Publisher's Synopsis
Over the course of the past thousands of years, with the exception of a few common ancestral words (such as 'ma, ' 'ba' and 'pa'), spoken languages have experienced frequent changes from time to time, making it impossible, and sometimes meaningless, for modern historians to phonetically restore their early forms. By way of contrast, most of the old signs or logographic characters as well as the original meanings thereof contain various stories and events that happened thousands of years ago and, therefore, have encompassed parts of, sometimes even critical parts of, the ancient civilizations concerned. With regard to cultures or civilizations that have not yet invented a written language for each of their own, many indigenous languages thereof have experienced relatively less significant evolutions than and thus encompass more common ancestral terms and names than other, secondary languages do. As a result, these common ancestral terms and names can also be used as an approach by which to decipher the evolutions and developments of the cultures or civilizations concerned.
