Three Cuckoos: a Failed Modernisation
China up to the Opium War was widely admired as a place well-adapted to civilised life. Up to then, if someone had to be born as a man without any assurance of social position or good luck, China would have been the best place to choose. Being born as a woman would have been another matter: not very free or safe anywhere, but I’m sure that there were better places than Imperial China. But most Chinese men and women were fairly content. The hybrid of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism that had developed in China was psychologically satisfying. (Which doesn’t mean it was wise in a wider sense; just that the creeds and the religious professionals had become familiar with human weaknesses)
None of the Chinese philosophies had the least inkling of the physical structure of the universe, of course. But anything that could fit the existing pattern was accepted. The Jesuits in China were OK for as long as they concealed the alien and intolerant nature of their actual beliefs. As I mentioned earlier, the Jesuits wanted to bend Catholic doctrine on the matter of Ancestor-Worship and showed every sign of blending into Chinese culture, which was much more sophisticated than anything Europe had at the time.
As I said earlier, China under the Manchu dynasty was not static: it accepted many new crops that Europeans brought back from the New World, and maybe pushed intensive agriculture too far. The best estimates are that there were 59 million Chinese in the year 100, 160 million in 1600 and over 300 million in the 19th century.[II]
Adam Smith, writing in the 1770s, was entirely accurate when he said that China was richer than any part of Europe. In 1820 China still had about a quarter of the world’s population and a third of the world’s wealth.[JJ] Europe did better in terms of GDP per head: maybe twice as high in Western Europe as in China, too small a gap to be attractive. But as Adam Smith also noted, Europe had accepted the idea of continuous change.

三只布谷鳥(niǎo)：失敗的現(xiàn)代化
鴉片戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)之前，中國(guó)一直被認(rèn)為是一個(gè)很好地適應(yīng)了文明生活的地方。在那時(shí)，如果一個(gè)人出生時(shí)沒(méi)有任何社會(huì)地位或運(yùn)氣，中國(guó)將是最好的選擇。淡然以一個(gè)女人身份出生是另一回事：在當(dāng)時(shí)的任何地方都不太自由或安全，但我確信有比帝國(guó)中國(guó)更好的地方，當(dāng)然在中國(guó)，大多數(shù)中國(guó)男人和女人都相當(dāng)滿(mǎn)意。中國(guó)發(fā)展起來(lái)的儒、道、佛三教的融合，在心理上得到了滿(mǎn)足。(從更廣泛的意義上說(shuō)，這并不意味著它是明智的;只是宗教專(zhuān)業(yè)人士已經(jīng)熟悉了人類(lèi)的弱點(diǎn)。)
中國(guó)哲學(xué)對(duì)宇宙的物理結(jié)構(gòu)一無(wú)所知，但任何符合現(xiàn)有模式的東西都被接受了。在中國(guó)的耶穌會(huì)士可以接受，只要他們隱藏自己實(shí)際信仰的異質(zhì)和不寬容的本質(zhì)。正如我之前提到的，耶穌會(huì)士想要在祖先崇拜問(wèn)題上妥協(xié)天主教教義，并表現(xiàn)出融入中國(guó)文化的跡象，而中國(guó)文化比當(dāng)時(shí)的歐洲任何文化都要復(fù)雜得多。正如我前面所說(shuō)的，滿(mǎn)清王朝統(tǒng)治下的中國(guó)并不是一成不變的:它接受了歐洲人從新大陸帶回的許多新作物，也許還把集約化農(nóng)業(yè)推得更遠(yuǎn)了。最準(zhǔn)確的估計(jì)是，公元第1年有5900萬(wàn)中國(guó)人，16世紀(jì)有1.6億，19世紀(jì)超過(guò)3億。
亞當(dāng)·斯密在18世紀(jì)70年代寫(xiě)道，中國(guó)比歐洲任何地方都富裕，這是完全準(zhǔn)確的。1820年，中國(guó)仍然擁有世界四分之一的人口和三分之一的財(cái)富。歐洲在人均GDP方面做得更好:西歐的人均GDP可能是中國(guó)的兩倍，但差距太小，沒(méi)有吸引力。但正如亞當(dāng)·斯密也指出的那樣，歐洲已經(jīng)接受了持續(xù)變革的理念。

