Chapter 24 Section 4 From engraved characters to words

The invention of writing is considered to be the most important symbol of the emergence of civilization, which is the most important one of the three elements of civilization.How did Chinese characters, the carrier of Chinese civilization, originate?This problem has become a topic of great concern to paleographers and archaeologists in recent years. According to ancient legends, Chinese characters were created by Cang Jie, who was the official historian of the Yellow Emperor. He was inspired by the footprints of the claws and hooves of birds and beasts to "create the scriptures for the first time" (Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezixu").This statement cannot be used as the basis for the study of the origin of characters. The creation of Chinese characters is by no means the result of one person at a time, but has gone through a very long process of gestation.

Since the inscriptions on oracle bones in the Yin Ruins were confirmed, people know that the writing in the Shang Dynasty is a very mature writing with systematic rules of calligraphy and syntax.A total of 160,000 pieces of oracle bones have been unearthed, and the number of individual characters has reached as many as 4,500, which can fully meet the needs of the time.It is natural for people to think that the emergence of oracle bone inscriptions is not an accident, and there must be a long development process.Therefore, it is hoped that archeology can explore the evolution of ancient Chinese characters, solve the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters, and explore the origin of Chinese civilization.

People quickly noticed such a phenomenon that many Neolithic pottery had some depiction symbols, which were concise and eye-catching.For example, Yangshao, Dawenkou, Longshan, Liangzhu, Daxi, Majiayao and other cultures have found pottery with engraved symbols. There are 27 kinds of pottery with engraved symbols at the Banpo site, 38 types at the Jiangzhai site, and 38 types at the Liuwan cemetery. There are more than 50 kinds, and the types of engraved characters are quite considerable (Figure 19).Some well-known paleographers assert that the inscriptions on prehistoric pottery have the nature of writing, or directly believe that they are writing, which is the original form of Chinese characters.There is also an opinion that these symbols are not words, but a kind of primitive note symbols, which are descriptions that have nothing to do with language.Because text is a tool for recording language, note symbols are not directly related to language, and do not have the three basic characteristics of form, sound, and meaning.The debate between the two opinions is really at loggerheads.

The engraved characters on pottery are definitely not characters in the strict sense, that is to say, they are not standard characters.However, these engraved symbols have a fixed shape and clear meaning. It cannot be said that they have nothing to do with the meaning of the text, and it is not necessarily true that none of the engraved symbols has a literal meaning.The origin of Chinese characters is closely related to engraved symbols. At least the creation of characters is inspired by these engraved symbols. Improving sorting to create words.

The good news is that characters have indeed been found on the pottery of Dawenkou culture, which can be considered as the earliest Chinese characters discovered so far.However, it can also be regarded as a kind of engraved character, which expresses a clear meaning. The shape and meaning are clear at a glance, and the pronunciation may have been determined, so it is not an ordinary engraved character.In Lingyang River, Dazhu Village, Zhucheng Qianzhai and other sites in Juxian County, Shandong Province, pottery engraved with pictographs has been unearthed many times. There are nearly 10 kinds of pictographs, and the same glyphs can often be seen repeatedly, such as Yiri, Huo, etc. Composed of 3 pictographs 、山

Naturally, there were characters in the Longshan period, but the examples discovered so far are not too rich.According to the latest reports, a batch of animal bones and bone vessels with primitive characters were found in Chang'an Huayuan Village of Longshan Culture in Shaanxi. Text, you can find the corresponding fonts in the oracle bone script.The engraved inscriptions in Huayuan Village date back more than 4,000 years.In addition, on a piece of pottery at the Taosi site in Xiangfen, Shanxi, a character written with a red pen was seen, which is also an unshakable Chinese character, and it is the earliest written Chinese character.In the site of the Longshan Cultural City in Dinggong Village, Yuancheng Township, Zouping County, Shandong Province, a pottery fragment inscribed with 11 "characters" was found.These 11 characters are divided into five lines, one line at the right end is three characters, and the rest are two characters.These words appear in groups, and the lines are neat.Some people think that they are a relatively mature text, while others hold opposing opinions, which need to be confirmed by more discoveries.It is an undoubted fact that there were written characters in the Longshan era.

The Tao inscriptions of Dawenkou Culture are relatively primitive characters, but they will not be the earliest characters. The origin of characters may be earlier than 4,500 years ago, and we still have to wait patiently for new discoveries.In fact, some sporadic discoveries have been made now, which can be used to prove that Dawenkou pottery inscriptions existed before writing, but the materials are not rich enough. Oracle bone inscriptions are indeed not water without a source, it has been conceived as early as prehistoric times. It is not difficult to see from our brief description that the deep foundation of Chinese civilization is rooted in China itself.The origin and development of Chinese civilization has its own characteristics, a gradual evolution law and a long-standing tradition inherited in one continuous line.Furthermore, the prehistoric era in which Chinese civilization was founded has already revealed the dawn of civilization.