tracts and books and distributors, in sufficient numbers to occupy the vast field.

There seems to be a strong disposition to respond to this call. As we stated in our last number, the business of printing from stereotype plates, in an American press has been commenced in good earnest in Boston, and other indications are numerous, that the American churches will feel a strong and an increasing interest in this field of missionary labor. And as the chief channel of communication to this people is to be furnished by the pen and the press, it becomes more than a mere matter of curiosity that some information should be dis seminated in respect to the nature of that singular language, through which access to this people is to be obtained.

The most striking peculiarity of the written language of the Chinese, is that the character is symbolic, and not alphabetical; that is, each character is the representation of an idea, and not of the sound of the word by which that idea is expressed. The distinction may be easily illustrated. To a well known substance, we give the written name, STONE. These characters, however, represent the sound of the spoken name; the first crooked character standing for the hissing sound with which the spoken name commences; the crossed character which follows, represents the next sound in the spoken word. In another language, the written name would be LAPIS, the characters of which it is composed being arranged on the same principle of representing the sounds of the spoken name in that language, the crooked character here coming last, as it did first before, because the hissing sound comes last in the spoken name. A chinese writer, however, would for the same object write

石

He would call the object by a name which we should represent by shih, but there is no correspondence between the elements of the sound of that word, and the character as above written, by which he would express the thing. There is a hissing sound in his spoken name, but nothing which stands for the hissing sound in his character. The character stands in other words for the stone itself, and not for shih, his spoken name for it.

Now the point of view in which this subject is mainly interesting is this, that these characters, standing not for words, but

directly for ideas and objects, are common to many nations whose spoken languages are very different. The possibility of this it seems strange that any reflecting person should doubt. It is not in principle any more singular, than that the comma, period, marks of quotation, the arterisk &c. should be understood by the various nations of Europe, while each call them by spoken words which the others do not understand. And yet it has often been doubted whether this is really the fact. Some writers, whom we should expect to be well informed on so very common a topic as this, doubt the possibility of such a thing!! The slightest reflection will give any intelligent man examples which will remove all doubt of the possibility. The characters, 64=(1+2)2 — 1, contain an assertion, which, thus expressed, is intelligible to every mathematician in Europe, each, however, reading it in his own tongue. A French and an English mathematician, unacquainted with one another's language, could reason together with perfect fluency and freedom, by mathematical symbols on a black board. The reason is, that the signs stand not for words but for ideas. The chan acter = does not denote strictly the sounds is equal, nor est egal. It denotes the idea of equality, which idea both Frenchman and Englishman take from it, and then each expresses the idea, in sounds according to his own language. In the same manner, the character

دگی

throughout the whole Chinese empire, stands for the heart,not for any of the various names for the heart which are found in the various dialects, but for the heart itself; and each of the five nations which that empire comprises, understand the sign, and call it by the name appropriated to it by their own language. Consequently, a living preacher, who learns only the spoken language at Canton, can speak to but a small part of the millions in the empire, but one tract written in the Chinese character, and one translation of the Bible, will answer for all.

Notwithstanding the obvious difference between the Chinese character, and an alphabetic language, as above explained, it has often been maintained that the characters are really, like those of any other language, signs of words, not things. Now it is undoubtedly true, that each character has a word corresponding to it, that is, each idea has a character to represent it on paper, and a word to represent it in sound, and these being often used together, as in reading, they become strongly associ

ated in the mind, and the one always recalls the other. Just as the character is almost always read is equal to, but still it does not, strictly speaking, stand for those words, because there is nothing in it in the least degree corresponding to the hissing and liquid sounds which those words contain. It is sometimes read equals, and sometimes equal, and are equal to, and in other languages by other sounds still. And the equal has come in process of time, to be very strongly associated with it, so as seldom or never to give way to any other very different word; for instance, a mathematician would read the following phrase, 2+2=4 thus, two plus two is equal to four, and not two and two are four. It seems to be very much so with the Chinese language. The characters are, strictly speaking, signs of things, but each one has become so associated with a particular word, that that word is almost invariably used to express it vocally, so that different readers would read the same passage in the same manner, and poetry can be written in rhyme, just as a sort of rhyme might be made out of statements of mathematical equations, if the signs were read in the usual manner.