The most important difference was military, not economic. The kingdoms of Western Europe (along with a few republics) had been fighting each other for centuries, by land and by sea. Gunpowder as such was not decisive, and China had anyway invented it and never stopped using it for warfare. What mattered was a mix of metallurgy, training and organisation that Europe evolved. Britain’s Industrial Revolution was in the early 19th century beginning to produce completely novel weapon systems.
In the First Opium War (1839-1842), the British fleet included a vessel called the Nemesis, built in Britain for the East India Company. One of the world’s first iron ships, it was powered by steam and was able to go places where a conventional warship could not. It was able to chase the Chinese fleet up the river and sink most of it, causing it to be viewed as a ‘devil ship’ by the Chinese. I’d count this use of iron warships as a rather more significant episode than the famous clash between the Monitor and the Virginia (Merrimac) in the 1860. That battle was indecisive, and also happened at a time when Europe already had much more powerful iron warships, France’s La Gloire and Britain’s HMS Warrior. But when it comes to writing popular history, the case of the Nemesis had two disadvantages. It was not American, and it was not at all heroic. The duel of the Monitor and the Virginia was dramatic, and occurred between two rival causes that are mostly seen as noble and heroic (though I find nothing noble in a war to preserve race-based slavery). But both sides were brave and evenly matched, while the Nemesis sinking much weaker vessels looks much more like bullying, the ‘upper muscle’ of Imperialism applied without any moral concerns.[KK]

最重要的區(qū)別在于軍事上，而不是經(jīng)濟(jì)上。幾個(gè)世紀(jì)以來(lái)，西歐各王國(guó)(以及一些共和國(guó))一直在陸上和海上相互爭(zhēng)斗?；鹚幈旧聿⒉皇菦Q定性的，無(wú)論如何是中國(guó)發(fā)明了它，并且從未停止使用它進(jìn)行戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。重要的是歐洲發(fā)展起來(lái)的冶金、培訓(xùn)和組織的結(jié)合。英國(guó)的工業(yè)革命是在19世紀(jì)早期開(kāi)始生產(chǎn)全新的武器系統(tǒng)。
在第一次鴉片戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)(1839-1842)中，英國(guó)艦隊(duì)包括一艘名為“復(fù)仇女神號(hào)（ the Nemesis）”的船，這艘船是為東印度公司在英國(guó)建造的。作為世界上最早的鐵船之一，它以蒸汽為動(dòng)力，能夠到達(dá)傳統(tǒng)戰(zhàn)艦無(wú)法到達(dá)的地方。它能夠追趕中國(guó)艦隊(duì)到河的上游，并擊沉了大部分艦隊(duì)，導(dǎo)致它被中國(guó)人視為一艘“魔鬼船”。比起1860年著名的摩尼特號(hào)和維吉尼亞號(hào)(梅里麥克號(hào))之間的沖突，我認(rèn)為這次使用鐵戰(zhàn)艦的事件更有意義。……
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明出處


The Nemesis was an early and rather crude war-machine, but it was way beyond anything China could produce. Nor was China well placed to try. By the 1840s, the Manchu Dynasty was long past its best, with most of its hereditary soldiers lacking warlike skills and not much inclined to fight. Europe meantime had developed its military technology through continuous small wars. Europe had several huge military-industrial complexes that were rivals to each other, and which pioneered concepts like standardisation that were later taken up by non-military industries. The First Opium War exposed a dangerous gap in military effectiveness: European powers could project their power across eight time-zones: send their military one-third of the way round the world and still be much stronger than the vast Chinese Empire.
First China and then Japan saw that they would have to change drastically if they were to survive. In Japan, the drastic changes included the overthrow in 1868 of the Tokugawa Shogun in the name of the Japanese Emperor, who had not actually ruled since 1603. The Shoguns had made some steps towards modernisation, but it was their own well-tuned and stable system that they were being asked to dismantle. Whether they could have managed their own modernisation remains unknown, but my own strong feeling is that they could not.

