■ REESE LIBRARY ^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 1{eceiveJ J^Zoc<^ , i8q t 
 
 tAccessioiii No 
 
 //^ 30. C/.m- No. 7../ 2—- \ 
 
 
THE EVOLUTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHINESE LANGUAGE 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/evolutionofchineOOedkirich 
 
THE EVOLUTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHINESE LANGUAGE 
 
 AS EXEMPLIFYING THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH 
 OF HUMAN SPEECH 
 
 JOSEPH EDKINS, D.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 RELIGION IN CHINA, "CHINESE BUDDHISM, GRAMMAR OF THE 
 
 MANDARIN LANGUAGE," " CHINA'S PLACE IN PHILOLOGY," ETC. 
 
 Reprinted from the ''^Journal of the Peking Oriental Society ^^ 1887 
 
 LONDON 
 TRUBNER & CO, 57 & 59 LUDGATE HILL 
 
 1888 
 
 {All rights reserved'\ 
 
'] I ^ ^0 
 
^ OF THF ' 
 
 f' UNIVERSITY 
 
 £1califorh\^ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 China is separated by tlie ocean, by deserts, and by mountain 
 chains from all nations possessed of original literatures, and lier 
 language is more isolated than any other form of human speech 
 studied by philologists. While Chinese has been brought 
 to a high degree of excellence by a people devoted to literary 
 pursuits, it remains possessed of a primitive order of words, 
 and a monosyllabic structure. These peculiarities give it a 
 claim to be a direct descendant of the mother tongue of 
 humanity, but it is not itself that mother tongue. Nor, so 
 far as can be seen, is any other language having a wide area, 
 whether near or far away, a descendant of the Chinese. 
 Further, it may be said that there is no other language, or 
 family of language, which can be more reasonably assumed 
 to be the speech first used in the world's grey morning than 
 can the Chinese. None has proceeded on its course more 
 naturally and gradually, or suffered less by violent inversions 
 in the arrangement of roots. Hence, Chinese is regarded in 
 this essay as the equivalent of the primeval language, and is 
 treated as forming with that language, as seen through a 
 long perspective, a consolidated unity. 
 
VI 
 
 There are many reasons why the great Asiatic languages 
 which have literatures should all have sprung from one stem, 
 which may have been current in Asia ten thousand years 
 ago. The power to produce a literature, for example, is 
 hereditary, and the having that power points to a common 
 origin. But this book does not enter on the question. The 
 believer in one original language, and the believer in several, 
 may alike read it without finding any contradiction of their 
 views. Its aim is of a humbler kind. It takes advantage 
 of the simplicity in structure, and regularity in change, 
 belonging to the speech of one people, and proceeds to look 
 steadily at the problem how did that people become possessed 
 of their peculiar speech. The evolution of this one language 
 is kept before the mind exclusively in order that attention 
 may be fixed upon the physiological phenomena present in 
 the origin and growth of speech. Special prominence is 
 , given to the priority of the lips in making letters when 
 compared with the teeth, tongue and palate, involving as a 
 consequence the priority of labial roots over others. The 
 necessary activity of the hand in root-making is described as 
 being of high importance in originating pronouns, and the 
 distinction between verbs and nouns, as well as in marking 
 dimensions in space and opposition in qualities. 
 
 The hand and the vocal organs are ministers of the mind 
 in creating language, and they are able to do so by physio- 
 logical connections and agencies. Language is a physical 
 science, as shown many years ago by Professor Max Miiiler, 
 
Vll 
 
 and belongs to physiology. Words may be looked at as the 
 successive products of the vocal organs, and syntax is the 
 order of their occurrence. But so far as language is physio- 
 logical, the history of one language is the history of every 
 other. The identity of an eastern and western word or 
 phonetic law may be merely the identity of physiological 
 processes, here on Asiatic, and there on European soil. But 
 in the earliest ages the derivation of languages from unity 
 being the hypothesis which has most probability on its side, 
 the philology of separate families is fused in one general 
 philology, in which families and individual languages ceaso 
 to be distinguished. Separation soon followed, and was 
 attended by great changes, and primeval grammar was 
 revolutionized by inversions in many linguistic families ; the 
 wanderings of races had the effect of making many old words 
 obsolete, and bringing new ones to the front. War and 
 conquest, mingling strange races, profoundly modified the 
 vocabularies of each. Mountains, plains, and the sea, affected 
 some nations fundamentally, producing indelible impres- 
 sions on their languages. The habits of men in society, of 
 necessity, become reflected in their modes of speech. The 
 chasm dividing the idiom of this and that nation becomes 
 deeper and wider in proportion as the countries they occupy 
 are farther apart, and their modes of life more unlike. But 
 It may be worth considering whether, by the help of physio- 
 logical light, the path back to a common unity in roots can 
 or cannot be discovered, and whether also it is not possible 
 
VIU 
 
 to learn the causes of tlie diversity in the arrangement of 
 words which different languages exhibit when compared with 
 each other. That race which is the most energetic of all has 
 spread itself over an enormous area, and originated a host of 
 mighty historical nations which have enshrined their achieve- 
 ments in undying literatures. It is precisely among these 
 peoples that the laws of syntax vary most, and they vary 
 also according to a certain law of geographical contiguity, so 
 that if the order of syntax of one of them be known, the 
 syntax of their former conquerors or neighbours may be 
 known also. The conclusion to be drawn is, that when races 
 mingle, the syntax of the stronger or the more numerous or 
 the more cultivated wins a gradual victory. The recognition 
 of this view by Bishop Caldwell in his notice of my " China's 
 Place in Philology" * seems to show that it will soon be care- 
 fully considered by philologists, for he stands first in com- 
 parative studies in the modem languages of India. 
 
