SSij Notices respcci'mg New Books. 



the contrary, we must not only be acquainted with the pro- 

 nunciation and the tone oi' a cliaracter, but even its significa- 

 tion, before finding the form of it. For instance, if we wish to 

 look for the word fie?/. : it is necessary to know that iieji is of 

 the first tone aspirated, anrl that it signifies heaven, in order 

 to discover, in the great quantity of words Avhich are all pro- 

 nounced tien, the character of tie?i which answers for heaven. 



" It results, therefore, from what has ijeen said, that the dic- 

 tionaries by keys are more easy for beginners, who know the 

 figure of a character without knowing its signification ; whereas 

 the dictionaries by tones are only useful to persons wlio know 

 the pronunciation, the tone, and signification of a cliaracter, 

 i. e. who know the Clhinesc, like the Missionaries, who, when 

 they composed, wrote first the pronunciation of the words, and 

 afterwards put down, by the help of the tone and signification, 

 which are already known to them, the characters of the form of 

 which they are ignorant. 



"To this advantage of rendering our researches more simple, 

 and consequently more easy, the dictionaries by keys add that 

 of showing more clearly what the tonic dictionaries do not ; 

 namely, the formation of the characters. Nevertheless, that I 

 might not make an incomplete dictionary, I determined to give 

 also the j)ronunciation of the characters arranged by the order 

 of tones. I therefore ranged all the words in alphabetical order, 

 and formed a separate dictionarv, in which every Chinese word 

 is accompanied by the principal explanatory word*; by the help 

 of which, as well as of the number, we may have recourse to the 

 eJiaracter in the body of the Dictionary. By pursuing this me- 

 thod I have avoided repeating the characters twice, as we are 

 ol^liged to do in ail the tonic dictionaries ; a repetition which is 

 "Oseless in my Dictionary, since, if a person knows the pronun- 

 ciation and the signification of a character, he will easily find 

 this same character in the table of keys, by means of the num- 

 ber of reference f. 



*' The dictionaries composed by the Missionaries are all con- 

 structed on the same model, and copied from a first work J. The 

 Dictionary of Father Basil drawn up in 1726, f. e. long after 



the 



* I have placed under the primltivn words the luinibcrs of the words 

 wiiich have some resemblance to them, so tliaC we see tiie duplicates at the 

 first giiuice. 



t The Chinese have also tonic dictionaries: but these kinds of works are^ 

 very rare; the explanations are almost always less detailed. There is be- 

 sides at the head a ta!;le of all the characters" arranged by keys, with their 

 reference to the Dictionnry of tones; which clearly proves that the arrange- 

 ment of the characters by keys is inrlispensabic. 



t The Chinese write from top to bottom, and from rif;ht to left ; but this 

 fiot agreeing willi our way of printing, I have placed, for the sake of fa- 



eiWtv. 