“復(fù)仇女神”是一種早期的、相當(dāng)粗糙的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)機(jī)器，但它遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過(guò)了中國(guó)所能生產(chǎn)的任何東西，中國(guó)也不適合嘗試。到19世紀(jì)40年代，滿(mǎn)清王朝的鼎盛時(shí)期已經(jīng)過(guò)去很久了，大多數(shù)世系士兵缺乏作戰(zhàn)技能，也不太愿意打仗。與此同時(shí)，歐洲通過(guò)不斷的小規(guī)模戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)發(fā)展了其軍事技術(shù)。歐洲有幾個(gè)相互競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的大型軍事工業(yè)聯(lián)合體，它們開(kāi)創(chuàng)了標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化等概念，后來(lái)被非軍事工業(yè)采納。第一次鴉片戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)暴露了軍事效力上的一個(gè)危險(xiǎn)差距:歐洲大國(guó)可以將他們的力量投射到八個(gè)時(shí)區(qū)之外:派遣他們的軍隊(duì)環(huán)繞世界三分之一的地方，比龐大的中華帝國(guó)強(qiáng)大得多。
首先是中國(guó)，然后是日本，他們意識(shí)到如果他們想要生存，就必須做出巨大的改變。在日本，劇烈的變化包括1868年以日本天皇的名義推翻德川幕府(Tokugawa Shogun)，前者自1603年以來(lái)就沒(méi)有真正統(tǒng)治過(guò)日本。明治維新成功地反抗了幕府將軍，幕府將軍后來(lái)退位成為普通貴族。十幾歲的天皇成為了一群決定與過(guò)去決裂的政客們的有名無(wú)實(shí)的領(lǐng)袖。

You can’t be timid if you’re intending to change the cultural and social life of an old and sophisticated society. The ‘Charter Oath’ affirmed European political ideas as they existing in the 1860s, which was a drastic break with Japan’s own traditions. Automatic inherited privileges of class were rejected, and no one was to be tied to their father’s profession. Inequality and class distinctiveness were assumed to be natural, just as they were in Europe at the time, except by a few com...sts and anarchist. But politic was to be opened up. Anyone could express opinions on how the country should be governed, so long as certain basics were respected.
The defects of Imperial Japan were very much the same as the defects of the systems they copied, the aggressive European Empires of the late 19th century. Empires that later smashed themselves up in World War One and then the Great Depression. Meantime Imperial Japan wrecking itself during its invasion of China and then its attack on the USA in World War Two.

如果你想改變一個(gè)古老而復(fù)雜的社會(huì)的文化和社會(huì)生活，你不能膽怯?！稇椪率难浴分厣炅?9世紀(jì)60年代存在的歐洲政治理念，這是對(duì)日本自身傳統(tǒng)的一次重大突破。自動(dòng)繼承階級(jí)特權(quán)被拒絕了，沒(méi)有人能跟父親的職業(yè)聯(lián)系在一起。不平等和階級(jí)差異被認(rèn)為是理所應(yīng)當(dāng)?shù)模拖癞?dāng)時(shí)的歐洲一樣，除了少數(shù)共產(chǎn)主義者和無(wú)政府主義者。但政治是開(kāi)放的。只要某些基本原則得到尊重，任何人都可以就國(guó)家應(yīng)該如何治理發(fā)表意見(jiàn)。
日本帝國(guó)的缺陷與他們復(fù)制的19世紀(jì)后期歐洲帝國(guó)的缺陷非常相似。這些帝國(guó)后來(lái)在一戰(zhàn)和大蕭條中分崩離析。與此同時(shí)，日本帝國(guó)在侵略中國(guó)和在二戰(zhàn)中攻擊美國(guó)的過(guò)程中自我毀滅了。
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明出處


Whether China could have followed such a path is moot. When politics is fluid, the right individual in the right position can make a lot of difference. Or the wrong individual in that same position can be disastrous. China mostly had weak leadership, and those leaders who were strong were generally strong in the wrong way, good at grasping power but bad at doing anything useful with it.
I’d place a lot of blame on the three major leaders of China’s period of weakness: the Dowager Empress Cixi, General Yuan Shikai and Chiang Kai-shek. Cuckoos, people who were brilliant and gaining and holding onto power, but unable to do anything useful with it. In general terms they wanted to modernise China, but all of them expected the bulk of the population to stay passive.

