with the Nature of the Chinese Language. 23 



nese is read and understood there also as a religious and sci- 

 entific language, or perhaps as an auxiliary means of com- 

 munication. 



I have said enough, I think, to show that if the Chinese 

 writing is read and understood in various countries in the vi- 

 cinity of China, it is not in consequence of its supposed ideo- 

 graphic character; but either because the Chinese is also the 

 language or one of the languages of the country, or because 

 it is learned, and the meaning of the characters is acquired 

 through the words which they represent. Without a know- 

 ledge of these words and of their precise signification accord- 

 ing to the genius, syntax and grammar of the language, it 

 would be impossible to understand or remember the significa- 

 tion of the characters. If those characters could be read into 

 languages which like the Yomi and the Corean differ in their 

 forms from the Chinese, or in the meaning and sound of the 

 words which the signs represent, they might be read alike in 

 English, French, Latin, Greek, Iroquois, and in short in every 

 existing idiom upon earth, which I think I have sufficiently 

 proved to be impossible, according to the plainest deductions 

 of simple logic. 



I have been carried further by my subject than I intended ; 

 but as I do not believe that it has yet been presented in this 

 point of view, I thought that I should not be sparing of a few 

 words in order to make myself clearly understood. With what 

 success I have made out my argument I leave you entirely to 

 judge. At any rate, I rejoice in the opportunity which it gives 

 me of expressing to you the sentiments of sincere respect and 

 esteem with which I am. Dear Sir, 



Your most obedient humble servant, 



Peter S. Du Ponceau. 

 Capt. Basil Hall, R.B.N. F.R.S. S^-c. 4-c. 



New York, 14th July. 



P.S. — Since my arrival in this town, whither I have come 

 on an excursion of pleasure, I have been agreeably surprised to 

 find, by an article in the Baron Ferussac's Bulletin des Sciences 

 Historiques, Philologiques, Sj-c. for the month of March last, 

 that the opinion I have expressed on the subject of the Chinese 

 writing, begins to prevail among the learned of Europe. The 

 article I allude to is a short notice (p. 258) by M. Champol- 

 lion, the elder, of a work on the History of Philosophy, pub- 

 lished last year at Bonn, by Mr. Windischman, a German 

 writer, who, as usual, represents the Chinese character as a 

 sort of pasigraphij, which may be read alike in every language. 

 M. Cham|)ollion, very properly, combats diis opinion, and ob- 

 serves (as I have done) that the Japanese, Cochinchinese, and 



other 