The number of Chinese characters is variously estimated, from thirty to eighty thousand. The imperial dictionary, compiled under the direction and at the expense of the government, about a century ago, by the joint labors of nearly one hundred learned men, from numerous dictionaries before existing, makes about 43,000, in all. This number, however, contains about twelve or thirteen thousand which are obsolete or unmeaning, leaving but about thirty thousand which are to be considered as actually constituting the language. But even this number, we might suppose, would lead the young Chinese student, when commencing his studies, to shrink back from the labors before him in utter despair.

The difficulty, however, to the student, is much less than would be at first imagined, for although there are thirty thousand or more complicated characters, each of which is different from the rest, still they are all composed of the same elements, differently arranged and combined. These elements are only 214 in number, and the first, second and third duty, urged incessantly, by every motive, upon every school-boy in bis imperial majesty's dominions, is to make the countenances of these 214 hieroglyphics most perfectly familiar. This once done, the path is afterwards comparatively easy; for every new character beyond those, presents itself to his eye, not as a shapeless drawing of unmeaning intricacy, but only as a new combina

tion or arrangement of what he has separately, or in other combinations, been familiar with before. The effect of this in relieving the otherwise impracticable task with which the memory would have to cope, is far greater than would at first be imagined.

There is something analagous to this in the manner in which elementary syllables are used in our language, in forming an immense variety of words by an alteration of the mode in which they are combined. The words o-men, men-tal, meno-taur, furnish examples of the repeated use of the same elementary syllables to form words of very different significations; and this use of similar or analogous elementary syllables, prevails very extensively in the formation of the words of every language, and very much facilitates the acquisition of the many thousand words which every language contains. Thus if a child hears a story of a Mr. Smith-ton, who lived in John-ville, both names would be easily remembered, while it would be much more difficult for him to remember, if the man's name was Keang Yang, and his residence Hongchoofoo. Hence arises the difficulty of remembering foreign names. elementary syllables are not familiar to us. They are constructed of different kinds of combinations of letters.

But to return to the Chinese. If each new character was entirely distinct from the rest, it would, perhaps, require the labor of a life to learn them all. But it is not so. The pupil when he has learned thoroughly his 214 elements, or keys, as they are called in the Chinese dictionaries, may feel that in one sense he has got through. He has, strictly speaking, no new characters to learn. The elements will be variously combined, but the several features of each new character will be well known and familiar, it is only the manner of their juxta position which he has to notice and remember.

These two hundred and fourteen elements are generally somewhat simple in their forms, and each has a meaning, which, as would naturally be supposed, is generally some common, sensible object or quality. It is often said in popular works on China, that these elements were intended originally to be a rude representation of the thing signified, but after a careful examination of them all, we cannot see any foundation for such an idea. The numerals, one, two, three, &c. are represented by one, two and three horizontal marks, but with this exception, we do not see that there are any more resemblances, between the elementary characters and the objects they represent, than chance will account for. Our font of Chinese type, be

ing manufactured for this article, is not quite extensive enough to allow us to give all these elements; but the reader can judge on this subject for himself, by examining for this purpose, the more simple ones, and those which stand for such sensible objects as would have been most likely to have been imitated in shape.

The first on the list, as arranged in the native dictionaries, is

which means straight. Here we see a resemblance, and

乙

means crooked. The last character is indeed crooked, but it is not such a character as would probably have been made to denote crookedness. Besides, it means interrupted also, whereas, as a stroke upon the paper, it is perfectly continuous. With these two cases of similarity, however, and perhaps a very slight appropriateness in the characters for oblique and hooked, the resemblance between the signs and things signified in the whole list, seems entirely to end. Take the following, for instance, which are signs for common and well known sensible objects.

Among these is the character for mouth. Who could determine from the shape which it is? Another is the character for man, another for bow, and another for box.* To the two following characters who could assign any meaning? and when told that one means great, and the other little, who could determine, to use the common phrase, which was which, from any indications to be seen in the forms of the characters?

大木

After knowing the idea attached to a character, we can, in many instances, fancy some sort of resemblance sufficient to

1. Man; 2. Knife; 3. Box; 4. Mouth; 5. Bow.