luith the Nature of the Chinese Language. 21 



will be combined in a different manner from those to which 

 they have been accustomed. 



This reasoning, you will say, may be perfectly correct ; but 

 what, if in spite of your theory, Chinese books are understood 

 in Japan, Corea, and Cochinchina, even though the people 

 do not understand the spoken idiom of China? This is, in- 

 deed, a pressing argument, but was the child born with a 

 golden tooth ? 



It is a pretty well ascertained fact, that in Tonquin, Laos, 

 Cochinchina, Camboje and Siam, and also in Corea, Japan, 

 and the Loo Choo Islands, the Chinese is a learned and sacred 

 language, in which religious and scientific books are written, 

 while the more popular language of the country is employed 

 for writings of a lighter kind. It is not therefore extraordi- 

 nary, that there should be many pei'sons in those countries 

 who read and understand Chinese writing, as there are many 

 among us who read and understand Latin ; and many on the 

 continent of Europe, and also in Great Britain, and the United 

 States, who read and understand French, although it is not 

 the language of the country. In many parts of the world 

 there is a dead or living language, which from various causes 

 acquires an ascendancy among the neighbouring nations, and 

 serves as a means of communication between people who speak 

 different idioms or dialects. Such is the Arabic through a 

 great part of Africa, the Persian in the East Indies, the Chi- 

 nese in the peninsula beyond the Ganges, and the Algonkin 

 or Chippeway among our North-western Indians. This alone 

 is sufficient to explain why Chinese books and writings should 

 be understood by a great number of persons in those countries, 

 and why they should smile at an unlettered foreigner, who can- 

 not do the like. But it must not be believed that they read 

 those writings as a series of abstract symbols, without con- 

 necting them with some spoken language. If their language 

 be a dialect of the Chinese, varying only in the pronunciation 

 of some words, and if it be entirely formed on the same mo- 

 del, there is no doubt but that the two idioms may be read 

 with the same characters, as their meaning is the same in both ; 

 but if there is any material diversity between the two idioms, 

 it is impossible that the Chinese character should be under- 

 stood, unless the .s})oken language of China be understood at 

 the same time ; and this may be proved by well ascertained 

 facts. 



In Cochinchina, the language commonly spoken is a dialect 

 of the Chinese, monosyllabic like the mother tongue, and 

 formed on the same grammatical princij^les. In writing this 



language, 



