On May 17th, 2016, in his important speech at the symposium on philosophy and social science, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader specifically pointed out the issue of "Juexue", demanding that the traditional cultural resources be systematically sorted out, so that the cultural relics collected in the Forbidden Palace, the heritage displayed on the vast land and the characters written in ancient books can come alive. These discussions have pointed out the direction for doing a good job in Oracle character recognition, and encouraged the vast number of philosophical and social science workers.
In October 2016, a major project entrusted by the National Social Science Foundation, "Research on Oracle Characters Supported by Big Data and Cloud Platform", was officially implemented. This work has a great responsibility and a glorious mission. Over the past year, researchers in various sub-topics have devoted themselves to it regardless of gains and losses. At present, all the work has progressed smoothly and achieved many phased results.
As we all know, Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest known writing system in China, the starting point and basis for tracing the origin and early development of Chinese civilization, and it is of great value in cultural inheritance, precious and important. However, in recent years, Oracle character recognition has encountered a great bottleneck, and even stagnated. It is scientific and feasible to interpret Oracle Bone Inscriptions by combining modern scientific and technological means with traditional methods, which is worthy of our active exploration and attempt.
The advantages of modern science and technology in assisting the study of Oracle Bone Inscriptions discipline are obvious: the burden of scientific research workers in consulting materials will be reduced, the research efficiency will be improved, and it is possible to chisel HarmonyOS in the recognition of Oracle characters, thus solving many unresolved problems in the study of Oracle bone inscriptions, Yin Shang history and ancient Chinese civilization.
According to the promotion plan of Oracle Bone Inscriptions’s interpretation and reading work, the project has set up 10 sub-topics, and modern scientific and technological means have played an obvious role. For example, the computer film processing technology can implement the image data of the number of Oracle Bone Inscriptions films scattered around the country and the current hiding place; Oracle Bone Inscriptions’s hermeneutic database and glyph digital database are being established, which will help to study the structure and changing law of Oracle Bone Inscriptions’s glyphs that have been interpreted, as well as the relationship with later characters. The close relationship between the meaning and context of characters and the re-checking of controversial Oracle inscriptions are also being carried out one after another.
It can be said that this kind of organized academic research is rare in the history of academic research in China. China Academy of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Capital Normal University, China Literature Museum, Henan University, anyang normal College and other research institutions and institutions are all involved, involving history, archaeology, literature, art, computer and other multidisciplinary means. This is a very gratifying situation and is likely to occupy an important position in the development history of Oracle bones.
This major project entrusted by the National Social Science Fund is multidisciplinary and needs the close cooperation of experts in many fields. Many technologies and methods will be tried for the first time in the study of Oracle inscriptions. It is suggested that professional academic journals should be fully used to introduce new scientific research achievements in the process of project research. At the same time, we should listen to the opinions of experts in various sub-topics and summarize them, so as to advance the research work in a targeted, methodical and step-by-step manner.(Li Xueqin)