 While evolution is the law that controls the progress of 
 language and unity, the source from which it proceeds, it 
 ought not to be objected that on this showing there is no 
 divine agency in language. Language has become what it 
 is because God would have humanity, His child, cultivate the 
 gift of reason, employ in fulfilment of their best purpose his 
 vocal organs, and in doing so frame for himself a system of 
 audible symbols destined to be the vehicle of elevated moral 
 
 * Caldwell's "Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian 
 Language," second edition, pp. 55, 56. 
 
IX 
 
 and intellectual instruction, so that lie might rise for ever in 
 the scale of progressive excellence. Some in these days have 
 given up the phrase final causes, they have in this been too 
 hasty. There is, for instance, in the evolution of language a 
 remarkably convincing example of a final cause. Man's 
 vocal organs have been so constructed by the divine workman 
 in the use of evolutionary processes, that, in acquiring speech, 
 their possessor might become capable of knowing and serving 
 his Maker, of a virtuous life of research in science and 
 philosophy. Here is, indeed, a final cause worth noting for 
 the vastness of area which it embraces. History, philan- 
 thropy, thought, education, civilized usages, laws, religion, 
 divine revelation, would have been impossible, but for the 
 gift of language to mankind. So much I say here to indicate 
 the ultimate bearings of the argument of this book and meet 
 
 objections beforehand. 
 
 J. E. 
 
 Peking, 
 
 September 21, 1887. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 OFFICE OF THE MOUTH AND HAND IN ORIGINATING LANGUAGE p. 1 
 
 Gesture. — Cries. — Lips used in the first words at least 7000 years 
 ago. — The vocal organs. — Three barriers of the mouth. — Labial period. 
 — Use of the hand in word -making, and in expressing conceptions of 
 space. — Hand aided by the mouth in forming permanent signs of 
 ideas. — Formative words in grammar all traceable to the hand. — 
 Natural sounds. — Materials at the disposal of the word-maker vary 
 with each age. 
 
 II. 
 
 FIRST EFFORTS AT IMITATION OF NATURAL SOUNDS BY THE HUMAN 
 MOUTH EXEMPLIFIED IN THE CHINESE LANGUAGE . p. 9 
 
 Natural sounds moulded to suit their use as words.— Part taken by 
 the mind in this manipulation. — Mechanism of the voice. — Visibility of 
 labial letters. — Priority of lip -letters shown by facts of letter changes 
 in China. — Labial period in Chinese anterior to b.c. 2500, the age of 
 the invention of writing.— Six classes of letters already then formed. 
 
 III. 
 GROUPING OF THE LETTERS . . . . . , p. 1 6 
 
 The action of the tongue and lower lip make a fourfold division of 
 consonants. — Sonants and surds. — Melville Bell's division into con- 
 sonants, glides, vowels. — Consonant vowels {u\ y). — Aspirated letters 
 (p, t, h, «).— Inserted letters («, sh, w, y, h). — Back and front vowels. — 
 
— xu 
 
 Rounded vowels. — Primary and wide vowels. — Causes of variation in 
 letters. Change of shape in the adjoining region. — Migration from 
 without inwards, caused by economy of energy. — Muscular rest. — 
 Chang;e of place in muscular activity. — Growth in civilization demands 
 more vocal variety. 
 
 IV. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF TONES AND OF THE UPPER AND LOWER SERIES 
 OF VOWELS AND CONSONANTS . . . . p. 22 
 
 Tones and distinction of surd and sonant entirely in the larynx. — 
 Old middle dialect. — Double pitch with interval of a second.— Time 
 when this interval was adopted. — Inflections of voice. — Three tones in 
 B.C. 800. — New tone first applied to words with vowel finals. — The two 
 old tones had nasal and mute endings respectively. — The new tone 
 replaced lost mutes. — Four tones from 5th to 11th cent.— Intonations 
 took the place of sonant initials and surd finals. — Later evolution of 
 tones. — Earlier evolution of letters. — Both processes slow. — Change 
 began at the lips. — Tones in English, Greek, Latin, how far analogous. 
 
 SKETCH OF THE CHANGES THROUGH WHICH THE LETTERS OF A 
 CHINESE WORD MAY PASS p. 29 
 
 In old Chinese the syllable has commonly a consonant at both ends. 
 — The noise of collision imitated and shaped into a word. — Change of 
 m to 6, to/, to p, to^ aspirated. — Examples of change from m and h 
 to d, g, n, ng. — Noise of collision, of wind, of humming. — Change oi p 
 to t and ch. — Extent of changes in 1000 years. — Direction of change 
 from lips and teeth inward. — Exceptions. — Labial initials mark the 
 oldest words. — Etymplogies to be sought in labials. — Six proofs of 
 change from labials to dental and guttural letters. 
 
 VI. 
 