中國(guó)是否會(huì)走上這條道路尚無(wú)定論。政治不會(huì)一成不變，正確的個(gè)人在正確的位置可以產(chǎn)生很大的不同，錯(cuò)誤的人處于同樣的位置可能是災(zāi)難性的。（近代）中國(guó)大多軟弱，那些強(qiáng)大的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人通常以錯(cuò)誤的方式強(qiáng)大——善于掌握權(quán)力，但不善于利用它做任何有用的事情。
我把很多責(zé)任歸咎于中國(guó)軟弱時(shí)期的三位主要領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人:慈禧太后、袁世凱將軍和蔣介石——布谷鳥(niǎo)，那些聰明的人獲得并抓住了權(quán)力，但卻不能用它做任何有用的事情?？偟膩?lái)說(shuō)，他們希望實(shí)現(xiàn)中國(guó)的現(xiàn)代化，但他們都希望大多數(shù)人保持被動(dòng)。

You can’t have a dynamic society built on top of a passive and superstitious population with few concerns beyond its own village or town life. M gets bitched about by most Western commentators and many Chinese dissidents, because of the simplistic and sometimes destructive methods he used to create dynamism right through the society. Much worse things and greater intolerance in imposing ideas had happened in Europe’s own modernisation, which also had decades and centuries to work in. The same dynamism was imposed on European colonies, where the people suddenly found themselves ruled at a local level by “District Officers” of mysterious origins and with alarming powers. Japan did the same job for Korea and Taiwan when it ruled them. But only Japan managed to modernise without uprooting its own traditions.
Why did Traditionalist China fail? Several reasons. The Manchu dynasty had become weak, certainly. But the Dowager Empress Cixi certainly exerted a malign influence, combining a talent for court intrigue with a basic unwillingness to accept that the world she’d grown up in was now doomed. Manchu inherited privilege was also a major problem, and was the thing that Cixi and her successors preserved to the bitter end. The dynasty undermined their traditionalist credentials first, abolishing the Imperials Examinations that had kept China tied to Confucian principles across the centuries. But the government was still dominated by a tiny circle of privileged Manchu. This must have lost them whatever Han-gentry support they still had, without conceding enough to satisfy radicals.

你不可能讓一個(gè)充滿(mǎn)活力的社會(huì)建立在一群消極迷信的人之上，他們除了關(guān)心自己的鄉(xiāng)村或城鎮(zhèn)生活之外，幾乎什么都不關(guān)心。毛被大多數(shù)西方評(píng)論家和許多中國(guó)持不同政見(jiàn)者抱怨，因?yàn)樗褂昧撕?jiǎn)單的，有時(shí)是破壞性的方法來(lái)在整個(gè)社會(huì)創(chuàng)造活力。歐洲自身的現(xiàn)代化進(jìn)程中也發(fā)生過(guò)更糟糕、更不寬容的事情，而歐洲的現(xiàn)代化進(jìn)程也有幾十年乃至幾百年的時(shí)間。同樣的動(dòng)力也被強(qiáng)加在歐洲殖民地上，那里的人們突然發(fā)現(xiàn)自己在地方一級(jí)被來(lái)歷神秘、實(shí)力驚人的“地區(qū)官員”統(tǒng)治著。日本在統(tǒng)治韓國(guó)和臺(tái)灣時(shí)也做了同樣的事情。但只有日本在沒(méi)有拋棄自己的傳統(tǒng)的情況下實(shí)現(xiàn)了現(xiàn)代化。
為什么傳統(tǒng)的中國(guó)失敗了?有以下幾個(gè)原因。
當(dāng)然，滿(mǎn)清王朝已經(jīng)衰弱了。但慈禧太后無(wú)疑施加了一種有害的影響，她一方面有搞宮廷陰謀的天賦，另一方面卻根本不愿接受自己成長(zhǎng)的世界已經(jīng)注定要滅亡的事實(shí)。滿(mǎn)族的繼承特權(quán)也是一個(gè)大問(wèn)題，也是慈禧及其后繼者堅(jiān)持到最后的問(wèn)題。朝代首先破壞了他們傳統(tǒng)的資格，廢除了幾個(gè)世紀(jì)以來(lái)一直把中國(guó)與儒家原則聯(lián)系在一起的科舉制度。但政府仍然被少數(shù)享有特權(quán)的滿(mǎn)族人所統(tǒng)治。這必然使他們失去了漢人的支持，同時(shí)又沒(méi)有做出足夠的讓步來(lái)滿(mǎn)足激進(jìn)分子。

