Chinese Characters and the Inheritance of Chinese Civilization
Li Shoukui. China has a long history and a broad civilization. One of the most outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization is continuity, and it is the only great civilization in the world that has continued to develop in the form of a state. Why is our civilization so alive and well-being? There are many reasons for this, but Chinese characters are one of the core factors that cannot be ignored. Chinese characters have a long history, and in the world's writing system, as an ancient self-derived ideographic system, only Chinese characters are still used today. **The General Secretary attaches great importance to the important role of Chinese characters in the inheritance of Chinese civilization. In May 2014, in the Moyun Hall of the Nationalities Primary School in Haidian District, Beijing, the general secretary said to the children who were practicing calligraphy: "Chinese characters are a symbol of Chinese cultural inheritance. The Yinxu oracle bone inscription is more than 3,000 years away from now, and for more than 3,000 years, the structure of Chinese characters has not changed, and this inheritance is the real Chinese gene. In October 2022, the general secretary pointed out during his inspection of the Yinxu site in Henan: "China's Chinese script is very remarkable, and the formation and development of the Chinese nation is inseparable from the maintenance of Chinese characters. ”
Chinese Characters and the Origin of Chinese Civilization
The creation of writing is one of the important signs of the emergence of civilization. Engels once pointed out that mankind "began with the smelting of iron ore and transitioned to the age of civilization thanks to the invention of pinyin writing and its application to documentary records". In the several "information revolutions" that human beings have experienced, the first time was the invention of language, and the separation between humans and other animals has been established; The second time was the invention of writing five or six thousand years ago, and the transformation from a barbarian to a civilized man. Once human beings create the text to record language, knowledge is no longer limited by time and space, and is no longer passed on by word of mouth, so the knowledge is rapidly accumulated, the human mind is opened, and the society is rapidly progressing. However, even if a society without writing has made great progress in some aspects, it is difficult to move forward due to the constraints of time and space, and it will either stagnate or slowly disappear, and eventually disappear in the dust of history.
An archaeological site, once the text is found, everything in it is the culture of history, the existence of civilization. However, the writings of each era may not necessarily be preserved in the site, and the further back from our time, the less likely it is to be preserved. At the Jiahu site in Wuyang, Henan Province, more than 8,000 years ago, a large number of carved symbols carved on tortoise shells, bone tools, pottery and stone tools have been unearthed, and the possibility that they have written attributes cannot be ruled out. More than 4,000 years ago, the ruins of Xiangfen Tao Temple in Shanxi, the unearthed pottery pot "text" is clearly visible. The Erlitou culture in Henan from about the 20th century BC to the 16th century BC is believed to belong to the Xia Dynasty period, and many carved symbols have also been found on the pottery unearthed at the Erlitou site, and many of the same or similar characters can be found in the oracle bone inscriptions. The Erligang culture, which developed after the Erlitou culture, has greatly expanded its geographical scope and greatly increased the types of culture. The pottery tablets unearthed from the Taixi site of Gaocheng in Hebei Province, which belongs to the latest stage of Erligang culture, are engraved with pictographic symbols such as "eye", "heaven" and "stop", and the pottery jar unearthed from the Xiaoshuangqiao site in Zhengzhou, Henan Province has symbols such as "Yin", "broom", "heaven" and "east" in Zhushu, and its physical characteristics are the same as the characters of the Yin Shang period.
The "text" on this pottery flat pot more than 4,000 years ago is clearly visible. The picture shows the Zhushu pottery pot unearthed from the site of the Tao Temple in 2023 [GF]200E[ GF] 6 [GF]200E [ GF] 6 [GF] 200E [ GF] 200 E [ GF] 28 [GF] 200 E [ GF] [ GF] (Collection of the Chinese Archaeological Museum, courtesy of the Chinese Academy of History).
