语言与文风2019newscientist.com
石器时代艺术中隐藏的代码可能是人类书写的源头
Code hidden in Stone Age art may be the root of human writing (2016)
导读
这篇报道探讨石器时代艺术中的符号编码可能是人类写作的起源。评论从动物交流、追踪叙事和符号普遍性等角度质疑人类中心视角，并展开关于书写未来的想象，值得写作者思考符号与故事的本质。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把写作和阅读想象成追踪动物足迹：每个符号都是一条路径的痕迹，叙事就是沿着痕迹还原故事。
- 02
符号能力并非人类独有，写作的根源可能在于跨物种的交流本能，写作时应关注符号的普遍可读性。
- 03
古代艺术中的共同符号提示存在跨文化的原型语言，写作可以借用这些原始意象增强共鸣。
- 04
设想一个书写消失、只剩箭头的未来，提醒写作者文字是脆弱而珍贵的交流媒介。
HN 评论精选
质疑人类符号能力的独特性，认为动物也有抽象交流，智力并非线性尺度。
用一个抽象符号代表一个概念，是其他动物——甚至我们最近的亲戚黑猩猩——都做不到的。这也可以说是我们先进全球文化的基础。这是人类沙文主义。除非我们能客观测试从未被教过语言的人类（如“野孩子”）自发发展出编码系统的可能性，否则我们真的能比较不同物种在这些方面的先天智力吗？据我们所知，这种发展的触发因素可能是看到同类做出奇怪的事情，有趣或有益到足以被传承给后代。在《蓝色星球2》中，有一段关于章鱼和石斑鱼——完全不同的物种——通过手势和改变皮肤颜色相互交流，合作捕猎。蚂蚁等使用信息素的“抽象符号”。蜜蜂使用三维舞蹈交流。我们因为无法做到这些就比它们笨吗？智力肯定不是一个线性的、有离散步骤的一维尺度。
Razengan查看英文原文
> Our ability to represent a concept with an abstract sign is something no other animal, not even our closest cousins the chimpanzees, can do. It is arguably also the foundation for our advanced, global culture. Human chauvinisms. Until we can objectively test the likelihood of humans that have never been taught a language, like "feral children" [0], to spontaneously develop a coding system on their own, can we really compare innate intelligence in these areas across species? For all we know, the trigger for such developments may be watching others of your own kind doing something odd, that is interesting or beneficial enough to catch on for long enough to be passed on to offspring. In the Blue Planet 2 series, there is a segment about an octopus and a grouper fish, entirely different species, communicating with each other via gestures and changing their skin colors, to work together in trapping prey. Ants etc. use "abstract signs" of pheromones. Bees use 3-dimensional dances to communicate. Are we dumber than them because of our inability to do that? Intelligence certainly isn't a linear 1D scale with discrete steps. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
把阅读写作类比为追踪动物足迹，每个符号都是一条路径和故事线。
我一直猜测动物追踪是人类阅读和写作的起源，解读动物的路径就是一个故事线。但我不是唯一这么想的人：拉里·麦克默特里小说《拉雷多街头》（《孤独鸽》系列的一部分）中的基卡普追踪者Famous Shoes把这个想法表达得更好：“Famous Shoes得到了一本《圣经》，代替那个小白女孩。他本来更想要那个女孩，但他收下了《圣经》，在空闲时间钻研了很多年。他从未见过像他《圣经》里那样奇怪的足迹。经过大量研究，他可以看出这些足迹是个别的，就像所有动物的足迹一样。甚至蠕虫和蜗牛留下的足迹也与其他生物不同。”Famous Shoes学习追踪书中足迹的强烈愿望在麦克默特里的小说中多次出现。
giardini查看英文原文
I have always speculated that animal tracking was the origin of human reading and writing and that the interpretation of an animal's path is a storyline. But I am not alone in this: the idea was put much better by the Kickapoo tracker Famous Shoes in the Larry McMurtry novel "Streets of Laredo" (part of the "Lonesome Dove" series): "Famous Shoes was given a Bible, in lieu of the little white girl. He would have rather had the girl but he took the Bible and he pored over it for years, in his spare time. He had never seen tracks as strange as the tracks in his Bible. After much study he could see that the tracks were individual, as were the tracks of all animals. Even worms and snails made tracks that were unlike those of other creatures." Famous Shoes strong desire to learn to follow the tracks in books surfaces a number of times in McMurtry's novels. There is no Wikipedia link for Famous Shoes, my favorite character from the "Lonesome Dove" series.
古代艺术中可能存在一种共同的人类语言或原始符号系统。
Szukalski和他的“看哪！Protong！”与这类东西如此接近，总是让我惊讶……他是一位艺术家，把所有这些古代符号和信号看作贯穿所有人类文化的原始语言。有人知道Szukalski在这些研究者中是否有可信度吗？他绝对属于疯子边缘/怪人领域——但也许他是对的，所有古代艺术中存在一种共同的人类语言？现在看到他的主张被主流考古学家调查并证实，太疯狂了……
mmjaa查看英文原文
It always amazes me how close to this sort of thing Szukalski was, with his "Behold! The Protong!!" .. I mean, he was an artist who saw all these ancient signs and signals as a porto-tongue throughout all human culture. Does anyone know if Szukalski has any credence among these researchers? He is definitely in the lunatic-fringe/crazy-guy sector - but maybe he was right that there is a common human language throughout all ancient art? So crazy to see his claims being investigated now and confirmed by mainstream archeologists ..
想象古代符号可能是文明残余，书写可能因技术而消失，只剩简单符号。
另一个我觉得很有趣的想法，尤其对虚构写作：如果那些古代人类不是新学习事物的原始生物，而是一个文明的残余，用他们剩下的东西凑合呢？例如，如果未来每个人都使用始终连接的AR眼镜和个人AI助手，还会有人费心在“野外”写很多东西吗？有人发现一个很酷的观光或藏身点，可能会在Instagram上发几张照片，说“跟着箭头走”，我们某种程度上已经在用地理藏宝等做类似的事了。在更远的未来，有人可能只找到粗糙蚀刻的箭头，没有理由假设现在存在过互联网。:)
Razengan查看英文原文
Another idea that I find fun to think about, especially for fiction: What if those ancient humans weren't primitive creatures newly learning things, but remnants of a civilization making do with whatever they had left? e.g. If everyone in the future uses always-connected AR glasses and personal AI assistants, would anyone bother to write much, "in the wild"? Someone discovering a cool sightseeing/hiding spot may Instagram a few photos, saying "follow the arrows.", and we kind of already do that with geocaching etc. [0] In the farther future, someone may only find the crudely-etched arrows, with no reason to assume that anything like the internet existed back now. :) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching
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