A Japanese-style reform would have needed a strong and determined Emperor, or at least a respectable figurehead. And it would have needed a decisive victory over the older system of government, which is just what didn’t happen. There was a ‘Self-Strengthening Movement’ from 1865 to 1895, but it amounted to little. Change had to take place within a corrupt old system of government, whereas the earlier Meiji Restoration had overthrown the Shogun’s rule. What happened in Japan was a fresh start, with the added advantage of clear historic legitimacy flowing from the Emperor.
The Guangxu Emperor, Cixi’s nephew, made his much more serious attempt in 1898, but was betrayed and was kept prisoner for ten years. Some people criticise the Guangxu Emperor for attempting a very drastic reforms during the ‘Hundred Days’ in 1898. But China had started late. Limited reforms that the conservatives could live with had been tried and had produced poor results. The failure of these half-measures were shown by China’s decisive defeat by Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894-5.

日本式的改革需要一位堅(jiān)強(qiáng)而堅(jiān)定的天皇，或者至少是一位有名無(wú)實(shí)的但可敬的領(lǐng)袖。它需要對(duì)舊的政府體系取得決定性的勝利，而這并沒(méi)有發(fā)生。從1865年到1895年有過(guò)一場(chǎng)“自強(qiáng)運(yùn)動(dòng)”，但收效甚微。變革必然發(fā)生在腐敗的舊政府體制內(nèi)，而早期的明治維新推翻了幕府的統(tǒng)治。日本發(fā)生的事情是一個(gè)新的開(kāi)始，另外一個(gè)優(yōu)勢(shì)是，天皇具有明確的歷史合法性。
慈禧的侄子光緒皇帝在1898年進(jìn)行了更嚴(yán)厲的嘗試，但被出賣(mài)并被關(guān)押了10年。一些人批評(píng)光緒皇帝試圖在1898年的“百日”期間進(jìn)行非常激烈的改革。但中國(guó)起步已經(jīng)晚了。保守派可以忍受的有限改革已經(jīng)嘗試過(guò)，但收效甚微。在1894- 1895年的甲午戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)中，中國(guó)被日本決定性地?fù)魯×?，這就證明了這些折衷辦法的失敗。

By 1898, Japan had a 30 years lead, but China was much bigger and might have become strong enough to rule out the possibility of further Japanese aggression. Sadly, the young emperor trusted General Yuan Shikai, who turned out to be a shallow schemer. He betrayed the reforming Emperor and drastic change was fatally delayed.
When Cixi died in 1908, the Reform Emperor was still in his late 30s. He could have become a formidable ruler, but he died a day before Cixi. Officially he died of natural causes after a long illness: some historians believe this, which suggests to me that they aren’t very good historians. The timing would be an absurd coincidence if it was not murder by people who could expect loss of power and probable punishment had he been the next ruler..
In 2008, Chinese historians and scientists published evidence that he’d been poisoned with arsenic.[MM] Who did it remains uncertain, and maybe does not matter much. Dowager Emperess Cixi was a malign influence, but others went along with her rule and preferred her to the likely alternatives.

到1898年，日本已經(jīng)領(lǐng)先30年，但中國(guó)比日本大得多，可能已經(jīng)強(qiáng)大到足以排除日本進(jìn)一步侵略的可能性。遺憾的是，年輕的皇帝信任了袁世凱將軍，而袁世凱是一個(gè)膚淺的陰謀家。他背叛了改革的皇帝，激進(jìn)的變革被致命地推遲了。
1908年慈禧去世時(shí)，維新皇帝還不到40歲。他本可以成為一位令人敬畏的統(tǒng)治者，但他比慈禧早死一天。根據(jù)官方說(shuō)法，他是在長(zhǎng)期患病后自然死亡的:一些歷史學(xué)家相信這一點(diǎn)，這在我看來(lái)表明他們不是很好的歷史學(xué)家。如果他不是被那些認(rèn)為如果他成為下一個(gè)統(tǒng)治者就會(huì)失去權(quán)力和可能的懲罰的人謀殺的話(huà)，這個(gè)時(shí)間將是一個(gè)荒謬的巧合。
2008年，中國(guó)歷史學(xué)家和科學(xué)家公布了他被砒霜毒害的證據(jù)。究竟是誰(shuí)干的還不確定，也許也無(wú)關(guān)緊要。慈禧太后是一個(gè)邪惡的影響因素，但其他人都贊同她的統(tǒng)治，喜歡她而不是其他可能的選擇。

