守護瀕危文字，溯源鮮活的象形世界 | 老師專欄

東巴文與甲骨文，一南一北遙相呼應，是千年文明的迴響。Dongba script in the south and oracle-bone script in the north answer each other across the centuries — two echoes of the same ancient civilisation.

This article was originally written in Traditional Chinese. The English translation is provided for reference only.

引言Introduction

今年，漢源推出以保護瀕臨滅種動物為主題的2026年年曆。一個個鮮活的物種，如東北虎、怒江金絲猴、朱䴉、綠孔雀都因生態環境的變化而大幅減少，甚至走向瀕臨滅絕的境地，令人擔憂。This year Han Yuan has produced a 2026 calendar on the theme of protecting endangered animals. Species after living species — the Siberian tiger, the Nujiang snub-nosed monkey, the crested ibis, the green peafowl — have declined sharply as their habitats have changed, some to the brink of extinction. It makes for worrying reading.

與這些瀕危動物有着相似處境的，是許多少數民族傳統文字。目前，隨着社會的快速發展，傳統文字因使用羣體的大幅縮減、傳承不再延續，而逐漸被人遺忘。In much the same position as these endangered animals stand many of the traditional scripts of China's ethnic minorities. As society has developed at speed, the communities that use these scripts have shrunk dramatically and the chain of transmission has been broken, so that the scripts themselves are slowly being forgotten.

在中國，就有如納西東巴文、水書、彝文等少數民族文字，這些文字承載着地域文化特徵與歷史價值，卻在時代滾滾向前的車輪面前成為瀕危語言。翻開文字畫卷，一個個跳動着的文字彷彿具備鮮活的生命力，帶領我們走進靜謐的時光深處，與多年以前的文明進行對話。今天，小編就帶着大家走進唯一存活的象形文字——東巴文的世界，並在此基礎上與漢字甲骨文形態進行對比。China is home to scripts such as the Naxi people's Dongba, the Shui script and the Yi script. Each carries the character of its region and the value of its history, yet each has become an endangered language beneath the rolling wheels of the age. Unroll one of these scrolls of writing and the characters seem to pulse with life, leading us into the quiet depths of time for a conversation with a civilisation of long ago. Today we step into the world of Dongba — the only pictographic script still in living use — and set it beside the oracle-bone forms of the Chinese character.

文字活化石——東巴文A Living Fossil of Writing: The Dongba Script

在雲南麗江，雪山腳下，流淌着由圖像、線條和古老的智慧交織而成的文字之河。定睛一看，這條河流上佈滿了東巴文。當我們習慣於用抽象的字母或筆畫進行思考和記錄時，東巴文卻將我們拉回到童年的記憶裏那個看圖説話的感性世界。At Lijiang in Yunnan, at the foot of the snow mountains, there flows a river of writing woven out of images, lines and ancient wisdom. Look closely and you will find that river covered with Dongba characters. Where we are used to thinking and recording in abstract letters or strokes, Dongba pulls us back to the world of childhood — the sensory world of telling a story from a picture.

東巴文，納西語叫「森究魯究」，意為「木石之標記」。它的每一個符號，都像一幅微縮的簡筆畫，凝固了萬物形態，其形態甚至比甲骨文更為古老和象形，被譽為文字的活化石。In the Naxi language Dongba writing is called senjiu lujiu, meaning "the marks on wood and stone". Every one of its symbols is like a miniature line drawing that freezes the shape of a thing; its forms are in fact older and more pictorial than those of the oracle bones, which is why it is celebrated as a living fossil of writing.

而令人驚異的是，在中華文明的廣袤天空中，與這顆西南「活化石」南北遙相呼應的，正是中原大地上璀璨的甲骨文。它們如同時間的雙生子，雖遠隔千里，卻訴説着相似的人類文明起源。What is striking is that, across the wide sky of Chinese civilisation, the counterpart answering this southwestern living fossil from the north is the brilliant oracle-bone script of the Central Plains. Like twins born of time, separated by a thousand miles, the two tell much the same story about how human civilisation began.

