284 
REPORT— 1847. 
nobody will ever understand its nature and do justice to its incomparable p#- 
fection, if he applies to it the forms and categories of the grammaisofSe 
rest of the world. As Humboklt says, the other languages have an etrji* 
gical nnd a syntactic part, but the Chinese has only a syntactic one; awiih 
Chinese syntax may be comprehended under tuo rules: that the deternu'w. 
pix^cedes tlie word dcterminoil, and that the object follows the woidoa» 
it depends. All other syntactic rules, even ^oso which appear os aoept* 
can Iw explaiiK?d from these two simple principles. Thus ;»«/«£>« alwie;- 
out the verb inasentence: what precedes it next is dther its own detrru 
tivc (adverb), or the subject, which may equally he prece-ded 
niinative, the relation of genitive in particular. Finally, every one of 
words is like the other; not only are all nroiiosyllables, that is to 
an accent of their own, which separates them from the preceiling or fols^ 
syllable or particle; but, nroreover, every one of these monosyllabic ^ 
may bo interpreted as a verb, or substantive, or adjective, or as 
particle,—an empty word, as the Chinese graniorarians say. The uintJ' 
of tone or accent by which that word U to be pronounced,-^udeTfP - 
may have four, and on an average has three accents,—rs 
help to find out in what sense it is to be taken in a given posrUOH-^ 
word changes from its original verbal sense into a nominal, , 
it changes its accent*. Thus, what other languages edect by ' 
infiexions, the Chinese indicates by two iiicaiis, quite distinct from | ^ 
tioii of the word; by the architectoniciU arrangement of words, and ^ 
sical change in the pronunciation. Add to this, that the Chinese Janguv' 
only 450 syllable-words, which by the variation of the accent ^ 
and you will agree with me, that, if the Chinese is considered as a 
like ouix, and all other languages, it would be the most impeiiect. 
it is, UH speech, for practical ptirposes; for in spite of accents, pw 
traditional tact, no Chinese would understand the spoken 
the old one, which very seldom uses grammatical 
of repetitions, expletives, pauses, and finally of gestures, which *r 
sary to supply,to a certain degree, what in writing ia effected byw ^ 
ideographic, now wholly conventional, signs, which constitute a sort o 
or imsigraphic system of writing, destined, not to express 
help to guess the nieaniiig of the word. It can be proved 
of writing was originally figurative, as the ideographic 
is: and indeed, if we understand the nature of the oldest form o 
it iim.Ht have been so. But we venture to say, that not only is 
system of Chinese writing tlie wreck of a still more peculiar ano F 
form, but the spoken language also. hon**^ 
The Chinese formation is in its principle, as this is visibly 
in the old style, among languages, what the inorganic 
kingdoms ot nature. Its component parts are not 
words as parU of speech, but crystals of thought, employed 
in building up a sentence, which is made more intelligible by 
elation. Accent and position give each crystal a more or less : 
in this syinmetric arrangement; but each is in itself a complete- 
an explicit, sentence, whether appearing more as a noun or as a v ■ 
every word has in itself a fullness of life and value, of which 
deprivi-d, by making the substance, quality, existence or 
enshrined in it, merely the sign or symbol of determination or 
another word, that is to say, to another substance, quality, cxiytcD ^^^.,.- 
or to the whole sentence. According to the Chinese formation, • 
* Humboldt, Lettre, p. 24, and Remusat’s note (4) toh’ 
