台北:博雅书屋,2009年《文字书写的历史》是史提夫·罗杰·费雪(Steven Roger Fischer)的“语言三书”之一。显然,作者将他的著作定义为面向大众的科普书籍。简单易懂的文字、大量插图和详尽注释,把几千年来文字起源、发展、演变、传播的历史为普通读者娓娓道来,深入浅出,不失为一本好书。但是,假如用学术的眼光看待此书,有许多问题却不得不谈。对笔者来说,第一值得讨论的便是费雪对于文字起源的态度。文字如何产生?古今中外,众说纷纭,莫衷一是。没有人能回到远古的蒙昧时代,一切 Taipei: Burson-Marsteller, 2009 “The history of writing” is one of Steven Roger Fischer’s Three Books of Languages. Obviously, the author defines his book as popular science books. Easy to understand text, a large number of illustrations and detailed annotations, the origin of thousands of years of text, development, evolution and spread of history as ordinary readers, explain profound theories in simple language, after all, a good book. However, many questions have to be answered if the book is viewed academically. For the writer, the first one worth discussing is Fisher’s attitude toward the origin of the text. How to produce text? Ancient and modern at home and abroad, different opinions, incomprehensible. No one can return to ancient ignorance era, everything