Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 383 "Tower of Babel" Organization

Many listeners were very interested in this theory, and some people asked him which classic record it was, and he wanted to see it himself.

Guo Kang is also very supportive of this.

"This is a set of systematic theories, which is of great reference significance for us." He told everyone: "If you are interested, I can find some for you."

"However, these books were originally written in classical Chinese." He thought for a while, and added: "Although someone has done a Greek translation before, the loss and change of meaning will inevitably occur during the translation process. If you really want to see the original meaning, it is best to ask brothers who know Chinese to help, and everyone can study and think directly, which will not only help you understand the meaning, but also learn the language by the way.”

"Among the oriental scriptures in the classical era, the "Spring and Autumn" series is the best to understand. It should be much easier to start from here. That's how I felt when I was studying the scriptures with my grandfather."

Everyone expressed their understanding.

Unlike other churches, the Purple Horde does not restrict the translation of scriptures and the use of languages, and even encourages everyone to translate more and spread more.This has nothing to do with religious concepts - or, because the Khan court has no religious concepts, and has never cared much about doctrinal issues.

Their main concern is the cultural impact and how to deal with the language mess in this place.Moreover, because the three scriptures of the Roman Church were first written in Chinese, they cannot be translated without translation.So to promote it, almost at the same time as it was launched, there was a Greek translation.

As for more people, their language and writing are more messy.According to the classification of the Greeks, they all speak Slavic dialects.But this place is different from the Central Plains. Language and characters are closely linked. Two different dialects have different writing methods. When subdivided, any two villages can be counted as different characters. This is definitely not possible.

Khanting's countermeasure at that time was to recruit a group of priests for training, and then let them train others.

As early as hundreds of years ago, the Greek priest Cyril invented a set of phonetic symbols based on the Greek alphabet to record the language of the Slavs.However, the Roman Church believes that it is just phonetic notation, and there is no need to develop so many systems, otherwise, after learning one thing and another, wouldn't it be a waste of effort?

So, it's really that old question about language again.

In the eyes of some senior priests, whether it is the Greeks or the Slavs, they are actually without writing. "Shuowen Jiezi" says, "Cangjie's first writing was based on pictograms, so it was called Wen"; and the word Wen was "wrongly drawn, like Jiaowen".It means that when Cangjie created characters, he used pictographic techniques to record them with interlaced strokes, which are called characters.Many subsequent types are derived from this basis.

For thousands of years, Chinese characters have undergone many changes, but the changes in language and characters are independent of each other.

Scholars of this era already know that the characters and accents of different eras may be different, but the trend of character change is very obvious, that is, with the change of writing materials, it develops in a direction that is more convenient for writing.This change, and the change in spoken pronunciation, have little to do with each other.

The so-called writing here is exactly the opposite—this thing follows the spoken language, so it will change accordingly.

In Chinese, the emergence of dialects and changes in the language itself will not affect the shape of the characters and will not change the way of writing.But in the languages ​​of the Mediterranean world, this cannot be done.It was the discovery of this phenomenon that led the priests to produce such theories.

Some priests studied ancient classics and found that there were related records in some ancient stories.For example, in the story of the Tower of Babel, the Heavenly Father changed the language of all mortals so that they could not understand each other, which made the construction of the Tower of Babel ultimately fail-the word "Babel" means chaos.

But the priests discovered that what the Heavenly Father changed was the language, not the words.

So, they think, the reason here is clear: the Father is merciful, and He forbids the people to speak the same language because the people of Babylon were too wicked at that time.Heavenly Father knew they could accomplish anything if they were united, so he kept them apart so they couldn't wreak havoc on the world.

But He will not completely prohibit the efforts of human unity. On the contrary, He deliberately left words as a breakthrough for future generations.In the long history that followed, the good will eventually defeat the wicked, and civilization will eventually defeat barbarism.At that time, with the help of a unified language, mankind will be able to unite again, get out of the chaotic "Babel Age", and return to the ideal "Eden Age".

In order to illustrate vividly, some people quoted the ancient fables of the Greeks.

It is said that Prometheus created humans and stole fire from the sky and gave them to them. The Greek gods were very angry and wanted to punish Prometheus and humans.

However, Prometheus is very vigilant, and they have been unable to succeed.So, the gods made the first woman in the world—Pandora, and gave her a clay pot, which contained greed, hypocrisy, slander, jealousy, pain and many other evil things.Because Zeus thought that Prometheus would not be fooled, he asked her to give her to his future husband.

When Pandora came to the world, Prometheus saw that there was something wrong with her, but his younger brother Epimetheus was obsessed with Pandora's beauty, and insisted on marrying her despite his elder brother's persuasion.Sure enough, after the marriage, Pandora took the opportunity to open the pot, and all the evils in it came out, causing disaster to the world.

However, Prometheus' old friend Athena also participated in the creation of human beings, and she felt pity for them, so she secretly put "hope" in the pot.Therefore, when all the disasters ran out, only hope remained.

In the eyes of the priests, these characters are not gods, but some kind of symbols.For example, "Prometheus" means "foresight" in ancient Greek, representing human wisdom; "Epimetheus" means "later awareness", and it also means regret.This kind of story is caused by the ancients being inspired by the Heavenly Father but not understanding it correctly.If the part of religious worship is removed, it can still be regarded as a valuable allegory.

Like this last remaining hope, you can see similar situations in many places.

Therefore, some radical priests directly proposed that for human beings, Chinese characters are this kind of "hope".

If human beings can move forward enough to restore civilization based on this last "Eden text", the Heavenly Father will readily approve and give blessings;

On the contrary, if human beings continue to degenerate and even lose Chinese characters, the Heavenly Father will initiate judgment, destroy this sinful world, and start over.

These priests also established a religious organization called "Babel Tower". The main job is to lobby and publicize everywhere, and they often go to remote areas to teach others to learn Chinese characters.Until now, there are still people active.

(End of this chapter)