16 ON THE CHINESE SYSTEM OF WRITING. 



interchange ideas merely in writing, because of their ignorance of each others' 

 dialects; all these things appear to me to demand investigation, and with this 

 view I submit the following observations to your learned correspondent, in 

 hopes that he will deign to favour us with his own. 



In order to observe some method in this examination, and for the sake of 

 clearness, I shall consider, separately, the four following languages, or classes 

 of languages, to wit: — 1. The various dialects of the Chinese empire. 2d. The 

 Annamitic languages. 3d. The languages of Japan and the Loo-Choo Islands. 

 4th. The Corean. I shall not do this with a view to contradict the fact stated 

 in a general manner by your learned friend, but to reconcile it, as far as will 

 be in my power, to the natural order of things, and, if possible, to ascertain its 

 extent and its causes. That several thousand written characters should serve 

 as a means of communication between hundreds of millions of people, between 

 provinces and districts, and even independent nations, who do not understand 

 each others' oral languages, is a fact that strikes, at first view, with wonder 

 and astonishment. Mankind are now too enlightened to ascribe such things to 

 causes out of the ordinary course of nature, or to gaze upon them with stupid 

 wonder ; they will inquire and investigate, and will not be satisfied with theo- 

 ries founded on mere conjecture. I have shown, in my Dissertation, what 

 wild theories were recurred to, to explain this apparent phenomenon; theories 

 which led to the absurd inference that the art of writing existed before the 

 exercise of the natural gift of speech. It is time to adopt more rational con- 

 clusions, and for that purpose facts must be collected and brought together 

 in one point of view, so that fair deductions may be obtained from their con- 

 centrated light. It is with this view that I submit the following- facts and 

 observations to the superior knowledge of your learned correspondent. 



I. Dialects of the Chinese Language. 



We are told by the Rev. Mr. Medhurst, in the Preface to his Dictionary of 

 the Dialect of the Province of Fo kien, which he writes " Fiih-keen," and I 

 know no other work of the same kind, that there are no less than two hundred 

 of those dialects in the Chinese empire. The people of the different districts, 

 it is said, or most of them, do not understand each other when speaking, but 

 communicate together by means of the Chinese written language^ as it is called. 



