| Caption 2 | The strokes numbered: where there are multiple numbers in an area, the strokes overlap briefly and continue from the previous number to the next. |
|---|---|
| Caption 3 | The strokes together and separated: sequence numbers, and stroke directions (red) |
| Showflag | c |
|---|---|
| C | 永字八法 |
| P | Yǒngzì Bā Fǎ |
| W | Yung3tzu4 Pa1 Fa3 |
| J | Wing5zi6 Baat3 Faat3 |
| H | Yúnsṳ̀ Pat Fap |
| Tl | Íngjī Pat Huat |
| Qn | Vĩnh tự bát pháp |
| Chuhan | 永字八法 |
| Kanji | 永字八法 |
| Kana | えいじはっぽう |
| Romaji | Eiji happō |
| Hangul | 영자팔법 |
| Hanja | 永字八法 |
| Rr | Yeongjapalbeop |
The Eight Principles of Yong are used by calligraphers to practice how to write the eight most common strokes in regular script, using the fact that they are all present in the character . It was believed that the frequent practice of these principles as such when beginning one's study could ensure beauty in the Chinese calligrapher's writing.
The Eight Principles are influenced by the Eastern Jin-era Seven Powers () by Lady Wei Shuo. Publications on the principles include:
- The Tang-era Praise to the Eight Principles of "Yong" () by Liu Zongyuan[1]
- The Tang-era Praise to the Eight Principles of "Yong" () by Yan Zhenqing[2]
- The Yuan-era Eight Ways to Explain "Yong" () by Li Puguang,[3] which provides two-character metaphorical names
Table
| Principle[4] | Pinyin abbr. | Name | Additional description | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tang-era[1][2] | Li[3] | Modern Chinese | Vietnamese | |||||
| 1 | D | chấm | Tiny dash, speck | |||||
| 2 | H | sổ ngang | Rightward | |||||
| 3 | S |
| sổ dọc | Downward | ||||
| 4 | G | móc | Appended to others, suddenly going down, or left only | |||||
| 5 | T |
| hất | Flick up and rightwards | ||||
| 6 | W | cong | Tapering thinning curve, usually concave left (convex outward right) with fast speed as if skimming | |||||
| 7 | P |
| phẩy | Falling leftwards with light curve | ||||
| 8 | N |
| mác | Falling rightwards, fattening at bottom, where endpoint is "sharp as a knife" | ||||
CJK strokes
In addition to these eight common strokes in , there are at least two dozen strokes of combinations which enter in the composition of CJK strokes and by inclusion the CJK characters themselves. Most strokes are encoded in Unicode as symbols, to be used in ideographic description sequences (IDS). The standard characters names assigned in the UCS for these CJK strokes are based on initials of the modern Chinese names (romanized with Pinyin) of component principles with which they are recognized and drawn.[4]