Mrs. Larry picked up a twig and began to draw on the ground. First, she wrote some strange symbols, like some kind of writing, which no one could understand. She wrote very carefully, making corrections as she wrote, like a primary school student reciting words from memory.
The soft mud was quickly covered with dense writing. Mrs. Larry stopped, wiped the sweat from her brow, and examined it carefully again before saying, "There shouldn't be any mistake. This is all the writing I saw at the altar."
Su Huilan said, "It's somewhat like Ancient Egypt hieroglyphs."
"It does look somewhat like it," Mrs. Larry said. "I first saw similar symbols on the scepter of a savage chieftain and some pottery in his house. Connecting this to our mission in the South Pacific and its relationship to the Egypt pyramids, I initially thought it was a variant of Ancient Egypt hieroglyphs. But because the sample size was too small, I couldn't draw a definitive conclusion. Until I saw these at the altar—"
I am certain that this is a very ancient script, different from the priestly script of Ancient Egypt, but they must have some connection. Before Champollion deciphered the Rosetta Stone, Ancient Egypt hieroglyphs were considered to be a simple hieroglyphic script, but we now know that it has more phonetic parts than hieroglyphic parts, so it is actually a script that is mainly phonetic, with some hieroglyphic and ideographic functions.
Phonetic writing systems are easy to spread but difficult to record. Ideographic writing systems, on the other hand, can express ideas accurately and deeply with fewer characters, but this also increases the difficulty of mastering them, making them less suitable for widespread dissemination among different social classes and ethnic groups.
However, almost all writing systems in the world started as pictographs and ideographs, and then combined with the local spoken language to form phonetic writing systems. During the process of transmission, the ideographic part of the writing system is gradually lost, while its phonetic function remains, and it evolves into different pronunciations and symbol combinations in different places.
Apart from countries like China, which entered a highly developed agricultural civilization very early on and maintained a unified dynasty for thousands of years without fundamental national divisions or interruptions in its civilization, thus preserving the complex writing system of Chinese characters and becoming the only ancient writing system still in use today, the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt, the cuneiform script of Sumer, and the Maya script have all disappeared. Even if they still exist, based on our deciphering, they have long since evolved into a phonetic-based writing system and a pictographic system.
Linguists have been searching for evidence of the evolution of Egypt hieroglyphs. We speculate that before it, there must have existed a writing system similar to Chinese characters, richer in pictographic and ideographic representation, which gradually evolved into the later hieroglyphs.
"Could it be that it evolved from Chinese characters?" Petru interjected. He knew a little Chinese and strongly agreed with Mrs. Larry's statement that Chinese characters were the most complex writing system in the world.
"No, that won't happen." As Mrs. Larry's assistant, Alice also had considerable knowledge of philology. "There is no connection between Chinese characters and hieroglyphics. Their structures and ways of expressing meaning are completely different. Chinese characters are much more complex and ingenious than hieroglyphics. We should be thankful that China civilization was not severed; otherwise, deciphering Chinese characters would be more difficult than any other code in the world."
"Isn't there a China proverb that says 'Truth is always the simplest thing'? Why are Chinese characters so complicated? People who use such complicated things must have complicated minds!" Petru glanced at Qingmu and Su Huilan. "If only everything were like English—simple, easy to learn, and practical!"
"That's because you think it's simple. The China might not think that way!" Alice retorted. "If Western civilization hadn't dominated the world since the Industrial Revolution, we might all be speaking Chinese now!"
Petru shrugged noncommittally. "Thank goodness it's not like that, or I'd definitely be illiterate."
Mrs. Larry shook her head and said, "The advantages of Chinese characters are obvious. Their semantic function is extremely powerful, and their application is more flexible. Compared to English and other languages, they can express richer meanings with fewer characters. Crucially, Chinese characters' word-formation ability far surpasses that of English. As human cognition expands, English pales in comparison to new things. Adding word roots makes words increasingly longer, and creating new words makes our dictionaries increasingly thick. However, Chinese characters, through their rich semantic function and flexible word-formation ability, can easily create new nouns, and even new adjective usages. To date, the total number of English words has exceeded 700,000, and Arabia's vocabulary has reached an astonishing ten million, while Chinese characters, used for thousands of years, still number less than 100,000, with only a mere 3,000 commonly used characters."
After listening, the Crow cawed, " Guagua! I can say many Chinese characters, caw!" Then it stretched its neck and began to sing, "The whole world is learning China, caw... Master Kong's caw is becoming more and more international, caw... Carrying pole caw, bench caw, carrying pole wants to be tied to bench, caw, carrying pole caw, bench caw, carrying pole wants to be tied to bench, caw, Guagua..."
The Crow's Chinese song, with its peculiar pronunciation, annoyed Petru: "Fine, fine, once I get out of here I'm going to China to learn Chinese, and the whole world might as well speak Chinese!"
Mrs. Larry laughed:
"The shortcomings of Chinese characters are also obvious, just as you said -- they are difficult to learn!"
Everyone is born with the ability to speak. Going from babbling to fluent conversation is not difficult, and it can even be done without going to school. However, being able to speak does not mean that you have mastered a language, and the progress of civilization requires the help of language and writing. For children in English-speaking countries, once they learn to speak and learn the 26 letters, they have basically mastered the language, can read newspapers, write emails, and post on Twitter.
China children, however, must undergo systematic learning to truly master the Chinese language. Modern people may not find it difficult, but if you imagine the living conditions in ancient times and the vastness of China's land area, you'll understand how challenging it was to promote this language.
Language is an integral part of civilization, a sign of its maturity, and a catalyst for its development. To some extent, the prosperity of the Mediterranean Sea and Europe civilizations owes much to the contribution of Latin, while the uniqueness of China civilization owes much to the indelible contribution of Chinese characters. However, in terms of dissemination, Indo-European languages have a natural advantage. They can be easily accepted by people of different regions and ethnicities without the need for a unified central dynasty to promote and implement their civilizational mission and values.
Therefore, what Alice just said isn't entirely correct. It's not that civilization dominates language, but rather that language advances civilization and, to a certain extent, determines the pattern of civilization. In terms of the efficiency of language dissemination and application in modern society and globalization, English, derived from Latin and Germanic languages, has the greatest advantage, which is why it has become the most widely used language in the world.
Petru asked, puzzled, "You keep saying Chinese is the most advanced language in the world, and then you say English is the best language today. So what should we do? Why don't those idiots at the United Nations just unify all the world's languages?"
Mrs. Larry said, "The progress of human civilization is complex; it is not unidirectional or linear, nor is it always moving forward or upward. At different stages of civilization, different languages exhibit different vitality. Today, English is the most suitable language, but perhaps in a few decades, the world's common language will become Chinese or some other language."
"Oh, okay, I'll take that as you understand, but what does all that have to do with our current situation? What do these drawings you've made on the ground prove?" Petru asked.