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CHALFANT: EARLY CHINESE WRITING 9 
development, and while he introduces some absurdities, yet in the main makes a 
plausible argument for his theory of the origin of the written language. 
Many of these primitive pictographs are still in use, but so altered, owing to the 
present changed style of penmanship, that they are not recognizable until they are 
compared with the successive preceding forms. ‘Take, for example, the modern 
symbol for “elephant” (2). How little it resembles that animal! But note the 
evolution of the symbol through extant earlier forms : R<B<d< ge< 2)<Oi To 
anyone accustomed to study orthographic changes, the proof is positive that 4 is only 
the original pictographic “ elephant,” with position altered for conyenience in 
writing vertical lines. 'The same evolution may be discerned in the symbols for 
most of the animals known to the Chinese, as dog, sheep, cow, horse, deer, tiger, fish, 
snake, tortoise, toad, worm, bird, and swallow. The sign for “man” (Latin homo), 
A, is plainly a picture, derived thus, A< R<A<7) the legs being apparently the 
only surviving members. 
Plant life was also pictorially portrayed. 2 “wood” was originally & “tree,” 
showing branches and roots. tk” is two trees and signifies “forest” or “grove.” 
++ “herbs” was once $4, depicting leaves and twigs. #% “indicator” can be traced 
back to % a “line-tree” or “hedge,” marking the boundary of a field, being a 
clump of bushes pictorially suggested. 
Inanimate objects came in for a full share of pictorial representation. ff} 
“ship,” in its modern form, is scarcely recognized as an ideogram, but trace it back 
thus, #-< Gyn, and we begin to detect its likeness to a Chinese junk, though 
whether a side view, or that of a ship’s compartments (ZI), may be an unsettled 
point. 
a (kin) “metal” still approximates its oldest forms, as, e Rg & which prob- 
ably refer to the process of smelting, being composed of two symbols for “fire” (J) 
or “intense heat” 
the crucible. 
under a cover,” (A or [-), very suggestive of molten metal in 
Abstract ideas were also presented pictorially with considerableingenuity. “East” 
being the “sun” (@) rising behind a “ tree” () thus, $ (now written R): “West” 
was suggested by a ‘bird on its nest” (&); the transition of which into the modern 
form was as follows ™: &> §> &>@> 5. 3irds seck their nests at sunset, hence the 
idea “ West.” “ Determination ” was & formed from “issue” (lit. “sprout” 4), 
and “heart” (W), hence ‘“heart-sprout,” “heart-issue,” 7. ¢., “ purpose,” ‘“ determi- 
mination.” 
"Still older forms of this show interlaced branches of trees. 
13 Another old form is a 
