Exploring Origin of Chinese Characters at Cang Jie Muesum in Puyang
在仓颉文化博物馆 探索中国神话里的精神传承密码
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NB: This is not a word-for-word transcript
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Not everyone has heard Cang Jie, a mythical figure from ancient China who is said to have invented Chinese characters thousands of years ago.
并不是每个人都听说过仓颉，但如果用一句话概括，那就是“仓颉是中国最早创造文字的人”。
Hello, everyone! Now, I'm in Puyang city of Central China's Henan province where the famous Cang Jie Mausoleum is located. Let’s review the story of Cang Jie together.
大家好！我现在所在的位置便是仓颉陵遗址。今天，我将和大家一起重温“仓颉造字”的故事。
It is said that Cang Jie was responsible for recording the number of livestock and grain during the period of Yellow Emperor, a legendary ancestor of the Chinese nation. Because there was no writing at that time, Cang Jie could only keep records by tying knots. However, after the Yellow Emperor unified China, there were more cattle and horses. He could not record the number accurately by tying knots.
相传，仓颉是黄帝的史官，承担着记载牲畜和粮食数目的重任。那时，因为没有数字和文字，仓颉只能采用结绳计数的方法。但是，黄帝统一华夏之后，部落不断壮大，牛马也越来越多，结绳计数无法准确记录牲畜和粮食的数量。
One day, Cang Jie went hunting with hunters in the forest and found that hunters could accurately judge the tracks of animals according to their footprints on the ground. Cang Jie was inspired by them: Everything has its own features, and by drawing everyone could understand what you want to express. Since then, Cang Jie began to observe and record the features of various things, including the sun, the moon, stars, clouds, mountains, rivers, lakes, etc., and created many pictographs.
有一天，仓颉和猎人们一起去林中狩猎，发现猎人可以根据动物留在地上的脚印，准确判断出动物的踪迹。仓颉因此很受启发：万事万物都有自己的特征，如能抓住事物的特征，画出图象，大家都能认识，这不就是字吗？从此，仓颉便开始仔细观察各种事物的特征，譬如日、月、星、云、山、河、湖、海，以及各种飞禽走兽、应用器物，并按其特征，画出图形，造出许多象形文字。
The emergence of pictographs marked that Chinese history had entered the era of written records.
象形文字的出现，标志着中国历史走进了由文字记载的时代。
出镜：杨佳欣
拍摄：董蕾
剪辑：何蒙贺