The dawn of history : an introduction to pre-historic study / edited by C.F. Keary.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dawn of history : an introduction to pre-historic study / edited by C.F. Keary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    such hosts of pretty poetic inventions, that perhaps there is less dulness than would at first appear in getting the Chinese alphabet of some six thousand signs or so by heart. We will mention a few Chinese ideographs in illustration. The sign for a man placed over the sign for a mountain peak signifies a hermit; the sign for a mouth and that for a bird placed side by side signify the act of singing; a hand holding a sweeping-brush is a woman ; a man seated on the ground, a son (showing the respectful position assigned to children in China); an ear at the opening of a door means curiosity; two eyes squinting towards the nose mean to observe carefully ; one eye squinting symbolises the colour white, because so much of the white of the eye is shown when the ball is in that position; a mouth at an open door is a note of interrogation, and also the verb to question. Even Chinese writing, however, has not remained purely ideographic. Some of the signs are used phonetically to picture sound, and this use must necessarily grow now that intercourse with Western nations Deteimina' 0 . tive signs. introduces new names, new inventions, and new ideas, which, somehow or other, must get themselves repre- sented in the Chinese language and writing. The invention of determinative signs—characters put be- side the word to show what class of objects a word belongs to—helps the Chinese to overcome some of the difficulties which their radical language offers to the introduction of sound-writing. For example, the word ‘Pa’ has eight different meanings, and when it is written phonetically, a reader would have to choose between eight objects to which he might apply it, if there were not a determinative sign by its side which gives him a hint how to read it. This is as if when we wrote the word ‘ vessel ’ we were to add ‘ navi- gation ’ when we intended a ship; and ‘ household ’ when