6 



shall ever be possible to determine the germs from which the mani- 

 fold dialects and the written alphabets have sprung, it can hardly be 

 doubted that the study of Chinese will contribute largely to the at- 

 tainment of that great end of all etymological research. 



Although it is almost certain that writing ^' was, in the beginning, 

 generally hieroglyphic among all the nations of antiquity," and that 

 it became alphabetic only after the lapse of a long period of civiliza- 

 tion, as a result of profound philosophical analysis, the various steps 

 that led to the change, the date of the change, its author, and the 

 meanings of the primitive hieroglyphs that are fossilized in our 

 modern letters, are all unknown, and we can reasonably hope for no 

 clue to the solution of these riddles, except such as may be found in 

 the records of Egypt and China. 



The most ancient forms of Chinese script are found in the tfuen 

 fu,* or seal character, and the tfa^g ti,g van, or 'betters of bells 

 and tripods," inscribed on ancient vases. The cai fu, or " pattern 

 letter," — which is the familiar modern official character, — and the 

 tsau fu, ''grass letter," or running hand, are of more modern date, 

 and therefore any resemblances to alphabetic writing that may be 

 traced in them are less interesting, though they may be admitted in 

 connection with other evidence as possible indications of alphabetic 

 genesis. 



Among the most ancient characters are the following hieroglyphs 

 and symbols : 



9 



or "Y^ (M. V. 1, p. 13), tijg, a sting or nail. This is evi- 

 >r dently a pure hieroglyph, and according to the rules 

 of both Chinese and Egyptian orthography, when used as a letter, it 

 would represent the sound of T. 



y(M. V. 1, p. 25), ya, the parting branches of a tree; any- 

 thing forked. This character has all the essential features 

 of a hieroglyphic Y. 



1 ^ or '^ (^I- V. 1, p. 43), cyue, hooked; the barb of a 

 y ? O ? O hook. This would be a proper hieroglyph for 



the guttural C, or for the gutturalized semi-vowel cy. By attaching 

 it to the vowel we might form a compound hieroglyph CO or cyo 

 (Q), of the same alphabetic value as our letter Q, which, both in 

 form and value, is nothing but a vowel pronounced gutturally. 



* See Table of Pronunciation, p. 19. 



