ON THE CHINESE SYSTEM OF WRITING. 26 



excellent grammar of that language by Father Rodriguez, translated into 

 French by M. Landresse, with the explanations of M. Remusat, and the sup- 

 plement to it by the learned William Humboldt, chiefly extracted from the 

 grammars of the same language by Fathers Alvarez, Collado, and Oyanguren, 

 which are now very rare, leave us nothing to wish for upon the subject. The 

 whole Japanese language is thus spread before us. It is called the Yomi. 



This language is entirely different from the Chinese ; there is no analogy or 

 affinity between them. A number of Chinese words have crept into it, but 

 their foreign origin is easily perceived. The Japanese is polysyllabic, and 

 abounds in grammatical forms. The nouns are declined by suffixed particles, 

 and the verbs are conjugated by means of terminations and inflections; they 

 have adjective verbs, like our Indian languages. The syntax is subject to 

 rules, and the order in which the words are placed, says Father Rodriguez, is 

 quite the reverse of that of the Chinese. It is evident, therefore, that the Chi- 

 nese system of writing could not be applied to it. 



The Japanese received the art of writing from the Chinese. But their 

 teachers, as \vell as themselves, soon perceived that the same system could not 

 be applied to both languages, and that the Japanese could not be written lexi- 

 grapliically. They therefore determined upon giving them a syllabic alphabet. 

 Out of the many thousand Chinese characters they chose forty-seven, without 

 paying any regard to their meaning, but only to their sounds, and applied these 

 to the forty-seven syllables of which the Japanese language is composed. Thus 

 was formed the Japanese alphabet, which they call i ro fa, or, according to 

 Medhurst, i lo ha, from the first three letters of which it is composed. 



If the Japanese had no other language and no other alphabet than those I 

 have described, it is evident that they could not understand or make them- 

 selves understood by the Chinese, verbally or in writing. 



But the Chinese, when they introduced civilization into Japan, introduced, 

 also, their language, which is there called the Tioye, which means Chinese 

 words. The pure koye, says Father Rodriguez, is the Chinese. It is there a 

 spoken as well as a written language, for it is clear that it could not be read 

 into Yomi, any more than Greek or Latin into English, without translating. 

 But such is the difference between the vocal organs of the two nations, that 

 they cannot understand each other when speaking the same idiom. The 

 Japanese cannot pronounce the nasal vowels of the Chinese, who have conso- 



VII. — G 



