The carrier of China traditional characters.

Recently, I watched the first episode of the documentary The Power of Reading, Roots of Civilization, and I felt a lot.

At the beginning of the film, Fei Xiaotong, a scholar of equal status, said that Fei Xiaotong first met writing because of his illiterate grandmother. In Fei Xiaotong's childhood memory, his 80-year-old grandmother always took him to pick up pieces of paper with words written on it. She told him to "respect words".

Many places in China have a cultural tradition of "respecting and cherishing the word paper", and so does my family. My father told me from an early age, don't throw paper with words around.

Speaking of "respecting and cherishing word paper", it is a virtue in ancient Chinese traditional culture and represents the respect of the ancients for culture. Word paper is the representative of culture. "Respecting and cherishing word paper" means respecting and caring for culture.

Chinese characters are the foundation and an important part of Chinese culture and an important carrier of Chinese national spirit and emotion. The ideological connotation of "respecting and cherishing word paper" not only played a positive role in history, but also has important practical significance today.

"Respect and cherish the word paper" means to keep people in awe of the words on the paper. People believe that words are the treasure of the world, and words can make everyone holy and fools smart; Words can make the poor rich and the sick healthy. These papers with words not only record the history and spread the culture, but also imprint the code of human civilization, which contains the magical power of human beings to change the world.

The second part of the film introduces the rock paintings scattered in caves all over the world. There are rock paintings on the sandy land of Yinshan Mountain in the north of China, which record the stories of hunting, grazing and war of the northern ethnic groups in China. In Britain, there are also cave paintings that record early human life. The Vizer Canyon Cave in France, the altamira Cave in Spain, the Altayek Cave in Norway, and the early caves in many corners of five continents all left the mark of early human civilization.

Researchers believe that the pictures on these rocks, as early visual expressions of human beings, are the most important records before the invention of human characters. The information it provides is very important for the study of human history. Regrettably, people have not been able to decipher the meaning of all this information so far.

In addition to rock paintings, human civilization is also included in knot notes and myths passed down from mouth to mouth.

According to records, Cang Xie was a historian of word-making in the era of the Yellow Emperor. Inspired by the footprints of birds and animals by the river, he created a series of hieroglyphics by observing things around him. These hieroglyphs are called the earliest characters.

Cang Xie also collected and sorted out all kinds of hieroglyphics used by ancestors for a long time, and promoted them, so that the characters could be circulated. As the inventor of Chinese characters, Cang Xie became the symbol of many wise men who contributed to Chinese characters.

Sumerian inventions in the two river basins seem to have more practical significance. The lines carved on the clay tablet are called zigzag characters, which are the earliest known characters in the world.

The earliest and most systematic writing in China is the writing carved on tortoise shells, which is called Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Seeing this reminds me of what I learned in Beijing Normal University.

When we were in normal university, the first class was philology. The teacher said that the earliest Oracle Bone Inscriptions was mainly used for divination and served the rulers of Shang Dynasty, with a history of three or four thousand years.

Later, about 6.5438+0.5 million pieces of Oracle bones were found in Anyang, Henan. There are about 4500 words, and about 2500 words have been recognized. Most of these Oracle Bone Inscriptions belong to the period of Yin Shang Dynasty, so people used to regard Oracle Bone Inscriptions as the representative of Yin Shang characters.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery confirmed that the historical facts recorded in Sima Qian's Historical Records were basically accurate. Therefore, we have a clearer understanding of the history of Shang Dynasty.

During the Western Zhou Dynasty, with the development of bronze industry, bronze inscriptions appeared, that is, words cast on bronzes. Bronze inscriptions are still mainly sacrificial ceremonies, but they also belong to national ritual vessels. Therefore, the inscriptions on inscriptions on bronze inscriptions are much more extensive than those on Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The inscriptions on bronzes recorded more national events, such as war and plunder. There are two kinds of inscriptions on bronzes: Yin and Yang. The development of bronze inscriptions is closely related to the improvement of productivity and the use of bronzes.

Xiao Zhuan, also known as Warring States script, indicates its age of use. After Qin Shihuang unified China, when the policy of "homonym" was implemented, Xiao Zhuan was the standard font. On the one hand, its development benefited from the promotion of state power in Qin dynasty, on the other hand, it also reflected the law of Chinese characters' own development.

Xu Shen wrote Shuo Wen Jie Zi in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and recorded 9353 Chinese characters. It is the first reference book in China to systematically analyze the forms of Chinese characters and study their etymology, and it is also one of the earliest dictionaries in the world. Everything in the book is written in Xiao Zhuan.

Lishu originated in the late Warring States and matured in the Han Dynasty. As a new type of font, Lishu quickly replaced Xiao Zhuan as an orthodox font with its relatively simple characteristics. The characters before Lishu are called ancient characters, and the characters after Lishu are called modern characters. Today's writing mainly includes official script and regular script, which has continued until now.

The film tells that according to historical records, Qin Shihuang Ying Zheng read the memorial every day, and the total weight actually reached 120 Jin. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, two Hercules were needed to carry the throne to the palace every day for the emperor to read. In the past, people called learned people "knowledgeable people". Now, "erudition" is equivalent to a book of 300,000 words. But it used to be pulled by car.

The last part of the film talked about printing technology.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cai Lun invented papermaking, which greatly promoted the process of culture. People no longer carve words on bamboo slips, but write them on paper, silk and silk. Westerners write on sheepskin and leaves.

In ancient China, Bi Sheng invented movable type printing. However, due to the complexity of Chinese characters in China and the high requirements for operators, this technology was not first popularized in China.

Four hundred years later, in the west, it was invented by Gutenberg, a German, who used pinyin characters. The typesetting of more than twenty letters is much simpler than that of Chinese characters in China. Gutenberg invented lead movable type printing, which was completed with a simple printing machine and initiated modern mechanical printing. Gutenberg's printing has completely changed the history of books, greatly increased the number of printing and reduced the production cost of books.

Westerners, they first printed the Bible. Inadvertently, printing technology has boosted the historical pace of book inheritance civilization, and also provided an important material basis and technical premise for the reading revolution in Europe. Therefore, among Protestants, they first began to read, and reading became their daily needs.

2 1 century, with the progress of science and technology, people's reading habits have undergone new changes. E-book reading and mobile phone reading have become fashionable, convenient and fast, and do not need to be collected at home. This new way of reading has become the favorite of a generation of young people.

In short, the title of this film is the power of reading, which is also the power of words. Tracing back to the source, from the carrier of word-making, writing and words to the printing and change of words, the history of books and words is clearly displayed to the audience.

What's more commendable is that while telling the history, the film has made a comprehensive interpretation from home and abroad, from history to today, broadening the audience's horizons and thus obtaining spiritual satisfaction.

Read good books, cherish word paper, write good articles and inherit civilization.