甲骨文，作為漢字的早期形式，鐫刻在龜甲與獸骨之上，主要用於商代的占卜。它已是高度成熟的文字體系，但其核心構成，與東巴文有着驚人的相似之處。Oracle-bone script, the earliest form of the Chinese character, was incised on tortoise shells and animal bones and used chiefly for divination in the Shang dynasty. It was already a highly developed writing system — yet in its underlying construction it bears a remarkable resemblance to Dongba.

東巴文與甲骨文：千年的文明迴響Dongba and Oracle Bone: An Echo Across a Thousand Years

造字邏輯的相似：象形A Shared Logic of Character Formation: The Pictograph

東巴文與甲骨文的相似，首先體現在造字邏輯的起點上——象形。兩者都是「畫成其物，隨體詰詘」的典範。The resemblance between Dongba and oracle-bone script shows first of all at the starting point of character formation: the pictograph. Both are models of the classical principle that a character "draws the object itself, its lines bending to follow the shape".

東巴文的「日」字畫一個圈，中間加點；「山」字畫山峯的輪廓。同樣，甲骨文的「日」字是一個圓圈的中間加一點（後來演變為方形）；「山」字也是畫出三座山峯的形狀。這種直接摹寫客觀事物的方式，直觀而充滿生命力。In Dongba, the character for "sun" is a circle with a dot in the middle, and the character for "mountain" traces the outline of peaks. In oracle-bone script the "sun" is likewise a circle with a dot at its centre (later squared off), and "mountain" is drawn as three peaks. This way of copying the object directly is immediate and full of life.

邁向表意階段The Step Towards Ideography

其次，東巴文和甲骨文都超越了簡單的圖畫，邁向了表意階段。Second, both Dongba and oracle-bone script moved beyond simple picture-making and took the step into ideography.

無論是東巴文還是甲骨文，其偉大之處不在於畫圖，而在於用固定的圖形符號來表達約定俗成的概念。例如，東巴文用「一人持矛刺野豬」的圖形表示「打獵」；甲骨文則用「人」靠在「木」旁表示「休憩」。The greatness of either script lies not in drawing pictures but in using fixed graphic symbols to express agreed concepts. Dongba, for instance, expresses "to hunt" with a figure of a man spearing a wild boar; oracle-bone script expresses "to rest" by placing the sign for "person" against the sign for "tree".

它們都已脱離了隨意的塗鴉，構建起一套能夠記錄語言、傳遞複雜信息的符號系統。Both had left casual doodling behind and built a system of signs capable of recording speech and carrying complex information.

遠古的信仰和權力Ancient Belief and Ancient Power

再者，它們都與遠古的信仰和權力緊密相連。Third, both were bound up closely with the beliefs and the power structures of remote antiquity.

甲骨文是商王與鬼神溝通的占卜記錄，掌握在巫師（貞人）手中，是王權神授的體現。東巴文則由納西族的宗教智者「東巴」用來書寫《東巴經》，是祭祀、祈福、驅鬼的法器。兩者都是「通天」的媒介，是文明早期神權與知識結合的產物。Oracle-bone script recorded the divinations through which the Shang kings communicated with spirits and ancestors. It was held in the hands of the diviner-shamans and embodied the divine sanction of royal power. Dongba script was used by the Naxi religious sages known as dongba to write the Dongba scriptures 《東巴經》, and served as a ritual instrument for sacrifice, blessing and exorcism. Both were media for reaching heaven — the product, in the early stages of civilisation, of priestly authority married to knowledge.

分岔之路：為何一「活」一「古」？The Parting of Ways: Why One Lives On and One Belongs to the Past

為何兩種具有許多相似性的文字走上了截然不同的道路？Why did two scripts with so much in common take such utterly different roads?

甲骨文隨着商朝的滅亡而深埋地下，成為一段被遺忘的歷史，其後裔（金文、篆書等）在演化中逐漸抽象化、線條化，失去了原始的象形面貌。而東巴文，因其相對封閉的地理環境和納西族東巴教的持續傳承，得以在民間「活態」延續至今，成為我們窺探文字起源的稀世窗口。Oracle-bone script was buried deep in the earth with the fall of the Shang and became a forgotten chapter of history, while its descendants — bronze inscriptions, seal script and the rest — grew steadily more abstract and linear as they evolved, losing their original pictorial appearance. Dongba, by contrast, survived in living use among the people, thanks to a relatively closed geography and the unbroken transmission of the Naxi Dongba religion. It remains a rare window through which we can glimpse the origins of writing.