 ORIGIN OF WORDS p. 38 
 
 Mouth gestures. — Opening, rounding, closing of lips. — Interjections. 
 — Hand gestures. — All acts might be the basis of words. — Each needed 
 to be distinguished by some mark.— Foot gestures.— Each sound heard 
 
Xlll 
 
 needed some vocal mark. — No words from eye gestures. — Words to see 
 from cutting. — Differentiating element in words. — Demonstratives 
 early needed. — Sound is the nutriment of a new word.— Call of birds. 
 —Natural sound added to name of hand.— Words are made by deriva- 
 tion. — Derivation by letters shifting from lip to tongue and palate. — 
 Separate creation of roots impracticable. — All roots derivatives. — 
 Aspiration as a mode of derivation. — Place of gesture in making 
 words. — New words are the divided parts^ of old words. — Head 
 gestures. — Nodding. — Marks.— Counters used before the invention of 
 writing. 
 
 VII. 
 
 PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . p. 60 
 
 Oldest roots dates from the labial age. — Many roots originated in 
 the dental age, that of early civilization. — Guttural age followed. — 
 Not finished at the invention of writing b.c. 2500. — The tone age 
 began b.c. 1800.— The age of the modern language a.d. 1000. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 CAUSES OF VARIATION IN WORDS p. 52 
 
 Sporadic novelties. — Tendency to imitation. — Emphasis on special 
 sense — Weariness felt in repetition. — Muscles find rest in change. — 
 Attention to certain particulars in objects. — Limitation of sense. — 
 New wants of civilization. — Effect of fashion. — Fancied cacophony. — 
 Obsolete words have laws of their own. — Honorific principles. — Com- 
 pensation. — Phonetic decay resulting from law of least exertion. — One 
 letter in a word changing, affects its neighbour. 
 
 IX. 
 
 AGENCY OF THE HAND IN WORD-MAKING, ILLUSTRATED . p. 59 
 
 Roots for pointing and the hand.— The hand and the demonstrative 
 pronoun are identical. — How words for right and left, before and 
 behind, above and below, were formed. — Sending out and pushing.— 
 Efficiency of the hand in word-making increased by a staff or cutting 
 instrument. — The hand a measurer. — Rubbing. — Brushing. — The 
 evolution of the substantive verb. — The finals p, t, h, mark commands 
 and assertions. — My n, ng used for unaccentuated narrative. 
 
XIV 
 
 X. 
 
 NOUNS AND VERBS p. 07 
 
 Nouns and verbs not divided at first. — When required to be divided 
 the mind assigned special vocal marks sufficient to distinguish them. 
 — The branching out of verbs into species. — All verbs are nouns, the 
 Chinese verb especially so. — It is a noun with movement in space and 
 time. — Transitive force assigned to verbs subsequently to their occupy- 
 ing a certain position. — No inversions of position in primitive speech. 
 — Causative. — Passive.— Instrumental. — Past tense. — Case particles of 
 nouns. — Early example. 
 
 *** For evolution of substantive verb with affirmative and negative 
 varieties see pp. 65, 66. 
 
 XI. 
 
 ADJECTIVES p. 75 
 
 The use of the hand in pairing adjectives. — Adjectives are nouns 
 and verbs modified, — Words for bright derived from an aperture, and 
 the aperture from the hand that makes it. — Words for dark derived 
 from the hand covering objects.— Words for beautiful from softness. 
 — Words denoting space, distinction, all from the hand. — Adjectives 
 denoting colours taken from coloured objects. — Adjectives meaning 
 "real" formed from the substantive verb aflfirming. — All adjectives 
 are nouns. — Comparison of adjectives. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE NUMERALS p. 79 
 
 Explanation of ten. — A bundle of objects corresponding in number 
 to the fingers.— Unity is a finger or a counter.— Two is a verb to cut.— 
 Four and eight are verbs to cut also.— Five from cutting or from the 
 hands placed opjyosite.—Six is an addition. — Seven is the left forefinger 
 toucliing and pressing.— Nine is deficiency of one.— Hundred is chief.— 
 Thousand in the leader going 6e/ore.— Myriad is an adjective fuU.— 
 The ordinal is a demonstrative, this. 
 
XV 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE PRONOUNS p. 83 
 
 Demonstratives originate in the act of pointing. — Pointing would be 
 named from the noise of striking. — Difference in demonstratives comes 
 from change in initial letters. — The indefinite and interrogative pro- 
 nouns all formed from the demonstrative. — So with the personal and 
 reflexive pronouns. — The relative grow out of the interrogative. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 ADVERBS, PROPOSITIONS AND CONJUNCTIONS . . .p. 89 
 
 How is a compound of an interrogative and a noun of shape. — 
 Adverbs of time formed by names of sun and moon. — Adjectives and 
 verbs become adverbs b}^ position. — Prepositions are verbs modified.— 
 Conjunctions are verbs^ or pronouns, or the hand. 
 
 XY. 
 
 THE SENTENCE ' . , , . . . . . p. 90 
 
 No inversions at first. — The order of words is that of time. — Species 
 precede genus. — Adjectives precede substantives. — Passage from the 
 book of history. — Order in predicative sentences. — Subordinate clauses 
 precede conclusive clauses. — Transitive verb precedes its object. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 LANGUAGE IS CHIEFLY THE WORK OF THE MIND . . p. 93 
 
 The gift of the mind to man. — Reason before language. — Certain 
 mental faculties are possessed by animals. — The creation of a moral 
 vocabulary shows the superiority of man. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 7, line 3 from bottom read " adverbs of time." 
 
