1843.] On the Study of the Chinese Language. 817 



man of letters, highly distinguished in other walks, on the study of the Chinese 

 language, that 1 have thought it well worth translation ; since at the present time, 

 nothing which can encourage or facilitate the study of this language is indifferent 

 to us, independent of its high interest in a mere philological point of view. This in- 

 troduction I find, also appeared with his first controversial paper in the Journal 

 Asiatique, for May 1841, but it is reprinted with the present pamphlet. 



" The time is now happily far distant since it was generally 

 believed in Europe, that the study of the Chinese language required, 

 even in China, the whole life of a man of letters. M. Remusat 

 has greatly contributed by his works and his teaching to destroy 

 this prejudice, and if some men of learning yet give credit to it, 

 it is because they have not taken the trouble to examine the question. 

 This opinion would indeed be well-founded, if to speak, read, and write 

 Chinese it were necessary to learn the forty-two thousand characters, 

 which compose the great Dictionary, published in thirty-two octavo 

 volumes by the emperor Khang-hi ; for certainly not a single Chinese 

 man of letters would be found capable of such a prodigious effort of me- 

 mory. But it is as useless for a Chinese, or a European to know, and 

 to be able to write all the characters of the Khangi-hi-toen-tien, 

 (Khang-hi's Dictionary,) as for a foreigner studying our language to be 

 acquainted with all the words of the French Dictionary of Boiste, 

 which in mere words is three times as rich. Supposing that the most 

 complete of our Dictionaries contains, as is said, a hundred and 

 twenty-four thousand words, we may say without fear of contradiction, 

 that a foreigner who knows only three or four thousand, would be able 

 to read the majority of French authors. More than a hundred thou- 

 sand words, or terms, are relative to sciences, arts and trades, and which 

 seldom occur in literary works. When the reader meets with them, he 

 looks for them in a good Dictionary, and continues his reading without 

 fancying that he does not understand French because he is unacquaint- 

 ed with some choice scientific or technological terms. 



The case is exactly the same with the Chinese Dictionaries. The 

 Emperor Khang-hi's would be reduced from forty-two thousand to six 

 or eight thousand words,* if we were to subtract from it about ten 

 thousand variations of ancient and obsolete characters, of names of men, 

 of places, of mountains, and of rivers, and of the terms belonging to 

 sciences and art.f 



* Several with no meaning, Marshman's Introductory Remarks, p. 31. 

 t 1900 characters form the materials of the language, Marshman, p. 37. 



