世界各国文字的发明和发展成熟都经历过一个漫长的历史过程，最直接的证据便是考古发现的一些古老的文字符号。由于年代久远，本文提及的这六种古老、早已退出历史舞台的文字仍然无法破解。这些文字记录是我们了解历史的重要依据，它们的破译对了解古代文化有非常重要的意义。
The invention and development of characters in the world have experienced a long historical process. The most direct evidence is some ancient characters and symbols found in archaeology. Because of the long history, the six ancient characters mentioned in this paper can not be deciphered. These written records are the important basis for us to understand history, and their interpretation is of great significance for us to understand ancient culture.
1、 苏萨的原始埃兰文字
1. The original ERAN of Susa
原始埃兰文字与人类最早使用的文字系统一样古老。换言之，这种文字与被视为人类最早的文字系统的苏美尔文字属于同一时期。原始埃兰文字发源于新月沃地。记载详实的埃兰文字出现在公元前2500年的美索不达米亚平原的西南部。但是在埃兰文字出现之前大约500年，原始埃兰文字就在埃兰王朝的首都苏萨出现了。
The original ERAN writing is as old as the earliest writing system used by human beings. In other words, this kind of writing belongs to the same period as Sumerian writing, which is regarded as the earliest writing system of human beings. The original ERAN script originated in the New Moon Valley. The well-documented ERAN script appeared in the southwest of Mesopotamia plain in 2500 BC. But about 500 years before the emergence of ERAN, the original ERAN appeared in Susa, the capital of the ERAN Dynasty.
考古学家发现了大约1600块刻着原始埃兰文字的刻板。这种文字很可能与苏美尔楔形文字的直接前身——原始楔形文字存在某种关联，因为二者在某些方面有着惊人的相似之处。与苏美尔楔形文字不同，原始埃兰文字存在的时间较短，大约只有一两个世纪。很难判断这两个文字系统到底哪个更早出现。无论如何，在已知的文字当中，原始埃兰文字都是尚未破译的最古老文字。这个文字系统包含的象形文字和抽象符号依然是个未解之谜。从这些文字的粗糙程度来看，其作者似乎并非专业人士。这或许也是原始埃兰文字存在时间较短的原因之一。
Archeologists have found about 1600 blocks of primitive ERAN writing. This kind of writing is probably related to the primitive cuneiform, the direct predecessor of Sumerian cuneiform writing, because they have striking similarities in some aspects. Unlike Sumerian cuneiform writing, the original ERAN writing existed for only a century or two. It's hard to tell which of these two systems appeared earlier. In any case, among the known scripts, the original ERAN script is the oldest yet to be deciphered. The pictograph and abstract symbols contained in this system are still unsolved. From the roughness of these words, it seems that the author is not a professional. This may be one of the reasons why the original ERAN characters existed for a short time.
2、原始西奈文字系统
2. Original Sinai writing system
作为希腊字母的起源，中东地区的腓尼基字母到底源于何处一直存在争议。不过可以肯定的是，过去有关最早的字母系统诞生于公元前1600年的西奈半岛和叙利亚-巴勒斯坦地区的观点已经发生了改变。美国埃及学家1999年在埃及中部的底比斯和帝王谷附近发现了一批刻有字迹的石板。石板上的符号类似闪米特文字，发现者认为其可追溯到公元前1900年至公元前1800年。当时很多闪米特人迁往富庶的古埃及谋生，同时也将文字传了过去。这种文字和上个世纪在西奈半岛发现的原始西奈文字非常相近，但诞生得更早。
As the origin of the Greek alphabet, the origin of the Phoenician alphabet in the Middle East has always been controversial. To be sure, though, past views about the birth of the earliest alphabetic system in the Sinai Peninsula and the Syrian Palestinian region in 1600 BC have changed. In 1999, American Egyptologists found a batch of stone tablets with handwriting near Thebes and the valley of kings in central Egypt. The symbols on the tablets are similar to the Semitic characters, which the discoverers believe can be traced back to 1900-1800 BC. At that time, many Semitic people moved to the rich ancient Egypt to make a living, and at the same time, they passed the words on to the past. This kind of writing is very similar to the original Sinai writing found in the Sinai Peninsula in the last century, but it was born earlier.