 „ 23 ,, 10 from bottom after "vowel" insert the words : " The 
 Chinese in tables of old sounds set down the 
 vowels as sonants and surds ; hence the difference 
 was one of pitch, and so we learn that in the 
 Tang," &c. 
 
 „ 27 „ 10, recK^ "^-i with the even tone meant." 
 
EVOLUTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHINESE LANGUAGE 
 
 ON THE OFFICE OF THE MOUTH AND HAND IN ORIGINATING 
 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 A language like the Chinese would be formed in a community 
 sufficiently large to allow of new words obtaining currency. Such 
 a community would before being possessed of language make use 
 , of gestures and a certain success would be attained in the commu- 
 nication of thought in this way. To gestures would be added cries 
 indicative of certain feelings. The mouth therefore would very 
 early acquire importance even before the full complement of the 
 vowels and consonants were in use. At first the language would 
 consist of a few cries and the gestures of the head, the lips, the 
 hands and the feet. But soon the mind acting on the vocal organs 
 became conscious of new power. It perceived that words, or vocal 
 signs of ideas could be used to express thoughts and emotions. 
 This led to the creation of letters as the materials of which words 
 are made. Beginning with the use of those formed by the lips, 
 man went forward employing others without too long delays^ till 
 from the lips to the glottis all the necessary sounds were formed. 
 
— 2 — 
 
 Those cries which were a part of the apparatus of tlie primeval 
 language of gesture, became the foundation of the language of let- 
 ters, words and sentences, and since from gesture to word there 
 would necessarily be a gradation from the less perfect to the more 
 perfect, the creation of letters could not but begin with the lips 
 which were ah*eady in full use in the gestures by which the first 
 men attempted to converse with each other. 
 
 The union of gesture with labial letters may be illustrated in 
 the following manner. God endowed man with an intellectual and 
 spiritual nature. The mind thus originated grappled at first with 
 the difficulties of gesture language in the attempt to form a medium 
 of communication. Man w^as then constantly rising in the intellec- 
 tual scale and gestures would be improved by vocal sounds which 
 would become daily more distinct and gradually assume the shape 
 of intelligible words. The opening and closing of the lips without 
 voice was insufficient. The mind supplemented these movements 
 by vocal utterance. There would be, let us say, the a in father. 
 It was difl'erentiated by the labial check or quick closing of the lips. 
 If the nose passage was open, this gave the sound m. If closed, it 
 gave b. Thus the work of creating letters began with the closing of 
 the lips which was quite a familiar feature in the gesture language 
 already existing. The union of voice with the closing and 
 opening of the lips was the commencement of audible language. It 
 was when this took place for the first time to symbolize an idea that 
 the first human word was spoken. 
 
 We naturally feel a curiosity to know through how long a 
 time language has been in existence. Roughly we may say that 
 the time when language commenced would be after the glacial 
 period when the first traces of fossil man are found. Here I may 
 be permitted to refer to the conclusion of Sir J. W. Dawson in 
 
his Points of Contact (1) between Revelation and Natural Science. 
 H2 estimates th3 end of the glacial period by the rate of erosion of 
 the Niagara River which is now seven miles from Lake Ontario. 
 The Falls of Niagara carry away threo feet of rock of the glacial 
 period each year, as known by the Geodetic Surveys of the State of 
 New York. This is th9 rate at which the Falls recede from the 
 shores of Lake Ontario and with this as a basis Sir W. Dawson 
 estimates the first appearance of man on the earth as having taken 
 place about seven thousand years ago in the temperate zone. 
 
 Chinese may be assumed to have gone through something near 
 a career of this length and less would not suffice probably for the re- 
 quirements of so complex a development as that of this language. 
 It would be of no advantage to view Chinese as a derived lan- 
 guage, for the mother tongue from which it could be descended is 
 unknown. A better course is to derive it as we best may from na- 
 ture, to place ourselves in front of the circumstances of the early 
 world and attempt to realize the position of the first men from the 
 point of view supplied by the existing Chinese language with 
 its roots and its grammar. The aim of this essay is to carry 
 out this idea in the hmited are a of this one language, 
 ignoring for the time the question of its relationship with other 
 modes of speech. 
 
 Let us imagine a gutta percha tube made to represent the air and 
 voice passage of the human mouth. There is a great bend at the 
 throat. The perpendicular part of the tube commences in the lungs. 
 The voice originates there or rather it will be enough to say 
 in the larynx through which the air arrives at the mouth. The 
 muscular contractions round the larynx expel the air in successive 
 
 (!) London 18S6. Sir J. W. Dawson is President of Ihe British Association for 
 the advancement of Science for 18S7— 8. 
 
puffs. The puffs of sound pass through the glottis on their way 
 and may be viewed as high or low, loud or weak, even or inflec- 
 ted, according to the swiftness, slowness and variability of the vi- 
 brations which produce the puffs of air. If we breathe into our 
 tube slowly weak sounds are produced. If we breathe quickly and 
 with force loud sounds are produced. Rapid vibrations make a 
 high and shrill sound. Vibrations few in number make a low and 
 gentle sound. Variability in the pulsations makes inflections in 
 sound. Here is our basis for the Chinese tones and the upper and 
 lower series of sounds. All this takes place within the larynx 
 before the vocal air has passed the triangular door called the glottis 
 and turned the corner on its way to the mouth and nose. 
 
