MANY eminent philologists suggest a time in the history of human speech
when language was monosyllabic, when by a few simple utterances human
beings were able to express many things, indicating by gesture or tone
which of the words having the same sound was the thing expressed.
Later on we find language developed by the connection of two or three of
these root words, agglutinated, or stuck together as one word, by which
this obtained a broader meaning. This is the first stage in
polysyllabism, and is known as the agglutinative stage. Later, human
speech passed into the inflectional stage, where these agglutinated
words having coalesced or melted into one, became so changed in time by
phonetic corruption that finally it becomes impossible to determine
which part was the original root and which the modifying element of the
earlier stage.
Of the monosyllabic stage in language, the Chinese is a distinguished
example. This language is referred to by many eminent philologists as
the most primitive in structure of any living tongue. It is a language
of monosyllabic roots, limited in number, these roots possessing neither
inflections nor parts of speech. Each word is a root and each root is a
word, which in turn may be used, according to its place in a sentence,
as a verb, a noun, an adjective, a participle, or some other grammatical
form.
In speaking, the Chinese express these homophones by varying tones and
gestures. In writing, their meaning is ingeniously explained by the use
of two characters. One of these is a phonogram, which gives the sound of
the word; the other is an ideogram or picture form, that explains which
of the words having this sound is the one indicated. These ideograms are
styled “keys,” and later on it will be observed are identical with the
determinatives of the Assyrian and Egyptian systems. As an instance of
the Chinese use of these keys, is the phonogram, _ha_. This has eight
distinct significations. Thus, it may denote a banana tree, a war
chariot, a scar, a cry, or any other of its various significations
according to the key associated with this phonogram.
Thus this language, possessing but a limited number of root words, is so
expanded by the varying combinations of phonetic signs and ideographic
characters, that its acquisition for reading or writing is a formidable
achievement.
Some of the recent dictionaries of the English language record a
vocabulary of two hundred thousand words. To write any or all of these
one needs only to learn the twenty-six signs of our alphabet. To write a
common business letter, or to read an ordinary book in Chinese, it is
necessary that the scribe or student should know familiarly from six to
seven thousand of these groups of characters by which to express the
forty or fifty thousand words in the vocabulary of the Chinese.
Again, many of these characters are so similar in form that to write
them accurately requires intense concentration, and acute powers of
memory. Notwithstanding this, China has been a center of culture and
intellectual activity from her first appearance upon the stage of
history.
From the earliest period, the social and political system of the Chinese
has been based upon educational qualifications. All political dignities,
honors and preferments, by unalterable law and usage depend upon the
educated abilities and scholarship of candidates for office.
The rank of mandarin comes by no hereditary right, nor by favor of a
sovereign, but through severe intellectual effort. If in some cases this
is obtained through corruption and bribery of some clever scholar who
sells his literary privileges to some richer competitor, this does not
alter the case; honors still go to scholarship.
It is said of these successful men, the true students, that it would be
difficult to parallel them in any country for readiness with the pen and
retentive memory. If they are not highly educated, it is due to their
false system of educational merit, which consists in an undue exercise
of the memory at the expense of the thinking powers. It is also due to
the fact that it is a stereotyped system, based upon an ancient usage
and custom, concerned with the past and ancient tradition rather than
present or future progress.
The early history of this people is specially interesting in the light
of recent discoveries. These suggest, and the suggestions are confirmed
in the ancient literature of the Chinese, that at a period about B. C.
2500, these people made their first appearance in China from some
locality south of the Caspian Sea, in western Asia. This is supposed,
from certain historical correspondences, to have been Susiana, and that
their emigration was the result of political disturbances occurring
throughout western Asia at that date. That, driven from their early
home, they wandered eastward, finally settling in the fertile districts
of Shansi and Honan, near the Yellow river. About the same time, other
families of this people settled to the south in Annim, from whence these
kindred people finally spread over all China.
When they first came into the country, they found there aboriginal
tribes of various races. In their historical annals the most important
of these primitive inhabitants are referred to as the “Kwei people.” It
is said of these that they practiced the art of writing and possessed a
literature which is referred to by the Chinese as the “Kwei Books,”
which included a treatise on music. M. de Lacouperie conjectures these
primitive people to be of the Aryan stock, of whom remnants are to be
found at the present day in Cambodia.
When the Chinese came into the land they had a culture of their own.
They were advanced in the industrial arts and they possessed a system of
writing and a literature.
They date the origin of writing with them to a mythical emperor,
Hwang-le, who invented the art, selecting for this purpose objects in
the air, and on the earth, and in the world around, substituting these
representations or symbols of things for the knotted cords then in use.
Modern Chinese writing gives but a faint suggestion of a derivation from
ancient pictographs. These, however, can be traced by referring to
archaic forms of these characters.
