The diversity of human cultures stems from communication and integration. Since the origin and historical evolution of human culture are shared, humanity also shares a common future.

CNS reporter Wang Zonghan, Yang Chengchen

Cultural exchange and integration have been timeless topics in the long history of human civilization and are also the keys to unlocking a shared future for humanity. Solonin, a Russian sinologist and professor at the School of Chinese Classics, Renmin University of China, believes that exchange sustains culture, integration drives cultural development, and the intertwining of exchange and integration together promote the advancement of human civilization towards a common future. On the occasion of the second Tongzhou Global Development Forum, China News Service's "East and West" interviewed Solonin to explore the themes of cultural exchange and integration.

The following is a summary of the interview transcript:

Reporter from China News Service: How do different cultures communicate? How can language reveal the blending of different cultures?

Sorokin: Culture can be seen as a set of social behaviors that are recognized and passed down through generations by a group of people. The term "culture" originates from the Latin word "", which includes meanings such as cultivation and cultivation, embodying the dual relationship between "natural" "wild" and "artificial" "cultivated". Therefore, any nation with the concept and pursuit of "transforming the surrounding world" has culture.

By examining phenomena and languages across different cultures, it can be observed that culture does not exist in a state of "having" or "not having," but rather adapts specifically to particular historical contexts. Therefore, so-called "culture shock" (referring to the sense of cultural disorientation experienced when moving from one's original cultural environment to a new one) is merely a manifestation of "ignorance" towards a culture, rather than indicating an insurmountable barrier to understanding different cultures.

As the main carrier of culture, languages belong to different language families, although they differ in syntax and morphology, they all have basic structures such as subject, predicate, and object. This means that while the grammatical structures of different languages may vary, what humans share is the generative architecture of language ability, which is why we can learn foreign languages and communicate. Communication at the language level makes cultural exchange possible.

In the field of language research, phenomena such as "borrowing words" and "introducing foreign grammar structures" between different languages occur. For example, many French loanwords in English are related to the "Norman Conquest" of England by France, through which European continental culture was introduced to Britain; many loanwords in the Russian vocabulary also benefited from the interaction between the cultures of Eurasia in the 10th century.

In ancient Chinese, terms such as "raising horses" and "horse-drawn carriage" seem to originate from some Indo-European language. Meanwhile, the phonetic structures of certain parts of Tocharian also suggest that words like "building" and "mansion" might be borrowed from ancient Chinese. Although these are linguistic phenomena, their practical significance lies in revealing the subtle traces of cultural fusion.

On a certain date, Tianjin, an oracle bone script creative exhibition held at the National Library Jindu Cultural and Creative Space attracted many visitors to experience the evolution of oracle bone script into contemporary Chinese characters. Photo by reporter Tong Yu of China News Service.

Reporter from China News Service: What are the conditions for the survival of a culture?

Sorokin: Human history is the history of communication. From ancient times to the present, no culture has been able to develop or flourish independently. Communication is a necessary condition for the survival of individual cultures. Buddhism says, "Form, existence, decay, emptiness; birth, residence, change, extinction," which refers to the process of existence from birth to extinction of all things. A culture also follows this process, but due to the communication between different individuals, the legacy of a culture does not disappear after its "extinction"; instead, it continues as communication continues.

For example, the "twelve constellations" in divination were originally created by the ancient Sumerians. Through cultural interactions with Greece and Persia, they spread across Eurasia, even reaching India and China. Although the Sumerian civilization has long perished, the twelve constellations, as part of its cultural heritage, have been passed down through cultural exchanges to this day. Similarly, although the Roman Empire has long since fallen, many of the military camps it established across Europe later evolved into cities. Its official language, Latin, became the origin of some European languages, and many academic works in ancient Europe were written in Latin. These have all become common cultural roots for many European countries, each of which relies on cultural exchanges.

On a specific date, the exhibition "The Light of Ancient Roman Civilization - Treasures from the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy" opened in Beijing. Photo by Jia Tianyong, reporter from China News Service.

Reporter from China News Service: How should a culture develop forward?

Sorokin: For instance, due to various factors, the culture of the Western Xia Dynasty did not survive to the present day. However, based on the written records and other cultural heritage left behind, it is evident that the culture of the Western Xia was a product of the fusion of different cultures.

The majority of the cultural heritage of the Western Xia is related to its written language. The Western Xia texts, primarily carried by the Western Xia script, have three main sources: self-created works, Central Plains culture, and Tibetan region culture. It is evident that content that has been lost in the mainstream of Chinese or Tibetan texts has been preserved in Western Xia culture. This shows that Western Xia culture is the result of the fusion of multiple cultures and has become a part of the Chinese cultural system.

The text provided is already in English: "The Great Brightness Buddha Flower Adornment Sutra in the script of the Western Xia Dynasty. Photo by Yu Jing."

This means that during the process of cultural integration, the cultural forms originally formed in a certain region will spread to other cultures, where they will retain their own characteristics while also incorporating unprecedented cultural content. The creation of the Western Xia culture demonstrates that an important aspect of cultural exchange is the integration of cultures, which enhances the diversity of different regional cultures and thus promotes cultural advancement. This is a dialectic of cultural exchange.

Journalist from China News Service: In times of change, how should we view the exchange and blending of different cultures?

Sorokin: Human multiculturalism stems from communication and integration. The origin and historical and cultural evolution of humanity are shared, so humans also share a common future. Therefore, it can be said that the cultural exchange and integration among humans are not only about mutual learning and borrowing, but actually about writing the common destiny of humanity.

Scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries often chose to depict the development of human history and languages by drawing "tree diagrams." From this perspective, humanity is like a "tree" with a common "root," but individual branches and leaves each have their unique shapes. Although different human societies have their distinctions, they all share "commonalities," just as the branches and leaves of a tree have different characteristics but share a common "form"—the "tree diagram" of human history, though composed of individual elements, grows in a shared direction. Humans originating from the same source share a common destiny for the future. The history of the world has been this way, and the future destiny of humanity will be the same, requiring everyone to work together to create it.

Interviewee Profile:*

索罗宁。受访者供图
索罗宁，俄罗斯国立圣彼得堡大学博士毕业，曾任圣彼得堡大学、台湾辅仁大学、台湾佛光大学等学校教职员。2010年任美国高等研究院客座研究员，2013年迄今任中国人民大学国学院西域历史语言研究所教授、博士生导师。研究领域为西夏研究，宗教历史研究，语言学，文献学等。共在国内外不同顶级期刊发表数篇文章。专著有《西夏汉传佛教文献研究》，Santideva's Bodhicarayavatara in Tangut Translation （与荒川慎太郎共著）等。

Title: "Sorokin: Communication Preserves Culture, Integration Drives Cultural Development - East and West" Text Editor: Pei Xinyu Image Editor: Cui Chuqiao Layout: Ding Baoxiu Editor: Song Fangcan

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