JinCai,Unrepentant Marxist & professional procrastinator（頑固的馬克思主義者和職業拖延症者）
It’s very hard to give a ‘scientifically correct’ answer to thisquestion because there are still disputes over what constitutes the Chinesewritten language.
But I will go ahead and say that it is probably at least6,000 years old.
Western historians used to argue that Chinese history cannot betraced back for more than 3000 years. My Canadian middleschool textbook fromthe 90s said matter-of-factly that everything before the Zhou Dynasty is myth,even though Shang oracle bone>
Right off the bat, we know that the oracle bone>
We have already found 170 symbols written on potterypieces that are 6,000 years old from the Daxi Culture Daxi culture - Wikipedia. Many of thesebare striking resemblance to the oracle bone>
The direct relationship between these 170 symbols and the oraclebone>
However, the differences in appearance is understandable giventhat there is an almost 3,000 year gap in between. Moreover, it would be ratherastonishing if two similar kinds of>
In recent years, many similar discoveries have been made,including this one 'Earliest writing' found in China in which 16symbols were found on turtle shells (apparently our ancestors’ medium ofchoice) that are 8,600 years old.
Despite BBC’s sensationalizations, it would be a stretch to callit writing; at only 16 symbols we cannot conclude they are not random symbolsjotted down by some bored prehistoric Chinese person. But we also cannot besure that this isn’t the direct precursor to the>
It would be interesting to see what further archeologicaldiscoveries bring.
對於這個問題，我們很難給出一個“科學上正確”的答案，因為關於中國書面語言的構成仍然存在爭議。
但我還是要說它可能至少有6000年的歷史了。
西方歷史學家過去常說中國的歷史不能追溯到3000多年前。我90年代加拿大中學的課本上說，周朝以前的一切都是神話，即使商代的甲骨文早在一戰前就被發現了。考古學定期地證明，中國的歷史記錄和中國歷史學家對它們的解讀遠比西方的懷疑論可靠。
Helena Almagest, M.A. Indo-European Studies& General Linguistics, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2005)
For some reason, people love toexaggerate the age of Chinese civilisation. Not only the Chinese themselves,but Westerners too. They will talk about mysterious ancient Chinese books thatare 5000 years old and contain amazingly advanced wisdom – but I’ve never seenany evidence for books this old, even outside China! It’s really annoying.
The oldest Chinese charactersthat are unambiguously writing are found in the oracle bone inscriptions,starting from c. 1200 BC. More than 3000 years old is still a real lot, mindyou. Europe was still in the Bronze Age at the time and had no writing at alloutside Greece. And China could easily be said to have been the world’sforemost civilisation from then until the 1700s, with roots that are even older(although we don’t know since when Sino-Tibetan languages, whose origin appearsto be in the mountains of Kham, have been spoken in the lowlands – did you knowthat the oldest pottery vessels in the world have been found in Xianren Cave,Jiangxi Province, c. 20,000 years old, dating to the height of the last iceage?), and could well become it again in the not-so-distant future. So Chinareally has no need to exaggerate anything.
出於某種原因，人們喜歡誇大中國文明的年代。不僅中國人自己，西方人也一樣。
他們會談論有著5000年曆史的神秘古籍，裡面蘊含著令人驚歎的先進智慧——但我從未見過能證明此古籍如此古老的證據，即使是在（中）國外也沒有!這真的很煩人。
最早的漢字是在公元前1200年的甲骨文中發現的。提醒你，3000多年的歷史仍然是一個很大的數目。當時歐洲還處於青銅器時代，在希臘之外沒有任何文字。從那時到18世紀，中國可以說是世界上最重要的文明，其根源甚至更古老（雖然我們不知道漢藏語系是什麼時候開始在低地使用的，但漢藏語系的起源似乎是在康巴山區。你知道嗎，世界上最古老的陶器是在江西仙人洞發現的，距今約2萬年，可以追溯到上一個冰河時代的頂峰）。很可能在不久的將來再次發生（譯註：意義不明）。所以中國真的沒有必要誇大任何事情。
Benoît Gardonio
Thereis no need to go postal about my comment. I'm just asking you to be morerigorous and to back up your point. And I don't undersand why I should be theone doing the research when I'm asking you to prove your point beyond juststatements.
Yourpoint was that cuneiform didn't “encode grammar yet”. The question is aboutwhere you hold this criterium from, that's all. I just want to know why awriting system must encode grammar in order to be considered developed enough.
