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who use the Chinese character, are very distinct from the language of 

 China proper. The Koreans and Japanese, whilst they transact all 

 important business in the Chinese character, have a syllabary with 

 which they write their own language. The Cochin Chinese occa- 

 sionally use the Chinese in a contracted form, without any reference 

 to its meaning, to express sound, but they have no syllabary. 



It is not strictly true that sound is not inherent in the Chinese cha- 

 racter. A majority of the signs are not pronounced by the Chinese 

 at random, nor do the nations abandon all analogy in reading them, 

 although they vary much. Mr. Gutzlaff has been struck with the 

 ease with which communication may be held with the Cochin Chinese, 

 Japanese and Koreans, by means of the Chinese character, even 

 without comprehending a word of their idiom. This, he says, does 

 not refer to the learned classes only, but to the very fishermen and 

 peasants, with some exceptions only. In the Loo Choo Islands, men of 

 distinction talk Chinese with great fluency, but the mass of the people 

 speak a dialect of the Japanese, and employ the Chinese character as 

 well as the Japanese syllabary. Mr. Gutzlaff considers it certain, that 

 the nations who have adopted the Chinese character, attach the same 

 meaning to it as the natives from whom it was originally derived, and 

 that its construction is likewise retained with scarcely any alterations. 



The communication of Mr. Du Ponceau, is a rejoinder to that of 

 Mr. Gutzlaff. Mr. Du Ponceau repeatedly combats the notion enter- 

 tained by some, that the superiority of the Chinese alphabet is such, 

 that it forms a kind of pasigraphic system, which may be adapted to 

 every language. He admits, to a certain extent, what he was dis- 

 posed at one time to doubt, that the Chinese characters do actually 

 serve as a means of communication between different nations, who can 

 neither speak nor understand each other's oral language, and he inves- 

 tigates, at some length, the causes by which this effect is induced ; 

 but he expresses himself at a loss to understand how the fishermen 

 and peasants of Japan, Korea and Cochin China, " with only some ex- 

 ceptions," can be readily communicated with by means of Chinese 

 characters, even by a person who does not understand a single word 

 of their spoken language. The remark of Mr. Gutzlaff, he conceives, 

 cannot be meant to imply that all, or nearly all the fishermen and 

 peasants of the countries referred to, can read and write the Chinese ; 

 for, on the authority of Mr. Medhurst, there are villages, even on the 

 coast of China, where few, if any, of the inhabitants can either read 

 or write. If, however, the assertion of Mr. Gutzlaff be assumed to 



B 