The oracle bone inscription found in Yinxu at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century is the earliest systematic Chinese character that we see now, which can completely record the language at that time, and is already a very mature writing system. Since its discovery, about 100,000 oracle bones with characters have been unearthed, and the number of single characters has reached about 4,000, and many aspects of social life at that time are represented in the oracle bone inscriptions. The oracle bone inscription is a precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation, which is a valuable material for studying the development of Chinese characters and early Chinese history, and is also a testament to the long history of Chinese civilization. At the beginning of the 20th century, after the famous scholar Wang Guowei verified the authenticity of the lineage of the Shang Dynasty based on the oracle bone inscription, he "inferred the authenticity of the lineage of the Xiahou clan, which is a matter of course", and Li Ji, who has the reputation of "the first person in Chinese archaeology", "pushed the original oracle bone inscription back to before 3000 BC". In 2017, Oracle was officially inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.
During the Western Zhou Dynasty, the function of using characters was further expanded, and the writing system made great progress. During this period, the main writing carriers underwent a great transformation, and the main existing style is the inscription on bronze objects. These inscriptions, which were cast on bronze vessels, were first engraved on the blank and then firing. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the found text carriers became more and more abundant, and the gold literature materials still occupied a considerable proportion, and the materials such as slips, silk silks, jade, and pottery were also practical text carriers at that time. In particular, the Houma League Book in the late Spring and Autumn Period, the Chu Silk Book of the Warring States Period, the Chu Jian and the Qin Jian have preserved a large number of characters written with soft pens. In the long process of historical development, Chinese characters have gradually developed into a mature and logical writing system. It has a strong ability to generate new characters, has a huge potential for expression, and can easily assume the function of recording Chinese.
Words are the witnesses of history, the guardians of traditions, and the disseminators of civilization. From the initial depiction of symbols and pictograms, Chinese characters have developed encoding methods such as ideograms, phonetics and morphophonics, breaking through the ideograms and reflecting the development and evolution of the Chinese nation from figurative thinking to complex abstract thinking. The ancient Chinese characters have witnessed the tortuous and glorious growth of the Chinese nation and have become the "living fossils" of Chinese civilization. The structure of Shang and Zhou oracle bone inscriptions and Jin inscriptions can often directly or indirectly reflect some details of social life at that time. In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the situation of five systems of characters - Qin, Chu, Jin, Qi and Yan gradually took shape, and the seal scripts and ancient subordinates of the Qin State were parallel to the ancient characters of the six eastern countries, reflecting the historical scene of the competition for supremacy; During the Qin and Han dynasties, the difficult small seals were mostly used on special occasions, and Gu Li and Bafen were successively active in the field of daily writing, and at the same time, cursive script has developed rapidly. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the line of calligraphy and regular script gradually matured, reflecting the style of that era from one side, "Pingfu Post", "Fast Snow Time Sunny Post", "Mid-Autumn Post", "Boyuan Post" and other calligraphy posts that have been passed down through the ages reflect the elegant and calm demeanor of the Jin Dynasty. Chinese characters breathe and share the same fate with the ever-growing Chinese civilization, and have not changed their true colors through the changes of the times, which is not only an important embodiment of the continuity of Chinese civilization, but also an important foundation for the continuity of Chinese civilization. Tracing the evolution of Chinese characters, we can touch the pulse of history and feel the profound and long-lasting heritage of Chinese civilization.
