Chapter 1829 The Two Functional Characteristics of Text
“It’s not an elbow, is this as exaggerated as you say?” Liang Guangping was a little confused: “Tell us why the country attaches so much importance to this paper. ? The oracle bone inscription must have several thousand words? Why are these five words so important? ”
“It’s not these five characters that are important.” Zhou Zhi smiled and said, “It’s the era in which these talismans were carved.”
“Everyone knows which dynasties the earliest dynasties of our country are, right? "
Azi raised her chopsticks: "Xia, Shang and Western Zhou, and Eastern Zhou are divided into two parts!"
"Yes, in the general knowledge of our countrymen, Xia, Shang and Zhou are the earliest three dynasties."
"Yes, what's wrong?" Liu Hongtao asked.
"Then everyone knows that Western scholars generally only recognize that our country began with the Shang Dynasty, but do not recognize the existence of the Xia Dynasty?"
"Why?" Wu Renzhong suddenly became unhappy. .
“Their reason is that a dynasty must exist in the sense of a civilization, and civilization is based on the three-element principle they defined—metal, writing, the emergence of cities and countries.”< br>
"At first they didn't even recognize the Shang Dynasty. After they found out that we had excavated the Yin Ruins, they finally recognized that the Shang Dynasty recorded in our country's history books did exist."
"The Shang Dynasty was more than 3,000 years old. The dynasty years ago had bronzes, oracle bone inscriptions, and city ruins, so it complies with the three elements principle."
"Then do their own ruins meet the three elements?" Azi asked: "They can't just do it. Is this what you’re asking us to do?”
“It’s a bit funny to talk about this. Western countries believe that the Aegean Civilization, the ancestor of their civilization, has the earliest trace of a trace found in a pottery cup found in Ischia in the Bay of Naples. The so-called Nestorian Cup, which Western scholars proudly call the 'oldest example of written Greek', dates back to just over 700 BC."
"But the letter form clearly comes from the Phoenicians. Nicky letters.”
"Let's leave aside whether this way of defining civilization is correct. Let's go back to the bone carving talisman cracked by Grandpa Chiri. It came from the Jiahu site."
"The Jiahu site is a site of the Peiligang Culture. , dating from the seventh millennium BC, where my country’s first bone flute was unearthed, which was made from the leg bones of a red-crowned crane, as well as a large number of Neolithic tools. And pottery, among which some inscribed symbols with characters can be found on many bone armor and pottery. "
"Wait a minute!" Liang Guangping asked: "The oracle bone inscriptions you just mentioned. How many years ago?”
“It’s more than three thousand years ago”
“That’s not...that’s not...”
"It's just what you think, say it boldly." Zhou Zhi said: "Those runes before were called 'Jiahu carved runes'. In addition, there are many Neolithic sites where similar runes have appeared. These engraved symbols are very similar to the Yi characters I saw when I came here, and the Yi language is also a very ancient language. I wrote them on a whim. I took those engraved symbols to Grandpa Chiri to see if I could decipher them in ancient Yi language. "As a result, Grandpa Chiri actually deciphered them. In addition to 'Tianleimen Moguan', which has the richest meaning, there are also 'Bird', 'Fulu', 'God's Throne' and other engraved symbols have literal meanings."
"The engraved symbols have literal meanings. It should be called writing. Although there is no clear evidence of skillful use and widespread application, the same is true for the Aegean civilization that Westerners are proud of, the Nestor Cup.”
"Since they can use contemporary Phoenician texts to prove that Nestor's cup is the Aegean civilization in 800 BC Evidence of the origin. Then we can also use ancient Yi texts to prove that the Jiahu engraved pottery fragments and oracle bones are evidence of the origin of Chinese civilization in the 7th millennium BC. There can be no double standards! ”
< br>"Yes, that's the truth!" Tu Liangzhi slapped his thigh: "We don't take advantage in vain, but we can't suffer a loss!"
"So... grandpa discovered the writing of the Xia Dynasty?"
"This is not necessarily true." Zhou Zhi smiled and said: "The previous dynasty of the Shang Dynasty was the Xia Dynasty, and historical records were passed down by Dayu to his son. Qi, created the situation of family and world, but the Jiahu site may not be within the scope of the Xia Dynasty recorded in history.”
“But before the Xia Dynasty, there was Yao in the history books. The Tang Dynasty founded by Shun, and the Yu Dynasty founded by Shun. In any case, the cracking of the Jiahu talisman at least proves that we have evidence of the origin of writing 10,000 years ago."
" If this is the case, we have two of the three elements. As long as we find metal again, will it be possible to prove that our country's civilization is not three thousand years old, but ten thousand years old?" Azi asked excitedly.
"If we follow this understanding, we will fall into the trap set for us by the Western literary and historical circles." Zhou Zhi said: "We cannot just look at the appearance of these three elements, words, metal, and cities, but It depends on what it represents, the inner essence.”
"For a long time, people have defined the word 'language' as 'a tool unique to humans for expressing meaning and communicating ideas', or 'a symbol system unique to humans'. Language is considered to be what distinguishes humans from other animals. ”
“However, through research by modern scientists, many animals such as sea turtles have been discovered. Dolphins, whales, chimpanzees, canaries, bees, etc. also have a broad range of languages, including those that can be heard by humans or those that are inaudible, and some are quite complex."
"So although in many aspects, Animal language is incomparable with human language, but language cannot be regarded as a patent of human beings."
"However, human beings are here. After reaching a very advanced stage of its development, writing was finally invented, which is a written language. With writing, people can finally get rid of the situation like animals, where language must be transmitted orally to transmit information. But it can use words to send various information to distant places and pass it on to future generations."
"This kind of thing. The way information is preserved and disseminated allows human experience to be preserved to the greatest extent and disseminated to the greatest extent. This is something that is beyond the reach of any other animal and is truly a source of pride for humans. This is unique to humans. The thing - knowledge, is not the knowledge of an individual, but the collective knowledge of a society. ”
"And because of the invention of writing, human beings have gained the collective knowledge of society, thus ending the long period of barbarism and chaos, and beginning to embark on the road of civilization."
Everyone nodded, expressing what Zhou Zhi said There's nothing wrong with these.
“Okay, having said that, we understand the two major functional characteristics of writing-the retention and inheritance of knowledge and information. And this retention and inheritance constitute necessary conditions for the construction of a large-scale human society. "
"After talking for so long, brother Zhuzi, aren't you still proving the inevitability of words as the three elements of writing? "Not to mention Azi, even the two doctoral students Liang Guangping and Liu Hongtao were confused. Dizzy.
“No, no, no, no, no…” Zhou Zhi raised his finger and shook it in front of his eyes: “The existence of writing can certainly prove the existence of civilization, but the point I want to say is not here.”