1904年至1905年英国埃及学家在西奈半岛的一个绿松石矿遗址发现了一种诞生于公元前1600年的字母文字，使用者是几千年前为法老工作的迦南矿工。1999年发现的文字和这种字母文字非常相似。新发现的是一种以闪米特字母为基础的文字系统，但也受到古埃及象形文字的影响。这种字母系统比腓尼基字母的诞生要早6个世纪。由于与原始迦南字母和象形文字类似，科学家破译了一小部分字母，但大部分依然未解。过着颠沛流离的生活的迦南矿工很可能将这些字母传到了叙利亚-巴勒斯坦地区，而后来的腓尼基字母就诞生在这里。这些迦南矿工在人类文化传播的历史上留下了重要的一笔。
From 1904 to 1905, British Egyptologists discovered an alphabetic character which was born in 1600 B.C. at a turquoise mine site in Sinai Peninsula. The user was a Canaanite miner who worked for Pharaoh thousands of years ago. The characters found in 1999 are very similar to this alphabetic character. The newly discovered system is based on the Semitic alphabet, but also influenced by the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. This alphabet system is six centuries before the Phoenician alphabet was born. Similar to the original Canaanite letters and hieroglyphs, scientists deciphered a small number of letters, but most of them are still unknown. The Canaanite miners who lived in exile were likely to transmit the letters to the Syrian Palestinian region, where the later Phoenician letters were born. These Canaanite miners have left an important mark in the history of the spread of human culture.
4、伊比利亚文字
4. Iberian
伊比利亚半岛的前罗马帝国时期文化充满了神秘的色彩。经典著作中有关伊比利亚和凯尔特伊比利亚文明的描述少之又少。直到公元前3世纪末，也就是迦太基入侵伊比利亚半岛，以及迦太基与罗马为了在地中海地区争夺霸权而爆发第二次布匿战争之后，相关的文献才多了起来。
The culture of pre Roman Empire in Iberia peninsula is full of mystery. There are few descriptions of Iberian and Celtic civilization in classical works. Until the end of the third century BC, when Carthage invaded the Iberian Peninsula, and Carthage and Rome fought for hegemony in the Mediterranean region and the Second Punic War broke out, there were more relevant documents.
在历史学家眼中，伊比利亚半岛在这个时间点之前的历史一直是一片模糊。要重建这段历史十分困难。只有从考古学中才能获得对在此之前居住在伊比利亚半岛的居民的一知半解。目前已经发现超过2000件刻有伊比利亚文字的不同形式——南方形式、黎凡特形式和西南形式的铜板或陶片，这些铭文资料可谓相当丰富。
In the eyes of historians, the history of the Iberian Peninsula before this time point has been a blur. It is very difficult to reconstruct this history. Only from archaeology can we get a little knowledge of the people who lived in Iberia before. At present, more than 2000 different forms of Iberian characters have been found - Southern, Levant and southwest forms of copper plates or ceramics, which are quite rich in inscriptions.
伊比利亚字母来源于腓尼基字母。从公元前9世纪末开始，伊比利亚半岛的居民与腓尼基航海家和黎凡特商人往来越来越频繁，到了公元前5世纪伊比利亚文字应运而生，并从公元前3世纪开始传入凯尔特伊比利亚人居住的埃布罗河流域。凯尔特伊比利亚人的文字和伊比利亚文字截然不同，来源于印欧语系。伊比利亚文字是半音节文字，拥有28个符号，对了解伊比利亚和凯尔特伊比利亚文明起到了至关重要的作用。1922年考古学家和历史学家曼努埃尔•戈麦斯•莫雷诺根据铭文资料，发现了伊比利亚文字和西班牙语之间的联系。换言之，公元前3世纪伊比利亚半岛的居民就可以用伊比利亚文字的黎凡特形式阅读和书写了。他们通常用锥子将文字刻在铅板上。遗憾的是，时至今日我们依然没能破译这种文字。
The Iberian alphabet comes from the Phoenician alphabet. From the end of the 9th century BC, the residents of the Iberian Peninsula and Phoenician navigators and Levant merchants began to communicate more and more frequently. In the 5th century BC, the Iberian characters came into being, and from the 3rd century BC, they were introduced into the Ebro River basin where the Iberian people lived. Celtic Iberian writing is quite different from Iberian writing and comes from the Indo European language family. Iberian is a semitone with 28 symbols, which plays an important role in understanding Iberian and Celtic Iberian civilization. In 1922, archaeologist and historian Manuel Gomez Moreno discovered the connection between Iberian and Spanish based on the inscriptions. In other words, the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula in the third century BC could read and write in the Levant form of Iberian writing. They usually use awls to carve words on lead plates. Unfortunately, we still haven't been able to decipher this kind of writing.
5、奥尔梅克象形文字
5. Olmec ideograph
多年来专家一直认为中部美洲几大文明有着共同的核心内容。虽然这一观点的反对者甚多，但几乎所有人都赞同多姿多彩的中部美洲文明来源于奥尔梅克文明。公元前第二个千年至公元前5世纪，奥尔梅克文明在现在的墨西哥东南部经历了诞生、繁盛到衰亡的过程。
For many years, experts have believed that several major civilizations in Central America share the same core content. Although there are many opponents of this view, almost everyone agrees that the colorful Central American civilization originated from the Olmec civilization. From the second millennium B.C. to the 5th century B.C., Olmec civilization experienced the process of birth, prosperity and decline in the present southeast of Mexico.
