龔鵬程x普赫納｜從文字、印刷到隱密流動的語言

龔鵬程對話海外學者第一百一十四期：在后現代情境中，被技術統治的人類社會，只有強化交談、重建溝通倫理，才能獲得文化新生的力量。這不是誰的理論，而是每個人都應實踐的活動。龔鵬程先生遊走世界，并曾主持過“世界漢學研究中心”。我們會陸續推出“龔鵬程對話海外學者”系列文章，請他對話一些學界有意義的靈魂。范圍不局限于漢學，會涉及多種學科。以期深山長谷之水，四面而出。

馬丁·普赫納教授（Professor Martin Puchner ）

哈佛大學戲劇教授、英語和比較文學教授

龔鵬程教授：您好。我也是個寫文學史的人，所以特別佩服您的《文字世界：故事塑造人的力量，歷史，文明》。您用十六幕文學故事（從荷馬到哈利波特，包括源氏物語、堂吉訶德、共產黨宣言）說明它們如何塑造世界歷史，視野宏闊，而且直指核心。請談談您在書中選擇了哪些東亞故事?為什么會做出這些選擇?

馬丁·普赫納教授：龔教授，您好。這是很難挑選的：我可以采用的故事有太多。我在中國部分加入了一節關于孔子的文章，含括弟子們記錄下大師言行的這一模式。在這一節中，我談到了儒家經典以及經典和科舉制度是如何出現的。我清楚地記得，在我到訪南京時，來到了當時學生們參加考試的地方。那是個冬天，非常冷，號房對著風敞著，但學生們卻要像這樣關在屋里三日寫作、睡覺和吃飯。令人印象深刻。

總的來說，我選擇的主要標準，是說明書寫技術的作用。這也是為什么中國如此重要（以及為什么我很高興這本書被翻譯成中文），在這里，紙張和印刷這兩種最重要的技術被發明。我用世界上現存最古老的印刷文本《金剛經》的中文譯本來說明這一點。在這兩項發明的影響下，越來越多的文化被塑造，因此我對此十分關注。在造紙方面，下一個向中國造紙商學習造紙秘訣的文明是阿拉伯世界，巴格達成為新的造紙中心。紙通過阿拉伯世界進入歐洲，正好趕上約翰·古騰堡重新發明印刷術。重新發明：我一直強調這一點。西方仍然有太多人相信古騰堡發明了印刷術。

此外，我還用了一章的篇幅介紹了紫式部的《源氏物語》，這是世界文學史上早期最偉大的小說之一。我也對中國文化如何影響日本以及日本如何慢慢演變出自己獨特的寫作文化感興趣。

It was very difficult to pick and choose: there were so many stories I could have used. From China, I included a section on Confucius as part of a pattern of master teachers whose students write down their words and sayings. In that section, I talk about the Confucian Classics and how that canon emerged as well as the Imperial exam system. I remember vividly, when visiting Nanjing, the area where students had to take the exam. It was winter, very cold, and the booths were open to the wind, and yet students had to spend three days writing and sleeping and eating cooped up like that.Very impressive.

Overall, my main selection criterium was to illustrate the role of writing technologies. This was why China was so important (and why I was so happy that the book was translated into Chinese), the place where the two most important technologies, paper and print, were invented. I illustrated this with a section on the Chinese translation of the Diamond Sutra, the oldest surviving printed text in the world. I then follow both inventions as they shaped more and more cultures. In the case of paper, the next culture to learn the secret of papermaking from Chinese paper makers was the Arab world, with Baghdad becoming a new center of papermaking. From the Arabic world paper then entered Europe, just in time for the re-invention of print by Johann Gutenberg. Re-invention: I always stress this point. There are still too many people in the west who believe that Gutenberg invented print.

Later in the book, I devote a chapter to Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji, one of the early great novels in world literature. I was also interested in how Chinese culture influenced Japan and how Japan slowly evolved its own distinct writing culture.

龔鵬程教授：二十世紀是個分崩離析的時代，“藝術”都爭著脫離文字、文學以尋找自己的獨立性，并開始自造塑造世界歷史的故事。藝術學校、科系、書刊、展覽、會議都不約而同的躲開了文學。您在關于世界文學史的書中探討了技術如何決定故事的敘述方式。我們現在處于世界文學的哪個階段，與過去相比如何？

馬丁·普赫納教授：從 4000 年的文學史來看，我們正經歷著一個罕見的歷史時刻，在這一時刻，新技術正在改變故事的書寫方式、傳播方式以及閱讀方式。我寫這本書的主要動機之一是回顧歷史，研究早期的轉折點，即新技術引發類似劇變的時刻。這樣的時刻，除了美索不達米亞的第一個文字發明外，還有我先前提到的中國人發明的紙和印刷術；字母表的發明；而且還發明了不同的書寫格式，例如平板、卷軸和書籍。 最后，我研究了這些技術發明如何催生新的類型，例如框架敘述故事集（如 1001 夜）和小說。

