In recent decades, Chinese archaeologists have made a series of comparative studies on the materials about the origin of Chinese characters in Oracle Bone Inscriptions unearthed from Yin Ruins. These materials mainly refer to the symbols carved or drawn on pottery in the late primitive society and early historical society, and also include a few symbols carved on Oracle Bone Inscriptions, jade and stone tools. When did Chinese characters appear? According to the mainstream view in the west, Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest written language in China, which is more than 3,600 years ago, about 2,000 years later than the written language in the two river basins. Because writing is one of the important symbols of civilization, the history of civilization in China is only 3,600 years, not 5,000 years as traditionally recognized.
Western scholars' four standards of civilization: city, culture, bronze, temple and altar.
Is China's writing only 3600 years old? In fact, archaeological excavations have unearthed prehistoric "words", which may have solved the truth. The history of China writing has been more than 3600 years, but western scholars are unwilling to admit it!
When it comes to China's written history, we can't help but mention the inscriptions on the Jiahu site. 1962, Jiahu site was discovered in Wuyang, Henan. At least 17 inscriptions have been unearthed, more than 4,500 years before Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The focus of the problem is whether these inscriptions are words or meaningless inscriptions.
Scholars have done a lot of comparative research on Oracle Bone Inscriptions: some inscriptions are carved on tortoise shells, just like those in Oracle Bone Inscriptions; Jia Hu's inscription basically conforms to the writing characteristics of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and modern Chinese characters, such as vertical and vertical, vertical and downward. It is basically consistent with the physical structure of Chinese characters.
To this end, Ge, an archaeologist in the Department of History of Peking University, said: "These symbols should be a kind of writing." Zhang Zhongzhong, president of the National Archaeological Society, also pointed out:
It is a multi-stroke combination structure, which should contain some intention of the signer and record specific events, so it should have the nature of the original text.
As we all know, Chinese characters are ideographic characters, which are completely different from western pinyin characters and have different development processes. Therefore, the criteria for judging whether Jia Hu writes should be different. Obviously, judging Jia Hu's inscription by western writing standards, we will naturally think it is a "puzzling ghost."
Of course, it is a pity that the number of inscriptions in Jia Hu is too small, only about 20, which may be normal. However, more than 7000 years ago, more than 630 inscriptions were unearthed at the Shuangdun site in Anhui Province, with rich and varied contents, which are extremely rare. At the seminar on "Inscription Symbols of Shuangdun Site in Bengbu and the Origin of Early Civilization", China scholars made the following judgments:
The inscriptions on Shuangdun reflect the way of life of the early ancestors of Shuangdun. It has the nature of primitive characters and is one of the sources of Chinese characters.
Although China scholars generally believe that the inscriptions on the double piers are original and systematic, western scholars still disagree!
1953, a pottery bowl was unearthed at Banpo site in Xi. There are thirty kinds of carved symbols on the edge of the pottery bowl. The famous archaeologist Yu believes that Banpo characters are "simple characters produced in the initial stage of characters". Besides, this website has a history of 6000-6700 years!
1973, archaeologists found many inscriptions on elk horn fossils at the Qingdun site in Nantong. As soon as the book was published, it immediately attracted the attention of writers of Yi, Mathematics and English. It is generally believed that this is the earliest writing in China, which is more than 2,000 years earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins, and it is the initial symbol of the origin of Yi Studies.
At the same time, the epitaph of Qiao Zhuang, Zhejiang Province was unearthed at the Qingdun site in Nantong, Jiangsu. For example, Li, a professor at Peking University Institute of Archaeology and Literature and Art, believes that these primitive characters do not appear in isolation like other characters.
As for about 5,000 years, there are more similar discoveries, such as Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Zhuwen of Taosi in Shanxi, and Xia Dynasty Shuishu of Erlitou Site. Scholars in China generally believe that many inscriptions unearthed in this period are very similar to those in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and can be regarded as characters.
However, as Zhang Zhongzhong, president of the National Archaeological Society, pointed out, western scholars do not understand these unearthed Chinese characters, and even think that they are "pure nonsense".
It has gone through a completely different development path from western phonetic symbols. Western scholars can't explain the stage characteristics of phonetic symbols by studying their origin and development. Therefore, it is impossible to make a correct inference. We don't know whether these scholars know Chinese characters, but at least he does.
In fact, whether the West recognizes it or not, whether these inscriptions are written or not, these archaeological discoveries at least show that China has a long history beyond the imagination of Westerners. At the same time, it is impossible that "Chinese civilization originated in the West", but that Chinese civilization has its own origin!
Unfortunately, some scholars in China, regardless of whether the western scholars question it or not, are convinced of the views of western scholars and even take it as the standard. They think that these are purely "graffiti without literal meaning", and then come to the conclusion that the history of civilization in China is only 3600 years.
The earliest Shuo Wen Jie Zi included 9353 Chinese characters. By the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Pian Yu had 169 17 Chinese characters, Ji Yun of the Song Dynasty had 53,525 Chinese characters, Kangxi Dictionary had 47,035 Chinese characters and Zhonghua Dictionary had 56,000 Chinese characters. As time goes by, more and more Chinese characters are included. It's not hard to understand. People have been creating Chinese characters for 800 years, from Shuo Wen Jie Zi compiled in the 12th year of Yongyuan in the Eastern Han Dynasty to Chinese Dictionary compiled in 1990. In addition, due to the editor's limited energy and experience, the collected Chinese characters will inevitably have omissions. In addition, due to the change of dynasties, some ancient books have been destroyed and cannot be counted. How many Chinese characters are there? There is no accurate data yet.
The Sea of Chinese Characters published in the 20th century contains 85,000 Chinese characters, including all the Chinese characters collected in previous dictionaries, plus Buddhist scriptures, Tibetan traditional characters and dialect characters. The Chinese character library of Beijing Guoan Information contains 9 125 1 Chinese characters, which is the most complete Chinese character library at present. We only use 3500 Chinese characters in our daily life. According to statistics, 1000 Chinese characters have covered about 92% of written materials, 2,000 Chinese characters have covered about 98%, and 3,000 Chinese characters can reach 99%. Chinese characters have been used for the longest time so far, and they are also the only characters handed down from the ancient Mongolian language family. As a member of the Chinese nation, I can't help feeling proud!