ON THE CHINESE SYSTEM OF WRITING. 15 



seiitiiag speech by figures or characters; I, therefore, submitted my views to 

 the learned, in the hope of profiting by their knowledge, which so much ex- 

 ceeds mine. I am happy to find that they have been honoured with the notice 

 of your correspondent, than whom, from his profound knowledge of the Chi- 

 nese and Indo-Chinese languages, and their respective systems of writino-, no 

 one is better able to form a correct judgment upon the subject, and to throw 

 light upon the obscurity in which it is still involved. I therefore submit to 

 him, with due humility, the few observations that are to follow. 



I admit, w^ithoxit difficulty, the fact stated by your respectable friend, to wit, 

 that he has seen Japanese, Coreans, and Cochinchinese communicate, with 

 ease, with each other by means of the Chinese characters. He adds that they 

 did so without understanding "one single word" of each others' spoken lan- 

 guage. This appears to me to be a very strong expression, which, perhaps, 

 Mr. Gutzlaff will be disposed to modify. I shall not, however, contradict it 

 for the present. This faculty, he says, is not confined to the learned classes, 

 -who speak the Chinese with great fluency, but extends to the very " fishermen 

 and peasants." This cannot be meant to imply that all, or nearly all, the fish- 

 -ermen and peasants of those countries can read and write the Chinese ; for Mr. 

 Medhurst tells us that there are villages, even on the coast of China, where 

 few, "if any," of the inhabitants can either read or write. This expression, 

 therefore, must be understood in a restricted sense. 



The fact that persons who do not understand each others' language can com- 

 municate with ease by means of a common written character is, as I have 

 already observed, important enough to require to be critically examined, parti- 

 ticularly in respect to its extent and the causes which produce it. Nothing that 

 has been written on the subject as yet satisfies me. This phenomenon (if it may 

 be so called) has been attributed to the almost magical powers of the Chinese 

 alphabet; to its representing ideas unconnected wdth sounds; to its "perma- 

 nent perspicuity," as Dr. Marsh man expresses himself; nothing has been said 

 of the monosyllabic character of the languages which employ that lexigraphic 

 alphabet, and of the similarity of their grammatical structure : the polysyllabic 

 languages of Japan and other countries have been confounded with those, and, 

 upon the whole, many things have been left obscure, which still require to be 

 elucidated and explained. Not only the Indo-Chinese nations, but the Chinese 

 themselves, inhabitants of different provinces or districts, have been said to 



