Before we advance further respecting the written language of the Chinese, it will be proper to attend a little to their oral language. This, as was observed in LANGUAGE, is entirely monosyllabic ; and all the words may be expressed by an European consonant and a vowel, with the exception of about one-third, which end with n, either simple or nasal. A mo nosyllabic language cannot be copious ; and we expect to find it less so when the number of simple sounds are small. The Chinese have not the b, d, and r, of the Europeans ; and the number of their words is only 330. The capabilities of their oral language are, however, much extended by the variation their words undergo, by means of tone and other in flexions of the voice. These changes re quire a very discriminating ear to per ceive, and very flexible organs to ex press them ; but we know the power of habit, and can readily admit that thus the meaning of their words may be ex tended, without confusion, even to things very opposite in their nature. When, however, we find (as Hagar informs us), that the same word often answers to six hundred different significations, accord ing to the tone with which it is pro nounced, the place which it occupies, or the character by which it is expressed, we must suppose it impossible to avoid frequent ambiguity.
Notwithstanding, however, all their clinges in tone, &c. they have not more than 1,500 distinct sounds. Most nations have improved their oral languages ; the Chinese have directed all their atten tion to the improvement of their written language, and they have formed combi nations in their characters without any corresponding combinations in their sounds. Their changes are totally inde pendent of each other ; and the former are understood, where the sounds corre sponding to them are different from those of the Chinese. In this respect they may be compared to the arithmetical cyphers, &c. The character for rani, calamity, is an example of this independent combina tion ; it is composed of mien, a house, and bo, fire. Our process is to join the oral words expressing the ideas we wish to combine ; and we should use Inienbo. We cannot easily and fully'enter into this inde pendency of character or sound, because all our words are more or less pictures of sound, and are so strongly associated with sound, that it is difficult to separate them completely, even in imagination. The Chinese, on the other hand, have no immediate connection between their words and their characters, so that it can not be necessary in using their characters, to use the sounds at all.
All the Chinese characters are compos ed of 214 clefs or keys. These represent the most obvious and simple ideas ; and by their combinations are produced ex pressions for the more refined and com plex ideas. All these clefs were probably simple paintings, or symbols, and hence the whole written language may be fairly considered as deducible from the more obvious writing of the Mexicans and Egyptians. Indeed the resemblance be tween the ancient Chinese characters and the Egyptian hieroglyphics is so striking, and this in cases where the analogy on which both were founded is not an obvi ous one, that De Guignes considers them as certainly derived from the same source.
These keys are at present formed from six simple strokes ; a horizontal line, two perpendicular (the one pointed, the other blunt at bottom) a point, a line curved to the right, and another to the left. The greater part of the keys have from two to seven strokes ; six only of one, and some have sixteen or seventeen. We are not however to suppose that the inventors of the Chinese characters fixed upon these six elements, and composed from them methodically. As the characters lost their correctness of delineation, the object was to faciliate the labour of writing. Art by degrees reduced all the characters to the simple strokes we have mentioned.
These keys are either employed alone as a character serving to express an idea ; or differently combined in a group, form ing a phrase expressive of the idea it is in tended to communicate. Thus the cha racter for night is composed of three cha racters ; one signifying darkness, another the action ofcovering, the third signifying man, wi,ich, rendered literally, signifies darkness covering man ; a phrase per fectly expressive, and similar to the lan guage of poetry. Both in fact issued " from the cradle of the human race." Fi gurative language of this kind is much em ployed in the scriptures : we admire it ; for it "comes home to our business and our bosoms?' It paints to our minds, and calls up their conceptions forcibly and correctly. Hence, though the offspring of necessity, it is justly esteemed a beauty, and wherever the language of feeling is employed, will generally be found a pre vailing trait.
We might suppose that, all the charac ters being thus composed, nothing more would be necessary, in order to under stand them, than to know the elemen tary characters ; but the analogy on which the composition is formed is of ten extremely obscure, and often errone ous. Their ancient principles of philoso phy furnished wide scope for combination; but these were generally ill founded. Other combinations acquire a knowledge of their ancient customs and popular su perstitions. Hence the ease which we should in theory expect in understanding a language so regularly formed vanishes ; and an acquaintance with their whole round of physical and religious dogmata, with the fleeting customs and opinions of preceding ages, is necessary for a tho rough acquaintance with the Chinese characters. This is not, however, entirely peculiar to the Chinese language. In order to trace the origin of words, the same re ferences are often necessary ; but we have more frequently the requisite data. Can didate signifies a person who offers him self to fill a lucrative or honourable situ ation ; the original meaning of the Latin Candidatus is a person dressed in white. The two ideas seem to have no connec tion. The difficulty vanishes, however, when we learn that among the Romans all candidates wore white robes. In a si milar manner we see no connection be tween running, and wrapping up the feet; but pas, the Chinese character for run, is composed of two, one for the act of wrapping, the other for feet. The pro bable connection is ascertained by the circumstance, that the savages of Louisi ana, when about to undertake long marches, wrap up their feet to prevent their being torn.