中文有多古老? [美国媒体]

How old is the Chinese language?

中文有多古老?



JinCai,Unrepentant Marxist & professional procrastinator（顽固的马克思主义者和职业拖延症者）
It’s very hard to give a ‘scientifically correct’ answer to thisquestion because there are still disputes over what constitutes the Chinesewritten language.
But I will go ahead and say that it is probably at least6,000 years old.
Western historians used to argue that Chinese history cannot betraced back for more than 3000 years. My Canadian middleschool textbook fromthe 90s said matter-of-factly that everything before the Zhou Dynasty is myth,even though Shang oracle bone scripts had been discovered since before WWI.Archeology proves on a regular basis, that Chinese historical records andChinese historians’ readng of them are far more reliable than Westernskepticism.
Right off the bat, we know that the oracle bone script (cerca1200 BC)—commonly recognized as the first script in Chinese history, wasalready highly developed, it is impossible for such a highly developed scriptemerge out of the void—there has to be a precursor to it.
We have already found 170 symbols written on potterypieces that are 6,000 years old from the Daxi Culture Daxi culture - Wikipedia. Many of thesebare striking resemblance to the oracle bone script found almost 3000 yearslater. When you have 170 symbols found, you know immediately that you have awritten language on your hands and not some random symbols.
The direct relationship between these 170 symbols and the oraclebone script has yet to be conclusively proven as only some of the symbols barean resemblance to the oracle bone script; this I do acknolwedge.
However, the differences in appearance is understandable giventhat there is an almost 3,000 year gap in between. Moreover, it would be ratherastonishing if two similar kinds of scripts developed in basically the samerealestate yet didn’t influence or effect one another. I am certain that withfurther archeological discoveries this gap would be bridged.
In recent years, many similar discoveries have been made,including this one 'Earliest writing' found in China in which 16symbols were found on turtle shells (apparently our ancestors’ medium ofchoice) that are 8,600 years old.
Despite BBC’s sensationalizations, it would be a stretch to callit writing; at only 16 symbols we cannot conclude they are not random symbolsjotted down by some bored prehistoric Chinese person. But we also cannot besure that this isn’t the direct precursor to the script found in Daxi cultureand by extension, the oracle bone script.
It would be interesting to see what further archeologicaldiscoveries bring.

对于这个问题，我们很难给出一个“科学上正确”的答案，因为关于中国书面语言的构成仍然存在争议。
但我还是要说它可能至少有6000年的历史了。
西方历史学家过去常说中国的历史不能追溯到3000多年前。我90年代加拿大中学的课本上说，周朝以前的一切都是神话，即使商代的甲骨文早在一战前就被发现了。考古学定期地证明，中国的历史记录和中国历史学家对它们的解读远比西方的怀疑论可靠。



Helena Almagest, M.A. Indo-European Studies& General Linguistics, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2005)
For some reason, people love toexaggerate the age of Chinese civilisation. Not only the Chinese themselves,but Westerners too. They will talk about mysterious ancient Chinese books thatare 5000 years old and contain amazingly advanced wisdom – but I’ve never seenany evidence for books this old, even outside China! It’s really annoying.
The oldest Chinese charactersthat are unambiguously writing are found in the oracle bone inscriptions,starting from c. 1200 BC. More than 3000 years old is still a real lot, mindyou. Europe was still in the Bronze Age at the time and had no writing at alloutside Greece. And China could easily be said to have been the world’sforemost civilisation from then until the 1700s, with roots that are even older(although we don’t know since when Sino-Tibetan languages, whose origin appearsto be in the mountains of Kham, have been spoken in the lowlands – did you knowthat the oldest pottery vessels in the world have been found in Xianren Cave,Jiangxi Province, c. 20,000 years old, dating to the height of the last iceage?), and could well become it again in the not-so-distant future. So Chinareally has no need to exaggerate anything.

出于某种原因，人们喜欢夸大中国文明的年代。不仅中国人自己，西方人也一样。
他们会谈论有着5000年历史的神秘古籍，里面蕴含着令人惊叹的先进智慧——但我从未见过能证明此古籍如此古老的证据，即使是在（中）国外也没有!这真的很烦人。
最早的汉字是在公元前1200年的甲骨文中发现的。提醒你，3000多年的历史仍然是一个很大的数目。当时欧洲还处于青铜器时代，在希腊之外没有任何文字。从那时到18世纪，中国可以说是世界上最重要的文明，其根源甚至更古老（虽然我们不知道汉藏语系是什么时候开始在低地使用的，但汉藏语系的起源似乎是在康巴山区。你知道吗，世界上最古老的陶器是在江西仙人洞发现的，距今约2万年，可以追溯到上一个冰河时代的顶峰）。很可能在不久的将来再次发生（译注：意义不明）。所以中国真的没有必要夸大任何事情。



Benoît Gardonio
Thenyou should provide for a clear definition of a writing system and be a littlemore explicit with your sources.
Wavingout the Sumerian cuneiform as a not yet fully developed writing system soundspreposterous at best. According to which criteria do you consider a writingsystem to be fille developed then? Who established these criteria and for whatpurpose?

