2. Oracle Bone Inscriptions 8,000 years ago was the basis of the origin of China characters.
We found more than 65,438+00 carved symbols on tortoise shells, bones, stone tools and pottery. There are 17 confirmed engravings in addition to the engraving when the sound hole is designed on the bone flute and the mono notch on the rigid plate. Among them, there are 9 tortoise shells, 3 bones, 2 stone tools and 3 pottery.
The carved symbols of this 17 box can be roughly divided into three categories:
In the first category, there are 4 cases of tortoise shells, 3 cases of bones, 9 cases of stone tools and pottery 1 case, accounting for more than half of the carved symbols found. From the form analysis, these symbols are all composed of multiple strokes, which should contain some intention of the sculptor and record a specific thing, so they should have the nature of the original text.
3 cases in the second category. Carved on stone pigment blocks or ceramic pendants, the possibility of using them as seals is not ruled out.
The third type is also numerous, but it is all engraved on the tortoise shell. There are 5 cases of * * *, which are one or two vertical notches in the horizontal or vertical direction, which is obviously intentional. It is similar to similar Wen Tao sculptures in Banpo and Jiangzhai, and may have the nature of counting. If so, it should be a counting symbol.
Because some of Jia Hu's inscriptions are carved on tortoise shells, and tortoise shells are carved from tombs, and most of them are in groups of eight, which naturally reminds people of the gossip in Zhouyi.
Jia Hu tortoise shell pattern has the following characteristics that deserve attention:
● Symbols should be engraved in the obvious position of tortoise shell for easy seeing;
The symbol seems to imply the direction in which the tortoise shell is placed;
● In the tortoise shell of the same tomb, there are sometimes many symbols engraved, and the symbols are different, indicating that the symbols are not the personal marks of the tomb owner;
● On the same tortoise shell, sometimes two scoring symbols appear.
Symbols are pictographic, such as eye shape and portal shape, which are very similar to later generations. The symbols found in the late Neolithic period in the past, such as the symbols of Yangshao culture, are rarely pictographic; There are many pictographic factors in the symbols of Dawenkou culture pottery and Liangzhu culture pottery and jade, which many scholars think are primitive characters. In this respect, Jia Hu's symbol is really close to words.
Another important reason why scholars pay attention to the tortoise shell symbol in Jia Hu is that the symbol is engraved on the tortoise shell, which is similar to the tortoise shell inscription in the Yin Ruins. In recent years, archaeological studies have pointed out that the belief in the mystery of turtles has a long history in China. The tortoise shell in Jia Hu's tomb came out with the stone, which proved to be a primitive divination tool. Although the way of divination is different from that of burning divination in Shang Dynasty, their belief in turtle spirit is the same. Tortoise shell divination may have the relationship of spreading attacks, and it should not be considered whether the carved symbols are related to later words.
After Jia Hu's original text was published, many scholars tried to explain it. Because these symbols are too abstract, it is not convenient to guess at present, but they all have certain shapes, which should record the meaning of the owner at that time and should be certain. Meaning is to be explained by language, so there should be corresponding language. If so, these inscriptions have the basic conditions of form, sound and meaning of words. Although most of them are single words, they already have the basic functions of words. Therefore, the author thinks it is feasible to call it the original text or a symbol with textual nature.
Different from western phonetic symbols, Chinese characters are composed of strokes as the basic writing unit, and their stroke trend and frame structure show the basic characteristics of Chinese characters. The combination of Chinese characters is split, and strokes are used to form radicals first, and then combined words are formed. From the organizational structure of Chinese characters, it is composed of three levels.
The first level is strokes, such as point, horizontal, vertical, left, press, hook and fold.
The second layer is compound words, and these components are roots. At present, the five-stroke font input method in computer operation uses these radicals to split characters, such as Bi, Shi, Dao, B, Er, Mo and so on. These radicals are combined into a large number of Chinese characters.
The third level is compound words, such as foundation, writing, learning, depth, harmony and addition. For example, the word "Hua" is a combination of left and right, and then "Bi" is added; The water side consists of three points, plus the word "work" to form the word "Jiang", and so on. It can be seen that Chinese characters have a three-level structure, which is a unique feature of Chinese characters.
Let's look at Jia Hu's inscription again. Like later Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Jinwen and modern Chinese characters, there are three structural levels in terms of writing characteristics. Jia Hu's inscription is consistent with that of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, because it is also engraved on hard Oracle bones and other things, with vigorous strokes and sonorous moments. Compared with modern Chinese characters, the characteristics of writing are basically the same, such as first horizontal and then vertical, first up and then down, first left and then right, first inside and then outside and so on. If you don't follow these strokes, it is not only difficult to write, but also difficult to write well, which is determined by the characteristics of Chinese characters. Therefore, it can also be said that Jia Hu seal cutting is also the origin of modern calligraphy in China.