The death of the Reform Emperor doomed the dynasty. No alternative ruler was likely to be taken seriously – and in any case the court chose a two-year-old called Puyi. He was the figurehead for an extremely weak government that promised a constitution but hung on like grim death to the superiority of Manchus over Han. The new government ousted Yuan Shikai, who was a Han but also a lifelong servant of the dynasty, the sort of person they absolutely had to keep loyal. The Han gentry remembered the Taiping Rebellion: they were afraid of the peasantry. It wouldn’t be true to say that they were afraid of their fellow-citizens: there was no such thing as a fellowship among Chinese of different classes, nor did China then have the concept of citizenship in the Western sense. There was a massive population that was barely political and a gentry that wanted a modest development within traditional forms. But the dynasty moved much too slowly, waiting till 1908 before offering a joke constitution that would not have come into effect until 1917 and did not offer a proper constitutional monarchy. Within three years there was a major revolt that threatened civil war. The 1911 Revolution was followed by a 1912 compromise that officially deposed the Emperor. This wiped out the existing frxwork of loyalty, but put nothing very solid in its place.
Cixi was the first cuckoo. The fate of the other two will be told in the next article.

維新皇帝的死注定了這個(gè)王朝的滅亡。而其他統(tǒng)治者都不太可能被認(rèn)真對(duì)待——朝廷選擇了一個(gè)兩歲的叫溥儀的孩子。他是一個(gè)非常軟弱的政府的傀儡，這個(gè)政府承諾頒布一部憲法，但卻像死路一條一樣堅(jiān)持滿(mǎn)族對(duì)漢人的優(yōu)勢(shì)。
新政府驅(qū)逐了袁世凱，他是漢人，但也是朝廷的終身仆人，是那種他們必須保持忠誠(chéng)的人。漢人的士紳們記得太平天國(guó)起義，結(jié)果是他們害怕農(nóng)民。說(shuō)他們害怕他們的同胞是不正確的:在不同階級(jí)的中國(guó)人之間沒(méi)有這樣的友誼，那時(shí)的中國(guó)也沒(méi)有西方意義上的公民的概念。當(dāng)時(shí)的人口非常龐大，幾乎不涉及政治，而紳士們希望在傳統(tǒng)形式下得到適度的發(fā)展。但是王朝發(fā)展得太慢了，直到1908年才出臺(tái)了一部可笑的憲法，這部憲法直到1917年才生效，也沒(méi)有提供一個(gè)真正的君主立憲制。三年內(nèi)發(fā)生了一場(chǎng)大叛亂，有爆發(fā)內(nèi)戰(zhàn)的危險(xiǎn)。1911年辛亥革命之后，1912年妥協(xié)，正式廢黜了皇帝。這抹去了現(xiàn)有的忠誠(chéng)框架，但又沒(méi)有什么非常堅(jiān)實(shí)的東西可以取而代之。慈禧是第一只布谷鳥(niǎo)，其余兩只的命運(yùn)將在下一篇文章揭曉。
（完）

Appendix: The Indus Valley Civilisation and its Continuity
The Indus Valley or Harappan Civilization dates back to 3300 BC, quite a bit older than similar developments in what is now China. But how much continuity was there between this and Hindu civilisation? The political system and history of the Harappan is unknown, but the lack of buildings that might be palaces or major temples has been noted. This suggests something very different from the later Hindu system of powerful kings and important temples.
There was an ‘Indus scxt’ of several hundred signs, of unknown meaning. It’s not been proven to be a writing system, taking ‘writing system’ to mean a scxt capable of expressing anything that can be said. It might have been just a set of symbols with specific meaning, just as we today have road signs and also symbols on clothing to explain how it can he washed. Most Harappan inscxtions are very short.

附錄：印度河流域文明及其連續(xù)性
印度河流域或哈拉帕文明可以追溯到公元前3300年，比現(xiàn)在中國(guó)的類(lèi)似發(fā)展要古老得多。但它和印度文明之間有多少連續(xù)性呢? 哈拉帕的政治制度和歷史是未知的，但可能以宮殿或寺廟為主的建筑的缺乏已經(jīng)被注意到。這表明了一些與后來(lái)的印度教體系中強(qiáng)大的國(guó)王和重要的寺廟非常不同的東西。
有一種“印度河文字”，有幾百種符號(hào)，意義不明。它還沒(méi)有被證明是一種書(shū)寫(xiě)體系，“書(shū)寫(xiě)體系”指的是一種能夠表達(dá)任何可說(shuō)的東西的腳本。它可能只是一組具有特定意義的符號(hào)，就像我們今天的路標(biāo)和衣服上的符號(hào)。大多數(shù)哈拉帕碑文都很短。

