In China, the relin e, the knowledge of characters is the knowledge of things; and the Chinese Dictionary, were it properly constructed, would he in fact a syste matic Encyclopxdia of all the learning and science of the country. We need not wonder, therefore, that the examinations of those who aspire to office, should be confined to a knowledge of the character, and an ability to write it with accuracy and elegance. This cannot be attained without much labour and long study. " The youth of China," says Mr Barrow, " generally begin to study the language when they are about six years of age. The first step of their education, is to learn the names of the characters, without any knowledge of their signification; the next is to be able to trace or de lineate them ; and the last, which commences about fif teen years of age, is to analyse the characters by the help of the Dictionary, Yy hen they first begin to know the use and meaning of the written character. now made himself master of various standard works, the student is ready, at the age of twenty, to take his first degree; but in order to be qualified for any high employment, he must study at least ten years longer.' Such is the immense labour of learning to read and write a character which is not expressive of words or sounds, but of things, or real objects ; and hence may be perceived at once the prodigious value of that expe dient which enables us to communicate our ideas with accuracy to others, by means of a few arbitrary signs, variously combined together, to suggest the words that are expressive of our thoughts.
In the progress we have hitherto traced of hierogly phical, symbolical, and representative characters, we still find no approach to alphabetic writing. All the species of characters already mentioned, denote imme diately objects or ideas, without referring to the me dium of speech ; and all of them, however modified, are in fact only refinements upon picture writing; the natu ral advances of that obvious mode of delineating what we wish to make the object of thought. But between this species of writing, and the analysis and notation of the sounds, by which in spoken language these ideas arc conveyed, the gull is interposed, which it has been doubted if human ingenuity would ever have been able to pass How in fact this transition was effected, has never yet been satisfactorily explained. Some par ticulars, however, in regard to Chinese writing, have been lately communicated by sir George Staunton and Mr Barrow, which seem to indicate the commencement of a progress from the one to the other; and these, as illustrating the history of writing, merit a particular examination ; though in reality, they carry us but a little way towards ascertaining the actual invention of alpha betic notation.
The Chinese characters, it has been already mention ed, denote not words but ideas. It is evident, that, in this mode of writing, many of the characters must stand for objects of familiar and constant recurrence ; when this is the case, the object and the character will soon be so completely associated in the mind, that the one will, upon every occasion, instantly suggest the other. It is no less evident, that as, in the course of human affairs, the same objects must likewise become con stantly the subjects of speech, the sounds by which they are denoted will be no less completely associated with the object, or the idea. In this manner the character and the sound being both associated with the same ob ject, and constantly and familiarly recurring along with it, will themselves soon become the subjects of a no less close association ; so that the written character, when it calls to mind the objects denoted, will, at the same time, and almost with equal readiness, call to mind the word or the sound by which it is expressed in speech. Ilere therefore is a connection formed between writing and speech, in such a manner that a character may represent not only an object, but a sound. If, then, at any time it
is wished to signify the sound alone, without bringing to view the object, this may be done by exhibiting the character, giving intimation, at the same time, that it is the sound alone which it is intended to express ; and if two or more of these sounds constitute the component parts of the name of some other object less familiarly known, that whole name can be expressed at once by the union of the characters suggesting these component sounds. Thus by degrees many of the written charac ters of objects may conic to be used, to represent words, or the parts of words, though originally appropriated to objects or ideas alone.
In this manner it actually appears that the Chinese have proceeded both in the formation of their dictiona ries, for explaining difficult terms, and in the application of their characters, to express the words in foreign lan guages, which the necessity of trade has compelled them to make use of. The following account is given by Mr Barrow, of the construction of a Chinese diction ary, and the manner in which a character, unknown to the student, is rendered intelligible.. " All the 212 roots or keys," says he, " are drawn fair and distinct on the head of the page, beginning with the most simple, or that which contains the fewest number of lines or points, and proceeding to the most complicated ; and on the margins of the page are marked the numeral charac ters, one, two, three, &c. which signify that the root or key at the top will be found to be combined on that page with one, two, three, &c. lines or points. Suppose for example, a learner should meet with an unknown character, in which he perceives, that the simple sign, expressing water, is the key or root, and that it contains, besides this root, six additional points or lines; he im mediately turns over his dictionary to the place where the character water stands on the top of the page, and proceeding with his eye directed to the margin, until the numeral character six occurs, he will soon perceive the one in question ; for all the characters in the lan guage belonging to the root water, and composed of six other lines or points, will follow successively in this place. The name or sound of the character is placed imme, diately after it, expressed in such other characters as are supposed to be most familiar. Suppose the name of the character under consideration to be ping. If no single character he thought sufficiently simple to ex press the sound ping, immediately after it will be placed two well-known characters pe and ing ; but as every character in the language has a monosyllabic sound, it will readily be concluded that pe and ing, when com p essed into one syllable, must be pronounced ping. After these the meaning or explanation follows, in the clearest and most easy characters that can be employed." A similar, though less minute account, is given of the Chinese dictionary, by sir George Staunton, who farther informs us, that the inhabitants of Canton, prompted by the necessities of trade, have constructed a vocabulary of English words expressed in Chinese characters, which are merely indicative of sound. These charac ters are in very familiar use, and are therefore readily interpreted ; and in the vocabulary, a particular mark is annexed to each, which denotes, that the character is not intended to denote the idea, but merely the foreign sound attached to it. Thus the necessity of explaining an unknown character, or of conveying the sound of an unknown word, has suggested the expedient of marking sounds by characters in familiar use, whose pronuncia tion will therefore very readily occur. If the sound is in this manner designated by the aid of two or more such characters, a syllabic writing is introduced, calcu lated, from its superior simplicity, to supersede the use of symbolic characters, indicative of things.