious about the origin of Chinese abacus, the Chinese abaci were evolved from the ancient rod calculus, the rod calculus was a mathematical method with the bamboo tallies as calculating tools, after the renovations of the rod calculus during the Tang Dynasty, there were formulas put into verses on the rod calculus.
The first book exclusively illustrating the techniques on the manufacturing of abacus to be introduced to readers who’d love to study Chinese in China appeared during the mid-fifteenth century, and due to the popularity of the abaci, the treatises on the abacus had also emerged, the earliest widely-spread one was The Genealogies of Arithmetic which was composed by Cheng Dawei during the1593.
Due to the conveniences and the easy memorization of the abacus calculation formula, the Chinese abaci have had been pretty well-received in China, it is noteworthy for readers who’d love to study Mandarin in China that the using of the abacus had also been introduced to other countries such as Japan, Korea, India, America, Southeast Asia as well as many other regions around the world.
It must be made clear to readers who’d love to learn Chinese in China that the invention of the abacus could be regarded as a great innovation of the calculating machines in the human history.
It can be approved by those who’d love to study Chinese in China that the abaci are still playing its particular and constructive role in such a modernized and advanced era when the electronic calculators are so prevalent. Unlike the electronic calculators which are used by the merchants, traders and clerks, the simple counting tray abacus are still widely used in elementary schools in China.
It is also important for readers who’d love to study Mandarin in China that the Chinese abaci have had been developed to do very efficient techniques such as the addition, subtraction multiplication, division, square root, cubit root operations, etc, there are still many Chinese schools teaching the usages of it which are proved to be more beneficial to the development of students reasoning skills and calculation techniques than the electronic calculators do.