 In the mouth there are three barriers through which the air 
 has to pass and our gutta percha tube represents them. There is 
 also a tongue which swells and contracts, advances and retreats 
 with marvellous flexibility. At the hindmost barrier, k, g and ng 
 are formed by the back of the tongue and the soft palate. The tongue 
 moves upward towards the palate and contracts the sound pas- 
 sage in various degrees. The front of the tongue is here active. 
 At the teeth the front and tip of the tongue are both employed in 
 forming letters. The process of letter making terminates at the 
 lips, where the remaining sounds are made. 
 
 But the sounds mentioned last were really the first, on ac- 
 count of the active concern of the human face in the original ges- 
 ture language which afterwards became improved into language 
 proper. Because of the use of the lips in significant gesture the 
 first sounds were necessarily labials. The other end of our tube 
 should, to be more complete, have attached to it a face and the 
 mouth should be as flexible and capable of contraction and as apt 
 in rounding the aperture as the lips of the human subject. It 
 
would then appear very natural that the first sounds used in au- 
 dible language should he only those which are produced there. The 
 making of letters once begun at the outer end of the voice tube, the 
 manufacture of vowels and consonants would proceed in an orderly 
 manner from without inwards. This is what has taken place in 
 the Chinese language. There has been a labial period, a tooth 
 period and a guttural period and these have been followed by a 
 period of tones, representing the stage in which at presnt we meet 
 the Chinese language in its still unfinished development. It has 
 grown up from its root in the highest antiquity appearing first in 
 northern and western China till, extending east and south and gi- 
 ving birth to many branches, it has like a vast tree spread its shade 
 over all the eighteen provinces of the empire, and become the 
 speech of three hundred millions of people. 
 
 In the primeval gesture language the hand would be most 
 energetically engaged, being indispensable in obtaining food and for 
 self defence as well as innumerable other duties and actions. The 
 mouth requires the tongue, palate, teeth, and lips for the purposes 
 of nutrition. Let us assume that their application as an apparatus 
 for speech was later than their use innutrition. Let us also assume 
 that the use of the nose tube for ordinary respiration was an- 
 terior to its use in forming the letters m, n and ng. The mouth 
 and nose being constantly occupied with their duties as the sus- 
 tainers of human life, would take part also in gestures for com- 
 municating thought. The hands would be kept in ceaseless activi- 
 ty as the ministers of the mind during all this period. In the con- 
 struction of simple implements, in all the daily activities of man, in 
 the attempt to communicate ideas, perpetual use would be made of 
 this member. The activity of the hand has been in the formation 
 of words of the most far-reaching character. What the mouth 
 
has done in making letters, the hand has done in making words. 
 As the teeth, tongue, palate , and lips were first occupied in the 
 processes of nutrition, and afterwards in forming vowels and conso- 
 nants for use in speech, so the hands first took part in the hundred 
 manual acts necessary for the daily life of man, and then assisted in 
 forming words and rendering them suitable to take their place in 
 the vocabulary and grammar of language. 
 
 The outer world presents to the mind the beautiful and mul- 
 titudinous objects of sense all in an orderly arrangement. The mind 
 takes note of the limiting lines of space and time according to which 
 every thing heavenly or earthly is disposed. The categories of the 
 physical universe become those of the mind. The laws of language 
 harmonize with them and are based upon them. Space and 
 time have seemed to some philosophers to be only in the mind. 
 But in reality space and time are in the universe and the mind sees 
 things as they are in space and in time, and proceeds to build up 
 the categories of logic and grammar in accordance with the observed 
 disposition of things in the cosmos. 
 
 The mind only arrived at the realization of the ideas of gram- 
 mar and logic by the help of the hand faithfully and constantly af- 
 forded during the period when language was beginning its career. 
 Soon words would b?, mads, and the hand would receive its name 
 from the sound produced by its action imitated. It was then ne- 
 cessary to arrange the objects of thought in tho memory as right 
 and left, as before and behind, as above and below. All this was 
 done by pointing with the hand in the first instance. At first the 
 hand and the act of pointing would have a name common to them 
 both. This name was applied to the categories of space as above, 
 below, or otherwise. Either the name of the hand was applied to 
 each location in succession and a new word made with a modifica- 
 
tion in sound to mark the idea, or some other word under the 
 mind's permission crept in to discharge this duty. The suhstan- 
 tive verb and the category of «is» and «is not», of «is right» and «is 
 not right» would also originate in connection with the act of poin- 
 ting with the hand. The name to be given whether affirmative or , 
 negative would as I suppose for want of another be the name of 
 the hand as it was pronounced at the time. A modifying variation 
 in sound would be added. That such a variation was made we 
 have proof in such words as ^ skeu ((receiver in the rising in- 
 tonation, but heard in the even tone in the sense «give». Af- 
 terwards B. C. 300 the even tone was changed for the departing 
 tone. So it was with ijj hau «good)) and «to love)), § mai «to 
 buy» and «to sell». The wordmaker wanted the words «to love)) 
 and «to sell)), and he formed them out of «good)) and «buy)) by ad- 
 ding an intonation existing in his environment. This took place in 
 the tone age and in a similar way words in the guttural age would 
 change one of their letters for a guttural. Thus when the language 
 was in its early stages the name of the hand might be used for 
 any act of the hand if only some convenient modification were in- 
 troduced into the sound sufficing make it into a word which would be 
 accepted by the nation. In this way the hand might be the agent 
 in a hundred instances in bestowing names upon actions. 
 