It has been suggested that it generated later Hindu scxts, after a mysterious break of many centuries with no signs of writing. The original inscxtions would make no sense as messages, but might be personal names. But the mainstream Western view is that Hindu culture borrowed a version of the alphabet from the ancient peoples of West Asia, the same system that also spread west to become the Greek and Latin alphabets.
When the Indus Valley civilisation was discovered, it was already known that there was a single Indo-European family of languages, a notion that began when people noticed the uncanny similarities of Sanskrit to Latin and Greek. The general assumption was that this language family had begun somewhere in Eastern Europe – treating the lands west of Vienna and up to the Baltic coast and the eastern flanks of the Carpathians as ‘Middle Europe’ and everything east of that and up to the Urals as the real Eastern Europe.

有人認(rèn)為，印度教手稿誕生于此——這期間經(jīng)過(guò)了幾個(gè)世紀(jì)的神秘中斷，沒(méi)有任何書(shū)寫(xiě)的跡象。最初的銘文作為信息沒(méi)有意義，也可能是個(gè)人的名字。但西方的主流觀(guān)點(diǎn)是，印度文化從西亞古代民族借用了一種字母表，同樣的文字也向西傳播，形成了希臘和拉丁字母表。
當(dāng)印度河流域文明被發(fā)現(xiàn)時(shí)，人們已經(jīng)知道有一個(gè)單一的印歐語(yǔ)系，這個(gè)概念始于人們注意到梵語(yǔ)與拉丁語(yǔ)和希臘語(yǔ)驚人的相似之處。一般的假設(shè)是這個(gè)語(yǔ)系起源于東歐的某個(gè)地方，把維也納以西、波羅的海沿岸和喀爾巴阡山脈東側(cè)的土地稱(chēng)為“中歐”，把該地區(qū)以東、烏拉爾山脈以北的地區(qū)稱(chēng)為真正的東歐。

Within this vast area, the Ukraine was a favoured location – though it may have begun just south of Europe as we now define it, in Anatolia. You certainly find the greatest number of branches of Indo-European in this Eastern Europe / Western Asia region: Greek, Albania, the Balto-Slavic languages and the extinct Anatolian languages that included Hittite. It was assumed that the Germanic, Italian and Celtic branches had gone west while the Slavonic and Indo-Iranian branches had gone east. This spread was in part based on the military usefulness of the chariot, which was unknown to the Indus Valley people
Modern linguist define ten to twelve branches of Indo-European, some extinct. Indo-Iranian is just one, and not the only one to go east. Tocharian is another complete branch known from the Tarim Basin in Central Asia, now part of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, and it has more in common with some West European branches than it has with Indo-Iranian. Albanian, Greek and Armenian are each isolated survivals of what are believed to be other major branches, existing close to where the original Indo-European was probably spoken.

在這片廣闊的區(qū)域內(nèi)，烏克蘭是一個(gè)理想的地點(diǎn)——盡管它可能始于我們現(xiàn)在定義的歐洲南部的安納托利亞(Anatolia，也稱(chēng)安納托里亞半島，今構(gòu)成土耳其國(guó)大部分國(guó)土)。你肯定會(huì)在東歐/西亞地區(qū)發(fā)現(xiàn)最多的印歐語(yǔ)系分支:希臘語(yǔ)、阿爾巴尼亞語(yǔ)、波羅的海-斯拉夫語(yǔ)以及包括赫梯語(yǔ)在內(nèi)的已滅絕的安納托利亞語(yǔ)。人們認(rèn)為，日耳曼語(yǔ)系、意大利語(yǔ)系和凱爾特語(yǔ)系向西遷移，而斯拉夫語(yǔ)系和印度-伊朗語(yǔ)系向東遷移。這種傳播部分是基于戰(zhàn)車(chē)的軍事用途，這是印度河流域的人們所不知道的。
現(xiàn)代語(yǔ)言學(xué)家給印歐語(yǔ)系下分了十到十二個(gè)分支，有些已經(jīng)滅絕了。印度-伊朗只是其中之一，它們不是唯一一個(gè)向東方發(fā)展的文明。吐火羅是中亞塔里木盆地已知的另一個(gè)完整的分支，現(xiàn)在是中國(guó)新疆自治區(qū)的一部分，它與一些西歐分支相比與印度-伊朗分支有更多的共同點(diǎn)。阿爾巴尼亞語(yǔ)、希臘語(yǔ)和亞美尼亞語(yǔ)都被認(rèn)為是其他主要語(yǔ)言分支的孤立遺存，它們存在于可能使用原始印歐語(yǔ)的地方附近。