那么你应该为书面语统提供一个清晰的定义，并更明确地说明您的信息来源。
将苏美尔楔形文字作为一种尚未完全发展起来的书写系统剔除，往好里说，听起来很荒谬。
那么，你认为应该根据哪些标准来发展一套书面语呢?谁制定了这些标准，目的是什么?

HelenaAlmagest
Basically,as long as a symbolic system is pictographic and does not encode grammar yet,so that the underlying language is not clearly identifiable, it isproto-writing.
Inever said Sumerian cuneiform per se is not yet fully developed. I said itwasn’t fully developed yet in 3600–3000 BC.

基本上，只要符号系统是象形的，并且还没有对语法进行编码，因此底层语言就不能被清楚地识别出来，那么它就是原始书写。我从来没说过苏美尔楔形文字本身尚未充分发展。我说它在公元前3600-3000年还没有完全发展。



Benoît Gardonio
Thereis no need to go postal about my comment. I'm just asking you to be morerigorous and to back up your point. And I don't undersand why I should be theone doing the research when I'm asking you to prove your point beyond juststatements.
Yourpoint was that cuneiform didn't “encode grammar yet”. The question is aboutwhere you hold this criterium from, that's all. I just want to know why awriting system must encode grammar in order to be considered developed enough.
Maybethis is obvious to you but it may not be for several readers on Quora amongwhich I stand. Explain me why, for example, the Lascaux paintings couldn't be considereda writing system. According to whose criteria do you define whether it is awriting system or not? Does information need grammar or syntax in ordered to beconveyed through patterns?

没有必要对我的评论大发雷霆。我只是希望你们能更严谨地支持自己的观点。我不明白为什么当我要求你证明你的观点而不仅仅是陈述的时候，我应该是那个做研究的人。
你的观点是楔形文字还没有“编码语法”。问题是你从哪里得到这个标准，就是这样。我只是想知道为什么一个书写系统必须编码语法才能被认为是足够发达的。
也许这对你来说是显而易见的，但对Quora上的读者来说可能就不是这样了，我就是其中之一。解释一下为什么，比如说，拉斯科洞窟壁画不能被认为是一种书写系统。你根据谁的标准来定义它是否是一个书写系统?信息是否需要通过模范的语法有序地传递?



ZachZhang
According to reserches, it may beover 5000 years old.
In the very old years, people ofShang (a dynasty) created characters written on bones and tortoise shells.
Then, people recorded things onmetals, bamboo slips and cloth, until papei was invented. After this, many kindof typefaces appeared.
In the modern ages, you can see Chinesepeople writing in a way called Regular-Script (楷书).Some people are interested in old characters, so they use Xiaozhuan (小篆) and so on as an interest.
Main ways that Chineseforefathers used to create hanzi (basic parts of Chinese language) was:
象形. For example,draw a circle and a dot in the circle makes the basic form of “日”, which means “Sun”.
指示. Look at thepicture. If I add an across on the bottom of the character (木, wood), a “本”(means“beginning”) is made.
会意. Put 2 or morecharacters created in the way of 象形 together tomake a new character, and we call this 会意.
形声. We all knowwords has their pronunciations. Putting a character with the similar pronunciationas a part of the new word, and using another character with a meaning similarto the new word in this as well, make a new character. e.g. 财 sounds “Tsai”. The right part sounds “Tsai” as well. The left part meansshell, a thing people used to deal in the past. So “财” just means money.
So much for this. Vote me if you likethis answer.

根据研究，它可能有5000多年的历史。在非常古老的年代，商朝的人在骨头和龟壳上写字。
之后，人们又在金属、竹简和布上做记录，直到纸被发明。此后，出现了许多种字体。
在现代时代,你可以看到中国人写的叫做楷书(楷书)。有些人对古老字体感兴趣,所以他们用Xiaozhuan(小篆)等字体来书写。
中国先辈创造汉字的主要方式是:
象形。例如,画一个圆和一个点在圆的基本形式“日”,这意味着“太阳”。

指事。看这张照片。如果我添加一个在底部的字符(木、木),一个“本”(意思是“开始”)。
会意。把2个或更多字符创建的象形组成一个新的角色,我们称之为会意。
形声。我们都知道单词有发音。将发音相近的字符作为新单词的一部分，并在其中使用与新单词含义相似的另一个字符，生成一个新字符。例如财听起来像“Tsai”，右边的部分听起来是“Tsai”。左边的部分是shell，过去人们常用它来做交易。所以“财”就意味着金钱。
这就讲到这里。如果你喜欢这个答案就投票给我。