在袁晓园（美籍，1985年恢复中国籍）、徐德江、卢遂现（澳大利亚籍）等海内外学者的倡议下，汉字现代化研究会（北京国际汉字研究会的前身）于1980年3月9日在北京正式成立。是党的十一届三中全会的春风托起了一个民间学术团体的羽翼，从此，它开始展翅飞翔了。二十三年的历史证明这第一个由中外学者共同创办的民间语言文化科学研究组织有着极旺盛的生命力。它如袁晓园本人的人格魅力一样，“俏也不争春，只把春来报” ,首先赢得了汉字文化圈内人民的青睐和业内人士的广泛注意；同时，吸引、团结了越来越多的关心汉语汉字发展前景的语言文字学界中的志士仁人。袁晓园的高风亮节和她对自己祖国语言文字的挚爱与刻苦钻研精神是全体会员的伟大榜样。她是汉字文化当之无愧的伟大旗手。令人震惊的是袁先生因病医治无效于11月17日下午2时溘然永远离开了我们。这是学会无法弥补的重大损失，但是，她将永远是全体会员心中的学术领袖和骄傲。她将永远生活、工作在我们心中。

With the proposal of the American-Chinese Yuan Xiaoyuan, Xu Dejian (China) and Lu Suixian（Australia）,the Chinese Character Research Association was established on March 9th,1980 (the origin of today’s Beijing International Chinese Character Research Association) [BICCRA]. It was the vernal wind from the Third Plenary Meeting of the Eleventh National Congress of the CPC that had the first non-governmental academic research organization like a brave bird flying with its strong wings. From then on, the 23-year academic research history has proved of it to be vigorous and powerful in making an academic research on the Chinese square characters in comparison with the alphabetical system of writing. Yuan’s moral quality has been with special charm as spring flowers just heralding spring but not showing itself. She styled her academic organization in her own selfless morality. So the non-governmental academic organization was attractive to all the oversea Chinese and the people of the Chinese-Culture circle as well as linguists both at home and abroad. As a pioneer and president of the Association, Yuan Xiaoyuan has invited and gathered more and more farsighted linguists to discuss and research on the scientific nature of the Chinese characters. She is of noble character and sterling integrity with true love to her own motherland with Chinese language. All the members of the Association should take her assiduity as a good example to work hard on our academic research. To our surprise, she past away on November 17th, 2003, which is a great loss there is no way to make up. However, she will be an ever-lasting academic top leader in our mind. We’ll be always proud of her great contributions. She will always live and work in our mind.

袁晓园先生早年在联合国工作期间，在同英、法等西方拼音文字反复比较的实践中发现中文是最“简短明确”的语言文字。她率先垂范以科学的态度对待汉语汉字，深入细致地揭示了自己母语的内在美、充分肯定了汉语汉字的优越性和科学性，探讨了它的起源、演变及其发展前景，极大地推动了中国语言文字学研究的新浪潮，带出了一批勇于与偏见和错误传统观念抗争的莘莘学子。如今他（她）们已经变得更加成熟稳健，仍然继续与她风雨同舟。袁晓园先生不仅为中国语言文字研究提供了全新的思路、全新的理论框架，同时她高瞻远瞩、以海纳百川的伟大胸怀，把有识之士请到自己的麾下，难能可贵。

Her own practical experience from working in the United Nations years ago helped her find only Chinese to be much shorter and clearer in expressing the same idea. The same document printed in Chinese always covers fewer pages than English, French or the other alphabetical system of writing. She took the lead in making an academic research on Chinese traditional characters. She revealed the inner beauty of Chinese with some special superiority and scientific nature by probing into the origin, evolution and future development, which promoted linguists and philologists to make new progress in re-knowing Chinese characters’ nature. And at the same time, she led a group of young scholars to be brave against some wrong traditional ideas to their mother tongue. Nowadays these linguistic scholars have turned mature and steady to stand firm together regardless of whatever happened to them as if they were sailing the same boat against a strong wind and a heavy rain. President Yuan not only contributed a theoretical frame by her original way of thinking. Simultaneously, she was farsighted, and her mind wide enough like an ocean to bear myriad rivers.

在她直接领导与扶持下的北京国际汉字研究会如今已经取得了重要科研成果。计算机科学的飞速发展，进一步验证了她和汉字研究会关于汉字的论断不仅是正确的、科学的而且具有超前意识。

Under her leadership and with her financial support, the Beijing International Chinese Character Research Association has made great academic progress. With the development of computer science and technology, Yuan’s theory and conclusions on the Chinese characters have been proved to be true and scientific with some predicting sense.