通過這段歷史，很明顯與互聯網和電子書相關的一些新奇事物其實不是那么新奇了。例如，我們再次在平板上書寫，在大多數書寫文化中，平板早已被卷軸取代。我們再次向下滾動我們的電腦頁面，盡管卷軸已經在兩千多年前被書籍這種新的格式所取代。

此外，現今新技術引發的許多相關焦慮與過去的并沒有太大的不同。埃及的抄寫老師擔心新一代學生不再關心書寫——那是三千年前的事了。蘇格拉底擔心寫作會削弱我們的大腦并導致誤解——本質上是一種假新聞。

說了這么多，我預測一些關于我們當前面臨的真正新影響。我認為我們的寫作革命將改變我們對作者身份的觀念。在印刷革命時期，要成為職業作家仍然很難，門檻很高。這意味著相對較少的作家能夠擁有大眾讀者。這種情況正在改變中：在互聯網時代，每個人都可以成為作家。

When seen from the perspective of 4000 years of literature, we are living through a rare moment in history, one in which new technologies are changing how stories are written down, how they circulate, and how they are being read. One of the main motivations for my book was to go back in history and study earlier inflection points, moments when new technologies caused similar upheavals. Such moments include, besides the first invention of writing in Mesopotamia, the Chinese inventions of paper and print I mentioned above; the invention of the alphabet; but also the invention of different writing formats such as tablets, scrolls, and the book. Finally, I studied how these technological inventions led to new genres such as frame-tale story collections (like the 1001 Nights) and novels.

Using that history, it becomes clear that some of the novelties associated with the internet and ebooks aren’t so novel after all. For example, we are writing on tablets again, after tablets had long been abandoned for scrolls in most writing cultures. And we’re once again scrolling down our computer screens even though scrolls had been given up for a new format, the book, two thousand years ago.

Also, many of the anxieties we have connected to new technologies are not so different. Egyptian scribal teachers worried that a new generation of students didn’t care about writing anymore—that was three thousand years ago. And Socrates worried that writing would diminish our brains and lead to misunderstandings—essential a form of fake news.

Having said all that, there are some genuinely new effects I predict about our current moment. I think our writing revolution will change our ideas of authorship. During the print revolution, it was still difficult to become a professional author, a high bar. This meant that relatively few authors could enjoy a mass readership. This is changing: in the internet era, everyone can be an author.

龔鵬程教授：在您的《為一個變化的星球而文學》一書中，您從世界文學的角度看待氣候變化。世界文學中有哪些具影響力的故事可以作為氣候變化故事的資源或范本?

馬丁·普赫納教授：在《為一個變化的星球而文學》中，我提出了兩種敘述故事的方法。第一種是批判性閱讀，把文學史視為人類面對環境時的態度的記錄。幾乎所有的世界文學文本中都包含了關于自然、文明與荒野的關系、農業、城市空間、技術和資源開采的假設。我采用的主要例子是《吉爾伽美什史詩》，世界文學史上最早的較長文本之一。《吉爾伽美什史詩》講述了后來出現在《希伯來圣經》和《舊約》中的洪水故事，這場災難性的洪水幾乎毀滅了地球上所有的生命。這種世界末日的場景仍然塑造著今天的好萊塢災難片。《吉爾伽美什史詩》記錄了，并在一定程度上證明了城市建設導致的森林砍伐。在閱讀古今文獻時，著眼于人類如何改變環境，可以對導致我們走上氣候變化之路的思維模式產生重要的見解。

在第二部分，我從這種閱讀中吸取教訓，為未來做準備。什么樣的故事能幫助我們建立一種不同的環境關系，并鼓勵集體行動?我專注于較少使用的故事類型;包括喜劇。我還關注到了我們傾向于確定氣候變化下的受害者和罪魁禍首;以及哪些文本——包括《共產黨宣言》——可以幫助我們發展集體行動的意識。

In Literature for a Changing Planet I propose two approaches to storytelling. First, a program of critical reading that takes the history of literature as a record of human attitudes toward the environment. Almost any text of world literature includes assumptions about nature, the relation between civilization and wilderness, agriculture, urban space, technology and resource extraction. My main example is the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest longer texts of world literature. The Epic of Gilgamesh features the story of the flood that later appears in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, the catastrophic flood that wipes out almost all life on earth. This kind of apocalyptic scenario still shapes Hollywood disaster movies today. The Epic of Gilgamesh also records and to some extent justifies deforestation as a consequence of city building. In reading ancient and modern texts with an eye toward how humans has been transforming their environment can yield important insights into the frame of mind that has put us on the path of climate change.