From the above analysis, we can see that the basic structure, combination and writing characteristics of Jiahu engraving are consistent with Chinese characters. The foundation of Chinese characters was laid in Jiahu in 8000, and the nature of Jiahu engraving and its relationship with the origin of Chinese characters are self-evident.
Like the emergence of anything, the origin and development of characters have a process, and it is a long historical process. A saint has a brainwave, and it is absolutely impossible to create a mature character overnight. At the same time, the invention of characters should be the inevitable product of social development to a certain historical stage, which has its economic, technological, cultural and ideological basis and is determined by the needs of social development. At present, the mature Chinese character recognized by academic circles is "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" of Shang Dynasty, but the development level of Oracle Bone Inscriptions is by no means its primary stage, and there must have been quite mature characters before it. Oracle bone inscriptions seem to be a sudden change in the history of writing development, but they are illogical, just like the legendary Laozi, who was born with a white beard. Although we haven't found a large number of mature scripts earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, it doesn't mean that Oracle Bone Inscriptions suddenly appeared. This phenomenon may be related to the carrier and burial conditions of the characters before Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Throughout the historical process of the origin and development of characters, there should be four stages of development:
The first stage: that is, the object recording stage, which takes the form of object recording and knot recording. In China's ancient books, there are many records about knotting knots. For example, I ching's Cohesion Biography said: "In ancient times, it was ruled by knotted knots, and later saints easily used them to write contracts." Wait a minute.
The second stage: the graphic recording stage. In the first stage, when the recording method can no longer meet people's economic, communication and spiritual needs, people urgently need new recording methods, and graphic recording is the representative of this stage. It records an event in the form of a picture, and there are a lot of rock paintings in the visible form. The other is nicking. The main purpose of lettering is to record numbers. Liu Xi of the Han Dynasty said in "Notes on the Deeds of the Famous Book": "When deeds are engraved, their numbers are also engraved." It is clearly stated that the deed is lettering, and the purpose of lettering is to help mark. Because when people conclude a contractual relationship, quantity is the most important and the most likely factor to cause disputes. Therefore, people use lettering to mark numbers with certain lines and engrave them on bamboo or wood chips as a "contract" between the two parties. This is the ancient "deed" Later, people separated the deed from the middle and divided it into two halves, each holding half, taking the coincidence of the two as evidence. "Preface to Shangshu": "The ancient king of Fu began to draw gossip and write books to replace the politics of knotting ropes." Sima Zhen's Addendum to Historical Records: "Tai Hao and Fu Li made an appointment to replace the binding rope" These records should be memories of the method of taking notes at this stage, and similar relics have been unearthed frequently in archaeological excavations, such as the carved beef tendon unearthed from Jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan Province, the above-mentioned third-class inscriptions, and the bone appointment map unearthed from Zhoujiazhai site in Xining County, Gansu Province.
The third stage can be called paragraph writing stage, that is, a sentence or an event is recorded with an ideographic symbol or a set of abstract pictures. This kind of material has been found in many archaeological excavations, and it is ubiquitous in various cultures of the Neolithic age in China, including contemporary prints represented by the above-mentioned first-class prints in Jia Hu, as well as some cultural prints, color symbols and pottery symbols in Dawenkou culture. This kind of paragraph writing has certain writing function, so it has some characteristics of writing, such as recording, communication and recording language, but it is not a mature writing. Judging from the current materials, the pre-Yangshao era has entered this stage, which is after 8600 years ago.
The fourth stage is the mature writing stage, which can be called the writing stage according to its characteristics, that is, a symbol only emits one sound. This symbol has three characteristics of form, meaning and sound at the same time, and really becomes the symbol of recording language. People can freely combine these symbols according to the different needs of communication and recording, fully express people's wishes in written form, and form certain grammar and speech rules in the process of use. Since then, real words have been produced. In our country, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which is now the Shang Dynasty, has reached this stage.
In addition, it should be pointed out that after the start of each new stage, the original way of recording events in each stage will not naturally withdraw from the historical stage, but will continue to exist to varying degrees, and will be used by people of different places and classes to continue to play different roles.