在很长一段历史时期里，很多人憧憬汉字拉丁化或拼音化的可望而不可及的前景。只是在汉字研究会成立后，在几乎是“汉字落后”、“汉字难学”、“汉字不科学”等“三论”的大一统语言文字环境中才出现了不同的声音，出现了否定这“三论”的不可抗拒的浪潮。起初，它如一潭死水中的微澜，诸多业内大人物对它不屑一顾。然而，时至今日，它好像决堤的江河在汉字学术研究领域里大有汹涌澎湃之势，所向披靡、锐不可挡。

During a rather long period of time in China, most of the Chinese people would like to look forward to turning Chinese writing system into an alphabetical one that will only be an illusion. The Chinese characters used to be considered as a backward system of writing that is unscientific and difficult for learners to have a good command of it. The conclusion with three adjectives, ‘backward, unscientific and difficult ’ used to conclude the nature of Chinese characters, had been everywhere before Yuan’s academic research organization was established. Only Yuan’s adherents criticized the wrong conclusion. At the beginning of the BICCRA, no authority or linguists and philologists paid attention to it as if a peaceful lake were just with ripples unattractive. However, it looks like a river being so angry to break the dam that nothing can prevent it from its spreading or rolling.

1989年正式出版发行的会刊《汉字文化》以其自己的高质量赢得了国家中文“核心期刊”的殊荣；14年来在海内外享有盛誉。《汉字文化》独树一帜的形象和“有理不在言高”的风格令人感叹。疾风知劲草，岁寒识梅香。它的存在就是科学、民主的胜利。

The BICCRA’s journal entitled The Chinese Character Culture has been officially published since 1989,which was conferred as a key journal with high reputation both at home and abroad. The magazine is of high quality with reasonable and scientific articles. Strength of character is tested in a crisis, that is, only the strong wind could recognize if it is the strong grass; only the cold winter could test if it is the fragrant plum. The existence of such a magazine means a victory of science and freedom in China’s academy.

“任凭风浪起，稳坐钓鱼船，宠辱不惊，知难而进”是以袁晓园为首的汉字研究会的又一值得称颂的伟大成就和特色。多年来说自己母语好话者、批评汉字拉丁化或拼音化者被视为自不量力或“异端邪说”。会员中高举袁晓园汉字文化伟大旗帜的学者甚至被一些权威诬陷为“学术骗子”。但是，他们丰硕的幼儿汉字教学成果和反映他们对汉字科学认识的教材或著述好象特效洗涤剂不断地冲刷掉泼在他们头上的污泥浊水，还给了他们固有的清白。

‘Sitting down on the fishing boat regardless of wave upon wave by the wind.’ ‘Don’t be surprised by some insult or praise.’ ‘March forward to meet any difficulties.’ ----The three Chinese sayings could be used to tell why the non-governmental academic research organization has made great achievements with its own characteristics being praised by the public. For many years, it has been considered as an illegal speech or madman’s nonsense that one said our mother tongue with something good or pointed out our picture-and-idea system of writing could not be changed into an alphabetical system of writing. Some member upholding Yuan’s academic banner was once slandered as an ‘academic swindler’ by a so-called linguistic authority. However, it’s the ‘swindler’ that has made tremendous progress both in linguistic theoretical research and in the practice of pre-school children learning Chinese characters. And it’s also the ‘swindler’ that published a series of academic papers or books on scientific nature of Chinese characters. His success is like an effective chemical that has wiped out all dirty water over his head and returned his originally clear quality.

“笑得最后，笑得最美。” 那些扛着名牌大学牌子或知名教授头衔、自以了不起的语言学家看来也并不十分自信。到处“扎根串联”、拉些并不了解事实真相的学者在自己设计好的“奏折”上签字画押，正是色厉内荏的一种表现。其实，到头来适得其反，只落个贻笑大方，也只能在自己的“世袭领地”里自我安慰、自我美化或互相捧场罢了。

‘He who laughs last laughs best.’ Those who regard themselves as infallible are always self-opinionated for they think working at some important or honorable universities means their opinions more important than some small universities. However, the self-opinionated linguists are not so sure of themselves, therefore, they manage to gather more scholars being unfamiliar with some true facts to stand on their side to support their wrong doings by way of signature on their written-complaint paper. At last，what they did was opposite to what they wished, and they were laughed at by others. And then, they could only comfort and beautify themselves or boast and boost with one another in their own academic field.