Again, in Chinese words formed by two characters, the one representing
the sound, and the other the key which indicates the sound, these two
characters are so imposed, the one upon the other, as in a modern
monogram, or are so closely associated, that to the uninitiated they
appear as one character.
When, however, these characters are separated, they bear often distinct
resemblance to objects, and in the archaic forms of these characters
their picture origin is distinctly apparent.
Dr. S. W. Williams, in his work “The Middle Kingdom,” Vol. I, has
illustrations, showing fine examples of archaic and modern forms of
Chinese characters that are in evidence of the pictorial origin of the
Chinese system.
The references to the mythical emperor, Hwang-le, who, according to
Chinese annals, invented their system of writing, seems to have
antedated the appearance of this people in China. In their historical
literature, his name is written Nak-hon-ti, and he is so nearly
identical in name, character and works to the Susian deity, Nak-hun-ti,
that the two are evidently the same. This correspondence suggests the
early association of the Chinese with the families of the same race who
inhabited Susiana in primitive times, which continue in the names of
other heroes common to Accadian legends and the annals of the Chinese.
Again, the accordance of the Chaldean and Chinese chronology in
astronomical and other scientific data cannot be regarded as accidental.
Among many remarkable parallelisms in the literature of both races are
the astrological chapters of the “She King,” the most ancient of the
dynastic histories of the Chinese, and an astrologic chapter in an
Accadian document. These have been translated by Professor Sayce, from
the cuneiform, who finds constant occurrence of the same expressions in
both records relating to particular forecasts, connected with certain
planets, as “Soldiers arise,” “Gold is exchanged,” and many others.
Again, the division of the Chinese empire by the Emperor Yaou into
twelve portions, governed by twelve “Pastor Princes,” in imitation of
the feudal system of ancient Susa, is another evidence of the former
association or close contact of these distinct people.
In the literature of the Chinese there is a work for which they claim
the highest antiquity. Until recently no clew had been found for its
interpretation. This was the “Yih King,” or “Book of Changes,” which has
been a sealed mystery to the ablest Chinese scholars of all ages,
including Confucius. Its interpretation has, however, been accomplished
by M. de Lacouperie who finds this work to be a collection of
syllabaries such as are common in Accadian literature. These are
interspersed with chapters on astronomical and astrological lore. Others
again, refer to the ethnology of primitive inhabitants of the country;
all of these, however, taking the form of vocabularies only possible to
interpret by recognizing their syllabic character.
The appearance of this work in ancient Chinese literature is explained
in two ways. Prof. Douglas regards this as an evidence that in by-gone
ages this language was polysyllabic. He points to the fact that certain
words indicate a former polysyllabism and from this infers that the
language as it now appears is an example of phonetic decay. Others, on
the contrary, see in the occasional but rare evidences of agglutination,
the influence of contact with other races speaking an agglutinative or
polysyllabic tongue, and of which the above example in their ancient
literature is perhaps a literary remains.
It is incredible that a race so advanced in polysyllabism as evidenced
by the “Yih King,” or “Book of Changes,” could revert to so pure a
monosyllabism as is now presented by the Chinese language. Phonetic
decay is possible to many words in a language, but so general a
reversion to primitive conditions is scarcely possible of a whole
language.
Reference has been made in the Chinese system of writing to their use of
picture forms or ideographic signs, in association with the phonograms
to explain the meaning or particular use of these signs.
This principle, so often referred to, is by no means a special invention
of the Chinese, but as we shall see, occurs in all original pictorial
systems of writing with the development of phonetism. This is, that when
phonetic values begin to attach themselves to the primitive ideographs,
these are retained and attached to the signs expressing the primitive
sound.
“As if,” says Prof. Sayce, “to assist the memory in remembering the
meaning and pronunciation of a particular word.”
In this way evidently the “keys” of the Chinese system had their origin,
as also the determinatives of the cuneiform, the hieroglyphic systems of
the Egyptians, the Maya or Mexican, and other pictorial systems.
Among the many advantages obtained from a purely syllabic, or purely
alphabetic system of writing is the easy adjustment of these signs to
various forms of speech. This is eminently true of alphabetic systems.
On the other hand the application of non-alphabetic characters to other
than the original language to which these were adapted is by no means so
simple and manageable in results.
We have seen how the Chinese, by the simple use of the phonogram and the
ideogram, were enabled by the structure of their language to retain this
form without variation through the ages.
The tendency in polysyllabic languages after reaching the phonetic
stage, was to greater complexity and an increase of explanatory signs in
systems of writing. Sometimes the transmissions of these primitive
systems from one race to another, led to simpler methods.
It, however, not infrequently happened that these transmissions led to
greater complexity. This depended somewhat upon the diversity between
the languages spoken by the authors of the primitive system of writing
and those who adopted it.
