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ART. I. The Chinese language; its antiquity, extensive use, and dialects; its character, and value; attention paid to it by Europeans; and the aids and inducements to study it at the present time. ORIGINALITY is a striking characteristic of the Chinese language. Its origin, like that of the people who speak it, is lost in the earliest periods of postdiluvian history. In its form and structure, as presented to us in modern times, it stands peerless, an object of wonder, having no consort or relationship with the other languages of the earth. The Hebrew lives only in the oracles of the Most High; it long since ceased to be a spoken language. The Greek and Roman languages are found in great purity and perfection in books; yet wherever they are spoken among the descendants of those ancient nations, they, at the present time, differ widely from their original. The Sanskrit and Pali, if ever spoken by whole nations, have shared the same fate. And the Arabic never rose into importance, until the conquests of Mohammed carried it beyond the confines of Arabia. Among all these ancient languages, in point of antiquity, if we except perhaps the Hebrew, the Chinese is unrivaled. It seems to have sprung up soon after the confusion of tongues, and has always formed a broad line of demarcation between this and all the other branches of the human race. Ages have elapsed; the face of the globe has been changed; new tribes have appeared; and new languages have been formed: yet amidst all these changes, the Chinese language has undergone few alterations; and since the commencement of our æra, its written idioms have mostly remained unchanged, and the style of standard works which were published at that period differs very little from the common language now used in books throughout all the provinces of the empire.

It will enable us to form more correct ideas of the nature and importance of this language, if we pause here for a moment to view the extent to which it is now used. The language at the present time is

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not only spoken throughout the whole of the dominions of an empire embracing three hundred and sixty millions of human beings, but is also extensively used in adjacent kingdoms and colonies, where it has become the standard language. In Lewchew many of the people speak and read Chinese fluently. In Corea, the Chinese classics are studied by multitudes, and exert no inconsiderable influence on the character of a nation which is proud of imitating in manners, customs and laws, the inhabitants of the celestial empire. In their state papers, their books, and in all the correspondence between persons of the higher classes, the Japanese also use the Chinese language. On the south, in Tungking and Cochinchina, it is still more extensively employed, and a knowledge of it is deemed indispensable for all persons of rank or influence in society; it seems to be indeed the only language used in some parts of the latter country. In Camboja, Siam, among the Laos, and in various islands of the Indian archipelago, there are many thousands of inhabitants, chiefly emigrants from China, who speak the same language. Including then in our survey all the people of these several countries, who employ this one language, the number may be safely estimated at four hundred millions, scattered over an extent of country which is more than equal to the whole of Europe.

It is very natural to suppose that in passing down through such a long series of ages and being used over such a wide extent of territory, the language must have undergone many changes and be found at the present time to differ widely in different places: such to a certain extent is the fact. It will be seen in another article, when we come to speak of the progress of the language and exhibit specimens of its ancient and modern forms, that it underwent various modifications in its infancy and youth. In particular the pronunciation of the language has varied greatly in different periods and places. Though the same standard works are used from one extremity of the empire to the other, yet there are a great number of dialects, more or less different, now spoken by the Chinese within their own dominions. These dialects, however, in common use among the people, are usually confined to very narrow limits and have scarcely any influence on the body of the language. These two facts-the diversity of dialects, and the permanency of the main body of the language-are easily accounted for by a reference to the history of China and the system of education which is established throughout the land in the first instance, during the early part of her history, China was often divided into small states, which being hostile to each other, free intercourse between the remote parts of the nation was prevented; in this way local phrases and sounds originated and became established; hence the diversity of dialects. In the second instance, every individual who aspires to office must become familiar with the ancient classics, and acquire some knowledge of the style and the pronunciation which prevail at court and in all the public provincial offices throughout the empire; hence the permanency of the national language. There is another fact which has had no inconsiderable influence in multiplying

the number of dialects and in increasing their dissimilarity—the language being destitute of an alphabet, there are no means, by the mere inspection of the characters on any page, of ascertaining the sounds which ought to be given to those characters. That method, introduced by foreigners, probably the Budhists, of employing two known characters in order to exhibit the sound of a third, is rarely employed by the Chinese; and every boy and almost all of those too who have made considerable progress in the knowledge of the language, learn from the lips of a teacher the sound of every new character they find.

Among the dialects of which we speak there is not the same difference as there is among the languages of Hindostan. In some instances they differ very much from the common language of the empire; but often the difference is very slight. It should be observed here that in considering the dialects of this country, we must keep in mind the differences in pronunciation as well as those which result from the choice of characters and the structure of sentences; indeed in many instances the chief peculiarities of a dialect are found to consist in the pronunciation. In the northern provinces of the empire, the pure Chinese, commonly called the mandarin dialect, prevails extensively. It is not to be understood, however, that there are no local words and phrases even in those places. On the north of China, in districts bordering on Tartary, a modification of the language occasioned by the domination of the Mantchous is apparent. And doubtless something of the same kind of influence may be exerted, along all the frontiers of the empire. In Chekeäng and Keängnan the difference between the pure Chinese, (which is there spoken by a very considerable part of the people,) and the local dialects is very striking. In Fuhkeen and the eastern part of this province the difference is still more remarkable: to an individual who was only acquainted with the standard language, the dialect of Fühkeën, as it is usually spoken, would be utterly unintelligible. In the southwestern provinces of the empire there is less deviation from the pure Chinese. The dialect that prevails in this city bears considerable resemblance to that which prevails in the public courts; and a person who has a knowledge of the one with a little attention to the subject will soon be able to un derstand much of the other. Beyond the frontiers of the empire, in Cochinchina, Corea, Japan, &c., where the Chinese language is used, the local dialects differ from the standard even more than in Fühkeën.

