264 ON THE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE 



The Chinese character forms, in reality, an abstract, 

 philosophical language, such as has long been the 

 theme of speculation in Europe, though it is generally 

 regarded as an absurd and impossible reverie. It is 

 not indicative of sounds, but of real objects and 

 ideas; and conse(juently it is read and understood 

 ty at least twenty different nations, who would 

 scarcely understand a word of one another's oral 

 language, and would all use different words to express 

 the same meaning. The only European characters, 

 analogous to the Chinese symbolical written lan- 

 guage, are our numeral, algebraical, astronomical, 

 and chemical signs, which are constructed on the 

 sam.e abstract prmciples. The Chinese, however, 

 sometimes contrive to make these singular characters 

 perform a double office, and express sounds, as well 

 as ideas ; as when they write down English names, 

 which another person can pronounce with great ac- 

 curacy. As far as I have been able to learn, how- 

 ever, this can only be accomplished by persons who 

 use the same spoken language. 



The Anam language is simple, original, and mono- 

 syllabic. What relations it may possibly bear to 

 some of the spoken monosyllabic languages of China, 

 to the Man-chhv Tartar, to the Korean, Formosan, 

 Likyu, or rather Riu-kiu languages, I cannot possibly 

 pretend to determine; but it certainly has very 

 little affinity to the Alandarin or court language of 

 China, which is properly termed Khimn ; to the 

 Kong-tung, or language of Canton ; to the copious 

 polysyllabic and inflected Japanese; or to any of 

 the other Indo-Chinese languages. 



It is certainly possible to find several Anam voca- 

 bles which coincide both in sound and signification 