In the second part, I draw lessons from this kind of reading for the future. What kind of stories will help us develop a different relation to the environment and encourage collective action? I focus on lesser used story types; including comedy. I also think about our predilection for identifying victims and villains of climate change; and what texts—including the Communist Manifesto—can help us develop a sense of collective agency.

The larger point is that we humans are story-telling animals. Stories play a major part in how we see the world and our place within it. Climate change will require us to make fundamental changes in how we live. This means that we need to read existing stories critically and learn to tell new stories.

龔鵬程教授：您是 Rotwelsch語言的專家，這是一種鮮為人知的地下流動語言。您是怎么學會Rotwelsch語的?這種語言如何塑造了您對地下流動小偷的看法?

馬丁·普赫納教授：這本書對我來說是一個不同尋常的項目，部分原因是這對我來說是非常私人的。我小時候從我叔叔那里學到了這個不起眼的小偷行話，叫做Rotwelsch，他對這個詞很著迷。這并不是因為他是一個流動的小偷，而是因為他對這種獨特的語言著迷。這種語言結合了德語、意第緒語、希伯來語、羅姆尼語（辛提語和羅姆語的語言）和其他歐洲語言。作為一個詩人和作曲家，他把這種語言融入到自己的詩歌中，并把世界文學中的一部分翻譯成這種語言（盡管幾乎沒有人能真正讀懂它）。他向我介紹了 Rotwelsch，從而使我對語言產生了濃厚的興趣，并最終引導我學習了比較文學。

直到很久以后，我才發現叔叔對這種語言的迷戀在一定程度上與歷史贖罪有關：說 Rotwelsch 語的人是首批被納粹送往集中營的人之一。他的父親，也就是我的祖父，是納粹黨員。作為歷史學家，這位祖父甚至將 Rotwelsch 攻擊為“不純的”和“猶太人的”語言。在這本書中，我講述了這種迷人的語言的歷史，這是了解中歐地下流動的窗口。同時，我整理了我家族的歷史，從攻擊Rotwelsch的祖父到想把它從遺忘中拯救出來的叔叔。

所以這是一本解決移民、語言和政治交叉問題的書；它探討了一種純粹的口語，以及它是如何通過像我叔叔這樣的人變成文學的；以及少數群體如何發展他們自己的隱語來建立社區和生存。當我開始這個項目時，我確信Rotwelsch 是不同尋常和獨一無二的：這也是最初吸引我的原因。由于我從叔叔那里繼承了關于這種語言的檔案，我認為我應該使用這些材料。但在項目結束時，我意識到 Rotwelsch 實際上是通用的：它說明了我們為什么以及如何使用語言。這樣，這項研究就變成了一本關于語言為何重要的書。

This book project was an unusual one for me, in part because it is very personal. I learned this obscure thieves’ argot called Rotwelsch as a child from my uncle—who was obsessed with it. Not because he was an itinerant thieve but because he was fascinated by this unusual language, a combination of German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Romani (the language of Sinti and Roma), and other European languages. A poet and composer, he incorporated this language in his own poetry and translated portions of world literature into this language (even though almost no one could actually read it). He introduced me to Rotwelsch and thereby instilled in me a fascination for languages and ultimately led me to study comparative literature.

Only much later did I discover that part of my uncle’s fascination with this language had to do with historical atonement: Rotwelsch speakers were among the first people to be sent to concentration camps by the Nazis. His own father, my grandfather, was a member of the Nazi party. A historian, this grandfather even attacked Rotwelsch as an “impure” and “Jewish” language. In the book I provide the history of this fascinating language, a window into the itinerant underground of Central Europe. At the same time, I weave in the history of my family, from my grandfather, who attacked Rotwelsch, to my uncle, who wanted to rescue it from oblivion.

The result is a book that addresses the intersection of migration, language, and politics; it explores a purely spoken language and how it became literary through people like my uncle; and how minority groups develop their own argots to build community and for survival. When I began this project, I was convinced that Rotwelsch was unusual and unique: this is what first drew me to it. And since I had inherited an archive on this language from my uncle, I thought I should use it. But by the end of the project, I realized that Rotwelsch was actually universal: it spoke to why and how we all use language. In this way, this study became a book about why language matters.

龔鵬程，1956年生于臺北，臺灣師范大學博士，當代著名學者和思想家。著作已出版一百五十多本。

辦有大學、出版社、雜志社、書院等，并規劃城市建設、主題園區等多處。講學于世界各地。并在北京、上海、杭州、臺北、巴黎、日本、澳門等地舉辦過書法展。現為中國孔子博物館名譽館長、臺灣國立東華大學終身榮譽教授、美國龔鵬程基金會主席