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托福知识点│托福中几种常见的古文学

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发布时间:2019-01-22 杭州greenpath教育

文字出现以前,历史的延续依靠口口传颂,因而多有遗失或误传;可以说,有了文字,人类才有机会梳理总结庞杂的历史而知兴衰,不同地区的文化才有机会传播、交流、融合。
中国古代就有仓颉造字的传说。


“昔者苍颉作书,而天雨粟、鬼夜哭。”

—《淮南子·本经训》



在托福阅读中,TPO39-1,46-1,53-1均考察了古文字相关的内容。


2018.10.28托福阅读真考中又出现了古文字类篇章,今天就和大家一起梳理几种古文字的有关知识。



苏美尔人的楔形文字cuneiform of Sumer源于人类最早的文明发源地之一——美索不达米亚平原(Mesopotamia)。楔形文字在西亚使用了3000多年,是人类文字中最早达到成熟水平的文字。


楔形文字(cuneiform),来源于拉丁语,是cuneus(楔子)和forma(形状)两个单词构成的复合词。楔形文字也叫“钉头文字”或“箭头字”,古代西亚所用文字,多刻写在石头和泥版(泥砖)上。笔画成楔状,颇像钉头或箭头。



The earliest writing systems evolved independently and at roughly the same time in Egypt and Mesopotamia, but current scholarship suggests that Mesopotamia’s writing appeared first.


 That writing system, invented by the Sumerians, emerged in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE. At first, this writing was representational: a bull might be represented by a picture of a bull, and a pictograph of barley signified the word barley. Though writing began as pictures, this system was inconvenient for conveying anything other than simple nouns, and it became increasingly abstract as it evolved to encompass more abstract concepts, eventually taking form in the world’s earliest writing: cuneiform. 


An increasingly complex civilization encouraged the development of an increasingly sophisticated form of writing. Cuneiform came to function both phonetically (representing a sound) and semantically (representing a meaning such as an object or concept) rather than only representing objects directly as a picture.



埃及象形文字Hieroglyph


象形文字是指纯粹利用图形来作文字使用,而这些文字又与所代表的东西,在形状上很相像。一般而言,象形文字是最早产生的文字。用文字的线条或笔画,把要表达物体的外形特征,具体地勾画出来。距今5000多年前,古埃及出现了象形文字,是最古老的文字。后来被欧洲人称作Hiérpglyphe——这是希腊语“神圣”与“铭刻”组成的复合词,意思是"神的文字"(sacred writing),即“神碑体”。


通常书写在一种称作“纸草”(papyrus)的纸张上。古埃及语属于闪-含语系(Semito-Hamitic family)埃及-科普特语族(Egyptian-Coptic)。


这个语族最早的语言是古埃及语,就是我们见到的象形文字所记载的语言,到大约4世纪,它演变为科普特语(Coptic)。现在,科普特语还用在宗教仪式上。


The ancient Egyptians invented a different way of writing and a new substance to write on - papyrus, a precursor of paper, made from a wetland plant. The Greeks had a special name for this writing: hieroglyphic, literally "sacred writing". 


This, they thought, was language fit for the gods, which explains why it was carved on walls of pyramids and other religious structures. 


Perhaps hieroglyphics are Egypt's great contribution to the history of writing: hieroglyphic wiring, in use from 3100 B.C.E. until 394 C.E., resulted in the creation of texts that were fine art as well as communication. Egypt gave us the tradition of the scribe not just as educated person but as artist and calligrapher.


Scholars have detected some 6,000 separate hieroglyphic characters in use over the history of Egyptian writing, but it appears that never more than a thousand were in use during any one period. It still seems a lot to recall, but what was lost in efficiency was more than made up for in the beauty and richness of the texts. 


Writing was meant to impress the eye with the vastness of creating itself. Each symbol or glyph - the flowering reed (pronounced like V), the owl ("m"), the quail chick ("w"), etcetera - was a tiny work of art.


Manuscripts were compiled with an eye to the overall design. Egyptologists have noticed that the glyphs that constitute individual words were sometimes shuffled to make the text more pleasing to the eye with little regard for sound or sense.

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