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For the Literary Magazine
the chinese characters.
THE Chinese characters are so
contrived as to convey to the eye the
meaning of ideas both simple and
compound; but allusions are made
not merely to the general features
and qualities of nature, nor to human
passions and affections, nor to obvi-
―293―
ous metaphors and allegories, but to
local customs, national habits, and
peculiar trains of thinking. To
learn the language with facility, a
man ought to possess the talent of
solving riddles and enigmas; what
in conversation or in oratory must
be insufferable, every character,
however compound, is represented
only by a monosyllabic sound; con-
sequently the sound for a compound
word has no connection with the
sounds for the elements of the com-
pound. With us, such words as
house-keeper, chair-man, chamber-
maid, table-cloth, would be under-
stood by a foreigner who knew the
meaning of the sounds of the com-
ponent parts: but the Chinese de-
note the word happiness, for in-
stance, by one monosyllabic sound,
"foo," which is compounded of four
distinct characters, signifying, shee,
a demon, ye, one, koo, a mouth, and
tien, a piece of cultivated ground.
A man possessing the learning and
genius of Aristotle would not neces-
sarily be able to comprehend that
the combination of these four sym-
bols designates happiness.
The inhabitants of the southern
and northern provinces of China do
not understand each other in con-
versation: the sound in Pekin for
one in Canton expresses two. Eve-
ry province, and, indeed, every dis-
trict, whose local boundaries are de-
fined, has a peculiar dialect. But
the written language of China is
understood by the inhabitants of Ja-
pan, Tonquin, and Cochin-China:
though, if pronounced, it is mutually
unintelligible.
Hence it appears, that the scheme
of a philosophical and universal cha-
racter, which so many European
sages have laboured to invent, has
been introduced and completely es-
tablished in the east of Asia. By a
universal character is meant such a
one as will make those intelligible to
each other in writing who are not
so in speech. No European could
expect that the use of such a cha-
racter would extend beyond the peo-
ple of Europe and their descendants
in both hemispheres, but the Chi-
nese character is used by several
independent nations, and by a por-
tion of the human race at least twice
as numerous as the Turks and
christians in Europe, and the whites
in America taken together.
x.