What is the earliest writing in the history of China?

Different countries in the world have different cultures, and writing is the most representative symbol in culture. We can't understand the origin of writing, but what was the earliest found writing? Do you know what is the earliest writing in the history of China? Where did you find it? What's your name? If you don't know, then come with me to see the relevant introduction!

Literature and History: What is the earliest writing in the history of China?

Writing is a tool that people use to record language symbols and exchange ideas. In the past, people thought that Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty was the earliest written language in China.

After 1977, archaeologists excavated the ruins of two small towns in the east and west in the ruins of the Xia Dynasty, about 15 km southeast of Wang Chenggang, Dengfeng County, Henan Province, and found some precious written materials of the Xia Dynasty. For example, in an ash pit at the site of Xicheng. A muddy black pottery flat bottom was found in early summer, and the word ""was found at the bottom of the flat bottom before the pottery was fired. The word consists of two parts, just like holding it with two hands. It may be "* *", which probably represents the surname of the owner of the pottery. Far from being a symbol, this word transcends the hieroglyphic stage, but is a knowing word, so it is a real word. This discovery strongly proves that as early as 4,000 years ago, China had written characters in the early Xia Dynasty.

Recently, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Chinese website published an amazing news, "The symbol on the tortoise shell found in Jia Hu, Henan, China is probably the earliest known writing."

Some symbols carved on tortoise shells found in Jia Hu, Henan Province can be traced back to 8000 years ago. This is probably a world-class discovery that has changed the history of human writing.

What are the four oldest formations in the world?

-Sumerian cuneiform

-Ancient Egyptian sacred manuscripts

-Chinese characters in China.

-Mayan characters

1, Sumerian cuneiform

Do you understand? I just don't understand, because I don't understand either ~ ~ but these words are symbols of human civilization and progress.

Cuneiform characters (cuneiform: pronounced non-homogeneous), also known as nail-headed characters and ding-headed characters (not T-shaped characters), originated in Mesopotamia, the earliest place of human civilization (also known as the two river basins, where Iraq is now located). In 3200 BC, Sumerians living in the south of the two river basins created cuneiform characters, which were used in West Asia for more than 3000 years and spread to Akkad, Babylon and Assyria, and were the earliest mature characters in human writing.

The writing tools and methods of cuneiform are very strange. Most of the cuneiform characters that have been found are written on clay tablets, and a few are written on stone, metal or wax tablets. The bookkeeper used a sharpened reed stick or wooden stick to write on the soft clay board, forming traces of thick left end and thin right end, or thick upper end and thin lower end, much like nails. The ceramic plate becomes hard after drying or baking, and it is not easy to deform. In different regions and nationalities, cuneiform characters have also changed in phonology and ideography.

During the Assyrian Empire (BC14th-7th century), cuneiform became the international lingua franca from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, reaching the peak of its influence, but it did not survive. From around 1000 BC, lamia appeared as a note on the cuneiform blackboard. Then lamia gradually replaced Akkad.

In 539 BC, after Persia conquered the kingdom of Babylon, it also learned cuneiform from it. Due to the extreme expansion of the conquered territory of the Persian Empire, the Persians in the Iranian plateau changed the cuneiform characters of Mesopotamia into more convenient alphabetic characters for the needs of commercial development. Later, it was first replaced by Greek, and the Phoenician alphabet was invented by Phoenician merchants on the basis of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Since then, alphabet has stepped onto the historical stage and gradually become the mainstream of the West. Then it was changed to * * * language.

Cuneiform has been popular in West Asia for 3000 years, and its last revival was from the 3rd century BC to the 1 century. The last cuneiform clay tablet found today is a relic of 75 AD, and no one has known cuneiform since then.

2. Holy Book (Egyptian hieroglyphics)

Mesopotamia is to the west of Egypt. As one of the four ancient civilizations (ancient Egypt, ancient Babylon, ancient India and ancient China), it is also one of the four oldest civilization systems.

About 5500 years ago, the ancient Egyptians living in the Nile valley in North Africa created splendid culture and beautiful sacred words. The name was chosen because the ancient Egyptians regarded the writing as sacred and called it a "holy book". In a narrow sense, sacred books only refer to inscriptions mainly used to write sacrificial objects or carved on stone tablets in temple walls and tombs, which first appeared. In a broad sense, sacred sites include two other fonts besides inscriptions-monk style and folk style. Interestingly, the inscriptions, monks and people's names are not from Egypt, but from Greeks.

Inscriptions are graphical, and ancient Egyptians paid attention to the art of calligraphy, so the inscriptions appearing on pyramids or temple sites are quite beautiful. The writing order can be from left to right, from right to left, from top to bottom, or from two sides to the middle. No matter how the writing order changes, as long as the faces of the characters and animals in the inscription face in which direction, the words are read and written in which direction (WOKAO, what is this wonderful pen? )。 Although the inscription style is exquisite, it is not suitable for quick writing, so the Egyptian inscription style was changed to cursive after the "grass reform" to facilitate the writing of business letters and literary works. On papyrus paper. The writing order is from right to left, and the pictographs of the characters completely disappear (did you learn from China? Or did China learn from Egyptology? )。 Later, cursive scripts were mostly used to write religious works, and the users were monks, so they were called "monk books". The inscription and postscript style is mainly used in solemn occasions, and it has been used with the monk style for 3000 years.