 We need not be surprised if wo shoud find that on account of 
 the great length of lime during which the language has lasted all 
 or nearly all the auxiliary words of Chinese grammar, the causa- 
 tive, the passive auxiliaries, the demonstratives, the connectives of 
 possession, the case particles, the prepositions, the adverb'j E^itc'off--*-*-'^^ 
 and place and many more are more or less nearly related to the 
 hand. This idea that the name of the hand gave names to actions 
 should not be pushed so far as to exclude sporadic roots arising 
 
— 8 — 
 
 adventitiously in certain circumstances from the imitation of natural 
 sounds and through the use of metaphor, but it seems to be a good 
 working hypothesis that in a very large number of cases the hand 
 was the source of the name and that most roots are derivatives from 
 the name of the hand. 
 
 The main reason for this hypothesis is that there is no way of 
 accounting for roots so well. The action of the hand produced 
 some sound of collision, or reverberation which made a name for 
 the hand possible. But when this had been established in use it 
 was easier to form the name of other actions by derivation from this 
 established name than to make an entirely new name. This grea- 
 ter ease of formation would give an advantage to such a derivative 
 over other possible roots formed by imitating de novo some natural 
 sound. 
 
 Whenever the hand proved insufficient as a base on which to 
 build up new words, the natural sounds attendant on so many 
 actions would supply the deficiency. 
 
 The historical instance above given of words newly formed 
 with the help of a tone, attached to some old word, is important as 
 showing, by what has taken place in the period when a new intona- 
 tion was growing into prevalence, the effect of a new environment. 
 The word maker adopts what the new environment affords. So by 
 analogy before the time of historical records there would be a period 
 when guttural letters became a fashion. Palatal letters, sibilants, 
 tooth letters, nasals each had a time of popularity, and at any par- 
 ticular epoch when new words had to be made and discriminated by 
 a sound, that particular initial or final which was then popular 
 would naturally take its place in the new word. Further the 
 popularity of certain letters must have occurred in a certain suc- 
 cession. Onlv one or two letters can be new favourites at one and 
 
— 9 — 
 
 the same time. Tones have come'into use in a fixed succession as 
 is known. So it has been with letters. There could not have been 
 at any one lime more than a certain limited strain on the language- 
 making faculties. This renders it inevitable that as there was a 
 labial age at first with p^ 6, m and the vowels a, o, i^ so the other 
 letters whether vowels or consonants must have been developed in 
 a succession which careful investigation may bring to light. Lan- 
 guage like a tree springs from a simple beginning and its stem and 
 branches take a long time to grow before flowers and fruit appear. 
 
 II, 
 
 FIRST EFFORTS AT IMITATION OF NATURAL SOUNDS BY THE HUMAN 
 MOUTH EXEMPLIFIED IN THE CHINESE LANGUAGE. 
 
 Any natural sound produced by human action or heard by the 
 human ear might form materials for the first words. But the 
 sounds heard are usually too rough and too undefined to become 
 current words such as would be symbols of clear ideas. For instance 
 the crack of a hammer or club not coming from a tube is a more 
 or less confused noise unsuitable for easy imitation by the voice. It 
 needs to be hewn, and polished like a stone fresh from the quarry, 
 before it can enter the temple of human language. This process of 
 special manipulation and preparation to which sounds are subjected 
 to fit them to become words, is, under the direction of the thinking 
 faculty in man, the work of the vocal organs. 
 
 The sound receives its meaning from the human imagination 
 and its place in the vocabulary and in grammar is assigned it by 
 the logical faculty. The special form it takes is given to it by the 
 tongue, teeth, lips, nose and other organs. The voice produces tlie 
 first rough representative of the natural sound. It is in the larynx 
 
— 10 — 
 
 above the wind pipe that the initial operations connected with the 
 sounds of language are conducted. The air comes from the lungs 
 pushed on by the muscular action of that region. The vocal cords 
 which bound the glottis at the top of the windpipe are set vibrating, 
 and the vibrations make the voice. The voice takes its particular 
 form in the mouth and nose. It there becomes speech, its elements 
 being vowels and consonants and its complete shape the word as 
 it appears in language. 
 
 The first wordmakers began with labial letters because these are 
 more open to observation by the eye than the others. When 2?, 6, 
 m are pronounced, the action of the lips is seen. Throat letters like 
 k and g would naturally come into current use after labials, because 
 the action of the back of the tongue in closing the sound passage is 
 not visible. By similar reasoning it may be expected that letters 
 formed by the front and tip of the tongue would come into use later 
 than the labials and earlier than the throat letters. Father in old 
 Chinese is ba and mother ma (1). The interest felt by parents in 
 teaching their children many things would powerfully aid in deve- 
 loping primitive language. To some extent the sounds first learned 
 by children may be taken to be an index to the sounds first used by 
 man in primitive language, the first rude forms of speech. 
 
