How much of the Oracle remains unrecognized to this day? What are the difficulties in deciphering?

The oracle bone inscriptions, as we know, are some of the ancient inscriptions carved on turtle shells that survived from the late Shang Dynasty, which was thousands of years ago, and were used for rituals, divination, and other purposes at that time. Oracle as an ancient text, in fact, part of the inside through the gradual development, into the current text, but there are still part of the current has not been deciphered, do not know what it means. So, now has been deciphered how many words, not deciphered how many? Want to decipher an oracle bone text what are the difficulties?

1. Oracle introduction

Oracle, is an ancient Chinese script, also known as "qiwen", "oracle bone divination", "Yinxu text" or "tortoise shell and animal bone text", "tortoise shell and animal bone text". "Tortoise shell and animal bone writing". It mainly refers to the writing engraved on tortoise shell or animal bone by the royal family in the late Shang Dynasty of China for divination, and it is the earliest known systematic carrier of Shang Dynasty writing in China and East Asia. The oracle bone script is one of the texts of the Chinese Taoist tradition.

It is generally believed that Wang Yirong, an official of the late Qing Dynasty and a jinshi scholar, discovered oracle bone inscriptions in the 25th year of the Guangxu reign (1899) from an oracle bone from Anyang, Henan Province. Xiaotun Village, northwest of Anyang, was the site of the late Shang capital, Yinxu. Over the past hundred years, more than 100,000 oracle bones have been unearthed through archaeological excavations and other means. In addition, in Henan, Shaanxi and other areas of the oracle bone inscriptions, dating from the late Shang Dynasty (about 1300 years ago) to the Spring and Autumn period.

The oracle bones, with a symmetrical and stable pattern. Preparation of the three elements of calligraphy, i.e., the use of strokes, knotting, and chapters. In terms of the number of fonts and the way they are structured, the oracle bone script has developed into a more rigorous system of writing. The principle of "six books" of Chinese characters is reflected in the oracle bone inscriptions. But the traces of the original pictorial script are still relatively obvious.

On November 24, 2017, the oracle bone script passed the evaluation of the International Advisory Committee of the UNESCO Memory of the World Project and was successfully selected for the Memory of the World Register.

2. How much of the oracle bone script is still undeciphered

The civilization of the Chinese nation is more than 5,000 years old, and this civilization has survived the transformations of time and is still able to continue to the present day, and the Chinese characters can be said to be a credit to it. Chinese characters can be traced back to the earliest oracle bone inscriptions, which were written on tortoise shells or animal bones during the late Shang Dynasty in China and used by the royal family for divination and record-keeping.

The oracle bone script is not only the oldest script in China, it is also one of the four oldest scripts in the world, and the only one that has been passed down and is still in use today. It can be said that the Oracle is the pride of the Chinese nation, but in the modern era of rapid economic and cultural development, the state of the Oracle is not optimistic, because it has not yet been fully recognized.

In 1899, Wang Yirong, an official of the late Qing Dynasty and a jinshi scholar, discovered oracle bone inscriptions on oracle bones unearthed in Anyang, Henan Province, which is generally regarded as the first discovery of oracle bone inscriptions. According to scholars' statistics, the oracle bones were unearthed in more than 154,600 pieces in one ****, excluding those collected in China, and nearly 30,000 pieces of oracle bones were lost overseas, which caused a great impact on the deciphering of oracle bones in China.

As we all know, oracle bone inscriptions are a kind of hieroglyphics, there are called ideographs, individual characters are very difficult to decipher. So far, China's collection of oracle bone writing, there are about 4,500 words, and deciphered out of the oracle bone writing, just more than 2,000. Less than half of the amount of deciphering, people feel the oracle bone deciphering difficult.

In recent times, dedicated to deciphering the oracle bones of experts and scholars in the minority, but the oracle bones of the decipherment has gradually reached a bottleneck. Simple and easy words, has been deciphered and deciphered, not able to decipher the oracle bones, both complex, and unwritten; coupled with the recent scholars died one after another, like to study the traditional Chinese people are fewer and fewer, the oracle bones of the decipherment, to a very difficult situation.

In order to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of researchers, the Chinese Character Museum in October 2016, issued a reward announcement: deciphering has not been deciphered oracle bones, a single word reward of 100,000 yuan; and for the still controversial oracle bones to make a new interpretation, a single word reward of 50,000 yuan.

Oracle and other ancient characters deciphering research, the need is a long time to accumulate, if there is no great patience, is not down, because in this research process, less to sit on the bench. The West has put a lot of effort into cultivating researchers of oracle bones, but the research experts of oracle bones may not be more than 30 people in the world.

3. Deciphering a stupid word reward 100,000

And the Chinese Character Museum issued a reward announcement, three years, there is only one person, with a "stupid" word, received the highest reward of 100,000 yuan, this person is Jiang Yubin. Some people may ask: a "stupid" word, can get 100,000 yuan reward? That's pretty good for an oracle.

Jiang Yubin is a young researcher at the Center for Research on Unearthed Documents and Ancient Texts at Fudan University, and his main research interests are in the field of ancient philology, as well as organizing and researching unearthed ancient textual documents. The interpretation of the word "stupid" in the oracle bone inscriptions is from the aspect of character recognition and reading. The seemingly simple interpretation, there is a long process, in the early stages of the study, Jiang Yubin strike all the relevant information are studied, but also considered a lot of interpretation of the possibility, but there is still no real progress.

The real breakthrough bottleneck, or a chance, he saw a few key evidence in the decipherment, "Tun" means "spring", as well as a variety of materials, enlightenment, as if the dark road suddenly became bright. The word "stupid" in the oracle bone inscriptions was thus deciphered.

Deciphering the word "stupid" takes years of effort, and such patience and vast knowledge is beyond the reach of ordinary people, so this word, 100,000 yuan, is well deserved. In order to decipher the oracle bones, so that the scholars' research results to the public, scholars have done a lot of hard work, and the future of the oracle bones deciphering work, but also with the help of computers and big data and so on.

But no matter what, deciphering the oracle bones still need a rigorous and solid attitude, the oracle bones will be completely deciphered, or need a long road.