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18 MEMOIRS OF THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM 
Il. NOTES UPON THE “SHUO WEN.” 
As already stated, this great work was published about 120 A. D., and has been 
repeatedly reédited by later scholars, preserving, however, what purports to be the 
original text. This dictionary, being etymological in aim, gives the author’s opinion 
as to the primitive meaning of a word, often with a surmise as to its derivation, and 
occasionally a suggestion as to pronunciation. In its present form this lexicon defines 
some ten thousand symbols based upon five hundred and forty » “classifiers.” 
By reference to the appended list of these so-called “classifiers,” several peculiari- 
ties will be noticed. In the first place they seem to have been selected upon no 
logical plan, and are entirely too numerous. This latter fault in the system soon 
manifested itself, for subsequent lexicographers successively reduced the number until 
the reign of Kanghsi, when the greatest of all Chinese dictionaries appeared under 
the royal patronage, and classified some 45,000 symbols under 214 determinatives 
(which are usually called “ Radicals”). Of these, 206 were retained out of the 
original 540, and eight others were added, viz., 8th (2), 56th (GO), 69th (A), 71st 
(Ff), 88th (4), 90th (A), 138th (R.), 186th (G). 
Secondly they fail to include ag classifiers certain ancient symbols as BM ia fi, and 
A, which found early use in composition. These four have since been recognized 
as sufficiently important to be used as radic: Is. The same cannot be claimed for 
the other five new radicals, for the small groups under each could easily have been 
distributed among the already recognized classes, ¢. g., +. under A or \44 where 
most of its class naturally belong; -§ under ¥ ; Ju under Jl, or Ju. 
The “Shuo Wén” recognizes six classes or kinds of symbols, defined as follows : 
e +H, pictographs, as Be OS thiteyes © “sun.” 
a = indicators, as fee “earth piled up,” “high.” 
oo ere i b ; : aan oe 
W x, composites, as #% “sacrificial vase,” 
oe $+, inversions, as ¥ and %, “son” and “ unfilial.” 
Ft ft, phonetic signs, as 4x “flower” (44, being merely phonetic). 
{£2 4%, Substitutes (metaphors), as 4¢ (by) “father” (“hand ” holding “rod ay 
While representative symbols may sometimes apply to more than one class, yet 
the conception is on the whole quite happy. ‘The definitions and derivations in 
the Shuo Wén do not always appeal to the student as reasonable, and suggest, what 
is probably the truth, that many of them are mere guesses on the part of the author. 
It is possible, however, that the author had access to data and sources of informa- 
tion now lost, and therefore may be right in some cases where his opinion would 
25The number of these ‘ classifiers’? ranges from 534 to 544, according to the method of computation. 
