PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 185 



people who understood the meaning of the character, chap. 



which was the same with them as with the Chinese, ^^ ' 



but who could not give us the Chinese pronunciation May, 



1 QQ'7 



of the word. And this is an answer to another obser- 

 vation which precedes that above mentioned, viz. that < 

 "as the Chinese characters are in direct connexion 

 with the Chinese spoken words, they can only be read 

 and vinderstood by those who are familiar with the 

 spoken language." The Loo Choo words for the 

 same things are very different from those of the 

 Chinese, the one being often a monosyllable, and the 

 other a polysyllable ; as in the instance of charcoal, 

 the Chinese v/ord for it being tan, and the Loo 

 Chooan chd-ehee-jiug, and yet the people use pre- 

 cisely the same character as the Chinese to express 

 this word ; and so far from its being necessary to be 

 familiar with the laniruage to understand the charac- 

 ters, many did not know the Chinese words for them. 

 Their language throughout is very different from that 

 of the Chinese, and much more nearly allied to the 

 Japanese. The observation of M. Klaproth, in Archiv 

 fur Asiatische Litteratur, p. L52, that the Loo Choo 

 language is a dialect of the Japanese with a good deal 

 of Chinese introduced into it, appears to be perfectly 

 correct, from the information of some gentlemen who 

 have compared the two, and are familiar with both 

 languages. The vocabulary of Lieutenant Cliflfbrd, 

 which we found very correct, will at any time afford 

 the means of making this comparison. 



The inhabitants of Loo Choo are very curious on 

 almost all subjects, and seem very desirous of informa- 

 tion ; but we were wholly unable to judge of their 

 proficiency in any subject, in consequence of the great 

 disadvantages under which we visited their country. 



