Re: Indecipherable Ancient Books Found in Chongqing
- From: Jack Linthicum <jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:40:18 -0800 (PST)
On Feb 26, 10:28 pm, Tom McDonald <kilt...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 26, 4:18 pm, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Photo of two pages from this book at cite.
The books are not really "indecipherable" because one is a dictionary
that should enable a dedicated scholar to translate and understand
both books.
Home > China
Indecipherable Ancient Books Found in Chongqing
The Epoch Times
Feb 24, 2008
Mysterious ancient books found in Chongqing. For the past two years no
one has been able to read them. (Epoch Times screen shot taken from 21
cn.com)
The Tujia have been known as an ethnic minority with its own spoken
language but without a written language. Yet a succession of ancient
books in the same written language have been found in the Youyang
Tujia habitation straddling the borders of Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou
Province, and Chongqing City. For the past two years none have been
able to read the ancient books.
Chongqing Morning Post published a report on February 15 about the
story of Zhou Yongle, 38, a resident in Youyang Tujia and Miao
Autonomous County. In the winter of 2006, Zhou arrived at Yiju Town to
purchase antiques. He bought a pile of old books from a farmer and
took them home. When he was tidying up the purchased books, an ancient
book bound with thread drew his attention.
This special ancient book was made up of over twenty pieces of
parchment that was commonly used in the Wuling Mountain Area.
Characters vertically arranged on the parchment bear a striking
resemblance to traditional Chinese characters. Written with brushes,
the handwriting is neat and strong. Much to his amazement, he could
not recognize any of the words. He was left dumbfounded.
I know a little Chinese (very little), but I would have had the same
experience as did Zhou. Looking at the image of the page, I could
*almost* make out several characters; and most of the rest of the
characters (the large ones the story talks about) seem to me to be
written with radicals that seem familiar.
But if a native Chinese reader couldn't read them, I have to wonder
exactly how exotic this writing is. It seems to me that it must (awful
word--must stop using it) be related to Chinese, perhaps in a way
similar to the way modern Inuit written language is based on Roman
letters. IIRC, that is.
I wonder whether there is an analog with, for instance, Cherokee? I'm
not positing any relationship between Cherokee and this Asian
language, but rather a similar impetus to give a group of people a
written language they can call their own.
With detailed observation, Zhou Yongle found Chinese characters next
to each word that he had previously not noticed. The smaller Chinese
characters seemed to serve as footnotes or translation. According to
the translation done by the Chinese characters, the book should be
titled Ancient Three Character Classic .
Zhou Yongle consulted such Chinese classics as the Shuowen Jiezi [1],
Bronzeware script [2], and the Kangxi Dictionary [3]. With an
eagerness to figure out the meaning of each character and the name of
the writing system, he consulted cultural experts from the Ethnic and
Religious Affairs Commission of Youyang County, and also local
seniors, but to no avail. None were able to read the strange
characters.
That's not the end of story. In the spring and summer of 2007,
residents in the ancient town of Gongtan were all evacuated due to
construction on the Wujiang Hydropower Station. Zhou went to an old
house to again purchase antiques. Suddenly, a coverless old book
caught his eye: characters on this book were exactly identical to
those on his first discovered book.
After buying the book, Zhou thoroughly examined it and found that it
was an ancient book used as a dictionary, with pages combined with
thread and characters vertically arranged. Written with brushes, it
was composed of big characters similar to those of his previous
ancient book. Smaller Chinese characters beneath the content words
served as footnotes. Comparison of the two books revealed that
characters of the two books belonged to the same writing system, along
with footnotes presented in Chinese characters. Based on the
resemblance, Zhou concluded that the two books were written in the
same language.
Zhou commented, "The Tujia are widely recognized as an ethnic minority
with its own spoken language, but without its written language. If we
could unravel the mystery of these undecipherable books discovered
along the Wu River, and if we could prove they are words used by the
Tujia, that would be a great discovery for the Tujia culture. Then the
history of ethnic minorities would be revised."
So far, this kind of mysterious writing system, said Zhou, has been
found only in Youyang County. Traces have never been spotted in any
other areas.
[1] The Shuowen Jiezi was an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary
from the Han Dynasty. It was the first comprehensive Chinese character
dictionary.
[2] Bronzeware script is a family of scripts found on Chinese bronze
such as zhong (bells) and ding (tripods)
[3] The Kangxi Dictionary was the standard Chinese dictionary during
the 18th and 19th centuries. The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty
ordered its compilation in 1710 and it was published in 1716. The
dictionary is named after the Emperor's era name.
Click here to read the original article in Chinese
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-2-24/66522.html
Or the Greeks creating several versions of an alphabet when exposed to
the Phoenician one.
.
- References:
- Indecipherable Ancient Books Found in Chongqing
- From: Jack Linthicum
- Re: Indecipherable Ancient Books Found in Chongqing
- From: Tom McDonald
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