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Text: Chen Zhuqi
Edited by Chen Zhuqi
(Source: All content stated in this article is based on reliable sources, and is repeated at the end of the article)
Chinese culture has a history of 5,000 years, and Chinese characters have been constantly changed and perfected in the course of thousands of years, not only condensing the wisdom and conceptual significance of countless ancestors, but also attracting many foreign scholars to explore today.
But who would have thought that in the face of the long history of Chinese character culture, William Russell, a world-renowned British philosopher and Nobel Prize winner in literature, would openly label Chinese characters on the mainland as "flawed", and even pointed out three of them.
What is the origin of this foreigner, William Russell, who made such an assessment, and what are the flaws he is talking about, and what is the basis for this?
Chinese characters
China is the oldest country in the world, not only with a history of more than 5,000 years, but also the evolution of many dynasties, both in terms of historical heritage and cultural significance.
As a country with the longest history, even its Chinese characters are one of the oldest in the world, with a history of almost 6,000 years.
So far, Chinese characters are not only the longest used script, but also the only font handed down from ancient times, and it can be said that the meaning behind it is also very historical, and the development process is extremely difficult and cumbersome.
At the beginning, the slightly unfinished script in the mainland was also the oracle bone inscription of the Yin Shang period, which was the earliest mature writing system found in the mainland, and it was also a point of origin of the Chinese character culture in the mainland, which played a vital role.
Later, with the development and evolution of each dynasty, the corresponding Chinese characters also had different changes, for example, after the oracle bone inscription, the Chinese characters evolved into the forms of golden script, large seal, small seal, etc., but no matter which form it was, it did not retain too many periods.
It was not until the Han and Wei dynasties that seal script no longer became a trend, on the contrary, Chinese characters with official script as the main body began to become a new font trend, and even after experiencing the evolution of cursive, regular script, line script and other forms, it gradually reached the stage of traditional Chinese.
It has to be said that each stage of the evolution of Chinese characters is an important part of its development stage, and it also contains the important development significance behind it, even in ancient times, Chinese characters were the only international communication script in East Asia.
Even in the last century, it has received significant attention and use from some countries such as Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and Vietnam, and they have not only been influenced by the culture of Chinese characters, but even today they are still using some of the styles that Chinese characters have evolved into and become the languages of their own countries.
But who would have thought that in the face of the Chinese character culture that has been inherited from the mainland for thousands of years, a foreign scholar, after learning about the mainland's Chinese character culture, openly pointed out that there are a large number of problems in the mainland's Chinese characters, and even said that the mainland's Chinese characters have three major defects that are difficult to cover up.
Bertrand Arthur William Russell (abbreviated Russell) was a famous English philosopher, mathematician, logician, and not only that, but also an outstanding historian and writer, whose achievements are very remarkable.
Even though he came from an aristocratic family, he was always committed to nurturing himself, not only graduated from Cambridge University, but was also a member of the Royal Society, and has always been an important figure in many fields based on his multifaceted cultural studies.
Even in 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and was directly awarded the British Medal of Merit, although he has now become an important figure in British history, but it cannot be ignored that he has made contributions in many fields such as education and society.
But he didn't expect that it was such a scholar with many cultural contributions who openly shouted that mainland Chinese characters had major defects, and in this way, he also concisely listed the three most representative problems, thus causing quite an academic sensation.
What are the three major defects of Chinese characters?
As we all know, Chinese characters have evolved over thousands of years, and each process of evolution has been studied by scholars of all dynasties and the meaning behind it, but I didn't expect that it was this important achievement in mainland fonts that was directly named by the other party and said that there was a problem.
You must know that Russell's influence in Britain and the world is extraordinary and significant, and his discussion and defects of Chinese characters have invisibly aroused the attention of all walks of life in the country to the mainland.
Around 1920, Russell, as a famous scholar, was also invited by the mainland to exchange academics, and after nine months of humanities study, Russell also directly revealed the three major defects of mainland Chinese characters.
He believes that even though Chinese characters have a thousand-year historical journey, they are not dominant in terms of their use, and that the comparison of Chinese characters in the mainland is too cumbersome and not simple and clear enough.
After all, the most complex Chinese character in the mainland is enough to have more than 150 strokes, and this is only one of them, and all kinds of other traditional Chinese characters are even more extraordinary, each of which has extremely cumbersome procedures.
On the contrary, a foreign English only has 26 letters, so it has been arranged countless times to form English words, and sometimes even a sentence is enough to be described in one word, thus setting off a simplistic feature of English.
In addition, Russell also believes that in the Chinese social environment at that time, due to some historical reasons and war background, there were many people in China who did not have a certain cultural heritage, and these complex fonts undoubtedly caused certain cultural obstacles to 80% of the group.