The folk body appeared about 2000 years later than the inscription and the monk body. It is a simplification of the monk style, also known as "epistolary style" or "vulgar style", which originated in lower Egypt and preserved the writing order of the monk style. It's just that the people's body is easy to write, but not easy to read and learn (is it similar to the complicated and simplified in China? )。 After the appearance of human body, the monk's body has become a special writing of monks. It is worth noting that neither the grass change of inscriptions nor the simplification of monks' bodies have changed the structural system of Egyptian characters. Perhaps because of the complexity of the sacred script, the geographical limitation of writing tools (papyrus, that is, papyrus, produced in the Nile Delta), and Egypt's own political and military strength, the sacred script has not been widely spread, and traces of the sacred script can only be found in Meroe (the script of Meroe Kingdom in southern ancient Egypt) and Coptic (the alphabet of the last language in ancient Egypt). In 639 AD, * * * people invaded Egypt and ruled this area, and the holy book died out.

One of the great contributions of the sacred book to the development of Chinese characters is that it has a set of syllabic phonetic symbols that only represent consonants, which are divided into 75 double consonants and 24 single consonants (later increased to 30), and these consonants are the earliest letter buds. (fortune telling)

3. Chinese characters

It's finally our turn to write Chinese characters in China!

The mature form of Chinese characters-Oracle Bone Inscriptions appeared about 2000 years later than the nail-headed characters in the two river basins (no wonder the four ancient civilizations came last), but Chinese characters are the only classical characters that have been used so far (this is the most awesome place in China). The reason is not only related to the characteristics of Chinese characters, but also related to the historical environment of national unity and integration since ancient times in China, and the cultural spirit of moderation, respect for ancestors and ancestors. Because the written language of a country expresses and carries the culture of a country and a nation, the written language is inherited because of the development of the national and national cultures, and the national and national cultures are also continued and developed because of the inheritance of the written language (this sentence is too lenient, meaning that the written language and the nation are interdependent).

Extensive and profound Chinese characters

Since Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Chinese characters have developed for more than 3,000 years, and their forms have been simplified. With the evolution of China's history, they have experienced font changes of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, big seal script, small seal script, official script and regular script, and become the characters we use today. Chinese mainland usually uses standardized simplified Chinese characters, while traditional Chinese characters are very popular in Hongkong, Macau and Taiwan Province Province. Thousands of years' accumulation has given birth to a splendid and colorful Chinese character culture, which blended with the languages of various ethnic groups in China and spread to Japan, North Korea, Viet Nam and other countries and regions, forming a Chinese character cultural circle containing more than 30 languages.

What is the eighteen changes in women's universities? It's getting worse.

Do it again:

Chinese characters are the only classical Chinese that has been used so far!

This is the pride of China people ~

4. Mayan characters

Did Maya Madrid's ancient codex catch up with Tintin's adventures?

Maya has always been mysterious, including its words ~

Mayan writing is the only American writing that has developed to a mature level. Speaking of Maya, everyone should be familiar with it. 20 12' s prediction of the end of the world once frightened the whole world. But fortunately, it was a false alarm after all. Although we still face many disasters caused by the deterioration of natural climate and reckless human behavior, I believe that human beings born and raised on the earth will at least carefully protect our only home in the galaxy.

Mayan characters originated in Central America (across the Pacific Ocean), located in present-day Mexico, Belize and Guatemala, with Yucatan Peninsula as the center. Around A.D., the Mayans created the indigenous language-Mayan language. The characters in Maya's eyes are sacred. According to legend, it was created by "the eyes of the sun" and only wizards can learn it (too mysterious). Mayan characters include calendars, etiquette, myths, prophecies, history, narrative poems and scripts. Maya used hair (mainly human hair) as a pen and bark as a paper, and the writing order was from left to right and from top to bottom. Mayan characters are not well developed, but hieroglyphics are a combination of hieroglyphics and sounds, which retain obvious graphic attributes, so they read like comic books.

The existing inscriptions on Mayan stone tablets show the Mayan history from 328 to16th century, indicating that Mayan characters are at least nearly 1500 years old. However, America was an isolated and closed society in pre-Columbian times, and Mayan characters did not spread to other nationalities and regions. After the Mayans, the Sapotec, Toltecs and Aztecs who ruled Central America destroyed Mayan culture one after another, and inherited less. /kloc-in the 6th century, the Spanish savagely invaded Central America (at that time, it was the Aztec era), which directly led to the destruction of Mayan characters, the burning of books, the slaughter of wizards who mastered the characters, and the loss of Mayan characters in the hands of the invaders. Spanish football is awesome, but it is not advisable to kill Maya directly! In addition to the inscriptions on stone tablets, there are three kinds of existing Mayan written materials, which are collected in Madrid, Spain, Paris, France and Dresden, Germany, and named after the collection places.