摘要
目次一、我国少数民族的原始记事方法二、我国考古发现和古籍记载中所见的原始记事方法三、文字是如何发明的?人类在文字发明以前,曾使用各种方法来帮助记忆、表达思想和交流意见。这些方法可以统称为原始记事方法。原始记事至少可以上溯到旧石器时代晚期。如众所知,欧洲的洞穴画有些场面已具有记录巫术仪式或祈求狩猎成功的性质。据最近研究,克罗马农人刻在石器和骨片的一些符号,是对季节、时间和生产活动的记录"。从原始记事到文字发明,曾经历了漫长的时期。正是人们在长期使用原始记事方法中积累起来的经验和智慧,才引导出文字的发明。因此,要探讨文字的起源问题,有必要对各种原始记事方法进行充分的了解。研究史前时期原始记事方法,困难较多。第一,当时既然还没有文字,自不可能留下什么成文的记载。第二,原始记事大多数是刻在或画在易朽材料(如竹木、皮革)上。
According to the author,once there were many kinds of primitive record-keeping me-thods,which could be grouped into three major categories:drawing pictures,makingsymbols (e.g.,knot-tying or wood-notching) and using material objects to suggest the shapeof a thing,or the sound of its name or the meaning it implies.However,the third methodhas often been neglected in past studies on the origins of writing.Basing himself on archaeological finds and primitive record-keeping methods that someof the Chinese minority nationalities have been using until recent years,the author pre-sents part of the materials from his own investigations,thus making his accounts freshand interesting.The recent archaeological finds include marks and designs on pottery,en-gravings on wood,totems on bronez articles,cliff paintings from Yunnan,Guangxi andSichuan and cliff carvings from the Xinjiang Uyghur and the Inner Mongolian Autonomousregions and from Gansu province.In connection with the general law of the evolution of writing,the author holdsthat the idea of writing developing from drawing pictures is not accurate and comprehensivs;rather he believes that witing is derived from all the three record-keeping methods.Forinstance,some of the ideographic characters and numbers probably evolved from marks car- red in wood.The author maintains that some principles of writing were engendered by therecord-keeping method using material objects.He is of the opinion that there has been along period of continuous development from primitive record-keeping to the invention ofwriting;but only those marks that had become phonic symbols and had been recognizedand understood by a fairly large number of people could be called writing.And thisis the very form of writing that symbolizes mankind's stepping into civilization rather thanthose irregular simple marks or drawings to aid memory.
出处
《考古学报》
1981年第1期1-44,147-148,共46页
Acta Archaeologica Sinica
