Dream Guide - #450 - Chapter 450 Language and Civilization

Mrs. Larry picked up a branch and began to write and draw on the ground. She first wrote some strange symbols, like a kind of writing, that no one could understand. She wrote very carefully, scribbling and correcting as she wrote, like a primary school student dictating words.

The soft mud was quickly covered with densely written large areas. Mrs. Larry stopped and wiped the sweat from her forehead, looked at it carefully again, and then said: “It should be right, this is what I saw in the altar. All text.”

Su Huilan said: “It’s a bit like the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt.”

“It’s a bit similar,” Mrs. Larry said. “I first saw similar symbols on the scepter of the savage leader and some pottery in his house. It reminds me of the relationship between our mission to the South Pacific and the Egyptian pyramids. , I thought it was a variant of ancient Egyptian writing. But because there were too few samples, I couldn’t draw a clear conclusion. Until I saw these in the altar——

I can confirm that this is a very ancient writing, different from the priestly writing of ancient Egypt, but they must have origins with each other. Before Champollion deciphered the Rosetta Stone, ancient Egyptian writing had been regarded as a simple hieroglyphic script, but we all know now that it has more phonetic parts than hieroglyphic parts, so it is actually a phonetic script. The Lord’s words have both pictographic and ideographic functions.

The characteristic of phonetic writing is that it is easy to spread but not easy to record. Ideographic writing can use a smaller number of words to express accurately and deeply, but it also increases the difficulty of mastering it, so it is not conducive to widespread dissemination among different classes and races.

But almost all writing in the world starts with pictographic meanings, and then is combined with local spoken language to form phonetic writing. In the process of communication, the ideographic part of the text will gradually be lost, leaving its phonetic function, and it will evolve into different pronunciation and symbol combinations in various places.

Except for China, which has entered a highly developed agricultural civilization from a very early age and maintained a unified dynasty for thousands of years without any fundamental division of family and country or interruption of civilization, it is able to retain such a complex writing system as Chinese characters and become today’s unified dynasty. Except for the only ancient scripts that are still in use today, the ancient Egyptian script, the Sumerian cuneiform script, and the Mayan script have all died out. And even if they exist, judging from our deciphering situation, they have already evolved into a type of writing that is mainly phonetic.

The linguistic community has been looking for evidence of the evolution of Egyptian hieroglyphic script. We speculate that before it, there should have been a script similar to the Chinese character system that was richer in pictography and ideograms, and gradually evolved into the later hieroglyphic script. “

“Could that be the evolution of Chinese characters?” Petru interjected. He knows a little bit of Chinese and fully agrees with Mrs. Larry’s statement that the Chinese characters are the most complex characters in the world.

“No, it won’t.” As Mrs. Larry’s assistant, Alice has also done considerable research on philology. “There is no correlation between Chinese characters and hieroglyphics. Their structures and ways of expressing meaning are completely different. Chinese characters must It is much more complex and ingenious than hieroglyphics. We should be grateful that Chinese civilization has not been cut off, otherwise, the difficulty of deciphering Chinese characters will be more difficult than any code in the world.”

“Isn’t there a Chinese proverb that says ‘truth is always the simplest thing’? Why are Chinese characters so complicated? People who use such complicated things must also be very complicated inside!” Petru glanced at Aoki and Su Huilan , “If only it were as good, simple, easy to learn, and practical as English!”

“That’s because you think it’s simple, but the Chinese may not think so!” Alice retorted, “If Western civilization hadn’t dominated the world since the Industrial Revolution, we might all be speaking Chinese now!”

Petru shrugged noncommittally: “Thankfully that’s not the case, otherwise I would definitely be illiterate.”

Mrs. Larry shook her head and said: “The advantages of Chinese characters are obvious. Its ideographic function is very powerful and its application is more flexible. Compared with English and other languages, it can express richer meanings with fewer words. A very critical point , the word-forming ability of Chinese characters is much stronger than that of English. When human beings recognize more and more things, and face new things, English’s performance pales in comparison. Adding roots will make words longer and longer, and creating new words will make them longer. Words will make our dictionary thicker and thicker. However, Chinese characters can easily create new nouns and even new adjective usages through their rich ideographic functions and flexible word formation capabilities. So far, the total number of words in English has More than 700,000, and the vocabulary of Arabic has reached an astonishing over 10 million, while Chinese characters have been used for thousands of years, and so far there are less than 100,000 characters, and the number of commonly used characters is only more than 3,000.”

After hearing this, the crow cried out: “Quack, quack! I can speak a lot of Chinese characters, quack!” and then started to sing, “The whole world is learning Chinese quack… Confucius’ quack is becoming more and more international… Pole, quack, bench, quack, the pole wants to be tied.” On the bench, croaking pole, on the bench, croaking pole, I want to tie it to the bench, croaking pole…”

The Chinese song sung by the crow, coupled with the strange pronunciation, made Petru a little irritated: “Okay, okay, when I get out of here, I will go to China to learn Chinese, and the whole world will fucking speak Chinese!”

Mrs. Larry smiled and said:

“The shortcomings of Chinese characters are also obvious, as you said – it’s difficult to learn!

All people are born with the ability to speak. It is not difficult to go from babbling to proficient conversation, and you don’t even need to go to school to do it. But being able to speak does not mean that you have mastered a language, and the process of civilization requires the help of language. For children in English-speaking countries, after learning to speak and then learn 26 letters, they have basically mastered the language and can read newspapers, write emails, and send tweets.

However, Chinese children must go through systematic learning to truly master Chinese. Modern people may not find it difficult, but if you imagine the living conditions in ancient times and the size of China, you will know how difficult it is to promote this language.

Language is part of civilization, a symbol of its maturity, and a catalyst for its development. To a certain extent, the prosperity of the Mediterranean civilization and European civilization is inseparable from the contribution of Latin, and the uniqueness of Chinese civilization has the indelible contribution of Chinese characters. But in terms of dissemination, Indo-European languages ​​have a natural advantage. It can be easily accepted by people of different regions and races without the need for a unified central dynasty to promote and implement its civilized mission and values.

So what Alice just said is not entirely correct. It is not that civilization dominates language, but that language advances civilization and even determines the pattern of civilization to a certain extent. In terms of the efficiency of language communication and application in modern society and the development of globalization, English, which originated from Latin and Germanic languages, has the most advantages, so it has become the most common language in the world. “

Petru asked in confusion: “You say that Chinese is the most advanced language in the world, and English is the best language today, so what should you do? Why don’t those idiots in the United Nations list all languages ​​in the world? Unite?”

Mrs. Larry said: “The process of human civilization is very complicated. It is not linear in one direction, or even always forward or upward. At different stages of civilization, different languages ​​will show different vitality. The most suitable one today is English, maybe in a few decades, the world’s common language will become Chinese or another language.”

“Oh, okay, just assume I understand, but what does what you said have to do with our current situation? What do your paintings on the ground mean?” Pettru asked.