The continuity of Chinese characters and Chinese civilization
Chinese civilization has a long history, a long and continuous history. How did this trait come about? Why has our civilization never stopped? This can be seen from Chinese characters, the core elements of Chinese civilization. Chinese characters are a writing symbol system that originated from the land of China, mainly recorded Chinese and has multiple functions, and is a typical representative of the ideographic writing system. The continuity of Chinese civilization is highlighted by the continuity of Chinese characters, which transcend the boundaries between tradition and modernity and are still in use today. Although the form of this writing system has changed, its internal deep structure has never undergone fundamental changes, and the recorded language has been inherited from ancient to modern, and the documents formed are rich and continuous. A modern person who can read ancient books, if he opens the ancient books copied by the Western Han people more than 2,000 years ago, the dyslexia is very small, which is unique in the world. In the early 70s of the 20th century, Shirakawa Shirakawa, a well-known Japanese scholar, once said: "In a sense, Chinese culture is the culture of Chinese characters, and the various characteristics of Chinese characters have added a strong color to Chinese culture." "Chinese characters have also radiated to the surrounding ethnic groups, forming a unique cultural circle, that is, the Chinese character cultural circle. ”
Chinese characters have greatly enhanced the cohesion and centripetal force of the Chinese nation. China has a vast land, many dialects, and many ethnic languages, and a unified script has built an important foundation for national unity and ethnic integration. In 221 B.C., when Qin Shi Huang unified the whole country, he ordered the implementation of the policy of "writing with words" to ensure the transmission of government decrees and the unity of ideology and culture. After the Qin Dynasty, Chinese characters underwent a long evolution of fonts. Although the world was divided and dynasties changed, the tradition of Chinese characters as a common language has never wavered. Historically, most of the ethnic minorities who entered the Central Plains took the initiative to embrace Han culture and learn Chinese characters. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, in order to integrate Tuoba Xianbei into the culture of the Central Plains, Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty implemented the reform of sinicization, established Chinese as the official language, and required learning Chinese, using Chinese characters, and wearing Hanfu, which had a huge impact on promoting ethnic integration. During the Song Dynasty, the Liao, Western Xia, and Jin regimes established by the northern ethnic minorities were also influenced by Han culture, and their self-created ethnic scripts borrowed from the radicals of Chinese characters.
The Chinese nation is not simply a fusion of human races and blood, but an entity of cultural identity, and Chinese characters play an important role in the formation and development of the Chinese nation. The countries of the world that use phonetic scripts, whether they are the Roman Empire or Charlemagne, once they are nation-states that use smaller phonetic writing systems, it is difficult to unify into a culturally continuum country. China is different, in this land, there are changes of dynasties, there are changes of regimes, but our writing is the same, the culture is the same, the division will be together for a long time, and it will always be the victory of unity, which is closely related to the supralinguistic function of Chinese characters. Chinese characters do not record the language through the encoding method of directly expressing the phonetics, but record the Chinese language through a variety of coding forms based on ideograms, so that it has two characteristics: on the one hand, it can accurately record the language, and Chinese characters are mature writing systems, which are compatible with the Chinese language, can record the spoken language of various eras, can form a written language, and make the language more rigorous; On the other hand, Chinese characters can transcend dialects, different eras can be pronounced with different sounds, and different regions can be pronounced with different sounds, no matter what sounds are read, their meaning is not only historically continuous, but also socially known, and the written language has long played the function of a common language. Therefore, although the dialects vary greatly from place to place, and the languages of different eras also vary greatly, there has always been a unified script. Although some Western scholars deny the ideograms represented by Chinese characters from the perspective of the function of recording language, they also point out that they have great advantages from the perspective of the social function of ideograms, that is, they are not bound by the linguistic image of words, so that people in various dialect areas can understand what they write each other.
Chinese characters are an important carrier of Chinese history and culture. China is a unified multi-ethnic country, which has given birth to a pluralistic and integrated Chinese civilization, and the inheritance and continuation of Chinese civilization mainly rely on written records and the preservation of classics. For example, the oracle bone inscriptions record sacrifices, hunting, battles, agriculture, medical inquiries, and weather during the Shang Dynasty. Jin Wen records the economic, political, cultural, military, and social life of the Zhou Dynasty. Throughout the history of world civilization, in many countries that use phonetic scripts, once the political power is replaced by a foreign ruler, the phonetic semantics of the written records have changed radically, even if the letters are the same and the languages recorded are different. The language recorded in the written records of the previous dynasty cannot be understood today, and the history written in the present dynasty cannot be understood in the next dynasty, and of course there will be no uninterrupted and continuous historical records. However, in China, the former dynasties perished, the later dynasties still used the same writing system, and the successive dynasties still used the same writing system, and there was no obstacle to reading before and after, so the historical records of civilization for thousands of years have been uninterrupted, and various documents are rich and diverse, and the inheritance is orderly.
