2 . When I first met Nao Junior, he was in his 40s and one of only nine members of his Indigenous(土著的) group, Great Andamanese, who still spoke the idiom of his ancestors. As a language specialist, I had researched more than 80 Indian languages. I was on the islands to document their Indigenous voices before they faded into whispers.

Words in this language consisted of two classes: free and bound. The free words were all nouns that referred to the environment and its inhabitants, such as ra for “pig”. They could occur alone. The bound words were nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs that always existed with markers indicating a relation to other objects, events or states. The markers came from seven zones of the body and were attached to a root word to describe concepts such as “inside”, “outside”, “upper” and “lower”. For example, the morpheme(词素) er-, which qualified most anything having to do with an outer body part, could be stuck to -cho to yield ercho, meaning “head”.

Just as a head, a bound word, could not conceptually exist on its own, the mode and effect of an action could not be divided from the verb describing the action. Great Andamanese had no words for agriculture but a great many for hunting and fishing, mainly with a bow and arrow. Thus, the root word shile, meaning “to aim”, had several versions: utshile, to aim from above; arashile, to aim from a distance; and eshile, aiming to make a hole with a sharp object.

The studies established that the language seems to be truly old in origin. In a multistage process of development, words describing diverse body parts had changed into morphemes referring to different zones and combined with content words to yield meaning. The structure alone provides an insight into an ancient worldview in which the macrocosm(宏观世界) reflects the microcosm, and everything that is or that happens inseparably connects to everything else.

4 . The impressive collection of literature in the Library Cave at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, Northwest China’s Gansu province, ______ one of the most inclusive, advanced and open _______ of the ancient Chinese, says Dunhuang specialist Zhao Xiaoxing.

______ in the Hexi Corridor, the main line of the ancient Silk Road, the caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, have been promoting goods and cultural ______between the East and the West for more than 1,600 years.

While the Dunhuang wall paintings have recorded the glories of the past ______ , the more than 60,000 items of literature______ in the Library Cave, or Cave 17, dating from the 4th to the 11th centuries, have kept the ______ original quality through the written word, according to Dunhuang Academy.

The value of the ______ was thoroughly demonstrated during the launch of the Digital Library Cave, a gamelike program ______ enables users to virtually witness, and participate in, the_________ and fall of the Library Cave on the website Digital Dunhuang or via the WeChat miniprogram, Cloud Museum of Dunhuang Caves.

The Library Cave ______ in the mid-9th century and later______ unopened for almost 1,000 years ____ being accidentally discovered by Taoist priest Wang Yuanlu in 1900.The majority of its cultural relics, consisting of Buddhist manuscripts, ______ and economic documents and other delicate and ______items, are now kept in foreign museums.

Escape from the British Museum

A video series named Escape from the British Museum     1    (release) on Wednesday with its trailer (预告片)     2    (spark) a lot of discussion in China’s social media.

    3    (direct) by two Chinese vloggers, the three episode series tells the story of     4     a Chinese cultural relic escapes from the British Museum and finds     5    (it) way back to China.

In the video series, a female vlogger plays the role of an ancient Chinese jade teapot     6     her male partner is a journalist who helps the artifact return to China. They went to the UK in June and spent three months     7    (shoot) the video. They said the story is based on historic facts and aims to draw attention to the Chinese cultural relics held abroad.

Currently, the museum has a total of 23,000 Chinese relics, while about 2,000 Chinese relics are     8     long-term display. The Chinese objects,     9    (stretch) from the Neolithic age to the present, include paintings, prints, jade and ceramics.

“Eventually, there will be a day     10     the items come home in a dignified way,” a user commented on Weibo. The series release has come as the British Museum faces intense pressure over the thefts.

We often hear about the importance of cultural heritage. But what is cultural heritage and why is it important?

First of all, let’s have a look at the meaning of the words. “Heritage” is a property, something that is inherited, passed down from previous generations. In the case of “cultural heritage,” the heritage doesn’t consist of money or property, but of culture, values and traditions. Cultural heritage implies a shared bond, our belonging to a community. It represents our history and our identity; our bond to the past, to our present, and the future.

Cultural heritage often brings to mind artifacts (paintings, drawings, prints, mosaics, sculptures), historical monuments and buildings, as well as archaeological sites. But the concept of cultural heritage is even wider than that, and has gradually grown to include all evidence of human creativity and expression: photographs, documents, books and manuscripts, and instruments, etc. either as individual objects or as collections. Today, towns, underwater heritage, and the natural environment are also considered part of cultural heritage since communities identify themselves with the natural landscape.

Moreover, cultural heritage is not only limited to material objects that we can see and touch. It also consists of immaterial elements: traditions, oral history, performing arts, social practices, traditional craftsmanship, representations, rituals, knowledge and skills transmitted from generation to generation within a community.

But cultural heritage is not just a set of cultural objects or traditions from the past. It is also the result of a selection process: a process of memory and forgetfulness that characterizes every human society constantly engaged in choosing — for both cultural and political reasons — what is worthy of being preserved for future generations and what is not.

All peoples make their contribution to the culture of the world. That’s why it’s important to respect and safeguard all cultural heritage, through national laws and international treaties. Illicit trafficking of artifacts and cultural objects, pillaging of archaeological sites, and destruction of historical buildings and monuments cause irreparable damage to the cultural heritage of a country. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), founded in 1946, has adopted international conventions on the protection of cultural heritage, to foster intercultural understanding while stressing the importance of international cooperation.

A large-scale cultural exploration program National Treasure made its first show on CCTV on Sunday night. In the first episode, the Palace Museum in Beijing showcased three treasures.

As a     1     variety show, the National Treasure aims to showcase the background stories of national treasures and     2     various art forms. In the show, “national treasure keepers” acted by famous and common people will present treasures, telling their stories with the collections and interpreting the historical     3    . The show aims to inspire the ancient Chinese civilization and make the national treasures “come alive”.

This is not the first time for the Palace Museum in Beijing to be     4     welcomed online in China, thanks to its efforts in cultural products and self-promotion in recent years.

Last year, the museum     5     so much attention because of the huge success of the three-episode TV documentary, Masters in the Forbidden City and a movie with the same name. Over the last few years, the museum has     6     495 signposts and 1,400 new chairs have been provided. In addition, the Palace Museum opened a (an)     7     online store on e-commerce platform Taobao, selling related products. It also started their self-promotion through new media, publishing articles to promote the culture of the museum. It     8     swept the Internet by its humorous style and interesting content. At the same time, the Palace Museum has published several mobile apps, one of which saw over 200,000 downloads just two weeks after its     9     in 2013. Its self-promotion has achieved great results. In 2012, the museum saw 15 million visitors. And it received 16 million visitors last year.

The museum is also a popular     10     among foreign leaders. For example, US President Donald Trump and his wife visited the Palace Museum on Nov 8.