门第卑微的“小人物”却办起了大事情，被人看不起、甚至被人嫉妒并不奇怪。奇怪的是把学术之争变成了个人之间的人身攻击，放肆地骂人家是“骗子” ，岂有此理？！人的学问有大有小，但在探索真理的讲坛上，人人都该有平等的发言权，不能以“大” 欺“小” ，以势压人。北京国际汉字研究会在嚣张的诅咒声中始终如逆水行舟、乘风破浪、不断前进，这是个了不起的成就，值得在它的编年史上记上重重的一笔。

It’s not strange that the so-called ‘great man’ or academic authority will look down on and envy the ‘small man’ from a humble ancestry though he did something great, but it’s unusual that the self-opinionated linguists scold him unreasonably in dirty words. How darned it is! As a scholar, he might be stronger or weaker in command of his professional knowledge, but even if he is weaker than others, also he has an equal right to speak about his own point of view in academic discussion. The stronger has no reason to bully the weaker by administrative force. Under some aggressive denunciation, the non-governmental academic organization is still like a ship breaking out waves to march forward against the wind, which is a marvelous progress in her chronicle that is worth writing carefully.

“谋事在人，成事在天。”信息爆炸的时代，计算机走进了千家万户，于是，图形文字成了挡不住的诱惑。汉字的输入问题解决了；汉字的激光照排问题解决了。 汉字成了计算机的“宠儿” 或“香饽饽”。汉字成了当代世界语言文字学家“玉宇多年求不得”的“美人”。如果说拼音文字较适合于人类机械式的手力劳动——便于书写，那么，图形文字则更适合于计算机的智能劳动——便于识别。计算机科学越是飞速发展就越肯定了袁晓园等学者们关于汉语汉字理论建树的科学价值。拼音文字是线形排列的文字体系或称其为线性文字；中文是由方块字组成的图形式的文字体系。常识也告诉我们，同样内容的许多个体呈线形排列时不如呈方块状图形排列更容易识别。

‘Man proposes, and God disposes.’ At the information age, computers work at thousands of households. Thus, being effective and efficient in comparison with the alphabetical writing system, the pictorial writing system is welcome and much more attractive to all the computer users. Nowadays, the Chinese picture-and-idea system of writing is not only easier and faster to be input into computer system, but also to be printed by Laser, so the Chinese picture-like characters have turned a ‘favorite pet ’ like a beauty who had been sought for many years in the paradise. If the alphabetical system of writing were suitable to writing mechanically by hand, then the picture-and-idea system of writing would be suitable to computers’ working intelligently. As a system of signs or symbols, the latter is much easier to be decoded by the brainpower-computer. The faster the computer science and technology develop, the more valuable Yuan’s academic thinking about Chinese characters will make. The alphabetical system of writing is a linear set of symbols, and the Chinese system of writing is a picture-and-idea system. The former looks like a line covering with much more round dots, and the latter looks like a set of blocks, one after another. The general knowledge tells us it’s not easier for us to cognize the quantity of the same number of dots lying in a line rather than in a block or a square like a Chinese character.

例如：
图1：
○○○○○○○○○
图2：
●●●
●●●
● ●●
For example,
Figure 1：
○○○○○○○○○
Figure 2：
●●●
●●●
●●●

如果问问刚会数数的孩子图1和图2中各有多少个圆圈，孩子马上可以说出图2有九个，而对图1的回答却要滞后一些——孩子先要用小手的食指从1数到最后一个圆圈时才能说出是九个。很显然，图1很像英文等西方的拼音文字；图2很像汉语汉字等图形文字。不难理解，对计算机来说以模拟人类发声为主的拼音文字到了信息时代就不如汉语汉字那么快捷准确，又得心应手。因为视觉是以光线为载体，而光的传播速度要比声的传播速度快上几千倍 [光速是299792.458米/秒，声速是 331.36米/秒。] 汉语文作为一种视觉语言非常容易得到计算机的快速反应和接受，它的优越性或优势是不言而喻的。汉语汉字等图形语言必将成为未来计算机更为理想的语言。这是任何权威或语言学家无法靠行政力量所能阻挡的科学潮流。袁晓园汉字文化的伟大旗帜是决不会倒下或被砍掉的。走遍天涯海角，哪有不准说自己母语好话的道理。那些终身致力于否定汉字的学者们至今仍“咬定青山不放松”、死不悔改、自以为是倒是可悲的。