In November 2022, the continuation of the Chinese Character Museum and the Chinese Character Park were officially opened to the public. Located in Anyang City, Henan Province, the Museum of Chinese Characters is a national first-class museum with the theme of writing. The picture shows the first phase of the Chinese Character Museum (photo by Wang Zirui, issued by China News Service).
Chinese characters contain the genetic code of Chinese culture, and many Chinese characters themselves record the production and living conditions of people at that time. Through these Chinese characters, we can feel the life of our ancestors and even the psychological state of their ancestors. Therefore, the Chinese have always had a sense of reverence for writing, which is reflected in the inheritance relationship in the evolution of Chinese characters, such as the "Three-Body Stone Classic" in the Cao Wei period, where the inscriptions are written in three scripts: ancient script, small seal and Han li; On the other hand, it is reflected in the preservation and inheritance of documents and calligraphy of previous dynasties by later generations, such as the Song Dynasty's "Chunhua Pavilion Post" which includes a large number of works by calligraphers of previous dynasties. It is the reverence for words that has allowed the history and culture of the Chinese nation to be passed down for thousands of years to the present day and carried forward.
Chinese characters highlight the unique charm of Chinese culture. Literature is the art of language, which is the commonality of literature. Chinese literature is not only the art of language, but also the art of writing. When we read the Tang poem "The window contains the snow of Xiling Thousand Autumns, and the door is anchored in the ship of Dongwu Wanli", we can only read two lines of poetry linearly, if it is written:
The window contains a thousand autumn snow in Xiling, and the door is berthed in the Dongwu Wanli ship.
In this way, we see another nonlinear structure: door-to-window, berth-to-contain, east-to-west, ......Noun to noun, verb to verb, this opposition is a non-linear visual structure. Poetry is not only to be read, but also to be seen. As the famous scholar Jao Tsung-i said: "Chinese characters are only partially phonetic, and the characters are not verbalized, but combined with the art of calligraphy and painting and the high beautification of literary forms and sounds, resulting in the great tree of Chinese characters, with lush branches and leaves, unique elegance, and the interlocking relationship between words, literature, and art (calligraphy), which constitutes the most fascinating charm of Han culture." ”
All kinds of writing in the world strive for the beauty of writing, but only Chinese characters have developed a unique art - calligraphy. The variety of Chinese characters provides superior conditions for the formation of rich and beautiful visual effects, and is combined with aphorisms, famous works, and seal carvings, so that the excellent traditional culture can be inherited in the process of appreciating the art of calligraphy. At the same time, calligraphy also contains the deep feelings of the Chinese family and country, and practicing calligraphy is more about character and temperament. Yan Zhenqing's "Manuscript for the Sacrifice of Nephews" in the Tang Dynasty is majestic and intense, and the whole article is full of heroic and righteous atmosphere; In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yunming copied the "Yueyang Tower" in cursive script, which was to "worry about the worries of the world first, and enjoy the joy of the world after the world" as the spiritual power.
Chinese Characters and Cultural Confidence
Culture is the soul of a country and a nation. Cultural self-confidence is a more basic, broader and deeper self-confidence, and it is the most basic, deepest and most lasting force in the development of a country and a nation. **The general secretary emphasized: "Without a high degree of cultural self-confidence and cultural prosperity, there will be no great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." ”
In the course of more than 5,000 years of history, the Chinese nation has created a brilliant, broad and profound excellent traditional culture, which is the profound foundation for us to strengthen our cultural self-confidence. **The general secretary attaches great importance to the excellent traditional Chinese culture, and has repeatedly emphasized that the excellent traditional Chinese culture is the root and soul of the Chinese nation, and the foundation for us to gain a firm foothold in the turmoil of world culture. To realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, we must inherit and carry forward the excellent traditional Chinese culture in light of the conditions of the new era. In his important speech at the symposium on cultural inheritance and development, the general secretary highly summarized the outstanding continuity, innovation, unity, inclusiveness and peace of Chinese civilization. As an important carrier of Chinese excellent traditional culture, Chinese characters record our "origin" and show the outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization.