奥尔梅克人建立了一个结构复杂的社会，在接下来的数百年内成为玛雅社会和阿兹台克社会的模板。在原始社会，出现文字往往是一个民族兴旺强盛的象征。直到10年前，历史学家还认为是萨波特克人创造了中部美洲的文字。然而，大量证据显示，奥尔梅克人的文字为中部美洲的文字奠定了基础。在位于墨西哥南部的拉文塔遗址发现了大量刻有象形文字的陶片和石碑。
The Olmecs built a complex society that became a template for the Mayan and Aztec societies over the next few hundred years. In primitive society, the appearance of characters is often a symbol of the prosperity of a nation. Until 10 years ago, historians thought it was the zapoteks who created the writing of Central America. However, there is a great deal of evidence that Olmec writing laid the foundation for Central American writing. A large number of tablets and stone tablets with hieroglyphs have been found at the site of raventa in southern Mexico.
然而，这些可以追溯到公元前第一个千年中叶的文字很难破译，因为很难将象形文字和画像区分开来。这些所谓的奥尔梅克象形文字与玛雅象形文字非常相似，而这也印证了中部美洲的所有文字都曾受到奥尔梅克文字启发的观点。
However, it is difficult to decipher these texts, which can be traced back to the middle of the first millennium BC, because it is difficult to distinguish hieroglyphs from portraits. These so-called Olmec hieroglyphs are very similar to the Mayan hieroglyphs, which also confirms the view that all the characters in Central America were inspired by Olmec.
6、复活节岛的象形文字
6. Hieroglyphs of Easter Island
1770年西班牙航海家、制图师费利佩•冈萨雷斯•德阿埃多登上了复活节岛，随即强迫岛上居民签署协议，向西班牙国王俯首称臣。岛民在协议上签下了一些奇怪的符号，这些符号属于一种可能起源于南岛语系的原始文字系统。而复活节岛岛民很可能就是南岛语族波利尼西亚人的后代。
In 1770, Felipe Gonzalez de aaedo, a Spanish navigator and cartographer, boarded the Easter Island. Then he forced the islanders to sign an agreement and bow down to the king of Spain. The islanders signed some strange symbols on the agreement, which belong to a primitive writing system that may have originated from the South Island language family. And the Easter Islanders are probably descendants of the Polynesians, the Austronesian language group.
19世纪中叶，法国传教士欧仁•埃罗成为定居在复活节岛上的第一个欧洲人。正是他让岛外的世界了解了朗格朗格——一套在复活节岛上发现的符号。朗格朗格包括21个符号，可能是一种使用鲨鱼牙齿刻在模板上的象形文字。在复活节岛的历史上，岛民创造了这种状似人形、天体和动物的象形文字，使用牛耕式转行书写法——下一行接在上一行文字的末尾反方向书写。这些象形文字书写在使用托罗密罗树木材制成的木板上，但就是这个细节导致很难分析其诞生年代，因为只能根据碳14年代测定法分析木材的年代，而无法确定书写者到底是什么时候把文字刻在木板上的。
In the mid-19th century, the French missionary Oren ero became the first European to settle on Easter Island. It was he who taught the rest of the world about Langlang, a set of symbols found on Easter Island. Langlang, which includes 21 symbols, may be a hieroglyph carved on a template with shark teeth. In the history of Easter Island, the islanders created this kind of hieroglyphs like human, celestial bodies and animals, which were written in Niugeng style transfer script - the next line was followed by the last line in the opposite direction. These hieroglyphs are written on boards made of torromero wood, but it is this detail that makes it difficult to analyze the date of their birth, because only the carbon 14 dating method can be used to analyze the age of the wood, and it is impossible to determine when the writer carved the words on the board.
有些专家认为，朗格朗格诞生于欧洲人登岛之后。然而，岛上的岩洞中也有类似的象形文字出现，而这些显然是在欧洲人登岛之前就存在了。这似乎暗示着朗格朗格是发源于复活节岛本土的文字。还有专家认为，这种文字与印度河流域的古文字有着亲缘关系，但这种假设尚无确凿证据支持。无论如何，如果能够破译朗格朗格，必然有利于了解复活节岛神秘的文明。
Some experts believe that longlang was born after the Europeans landed on the island. However, similar hieroglyphs appear in the caves on the island, which apparently existed before the Europeans landed on the island. This seems to suggest that Lange Lange is native to Easter Island. Some experts believe that the characters are related to the ancient characters in the Indus River Basin, but there is no conclusive evidence to support this hypothesis. In any case, if we can decipher langlangue, it will be helpful to understand the mysterious civilization of Easter Island.
