摘要
电报的发明是19世纪通信革命的重要一章。以光电速度进行信息传播的关键是设计出文字与电讯号之间转化的符号系统。在广泛使用的莫尔斯码系统的基础上,将字母或数字组成的符号对应到短语、句子,编辑成专用的电码本,可以实现通信设密和节省成本的效果。1871年国际电报线延伸到中国后,为了解决异于字母文字的汉字收发电报的问题,丹麦大北电报公司设计了最早的汉字电码本。在此基础上,晚清官商也进行了诸多尝试。总理衙门制定和颁发《电信新法》电码本,无形中建立了一套新的政府信息沟通机制。同时,个别部门和官督商办的机构也编制自己的密码本,造成清朝电报"密中有密,密外有密"的现象。
The invention of telegraph is an important part of the communicative revolution in the nineteenth century.It is essential to design a coding system to link written languages to electronic signals.In practice,codebooks were designed to symbolize phrases and sentences with letters and numbers,which can be transformed into electronic signals according to the widely used Morse code.In order to use telegraph to communicate in Chinese language after the international telegraph line reached China in 1871,a Danish telegraph company designed the first codebook for Chinese characters.Based on this codebook,Chinese officials and merchants in late Qing also attempted to design new codebooks.Zongli Yamen made and issued the codebook called New Codes of Telegraph(Dianxin xinfa),so as to establish a new mechanism of government communication.Meanwhile,individual government organs and the businesses run by merchants but supervised by officials also designed their own codebooks.Therefore,a large number of telegraph codebooks were used at the same time in late Qing to result in a very complicated situation in decoding telegrams.
出处
《近代史研究》
CSSCI
北大核心
2018年第4期84-99,161,共17页
Modern Chinese History Studies