Maybethis is obvious to you but it may not be for several readers on Quora amongwhich I stand. Explain me why, for example, the Lascaux paintings couldn't be considereda writing system. According to whose criteria do you define whether it is awriting system or not? Does information need grammar or syntax in ordered to beconveyed through patterns?
沒有必要對我的評論大發雷霆。我只是希望你們能更嚴謹地支持自己的觀點。我不明白為什麼當我要求你證明你的觀點而不僅僅是陳述的時候，我應該是那個做研究的人。
你的觀點是楔形文字還沒有“編碼語法”。問題是你從哪裡得到這個標準，就是這樣。我只是想知道為什麼一個書寫系統必須編碼語法才能被認為是足夠發達的。
也許這對你來說是顯而易見的，但對Quora上的讀者來說可能就不是這樣了，我就是其中之一。解釋一下為什麼，比如說，拉斯科洞窟壁畫不能被認為是一種書寫系統。你根據誰的標準來定義它是否是一個書寫系統?信息是否需要通過模範的語法有序地傳遞?
Benoît Gardonio
Thenyou should provide for a clear definition of a writing system and be a littlemore explicit with your sources.
Wavingout the Sumerian cuneiform as a not yet fully developed writing system soundspreposterous at best. According to which criteria do you consider a writingsystem to be fille developed then? Who established these criteria and for whatpurpose?
那麼你應該為書面語統提供一個清晰的定義，並更明確地說明您的信息來源。
將蘇美爾楔形文字作為一種尚未完全發展起來的書寫系統剔除，往好裡說，聽起來很荒謬。
那麼，你認為應該根據哪些標準來發展一套書面語呢?誰制定了這些標準，目的是什麼?
HelenaAlmagest
Basically,as long as a symbolic system is pictographic and does not encode grammar yet,so that the underlying language is not clearly identifiable, it isproto-writing.
Inever said Sumerian cuneiform per se is not yet fully developed. I said itwasn’t fully developed yet in 3600–3000 BC.
基本上，只要符號系統是象形的，並且還沒有對語法進行編碼，因此底層語言就不能被清楚地識別出來，那麼它就是原始書寫。我從來沒說過蘇美爾楔形文字本身尚未充分發展。我說它在公元前3600-3000年還沒有完全發展。
ZachZhang
According to reserches, it may beover 5000 years old.
In the very old years, people ofShang (a dynasty) created characters written on bones and tortoise shells.
Then, people recorded things onmetals, bamboo slips and cloth, until papei was invented. After this, many kindof typefaces appeared.
In the modern ages, you can see Chinesepeople writing in a way called Regular-Script (楷書).Some people are interested in old characters, so they use Xiaozhuan (小篆) and so on as an interest.
Main ways that Chineseforefathers used to create hanzi (basic parts of Chinese language) was:
象形. For example,draw a circle and a dot in the circle makes the basic form of “日”, which means “Sun”.
指示. Look at thepicture. If I add an across on the bottom of the character (木, wood), a “本”(means“beginning”) is made.
會意. Put 2 or morecharacters created in the way of 象形 together tomake a new character, and we call this 會意.
形聲. We all knowwords has their pronunciations. Putting a character with the similar pronunciationas a part of the new word, and using another character with a meaning similarto the new word in this as well, make a new character. e.g. 財 sounds “Tsai”. The right part sounds “Tsai” as well. The left part meansshell, a thing people used to deal in the past. So “財” just means money.
So much for this. Vote me if you likethis answer.
根據研究，它可能有5000多年的歷史。在非常古老的年代，商朝的人在骨頭和龜殼上寫字。
之後，人們又在金屬、竹簡和布上做記錄，直到紙被髮明。此後，出現了許多種字體。
在現代時代,你可以看到中國人寫的叫做楷書(楷書)。有些人對古老字體感興趣,所以他們用Xiaozhuan(小篆)等字體來書寫。
中國先輩創造漢字的主要方式是:
象形。例如,畫一個圓和一個點在圓的基本形式“日”,這意味著“太陽”。
指事。看這張照片。如果我添加一個在底部的字符(木、木),一個“本”(意思是“開始”)。
會意。把2個或更多字符創建的象形組成一個新的角色,我們稱之為會意。
形聲。我們都知道單詞有發音。將發音相近的字符作為新單詞的一部分，並在其中使用與新單詞含義相似的另一個字符，生成一個新字符。例如財聽起來像“Tsai”，右邊的部分聽起來是“Tsai”。左邊的部分是shell，過去人們常用它來做交易。所以“財”就意味著金錢。
這就講到這裡。如果你喜歡這個答案就投票給我。
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