 The priority of labial letters over other consonants is rendered 
 probable by the facts of letter change in China. As a rule the order 
 observable in the changes of letters whether initial or final is from 
 lips to throat or from lips to teeth or from teeth to throat, but not 
 from teeth and throat to the lips. Thus,*p produces /"or h, but f 
 and h do not change to p (2). There are exceptions, but this is the 
 general rule. 
 
 (U We -obtain Ihese sounds from the rhymes of (he Book of Odes when judged of 
 by the help of llie transcriplion of Sanscrit words at Loyang A. D. G7 and in Iho 
 II ud Century. 
 
 (2j For other examples see my Stndy of the Chinese Characters pp. t8i to 211. 
 
— 11 — 
 
 In the natural order of linguistic development we see in the Grst 
 tsages of language much of gesture, of which the action of the lips is 
 a part. Afterwards gesture ceases when language by attaining 
 greater variety and complexity in its sounds also becomes more 
 efficient. Men then abandon gesture in order not to spend more 
 energy than the occasion requires. This first period when lip let- 
 ters were much in use and other letters of rare occurrence and 
 when there was the incessant employment of various gestures 
 caused by the action of the hands, face and other parts of the body, 
 may be called from the preponderance of labial letters at that time 
 the labial period. 
 
 Evidence of the continuous decline of the labials in language 
 may be found in Chinese. Thus in modern dictionaries the initial 
 letters m, p^ /* occupy a space only half of that occupied by h and k 
 and n(jj and not much more than one fourth of the space occupied 
 by words commencing with t, s, n, j, ch. Since the front and 
 point of the tongue are both engaged in forming the initials ^, 5, n, 
 j, ch, we may divide the words in this case into two great groups. 
 Each of them has nearly twice as many words as the labial initials. 
 So in the use of the finals kj t, p which had existed in the language 
 till the seventh century, there were then as the Dictionary Kway^g-ytin 
 shows, twice as many words with final t as with final p, and three 
 times as many with final k as with final p. Wcrds with final 7n 
 were as 32, while n and ncj were as 84 and 80 respectively, that is 
 to say words with final ni were scarely one third as many as words 
 with n or nrj. Thus 1200 years ago the lip letters^, b, ?», had 
 lost a great part of their share in the Chinese vocabulary and since 
 that time they have lost much more. Hence it may be concluded 
 that there has been an immense migration of letters which has 
 destroyed the predominance of labials existing in the first period 
 
— 12 — 
 
 of the Chinese language and that it was by change of ^ to ^ and 
 k and of w to n andw.^ that the tongue and throat letters have ob- 
 tained their present great prevalence in the vocabulary. Roots 
 at thai early time would be chiefly labial, and when dental, lingual 
 and guttural roots appeared, it was probably more often by letter 
 change than new creation. The age of labials was also the age of 
 gesture and it is in the light of necessity that this question of the 
 priority of labial letters must be regarded. The sight of opening 
 and closing lips is in the first stage of language an aid to intelligi- 
 bility. The speaker must see in order both to understand and to 
 imitate. The labials are the easiest letters to pronounce. 
 
 The time during which there was the greatest predominance of 
 p^ 6, m in Chinese roots , was before the formation of the charac- 
 ters, assigned by tradition to about B. C. 2500. For in the 
 phonetic characters the six final consonants p, f, A;, m^ n, ng are 
 neither of them wanting. Examining the phonetic characters we 
 find that as a rule final jp, occurring in any phonetic, belongs to 
 all words written with the same phonetic. It follows then that 
 final;) was certainly in the pronunciation of the inventors of the 
 character. The same is true of the other five final consonants 
 found in Chinese words. 
 
 We are thus made to some extent aware of the wide range in 
 time over whih changes in the Chinese language extend. It is still 
 a living language spoken by more individuals than any other langua- 
 ge in the world, and it is after more than four thousand years still 
 passing through letter changes under the eyes of the student. It is 
 possible by means of the phonetic element in the structure of the 
 language to trace laws of change up to B. C. 2500 and then 
 farther back by the careful comparison of the words in their relation 
 to each other. 
 
— 13 — 
 
 / Since the Chinese language was already a medium in which 
 eighteen hundred (1) years before Mencius there were written 
 records to preserse the data of astronomy, the facts of history, and 
 the interpretations of the diviner, we may expect that the letters 
 were at that time fairly well developed. 
 
 1. There would be the nasals m, w, ng. These would 
 have the priority because the nose tube is usually open for respira- 
 tion and it remains open while these letters are pronounced. The 
 letters 6, ^, and d agree with these letters in regard to closing the 
 mouth barriers but differ in requiring the nose channel to be shut. 
 There is therefore more difficulty in pronouncing 6, g and d, and 
 this would naturally give to m, n^ and ng the first place. 
 
 2. Coming to b, d and g with p^ t, k, the voiced and unvoiced 
 checks which belong to the three mouth barriers we ask which are 
 the older. There is a reason for regarding b, d. g as the older. 
 In the modern language j), i, k, have been evolved fron them. This 
 happened when b d and g were abandoned by the mandarin dialect. 
 It is probable that it was by a like process at some ancient date that 
 the old^, t and k took the place of 6, d and g. We cannot tell 
 when this was because the rhymes of poetry do not help us here. 
 Another reason for assigning priority to 6, rf, g is that they are 
 more audible and in primitive times this advantage would be of no 
 little value. Also Manchu and Mongol have b, d^ g and not^, t, k. 
 