The simple fact that the language is used by so great a number of human beings, inhabiting so large a portion of the earth, is in itself a motive which must arrest the attention of enterprising men. Hitherto foreigners have neglected this language far too much, even for their own interests in a commercial point of view; they have generally regarded it as either too difficult to be acquired, or as not possessing sufficient value to be made an object of their thought and study. It has however been far otherwise with the Chinese; like the ancient Greeks and Romans—and some of the moderns too-they re

gard their own language as vastly superior to all others, not less for its intrinsic beauty and excellence than for the stores of knowledge and wisdom which it contains. A thorough acquaintance with it coustitutes with them the highway to honors, emoluments, and power. Hence they study it with unwearied diligence. In comparison with it the language of foreigners (of which they know almost absolutely nothing,) is a mere unintelligible jargon, unworthy of their notice. The rules of propriety and the true principles of governing and tranquilizing the world are found only in their language; in it the renovating doctrines of the sages have come down from the remote ages of antiquity; and in it they must be transmitted to future generations; and all who refuse to study and admire it, must forever be regarded as unlearned, uncivilized, cruel, and barbarous! We may smile at this national vanity; but at the same time we are constrained to admit that on account of its antiquity and extensive use, the language has a strong claim to our attention. And it is not without value when viewed merely as the repository of ancient historical facts. Moreover, when contemplated as a curious medium of communicating thought, and as opening a wide untrodden field for philosophical research, it cannot be regarded as unworthy of our notice, or as holding out no promise of reward, to those who study it and make it as familiar as their own. In attempting to give our readers an account of the Chinese language, we would not be so charmed with its peculiarities, however novel or striking they may be, as to overlook its defects; nor yet so unmindful of its real merits as to depreciate in the slightest degree its just and lawful claims.

We have already named the grand characteristic of the Chinese language, which distinguishes it from all the other tongues and dialects of the earth; we alluded to the formation of the characters, which are not framed from the materials of au alphabet, but consist of simple lines which are not the representatives of sounds. A person accustomed only to the alphabetic systems of the west can scarcely conceive of the possibility of employing in writing a separate charac ter for every idea, or imagine how ingenuity could ever devise such a system, and construct for every new object and idea a corresponding character or symbol. In its present form, the language is very far from being a system of hieroglyphics; and in vain do we undertake to compare it with the Egyptian or Mexican systems; for hitherto there have not been found in these systems such marks of resemblance as will enable us to conclude that they are formed on the same principles.

The Chinese reduce the number of lines which form their charac◄ ters to as few as seven or eight. The number of characters under which, as heads of classes, they arrange all others, is only two hundred and fourteen; and of these 214 elementary characters not a few are confessedly compounded of other primary characters. This ar rangement into classes is not strictly philosophical; but having been once adopted by the Chinese in their national dictionaries, it remains still in use. The whole number of characters in the language is very

great, amounting to several tens of thousands, and probably is not less than sixty or eighty thousand; but those in common use scarcely exceed six or eight thousand; while those which are to be found in any work of moderate size often amount to no more than two or three thousand. That part of the Chiuese penal code, which has been translated into English, was found by its translator to contain less than two thousand characters in variety. We have been assured on good authority; that in ten volumes of the famous San kwo che, the number of different characters amounts to only 3342; and that in the version of the Bible by Morrison and Milne, consisting of twentyone volumes, the number is only about 3600. If cach of the characters in Chinese expressed only one idea, and was always confined to that one, the difficulty of acquiring a thorough knowledge of them would be comparatively small; but now most of them by being placed in new positions are made to convey different shades of meaning, and sometimes an entirely new idea. Occasionally two or even three characters are synonymous, and are used for the sake of perspicuity; in other cases the characters lose their original meaning and express a meaning entirely new. If to all this we add the fact, that the characters are often differently written, it will not appear surprising if the language is affirmed to be difficult, and that years are necessary to enable one to acquire such a knowledge of it as to be able to read, write, and speak it with ease and correctness.

In the spoken language of China, consisting of only about four hundred and fifty of what have usually been considered monosyllables, there are less than two thousand sounds, and the greatest part of these can be distinguished only by tones or inflections of the voice. This topic, which requires a very full illustration in order to be distinctly understood, must also be reserved for a subsequent article; it is however obvious, and to our purpose to remark here, that this characteristic of the language increases very much the difficulty of acquiring a thorough knowledge of it, and shows it to be very defective. When there exists so small a number of words, (if we may so denominate the syllables and marks which foreigners have adopted to express the sounds of the Chinese language,) and these are distinguished by nice and very slight intonations, mistakes in understanding the language when spoken will frequently occur. The great number of homophonous characters, which, though differing wholly from each other in their meaning and form, require to be expressed by precisely the same English orthography, is a serious impediment in speaking the language. This difficulty is in part removed by joining together two words, which have the same meaning but different sounds, to express a single idea or object. Yet notwithstanding this expedient, the language still remains an imperfect colloquial medium. In acquiring a knowledge of the pronunciation, foreigners are greatly embarrassed; for without a considerable experience they find it diffi cult to catch with the ear the nice distinctions in the sounds, and on the other hand to enunciate so accurately as to be readily under stood by the native.

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