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between the ancient and modern Persian languages. The author of the letter was a
Rabi used to live in Xinjiang, which shows that there used to be Jewish societies in
Xinjiang. The letter was written in late 8th century or early 9th century, which renders
sufficient proof that it was most probably that Jewish society entered China through
the Silk Road.
The Sogdian businessman used to be very active along the ancient Silk Road. Many
fine golden wares were found in recent archaeological excavations. The stone coffin
with beautiful engravings discovered in Shanxi and Shaanxi Provinces even caused
a sensation in the world. Who would know the existence of such precious treasures
without these archaeological discoveries? Who would remember those Sogdian who
brought their material civilization into China? The spread of thought has a far more
influence on the civilization of a nation and the fundamental quality of the nation as a
whole than the spread of material civilization. And the spread of thought can only be
achieved with the help of language. For this reason, a well-known German
philosopher once said that those who own the language own the world.
Buddhism could serve as the most obvious example. A great deal of Buddhism
sutras were translated in the past into Chinese and Tibetan languages, which
exerted great influence on Chinese and Tibetan languages. The Buddhist vocabulary
was so deeply absorbed into these two languages that, if they were deleted, it would
even be impossible for us to speak Chinese or Tibetan language. The vividness and
the vocabulary of Chinese, for example, have been greatly enriched through such
communication. Those well-known idioms such as ―fei e pu huo‖ ( A moth darts into a
flame) and ―zuo jian zi fu‖ (to cocoon oneself like silkworms), etc., were phrases
originally used in Buddhist sutras. Some famous Chinese scholars, such as Bai Juyi,
were fond of reciting Buddhist sutra after they were translated into Chinese. They
used such Buddhist idioms in their own poems. Since their poems are very popular
among Chinese, the foreign expressions were thus deeply absorbed into Chinese
vocabulary through the pen of the poets. Sanskrit was the source language for most
Buddhist sutras which were translated into Chinese, and it was the first
Indo-European language that Chinese contacted and from which many documents
were translated into Chinese. The sentences of Sanskrit are usually quite long while
Chinese ones tend to be shorter. For example, in ancient Chinese, the character ―yu‖
(rain) alone would be enough to form a sentence with clear meaning, while Sanskrit
tends to use the combination of verb and gerund to express the same meaning,
literally translated it will take the form of ―yu yu‖ (rain rains). The strength of Sanskrit
sentence structure lies in that adjectives and adverbs could be added into the
structure as you want, such as the expression of ―yu da hua yu‖ (it rains a heavy
flower rain) and ―yu da fa yu‖ (it rains a heavy dharma rain), etc. The entry of such
expressions into Chinese would invariably cause subtle changes.
China Reading Weekly: Compared with current situation, was there a dominant
language along the ancient Silk Road? What was the status of Chinese during that
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