Promote the Chinese language civilization
2024-06-04
"Civilization" is a polysemous term that refers to the sum of material and spiritual wealth created by humans in the field of human development history. "Language civilization" refers to the human civilization stored in language and writing, which mainly includes three parts: first, the human civilization contained in various language units, language structures, and writing structures, the most typical of which is the content contained in vocabulary, the thinking logic contained in grammar, and the composition basis of writing symbols; Secondly, cultural norms in pragmatic habits, such as addressing habits formed based on kinship and inferiority relationships, and the "psychological schema" followed by language behaviors such as asking for directions, borrowing things, persuasion, and apology; Thirdly, various cultural contents recorded in both spoken and written language. Put another way, language civilization can also be understood as a civilization created by humans using language and writing. Human civilization is built on the foundation of linguistic civilization. Human beings have made progress in language civilization and are constantly enriching language civilization through progress. Human civilization is manifested in various knowledge activities, which are a "knowledge chain" composed of the creation, recording, storage, organization, and dissemination of knowledge. Due to language being the most important communication and thinking tool for humans, it plays a crucial role in every aspect of the human knowledge chain. Firstly, language participates in the creation of knowledge, and in this process, knowledge is recorded and stored. Knowledge becomes a constituent element of language itself or a language product. Some people say that the boundaries of language are the fundamental boundaries of human knowledge. If there is knowledge beyond the boundaries of language, it also needs to be interpreted through language before it can be incorporated into the human knowledge system. Secondly, language participates in the organization of knowledge. The use and standardization of human language, as well as the processing and organization of language products, including book cataloging, dictionary compilation, and academic history sorting, are all knowledge organization work. Finally, the value of knowledge lies in its dissemination and sharing, which mainly relies on language and language products. Knowledge dissemination can be divided into intergenerational vertical transmission and cross group horizontal transmission. Children are born to socialize through language, and then become modern people through written language. Translation is the cross group dissemination of knowledge to achieve sharing and mutual learning between different knowledge bases (individuals or groups). Human groups and individuals have grown up under the nourishment of language civilization. Whatever language civilization there is, it nurtures what kind of people and culture. Of course, "language" in language civilization should be understood in a broad sense. In the era of "hyperlanguage" in all media, information is transmitted not only through language and text, but also through other symbolic means. It includes not only language but also text, as well as other symbols used by humans, such as body language accompanying speech, sign language used by hearing-impaired people, blind text used by visually impaired people, scientific symbols, formulas, charts, codes, lights, flags, and codes used in special scenarios, as well as popular emojis on the internet, and so on. In the past, when discussing civilization, people often focused on writing, believing that with writing, humanity entered the era of civilization. The civilization of writing is indeed a peak of language civilization, but upon closer examination, the civilization of writing is not the entirety of language civilization. This is because, firstly, humans have established an important oral civilization in the absence of written language. Multidisciplinary research indicates that humans emerged two to three million years ago, and only acquired language in the late Paleolithic period approximately 70000 years ago. With language, human cognitive abilities underwent revolutionary changes, inventing ships, oil lamps, bows and arrows, and creating epics such as Homer, Gilgamesh, and Ramayana. In recent years, the Yiwu Qiaotou Site discovered in Zhejiang Province has unearthed a large number of exquisitely crafted and richly shaped pottery, orderly architectural relics, and even eight trigrams composed of six bars and white stripes, reproducing the Chinese civilization around 9000 years ago. Secondly, ethnic or tribal groups without written language also have linguistic civilizations. Among the thousands of languages in the world today, less than half have written characters, and most ethnic or tribal groups do not have written characters, or have recently designed characters but have not played a significant role. These ethnic groups or tribes also have their own civilizations, for example, the knowledge of the Oroqen people about mountains, forests, and reindeer in China has amazed the world. Thirdly, illiterate individuals who cannot read or have hearing impairments using sign language also have their own language civilization. Fourthly, in the era of modern technology and media, symbols beyond words have also been applied to a certain extent and are also developing "language civilization". Especially with the development of language intelligence represented by large language models, it marks the beginning of a new era of "human-computer interaction" in language, where symbols, charts, and even communication scenarios have important information transmission functions. From a developmental perspective, human communication and thinking tools will have a huge expansion, and creating and inheriting civilization is not just through writing. China has an uninterrupted civilization of Chinese characters and a long tradition of "respecting and cherishing writing paper". However, from the perspective of the development history of the human community, we attach importance to writing but cannot "deify writing", let alone ignore language. Language civilization is not equivalent to civilized language. Civilized language was advocated during the "Five Talks, Four Beauties, and Three Loves" campaign launched in 1981 in China. "Four Beauties" include "spiritual beauty, language beauty, behavioral beauty, and environmental beauty.". The "language beauty" among them refers to the later "civilized language", mainly referring to polite language, polite language behavior, etc. Civilized language is an external manifestation of language civilization, and the connotation and extension of language civilization are much richer than civilized language. In addition, the expression of "language culture" is also common, and the concept of language civilization is similar to it, which can often be used interchangeably. But the difference between the two is the difference between the concepts of "civilization" and "culture". Civilization has a longer sense of history and a deeper sense of social consciousness. Chinese language civilization, also known as "Chinese language civilization" by linguist Guo Xi, is a civilization carried by various languages and scripts of China. It is a civilization created by the Chinese nation using these languages and scripts, and