Once the written language was formed, it recorded the language of the people, so that the achievements of civilization could be permanently preserved and widely disseminated. In the valley of the Two Rivers, the Code of Hammurabi in ancient Babylon transmitted the spark of the spirit of the rule of law to the world through cuneiform writing; In the Nile Valley, hieroglyphs record the knowledge and experience gained by the ancient Egyptians through their hard work; In the Yellow River Basin, the cultural genes carried by oracle bone inscriptions have become an important source of strength for shaping Chinese civilization. However, the cuneiform script of ancient Babylon and the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt have long since died, while Chinese characters have not only never been lost, but have been revitalized in the evolution of the font, becoming an uninterrupted writing system among all ancient autologous scripts. The longevity, continuity and stability of Chinese characters have enabled the vast and profound Chinese culture to be fully recorded, preserved and inherited. Chinese characters record the magnificent and glorious history of China, the philosophical thoughts of the hundred schools of thought, the excellent traditional Chinese moral concepts, the brilliant literature and art, the splendid invention and creation, and the wisdom of production and life, etc., so that the Chinese civilization has been passed down from generation to generation and has lasted for a long time. No matter how many twists and turns the long river of history has gone through, the Chinese character system has always remained basically stable, like a needle in the sea, maintaining the roots of Chinese culture and promoting the inheritance and development of Chinese civilization.
Damiano Domenico Valerio (right) from Italy learns to write his name in Chinese characters at Universiade Village in Chengdu on July 31, 2023. Chengdu Universiade Village has set up a variety of Chinese cultural interactive experience projects such as calligraphy, Chinese painting, Shu embroidery, and traditional musical instruments. When athletes and coaches are resting, they have come to feel the charm of Chinese culture and learn about Chinese culture (Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Shen Bohan).
Since modern times, China has gradually degenerated into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, in which the country has been humiliated, the people have suffered, and the civilization has been covered with dust. At that time, people lost their cultural self-confidence, and many people hoped to integrate into the new world and catch up with the new civilization through self-denial and self-abandonment, and even hoped to fit in with Western civilization and strive to conform to Western standards, but the result was counterproductive, resulting in the loss of self. To achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it is not only the economy, science and technology based on the forefront of the world, but also the self-reliance and self-confidence of culture. A civilization has been inherited for thousands of years and has been glorious for thousands of years, and no one in the world is more qualified to discuss "civilization" than such a nation and such a country. The abundant historical documents and the vigorous development of archaeology have more and more clearly shown the real situation of material culture, institutional culture and spiritual culture in various historical periods on the land of China. **The general secretary clearly put forward the "second combination", emphasizing that the "second combination" is another emancipation of the mind, so that we can make full use of the precious resources of China's excellent traditional culture in a broader cultural space and explore future-oriented theoretical and institutional innovations. At present, we must vigorously inherit and carry forward the excellent traditional Chinese culture and provide strong support for enhancing cultural self-confidence.
Culture is related to the foundation of the country and the fortune of the country. In order for any culture to stand and go far, to have leadership, cohesion, shaping and radiation, it must have its own subjectivity. **The general secretary pointed out: "Cultural self-confidence comes from our cultural subjectivity. "Chinese characters are the treasure of the Chinese nation, and their production and evolution reflect the wisdom and way of thinking of our ancestors, which is not only the pride of the nation, but also an important source of cultural self-confidence. It is necessary to comprehensively and deeply explore the historical and cultural value contained in Chinese characters, further promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture, and better build the modern civilization of the Chinese nation.
*: Qiushi, Issue 3, 2024.
Author: Li Shoukui (Professor, School of Humanities, Tsinghua University, Vice President of the Chinese Character Society).