欢迎各位参加“汉语及其汉字体系国际研讨班”。能邀请这么多来自五湖四海的汉学家，我深感荣幸和愉快。我们将在今后的3周里进行紧张而有意义的学习和交流。

Welcome to the“International Seminar of Chinese and Its Character System”. It’s my great pleasure and privilege to have invited so many Sinologists from all over the world. The next 3 weeks will see us engage in intensive and constructive¹ studies and exchanges of opinions.

我们很高兴地看到，近年来世界各地血汉语者与日俱增。对于这门拥有世界上使用人数最多、文学历史最悠久的语言来说，这股学习热潮早该出现了。

We are glad to see that a worldwide interest in Chinese is increasing at an accelerating tempo². Considering that Chinese has the largest number of speakers in the world and the greatest time depth in its literature, this interest is long overdue³.

从某种意义上说，汉语是一种很古老的语言，其最早的汉字已有近四千年的历史了。汉字在其漫长的发展史中演化成许多不同的书写形式，例如篆书、隶书、楷书和行书。中国书法家笔中的汉字往往以字形的夸张取得艺术效果，例如旅游胜地的一些石刻碑文。中国书法是一门研究艺术，随着各位学习兴趣的提高，我将适时介绍中国书法的流派，以及如何欣赏中国书法的艺术性。

In a sense, Chinese is a very old language, and its earliest characters date back nearly four thousand years. During their long history of development, Chinese characters have evolved into many different script forms, such as the seal character, official script, regular script and running script. Chinese calligraphers usually render their Chinese characters in ways that exaggerate the form to yield artistic⁴ beauty, such as those in stone inscriptions⁵ seen in tourist resorts. Chinese calligraphy⁶ is a subject of artistic study. As your interest in Chinese character system increases in the days to come, I will discuss in due time the different schools of Chinese calligraphy, and how to appreciate the artistic beauty of Chinese calligraphy.