Source: CCTV.com

05-12-2009 09:49

Shuishu, or "Water Characters", are an ancient written language used by the Shui People, a small ethnic minority that live in the southern part of Guizhou Province in southwest China. In a recent survey of cultural relics, more evidence of the existence of Shuishu was found on a giant rock with some mysterious stone inscriptions.

The megalith was found in a Shui minority autonomous county in southern Guizhou Province. At seven meters tall, the huge rock was inscribed with 29 discernable characters despite the rampant lichen and speckles formed through the ages.

In a recent survey of cultural relics, more evidence of the existence of Shuishu was found on a giant rock with some mysterious stone inscriptions.

Archaeologists have confirmed that these characters are water characters of the Shui People.

Shui people, who call themselves "Water People", are a small ethnic minority of around four-hundred-thousand people. Like many of China's 55 minorities, it also has a long and mysterious past. But there are clues to that ancient past because Shui people are one of the 17 minorities to have their own traditional written language.

The ancient pictographic writing system claims even greater antiquity than the earliest form of Chinese characters found so far, which were carved on animal bones and tortoise shells more than two-thousand years ago.

According to a preliminary analysis, the Shui vocabulary consists of about four-hundred words, the meaning of the most of them relate to divination, geomancy, and cosmology.

Editor:Zhao Yanchen