Russell believes that mainland Chinese characters are obviously one tone in many cases, but they are often rich in different glyphs and artistic conceptions, and even thinks that this form gives Chinese characters a chaotic expression.
Just as English often has a unique amount of words for different meanings, and even has different meanings in different scenarios, they can arrange a large number of words and vocabulary just by using letters, so as to make a unique English dictionary.
The whole process is not only very simple to look up, but even has a very light way of expression, compared with mainland Chinese characters, it seems that their vocabulary is much simpler than mainland Chinese characters.
The Chinese characters in the mainland not only have many different radicals and radicals, but even the vocabulary composed each time usually contains multiple meanings, thus creating a cumbersome scene, and there are even many overlapping words, which further promotes the heavy scene.
Because of this, Russell believes that Chinese characters are very unfavorable for everyone to use, and even the use of them is extremely cumbersome, without the slightest corresponding simplification, giving people a sense of immediacy that is difficult to apply.
The last point is that there are not many alien species in Chinese characters, and the simple and clear meaning is that Chinese characters are a kind of character form formed by the development and evolution of their own internals, but in fact, there is no fixed term.
Not only is the whole a little chaotic, but even when encountering some foreign items, they usually use "foreign goods" instead, such as foreigners they called "foreigners" at that time, and some foreign products, they will add a "foreign" prefix to each brand.
It is as if there is no unique way to describe some foreign products and species, which invisibly gives people an embarrassing situation that is difficult to express, and thus there will be a misleading picture.
In the face of Russell's several views on the defects of Chinese characters, in fact, they also invisibly reflect a scene in the development of Chinese characters in the mainland.
The limitations of the times
Chinese characters have always been one of the oldest fonts in the world, and their development process is enough to prove the historical significance and inheritance significance of Chinese characters, otherwise it would not be the only style inherited from ancient times.
But in the face of several points of view expressed by Russell, in fact, the mainland also had different expressions in the cultural heritage at that time, first of all, we must know that Chinese characters are traditional Chinese characters that were gradually used after the founding of New China.
In the face of this evolutionary scene, all echo the first defect proposed by Russell, in fact, Lu Xun at that time had expressed the remark that "Chinese characters will not perish, China will perish", in the face of this remark, in fact, Lu Xun did not express that Chinese characters and China cannot coexist.
In fact, it also shows that according to the cultural background at that time, perhaps simplified Chinese characters will be more suitable for Chinese people to use than traditional Chinese characters, after all, there were indeed many groups at that time, and there were not enough conditions to learn some knowledge, so that a large number of illiterate groups appeared.
The appearance of simplified Chinese characters further confirms that while the mainland is developing in the times, it is also changing some unique cultures, and Russell's views at that time are all from the perspective of the limitations of the times.
However, for the elaboration of the other two defective views, in fact, the mainland also has its own dictionary of Chinese characters, but it was not fully popularized at that time, and even after that, it was not changed because of Russell's name.
After all, the reason why Chinese characters have many words with the same pronunciation, and some words that have no fixed occasion to represent, is also a side confirmation that Chinese character culture is broad and profound, and even Chinese characters are not just just one Chinese character, but also have great mystery behind it.
Just like a single word can have different meanings on different occasions, it is enough to prove that the cultural heritage of Chinese characters in the mainland has an immeasurable system, and the scenes of ancient poems all prove how rich Chinese characters are in the description of emotions and things.
It is this kind of non-singular performance that highlights the important meaning behind the Chinese character culture in the mainland, after all, a heritage of thousands of years also has an extremely rich cultural history and connotation.
Write to the end
The reason why Chinese characters have been passed down for thousands of years in the world is naturally a change that has been explored by countless scholars and advanced by history, and each presentation has its own unique truth, and Russell, as a foreign scholar, only stands on his own point of view, which is indeed not enough to see through the inheritance and historical significance of mainland Chinese characters.
However, it is undeniable that Russell's point of view that traditional Chinese characters have become simplified Chinese characters, Russell's point of view has undoubtedly played a certain landmark point in the process of our improvement, and now Chinese characters are one of the six major international languages, which shows that its important role and the history and culture behind it are also worth exploring and learning.
Reference Sources:
[1] Headline account-Sina.com-"Russell Says Chinese Characters Have Three Major Flaws?Scholar: We Don't Agree!" (2020-08-05)
[2] Headline Account-Nanjing Daily-"The Practical Enlightenment of Russell's "China Question"
-https://www.toutiao.com/article/6748928257510343179/（2019-10-18）
[3] 头条账号-新京报-《中国情结 罗素访华的思想余波》-https://www.toutiao.com/article/6827141156208378382/(2020-05-16)
[4] Headline Account-China Pictorial Publishing House-"A Western Philosopher's Shocking Prophecy to China a Hundred Years Ago"-https://www.toutiao.com/article/6721659849035219463/(2019-08-05)
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