Chinese writing '8,000 years old'

BBC ^ | Friday, May 18, 2007

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

More:

A Google search also brought up this FR thread from Renfield: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1835863/posts.

They all look closer to pictures than characters.

[MHGinTN]

Chinese characters were developed from pictographs, weren’t they?

[Retired Greyhound]

how about a book review?

[OldGuard1]

How do they know it’s that old? Because if they said any younger, it wouldn’t be an attempt to disprove God.

A bit tongue in cheek, perhaps, but ever notice how many dates that get provided that are suspiciously just a little bit past the biblical chronology? It’s probably not an organized effort, but I doubt it’s a coincidence, given that the vast majority of scientists are athiests.

[bkepley]

Because if they said any younger, it wouldn’t be an attempt to disprove God.

How so?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Yep. But the article states that some of the 'writing' is very similar to later Chinese writing: "They say many of these symbols bear a strong resemblance to later forms of ancient Chinese characters. "

There are supposed to be over 8,000 carvings, but the ones which were found and presented to you seem to be clearly pictures rather than characters.

Case in point, the Chinese character for house may bear some resemblance to a house, and could be descended from a picture of a house (this is just hypothetical). However, would finding a carving of a house constitute find early Chinese writing? (rhetorical). It's debatable at least.

[OldGuard1]

“How so?”

They decided to put the date of this writing outside of the biblical timeline.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Biblically, the universe is only about six thousand Earth years old. Personally didn’t use the phrase “if the dating was accurate” in comment 1 because of this—it probably isn’t accurate (some Creationists can squeeze out a few more millennia—so making the universe some 10,000 or so years old).

[GraniteStateConservative]

I would think a picture language like the Chinese language seems to be, would probably be one of the first languages. It’s an intuitive way to create a language, even if we Westerners view it as needlessly complicated and with little nuance.

[miliantnutcase]

I know your being sarcastic, but saying something made by man is possibly 8,000 years old does not disprove God. I hope people realize that God can still exist and so can the dinosaurs.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

And those dinosaurs existed at the same time as humans.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Oddly, this could be turning into a crevolist thread.....

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

That is the conventional view (that the oldest writing systems were pictographic and ideograms). However, the mainstream view is that Sumerian cuneiform (also used characters) is the oldest written language, followed by Egyptian hieroglyphs (also pictographic).

The four 'independent' writing systems to have sprung up around the world (not including what is considered proto-writing) are: Sumerian cuneiform; Egyptian hieroglyphs; Chinese characters; and Mesoamerican glyphs. The other writing systems (including alphabets and other phonetic writing systems) are supposed to be descended from these scripts. Today, Sumerian cuneiform and Mesoamerican glyphs and their potential derivatives have been all but wiped out. The most prolific is Egyptian hieroglyphs, from which the Greek, Latin, Cyrillic alphabets came from, along with the writings of southwestern Asia (Arabic, Hebrew, etc.), south Asia, and southeast Asia. Even Korean Hangul could be descended from Egyptian rather than the writing of much closer China.

The second survivor is Chinese, which a smaller circulation than the Egyptian descendants, but still large (the PRC alone has some 1.3 billion people, most of them literate, and Japan, Korea, and other Asian nations with phonetic scripts still supplement their language with Chinese characters).

[OldGuard1]

What does this have to do with the dinosaurs?

Look, you’re free to not believe in the Bible if you choose not to. God gave us free will to make our own decisions.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Sumerian cuneiform. Looks new (opinion).

Egyptian hieroglyphs. Cursive style.

Chinese characters next to pictures

Mayan glyphs. One of several Mesoamerican writing systems.

The pictures are distorted so that the post looks pretty (which it SHOULD if the preview pans out--the Mayan might be bumped up a little).

Anyway, here goes....

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Yep. The pictures aren’t evenly spaced. And the type isn’t centered underneath its relevant picture.

[mr jakob]

Case in point, the Chinese character for house may bear some resemblance to a house, and could be descended from a picture of a house (this is just hypothetical). However, would finding a carving of a house constitute find early Chinese writing? (rhetorical). It's debatable at least

That was a really bad example for your point. The Chinese character for "house/home" is actually a pictograph of a roof over a pig, and looks nothing like a house. Presumably, if you find a carving of a roof over a pig-like animal and the context suggests that it means "house", then you actually have a fairly convincing argument that there is a connection between the carvings and later Chinese characters.

[miliantnutcase]

Are you saying I can’t believe in the Bible and think that way?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

As the comment stated, it was hypothetical—not versed in Chinese writing (or language in general). Appreciate your pointing the pig over a roof thing, but the main point still stands: that finding a carving doesn’t necessarily translate into proof of writing even if that writing is in somewhat pictographic form.

[steveo]

Writing translated:

'Contains Melamine and other protein enhancing supplements.'