While speech and mode of writing are distinct and independent, the one
of the other, the influence of language structure in the evolution of
graphic systems is conspicuous. Thus a sentence of English speech might
be expressed by Chinese characters or Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the Tel
Armana tablets, more than one language appears in the cuneiform. We have
seen how the so called Hittite characters were found on occasion
yielding Greek words, and the use of the Roman alphabet for French,
German, Italian and other languages, are every day examples.
The fact however remains, that in the process of the development of
primitive systems of writing, before the use of an alphabet, the
influence of language structure upon the systems of writing is an
important factor in the case.
A curious phenomenon in the history of human speech is the preference
shown by certain families of language for special combinations of vowels
and consonants. The simplest combination is of a single vowel with a
preceding consonant in the formation of syllables. For instance, such
words as Ho-no-lu-lu, Mi-ka-do and others.
The Japanese form their syllables only in this way. The same is true of
Polynesian dialects and also certain families of language in Africa
south of the Equator.
Some distinguished philologists suggest this relation of consonant and
vowel as survivals of the original elements of speech; an example,
perhaps, in language, of “the line of least resistance.” It is easier to
utter _sa_ than _as_, _ta_ than _at_, and so on. However this may be, it
is a notable fact that certain families of speech form their syllables
only in this way.
Again, the Semitic languages are alone in their use of three consonants
in the formation of root words; three consonants with their
complementary vowels and no more.
Other languages form their syllables with every possible combination of
consonants and vowels, some showing a preference for the consonants,
others for the vowels, while again others combine their syllables as the
case may be, showing no decided preferences for special combinations of
vowels and consonants.
These conditions have had their influence on the development of graphic
systems. In the simplest combination of a consonant and vowel, as _sa_,
_se_, _si_, _so_, _su_, if the combining power is only one way and never
another, as _as_, _es_, _is_, _os_, _us_, the number of syllables that
can be formed in such a language are few, and the number of signs to
express these are consequently limited. But when the combining power is
both ways, the number of possible syllables increases with every
increase of these combinations of vowels and consonants, and the number
of signs correspondingly.
The transmission of the Chinese system of writing to the Japanese, which
occurred about the third century, B. C., indicates this influence of
language structure towards simplicity. The Japanese language is
polysyllabic. No syllable contains more than one vowel, with a single
preceding consonant.
In the adoption by the Japanese of the Chinese characters in the
Ka-ta-ka-na syllabary, a certain number of phonograms were selected
which would give the sound of the unions of consonants and vowels in the
Japanese language. As spoken, this includes five vowels and fifteen
consonants. As these combine only in one way there are but seventy-five
possible combinations of vowels and consonants in this language. As some
of these possible combinations never occur, the use of forty-five of
these syllabic signs are all that is necessary to form any word in the
Japanese language, with the Ka-ta-ka-na syllabary.
In the formation of this syllabary the ideographic characters of the
Chinese system were found unnecessary and were rejected. The result has
been one of the best syllabaries that has ever been constructed.
The Japanese have another syllabary, the Hi-ra-ka-na, derived from a
cursive script of the Chinese. This syllabary, however, is more
complicated, including with the syllabics a greater number of signs as
variants, and homophones, in all nearly three hundred; a marked contrast
to the simplicity of the other. It is, however, one among the many
instances we have in the evolution of letters, where the simpler way
seems so easy and evident, but yet is not recognized.
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FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK CITY
[Illustration]
TRANSLATION OF INSCRIPTION ON ANCIENT EGYPTIAN TABLET
Lines 1 and 2 read in the original from right to left! Below
lines 1 and 2 the god Osiris is represented as sitting on his
throne, and the inscription of these two lines refers to him.
Below lines 8 and 9 we find Amen-neb, the dedicator of the
tablet, kneeling, and below line 11 his wife Hûi kneels.
Transcription: (1) Usar heq zeta nuter â (2) suten ânxu (3) mer
ârât en Amen Amen-neb zedef (4) anez hirek qa amenti heq nefer
(5) neb zeta iu ena xerek (6) seka-ut sûshu (7) nefer-uk duk
hotepa (8) em ast ent neheh set hesu (9) amen hâti-a nen ger
(10) amef (11) himtef nebt per mertef Hui zed nes.
Translation: (1) [This is] Osiris, the god of eternity, the
great god, (2) The King of the living. (3) The chief of the
store-house of Amen, Amen-neb says: (4) Hail to thee, ruler
[literally: ‘bull’] of the Lower World, gracious god, (5) lord
of eternity, let me come before thee, (6) let me extol in praise
(7) thy beauty. Give me peace (8) in the abode of eternity, in
the country of praise [i. e. Hades] (9) that will hide my heart.
There is no de- (10) ceit in it [i. e. the heart]. (11) His
wife, mistress of his house, his beloved, Hui, she [also]
repeats [this prayer].
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