is the cultural gene and spiritual home of the Chinese nation. In the process of 5000 or even nearly 10000 years of history, the language and writing of various related tribes and ethnic groups have played a role in the formation and development of the unique Chinese civilization. It should be emphasized here that since the Xia and Shang dynasties, Chinese language has played a special role in the history of the Chinese nation. Although Chinese characters have a clear existence for 3500 years, their origins can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty or even earlier. Chinese characters record a vast sea of literature, which is the common wealth of the Chinese nation, and the classic ideas are shared by multiple ethnic groups. Some ethnic groups also design their own ethnic scripts based on Chinese characters, such as Khitan characters, Western Xia script, Lao Zhuang script, Lao Shui script, etc., forming a distinctive Chinese character system. Chinese is not only the language of the Han ethnic group. In the long-term coexistence and development of the Chinese nation, Chinese has absorbed many elements of ethnic languages and has taken on the responsibility of being a lingua franca in certain regions and even across the country. In history, the languages in the Xi'an Luoyang area were regarded as the "correct pronunciation of the world" and were once endowed with the status of refined Chinese, common language, and Mandarin. They are part of the Chinese cultural context and have deeply influenced the development of the North South Chinese language. Northern Chinese refers to the Chinese language spoken both inside and outside the Great Wall, which has been integrated and formed through long-term contact with various languages of the Northern Altaic language family. This contact had already begun in the Zhou, Qin, Han, and even earlier periods, with rapid development in the "Five Hu Sixteen Kingdoms", Northern Dynasties, and Liao, Jin, and Yuan Dynasties, forming the "Han'er Language" commonly used by multiple ethnic groups in the north and later the Dadu dialect. Southern Chinese refers to the Chinese language spoken on both sides of the Yangtze River and in southern China, which gradually developed through contact with minority languages in the south. In the early Zhou Dynasty, the eldest son of the Crown Prince, Taibo (Taibo), and the second son, Zhongyong, had their hair cut and tattooed. They fled to the land of Wu to establish the state of Wu, and Chinese entered the southeastern region. During the Qin Dynasty, 500000 soldiers were dispatched, the Lingqu Canal was excavated, Lingnan was unified, and Chinese language entered the Baiyue region. The Eastern Jin, Southern Dynasties, and Southern Song dynasties established their capital in Jiangnan, bringing Central Plains Chinese back to Jiangnan, promoting the integration of Central Plains Chinese with Southern Chinese dialects and minority languages, and enhancing the status of Southern Chinese. The capital of Nanjing was established in the Ming Dynasty, and soon moved to Beijing. The Mandarin of Nanjing moved northward, and the Chinese languages of the north and south merged. The Qing Dynasty elevated the status of Beijing Mandarin. The language unification movement in the late Qing and Republic of China established the common language of the Han ethnic group and designated it as the national language. The People's Republic of China vigorously promotes Mandarin and simplified characters, and endows the common language of the Chinese nation with the status of a national common language based on historical conventions and current national conditions. Chinese characters have always played an important role in the history of the Chinese nation, making them the bond of unity and cohesion of the Chinese nation, and the foundation of civilization for common development. The Chinese language civilization has also played an important role in neighboring countries and is still playing an important role today; It has also been brought by several generations of Chinese to Southeast Asia and even the world, becoming the civilized bloodline of millions of Chinese who have left their homeland. The basic task of creating a new era of language civilization and promoting Chinese civilization is to promote its foundation, that is, to promote Chinese language civilization. In recent years, relevant departments of the country have continued to carry out activities such as reciting, writing, and teaching Chinese classics, using television media to hold programs such as the "Chinese Character Dictation Conference," "Chinese Poetry Conference," "Chinese Idiom Conference," and "Chinese Place Names Conference." They have also launched projects such as the "Inheritance and Development Project of Ancient Chinese Characters and Chinese Civilization," which promotes traditional language civilization. The Ministry of Education and the National Language Commission launched the "China Language Resources Audio Database Construction" in 2008 and the "China Language Resources Protection Project" in 2015, which is the excavation, protection, and inheritance of Chinese oral civilization. The "Chinese Ideological and Cultural Terminology Communication Project" launched in 2014 and the successful application of oracle bone script for the "World Memory List" in 2017 are empirical evidence of the Chinese language civilization moving towards the international community. In the process of looking back and experiencing the Chinese language civilization, in the practice of promoting the Chinese language civilization, and in the exchange and mutual learning with other language civilizations, we will discover some unique wisdom, magnanimity, and charm of the Chinese language civilization, such as inclusivity. The Chinese language civilization has great inclusiveness, which can integrate the language and culture of various ethnic groups in China, absorb foreign language and culture, and inherit ancient language and culture, achieving beauty and harmony. Secondly, symmetry. The Chinese language civilization emphasizes symmetry, which is reflected in the level and tone of phonetics, the contrast in poetry, the symmetry and harmony in aesthetics, the balance and mediocrity in handling affairs, the hierarchy in etiquette, and the familiarity between inside and outside. Thirdly, practicality. The Chinese language civilization advocates practicality, with no excessive morphological changes in grammar. It often uses flowing sentences to express ideas, emphasizes practicality and examples rather than extravagance in academic discussions, and emphasizes practicality, friendship, and commitment in handling affairs. In the process of interpreting and promoting the Chinese language civilization, reexamining it and gaining insights also have the significance of creating a new language civilization. Of course, promoting the Chinese language civilization not only requires excavating and inheriting the language civilization in ancient Chinese, ancient scripts, and ancient classics, but also excavating and inheriting the language civilization of the common language of the Chinese nation, as well as excavating and inheriting the language civilization in Chinese dialects and ethnic languages. At the same time, it is necessary to draw on other human language civilizations to create the Chinese nation
Edit：Lubaikang Responsible editor：Chenze
Source：Guangming Daily
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