3. The great academic significance of Jia Hu's carving discovery and the focus of future work.
The carved symbols in Jia Hu are the earliest symbols that may be related to characters in the world, dating back to 7,000 BC. If we look around the world, such as clay tokens, some scholars believe that this is related to the invention of Sumerian characters, and one of its simplicity can be traced back to 8000 BC. But compared with this, in fact, Jia Hu symbols are more like words. Therefore, once the symbol of Jia Hu's inscription was published, it attracted the attention of relevant scholars at home and abroad. For example, the website of Science reported that "in 2000, after characters appeared in southern Iraq 5,200 years ago, characters appeared in China, but now a research group composed of Chinese and American scholars has suggested that the formation of China characters has experienced a slow and long-term development process, and its source can even be traced back to the amazing 8,000 years ago. They believe that the carved marks on tortoise shells found in Neolithic tombs in Henan Province are the earliest known precursors that eventually evolved into a Chinese character system, and they are likely to be used to complete some shamanism rituals. Perhaps finding the reasons to promote the development of China's writing is more interesting to scholars than understanding the development process of China's writing. Like the Jiahu site 4000 years earlier than himself, many Shang dynasty characters were found on the tortoise shell. This evidence shows that as early as the Neolithic Age, tortoise shells were used for divination. "
Mr. Tsung i Jao of the Chinese University of Hong Kong made a thorough discussion on Jia Hu's inscription and related issues. In the article, he made a detailed textual research on each symbol, and proposed that "Jia Hu's inscription provides brand-new information for the key issue of the origin of Chinese characters." Some scholars believe that the discovery of Jia Hu's engraving "provides reliable evidence for exploring the historical source of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty." This is not only the earliest Oracle Bone Inscriptions in China, but also the earliest one in China.
Ge Yinghui, an archaeologist in Peking University's history department, also believes that "these symbols should be a primitive script.
Zhu Yuan, a scholar of Yi nationality, compared these symbols with the ancient Yi language and found many similarities between them. Among them, the four symbols carved on a handle stone tool can not only be successfully interpreted in ancient Yi language, but also their meanings seem to be very consistent with the purpose of this object. Not only that, Zhu Congyuan also thinks that some artifacts unearthed from Jiahu site are similar to some objects in Yi area. There are a lot of materials in the stage of paragraph writing, which are found in archaeological excavations in China and in all cultures of the Neolithic age in China. Known carriers include pottery, stones, bones, armor, etc. It is known that there are quite a lot of materials related to characters from the inscriptions on Jia Hu to Oracle bones in Shang Dynasty. At least in Longshan period, readable characters have appeared, which need to be systematically sorted out and studied. In future archaeological excavations, we should attach great importance to the use of more convenient and difficult-to-preserve carriers, such as bamboo, silk, bark and other written materials.
Chinese characters have developed from paragraph writing stage to character writing stage. According to the available data, it took at least 5000 years from the carving of Jia Hu in Shang Dynasty to Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The reason why Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which was mature in Shang Dynasty, was considered to have suddenly appeared was probably the change of its carrier. Finding the carrier of this transitional stage is the main way to solve the mystery of the origin of Chinese characters, and it should be one of our archaeologists' efforts in the future.
4. Objections of foreign scholars
After the discovery of Jia Hu's engraving, many scholars were cautious about it. In addition to the fact that Jiahu is mostly a single word, the main reason is that Jiahu site dates from 9000 to 7800 years ago, which is four or five thousand years earlier than Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Anyang. Moreover, there are fonts in this place that are so close to the characteristics of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, such as the above-mentioned writing objects, writing methods, font combinations and basic font structures, which are basically the same. It's unbelievable. However, if we make a comprehensive survey of the overall development level of Jiahu culture, we will find that it is not only entirely possible but also logical for Jiahu people to invent and use the original characters. The symbols carved by Jiahu and the carrier of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty were tortoise shells, the divination tools of wizards at that time, which had the same font structure and some similar glyphs. This is the main evidence that we believe that the symbols carved by Jiahu should be an important link in the long history of the origin of Chinese characters.
Chinese characters are the quintessence of China, which has gone through a completely different development path from western pinyin. The stage of its development cannot be explained by western scholars with the theory of studying the origin and development of Pinyin, so it is incomprehensible. According to the website of Science, some western scholars are skeptical about the extensive discussion in the latest issue of Ancient magazine. Robert Murochik, an archaeologist at Boston University, complained: "There is nothing new here. He and other scholars refused to accept the view that these seemingly simple geometric symbols had some inevitable connection with early writing. " Some scholars think this is "pure nonsense". Murowchick said, "Of course, the development of characters has a long process, but there is no evidence that these turtle shells are the key link." However, history is colorful, and the generation of characters is by no means a single story. We don't know whether some western scholars, such as Boston University archaeologist Robert Murowchick, know Chinese characters, but at least his discussion about the origin of Chinese characters is pure nonsense! It can disagree with our point of view and write articles to discuss with us, but imposing his point of view on others, which is inconsistent with his point of view, will be dismissed as "pure nonsense", which is quite cowboy in the west, just like the story of "punishing people with meat"