608 KEPORT— 1882. 



from Ssu Chuen, obtained from a liill tribe calling itself Lolo. Mr. Clarke bad, at 

 a previous meeting of the Britisb Association, called attention to a MS. brought 

 by Captain Gill, R.E., from another tribe of Western China, called Moso. The Lolo 

 characters Mr. Clarke found to be not the same as the Moso, but having many 

 resemblances and identities. The Moso contains also many ideographs, and is of the 

 same nature as the Khita inscriptions from Hamath, Carchemish, Asia Minor, &c., 

 and also characters to be found in syllabaries and alphabets throughout the world. 

 One of the most remarkable circumstances in IjoIo is the many resemblances to the 

 Vy, or Vei syllabary of Western Africa, supposed to be of modern invention, but 

 which Mr. Clarke had explained to the British Associatiou to be of ancient material. 

 Generally speaking the like characters are in different positions in Lolo and Vy, 

 Thus lo and 5 ; g; and E ; = and II ; S and H ; 3 and g ; -=- and -I- , and other 

 more peculiar combinations. The Moso has an organisation like the Khita 

 (Ilittite), the Lolo more like the Vy, but with combinations like the Khita. The 

 explanation to be assigned is that all the existing syllabaries are derived from an 

 ancient system, which has been differently developed in various regions, and there 

 is this remarkable consequence, that the ancient systems are still in operation in 

 tlie Lolo, the Moso, and the Vy, at the extremities of the Old World, in China and 

 in Western Africa. 



7. On the Formula of Alfred R. Wallace in its relations to Characters and 

 Alphahets. By Hyde Clarke, V.P.A.I. 



Mr. Wallace {Nature, xxiv. p. 244, 1881) called attention to words for mouth 

 in many languages being labials; for teeth, dentals; and for nose, nasals. This 

 observation Mr. Clarke extended bj' means of the list he had published of old 

 Chinese round characters which he had supposed to be derived from the eye. 

 Taking the mouth as the pivot, then, Q (D i" modern Chinese) was the character 

 for mouth, eye, ear, head, face, sun, moon, mother, woman, egg, flower, field or 

 enclosm-e, doorway, ring, blood, pot, white, four. In Chinese several of tliese are 

 still labials in M, and so they are in English. Mr. Clarke had shown that in many 

 languages these words are allied in sound, and are labials — characters include Q d • 

 Where, however, the idea of eating, &c. is introduced, a dental may displace a 

 labial in the word for mouth ; and so other words are liable to be displaced by other 

 ideas and sounds. The nasal roots Mr. Clarke found to belong to the series he had 

 already demonstrated in Chinese as the + series. As the labials are female, so are 

 the nasals male ; and the charactei-s appertaining include + + T -I- -^ N, &c. 

 Mr. Clarke has found that the dental series embraces such ideas as tooth, hill, 

 island, door, drum, arrowhead, with the characters A, A. AAA. The result is 

 that speech-language was founded on the ideas of gesture- or sign-language, and 

 that characters, according to the observations of Colonel Mallery and Mr. Clarke, are 

 applicable not only to speech-language but to gesture-language. Mr. Clarke there- 

 fore considers that characters were more ancient than speech, and that speech was 

 propagated in the Old and New World by a race of high culture, most probably white. 

 The consequence is that all languages in the world are found to be connected, and 

 to have many resemblances of sound ; but the general connection is psychological, 

 a connection of ideas and not of sounds. In this sense, all language is of common 

 origin, but no one primeval language ever existed. The communitv of .sound depends 

 on the application of labials, nasals, and dentals to associated ideas, but differen- 

 tiality begins with the selection of the labial, &c. As selection took place of the 

 various ideas, so did the substitution of other sounds take place. On applying the 

 test of the primary characters to ancient characters, syllabaries, and alphabets, it 

 was shown that as a general law those which should be labials were of the labial 

 form, and so of the others. Thus Korean was found strictly to correspond, although 

 apparently artificial, and Vei, supposed to be of modern invention, proved to be 

 ancient in its elements. Mr. Clarke considered that the trine law in grammar may 

 have been developed on the system of 3 sounds, as 3 parts of speech ; 3 divisions 

 ■of each ; 3 numbers, 3 cases, 3 degrees, 3 persons, 3 forms of verbs, 3 moods, 

 3 tenses, 3 positions of adverbs, kc. 



