282 



ON LEGIBLE LANGUAGE, 



letters ; and thus confirming the progress from pictures to arbitrary sig:ns 

 which I have endeavoured to establish. 



The written language of the Chinese, however, is carried to a still higher 

 pitch of perfection ; and is, perhaps, rendered as perfect as the system upon 

 which it is founded will allow. It is still altogether a language of things, 

 and was formerly very largely, if not altogether, a language of pictures. The 

 pure picture-style is admitted by themselves to have been the oldest, or that 

 first invented, and they expressly denominate this order of characters siang 

 or king, " form or image." " The picture," however, observes Dr. Morrison, 

 " does not appear to have ever been intended as an exact representation, such 

 as the picture-writing of Mexico, or the hieroglyphics of Egypt, but only a 

 slight outline."* This kind of style is now become obsoiete, and is rarely 

 to be met with ; but of the next series, or that into which the original or siang 

 style was first transformed, which they call Yu-tsu, probably from the name 

 of the great emperor Yu, or Chow, in whose era the transformation is said 

 to have occurred, it is no uncommon thing to meet with specimens on rings, 

 seals, and other public instruments. These are strictly abbreviated pictures, 

 such as symbols or emblems of some kind or other. But the characters now 

 in use are abbreviations of these abbreviations ; and hence have, for the most 

 part, the appearance of being arbitrary marks, though we can still so fre- 

 quently trace the parent image, as to decipher their origin and reference. 



The Chinese is an extraordinary language in every respect. Its radical 

 words do not exceed four hundred and eleven ; every one of which is a mono- 

 syllable. But as it must be obvious that these can by no means answer the 

 purpose of distinguishing every external object and mental idea, unless varied 

 in some way or other, every one of these four hundred and eleven words is 

 possessed of a number of different tones and combinations with other words ; 

 and every tone or combination signifies a different thing; so that the whole 

 vocabulary, limited as it is, may be readily made to express several thousands 

 of ideas. Thus the word fu, which enters into the well-known compound 

 Kong-fu-tsee, or Confucius, pronounced in different manners, imports a hus- 

 hand or father, a town, and various other ideas. So khou imports a month ; 

 but pronounced nasally, as khoong, it denotes empty; and thus the word shu, 

 differently uttered, means both a lord and swine. 



The whole of the elementary marks, or keys, as they are called, by which 

 the ideas of this language, for it is not the language itself, are written down 

 and communicated, are still fewer than the elementary words; for they are 

 only two hundred and fourteen, and express such ideas alone as are most 

 common and familiar ; as those of plant, hand, mouth, word, sun, nothing, water; 

 every other idea being denoted by compounds, or supposed compounds, of these 

 elementary marks. Thus, the mark for a thicket, if doubled, implies a wood ; a 

 union of the two characters of a man and a field signifies a farmer ; the charac- 

 ters of a hand and staflf united, import parental authority, or a father; and it is 

 from like characters 1 have selected the specimen of symbols which I have 

 mostly submitted to you as some of those which would probably be invented 

 in the present day, if, by a miracle, we were suddenly to be deprived of all 

 knowledge of alphabetic writing.f 



By combinations of this kind, the two hundred and fourteen elementary 

 characters, like the four hundred elementary words, are wonderfully increased, 

 and are daily increasing ; while the greater mass have so little resemblance 

 to any one of the genuine elements, that the philologists of the present day 

 regard many of them as primitive or independent signs, formed long subso- 

 quently to the invention of the proper elements, and combined, like them- 

 selves, in various ways. 



I have said that the sum total of Chinese characters derived from these 



* Chinese Miscellany 



t The following table, compared with the remarks offered in page 281, will more clearly illustrate the 

 pictorial origin of the Chinese characters. 



The whole are usually divided by the native philologists into six classes, the first four of which will best 

 gerve as exemplifications. 



