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北京大学英语新闻网/Peking University News
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Duan Qing: We can safely say that there was no dominant language along the
ancient Silk Road. I am quite familiar with the documents of Yutian, so let‘s take
Yutian language to illustrate this issue. Dialects in Northwestern India used to be the
official language in Yutian. By third or fourth century, countries like Yutian already
had its own writing, and the official language was also Yutian language. The
documents and records excavated from Yutian show that during the governance of
Tang Dynasty over Yutian, most of the Chinese documents and literature then had
their versions in Yutian language, and many of them were bilingual ones, from which
we can see the cultural integration as well as the governance of Han and Tibetan
nationalities in Yutian. Some people even had a family name of Han, a given name of
Tibetan while they themselves spoke Yutian language. The situation of ancient Silk
Road shows that various languages and cultures can integrate with each other.
China Reading Weekly: So we can say that without the understanding of foreign
languages we could not understand their civilization, even less the exchange and
communication between our civilization and theirs. Then, what‘s the progress of our
research on these languages?
Duan Qing: The research level of ancient foreign culture can best reflect the overall
academic level of a country, for it cannot be achieved without tremendous academic
input, extensive basic research work and the decades of dedication of scholars. The
School of Foreign Languages of Peking University boasts of many ancient language
disciplines. It has offered positions for the teaching of cuneiform inscriptions of West
Asia and the ancient languages like Akkadian language, Hittite language and ancient
Hebrew language. Courses of these languages are available to all the
undergraduate and postgraduate students of Peking University. The ancient Indian
Sanskrit even has its own teaching and research office and is entitled to enroll
undergraduate students. Apart from the School of Foreign Languages, Prof. Jin
Xiping and Prof. Xu Longfei of Philosophy Department, also open ancient Greek and
Latin courses available to all the students of Peking University. Prof. Peng Xiaoyu of
History Department opens the course of Latin for church. Mrs. Yan Haiying, an
outstanding professor from History Department who specializes in cuneiform
inscription research, also opens courses on Ancient Egyptian writings. Some of
those devoting themselves to ancient language research are well-known in the
world. For example, Prof. Gong Yushu from Department of Oriental Languages and
Culture is a world-renowned expert on cuneiform writing. Besides, Fudan University
also opens courses on ancient languages, represented by people like Prof. Huang
Yang, etc.
However, generally speaking, our research on foreign languages is quite poor,
lacking necessary fundamentals. The so-called fundamentals cover two aspects:
one is the number of the languages and the other is the number of the staff working
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