The original British discoverers of the Indus Valley rapidly arrived at a picture of what they’d found: a very old culture destroyed by barbaric Indo-European invaders, who very much later created their own civilisation. Evidence to support this was found in the Rig-Veda, the oldest surviving Hindu writing, including the god India bearing a title that is sometimes translated as ‘Breaker of Cities’. (The correctness of this translation has been disputed.)
Later studies redrew this picture. For one thing, the Indus Valley civilisation was not destroyed by invaders: it simply collapsed. It is plausible that the arriving Indo-Iranians merged with some small-scale remnants of this culture. But some Hindu nationalists wish to go further and claim that the Indus Valley people were speakers of an Indo-Iranian language. This is doubtful: other major languages of India belong to unrelated language families, whereas the Indian sub-continent contained no other branches of Indo-European until English became widespread.

最初發(fā)現(xiàn)印度河流域的英國(guó)人很快就發(fā)現(xiàn)了一幅他們所發(fā)現(xiàn)的圖景:一個(gè)被野蠻的印歐入侵者摧毀的非常古老的文化，他們?cè)诤芫靡院髣?chuàng)造了自己的文明。在現(xiàn)存最古老的印度教著作《梨伽吠陀》中發(fā)現(xiàn)了支持這一觀(guān)點(diǎn)的證據(jù)，其中包括印度神的名字，有時(shí)被翻譯為“城市破壞者”。(這個(gè)翻譯的正確性一直存在爭(zhēng)議。)
后來(lái)的研究重新描繪了這幅圖景。首先，印度河流域文明并沒(méi)有被入侵者摧毀:它只是崩潰了。抵達(dá)的印度-伊朗人與這種文化的一小部分殘余融合在了一起，這看起來(lái)還是合理的。但一些印度教民族主義者希望走得更遠(yuǎn)，聲稱(chēng)印度河流域的人們說(shuō)的是一種印度-伊朗語(yǔ)。這是值得懷疑的:印度的其他主要語(yǔ)言都屬于不相關(guān)的語(yǔ)系，而印度次大陸在英語(yǔ)普及之前沒(méi)有印歐語(yǔ)系的其他分支。

The best estimates is that the Indo-Iranian warrior tribes arrived after the Indus Valley civilisation had collapsed. Some elements of the culture were absorbed, and there is evidence that gods and goddesses survived obscurely and later surfaced to become part of the modified Hinduism that developed in the face of the challenge from the Buddhist and Jain creeds. It’s all disputed, but probably nothing like China’s continuity.
The speakers of Dravidian languages in South India would like to think that the people of the Indus Valley civilisation also spoke a Dravidian language. This is plausible but speculative.
Most of the territory of the Indus Valley civilisation is in Pakistan, which has the river Indus as its core. Whatever elements of the Indus Valley religion may have survived in Hinduism have been replaced by Islam.

最佳估計(jì)是印度-伊朗的戰(zhàn)士部落是在印度河流域文明崩潰后到達(dá)的。文化中的一些元素被吸收了，有證據(jù)表明，神和女神隱晦地幸存下來(lái)，后來(lái)再次出現(xiàn)，成為修正后的印度教的一部分，這是在面對(duì)來(lái)自佛教和耆那教信條的挑戰(zhàn)時(shí)發(fā)展起來(lái)的。這些都是有爭(zhēng)議的，但可能都比不上中國(guó)的連續(xù)性。
南印度說(shuō)德拉威語(yǔ)的人可能會(huì)讓人認(rèn)為印度河流域文明的人也說(shuō)德拉威語(yǔ)。這看似合理，但也只是推測(cè)。印度河流域文明的大部分領(lǐng)土在巴基斯坦，印度河是其核心。印度河流域宗教中任何可能在印度教中幸存下來(lái)的元素都被伊斯蘭教所取代了。