東巴文的生命，得益於「東巴」們的代代相傳，也得益於那號稱千年不腐的東巴紙。這種堅韌的手工紙，為脆弱的文明之火提供了堡壘。2003年，東巴古籍被列入「世界記憶遺產名錄」，正是對其無與倫比的文化價值的認可。Dongba owes its life to the dongba priests who have handed it down generation after generation — and also to Dongba paper, said to resist decay for a thousand years. This tough handmade paper has been a fortress for a fragile flame of civilisation. In 2003 the ancient Dongba manuscripts were inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, in recognition of their incomparable cultural value.

從警示中行動：守護文明的多樣性Acting on the Warning: Safeguarding the Diversity of Civilisation

東巴文的「存活」狀態，並非高枕無憂。它和全球數以千計的語言一樣，正面臨着成為「瀕危語言」的嚴峻挑戰。根據聯合國教科文組織的報告，全世界有超過一半的語言面臨消亡的危險。這不僅僅是語言的死亡，更是整個知識體系、文化體系和智慧體系的崩塌。That Dongba survives is no reason to rest easy. Like thousands of languages worldwide it faces the grave prospect of becoming an endangered language. According to UNESCO, more than half the world's languages are at risk of disappearing. What is lost in each case is not merely a language but an entire system of knowledge, culture and wisdom, collapsing all at once.

認識到這種文化危機的緊迫性，從建設「中國語言資源有聲數據庫」到啓動「國家語言資源保護工程」，一場大規模的語言搶救行動在全國展開，只為讓文字能如源頭活水般充滿動力地傳承下去。Recognising how urgent this cultural crisis has become, China has mounted a large-scale rescue effort — from building the Chinese Language Resources Audio Database to launching the National Language Resources Protection Project — so that these scripts may be passed on with the vigour of water running from its source.

不少學者指出，讓這些古老的智慧重新「活」起來，可通過大眾化、現代化和產品化的方式：開發文創、建立數字博物館、與教育旅遊結合等，讓語檔資源走進現代生活，形成可持續的保護循環。目前，雲南省麗江旅遊區就開設了東巴紙文創店。店內佈置精美，最具代表性的商品就是由東巴紙印製而成的東巴文介紹本。遊客購買商品，還可選擇一句祝福語，由在場的工作人員以東巴文形式書寫在書本首頁。Many scholars argue that this ancient wisdom can be brought back to life by making it popular, modern and marketable: developing cultural and creative products, building digital museums, tying the material into educational tourism, and generally bringing archived language resources into modern life so that protection becomes self-sustaining. In the tourist district of Lijiang, Yunnan, there is already a shop selling creative products made from Dongba paper. The interior is beautifully arranged, and its most characteristic item is an introductory booklet on the Dongba script printed on Dongba paper. Visitors who buy one may choose a line of good wishes, which a member of staff writes out in Dongba characters on the opening page.

結語In Conclusion

東巴文與甲骨文，這一南一北、一「活」一「古」的文明瑰寶，共同勾勒出人類文字童年的燦爛圖景。「守護東巴文，守護每一種瀕危的語言，就是守護人類思想的多樣性，守護我們共同未來的更多可能性。」正如學者范俊軍所言：「每一聲瀕危的母語吟唱，都是人類文明星空中，一顆不應熄滅的星辰。」Dongba and oracle-bone script — one southern and still living, one northern and long past — are treasures of civilisation that together sketch a brilliant picture of the childhood of human writing. To guard Dongba, and to guard every endangered language, is to guard the diversity of human thought and to keep open more possibilities for our shared future. As the scholar Fan Junjun puts it: "Every note sung in an endangered mother tongue is a star in the night sky of human civilisation, and not one of them should be allowed to go out."

參考文獻References

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守護瀕危文字，溯源鮮活的象形世界Guarding an Endangered Script: Tracing the Living World of Pictographs