 3. The analogy of Manchu and Mongol would lead to the 
 supposition that the aspirated p, t^ k, were early introduced among 
 Chinee current sounds. They were found useful for marking 
 special meanings, for emphasis and for insuring great distinctness. 
 In Sanscrit they exist, but as compared with the pure p, t^ k, the 
 
 (1) Mencius /'last chapter) makes Yau to have lived about 1850 years before his 
 time i. e. B. C. 2150. Mencius died 13 C 589, 
 
— 14^ 
 
 words in which they occur are only as two or three in a hundred. 
 Apirated consonants in fact occur in high and windy Jatitudes 
 where conversation is loud and needs to be very distinct in order 
 to b3 well understood. In Chinese tliey occur as a device ralhsr 
 to multiply syllables in a monosyllabic language. Where the 
 variety attained by the polysyllable is wanting the monosyllabic 
 stem must be stretched and strained in every possible way in order 
 to find forms tosymboliz3 the ever increasing number of new terms. 
 In the oldest Chinese records words read with the unaspirated ^, t^ 
 k are to th: as pirated as three to one in the very old Yau-tien, and 
 as two to one in the sixty four names of the combinations in the 
 Yi-ching, the much revered diviner's Manual and first among 
 the classics. 
 
 4. There would probably also be in existence B. C. 25D0 5, 
 f, shj zh, the mixed consonants of Mr. Melville Bell's system 
 called so because the front and point of the tongue ere in use at the 
 same lime to form these letters. The letter s being very audible 
 and distinct would come early into currency. The reason why it 
 has so clear a sound is that the point of the tongue approaches the 
 upper gum, and the front of the tongue nearly touches the palatal 
 arch. It appears in Chinese not seldom as a modification of if. 
 So 5/i, in which the tongue has much the same configuration except 
 that the tongue's point is farther from the gum and the front of the 
 tongue only approaches the outer rim of the palatal arch, is also 
 along with the compound ch, a modification of t. Thus li^ sim 
 heart is tiw in Cochin Chinese, because that is a very old dialect of 
 the Chinese language and preserves many ancient sounds. In 
 Chinese evolution the letters s and sh both proceed from t. In B. 
 C. 2500 consequently fewer words would begin with s and sh than 
 at present. 
 
— 15 — 
 
 5. In regard to iv and y with their aspirates hiu, hy they are 
 probably htlers of an origin later than the primitive age. Y is 
 chiefly a substiluie for d, t or mj which once existed in its place. 
 W is a subsliLutc for m or ng. They need not then be 
 primitive. Y and W are in close relation to 2 and ur In the 
 letter y we have voice wilh the front of the tongue contracting 
 the passage between it and the roof of the mout'i. 1 has the same 
 configuration but the channel is less contracted and shorter. The 
 aspirate precedes the configuration of y for hy. In iv the lower lip 
 and back of the tongue contract the oral passage at the same 
 lime that the voice passes. In hw the aspirate precedes. 
 
 The letters /*, v, I, r are not likely to have had a very early 
 origin. F and v are formed by the lower hp touching the upper 
 teeth in the middle of the oral passage. To add voice is to change 
 /"to V. If the point of the tongue be turned inward and the lower 
 surface of the same organ come close to the front wall of the palate, 
 a rush of voice passing at the same moment makes /. These three 
 letters are in Chinese substitutes for j}, h and d and are not to be 
 supposed to be primitive. The Chinese r is heard when the tip of 
 the tongue is turned back and the under surface of the same organ 
 is brought to the front w^all of the palate. It is a modern substitute 
 for ni. A glide wilh voice precedes r and no vowel follows it, so 
 that it is properly written er. When a vowel follows er becomes 
 zh. The Pekinese do not as a rule curl the end of the tongue 
 when pronouncing it and the sound is then simply the ninth glide 
 in Mr. Melville Bell's arrangement. 
 
 6. The vowels «, i, o would naturally be the oldest of all 
 vowels. There is a wider opening of tlie mouth for a than for the 
 other two. The letter a then would be aided in obtaining currency 
 by its superior visibility. So o would be aided by its roundness 
 
— 16—. 
 
 and i by the narrowness of the aperture. These primitive vowels 
 were followed by ^z, w which are less visible J from without and 
 would be later. There are other Chinese vowels found in _H taii, 
 "T* ^^^^' JS ^^'<^^^5 '^ ^^^1 '^ c^^^- AH these vowels may have 
 been formed from a by tendency to variation. The modern Chinese 
 represents the ancient a. The i of old Chinese as formed by 
 the convex front of the tongue advancing to very near the palatal 
 arch is after 5, sh^ ch^ in modern Chinese exchanged for a peculiar 
 vowel 'i formed by narrowing the orifice between the tongue and 
 palate. The older o and ii have both become u. So it is with other 
 vowels. The old have changed into the new. The lesson taught 
 by studying the ancient sounds and the dialects is that the farther 
 we go back the nearer we approach to unity. As the consonants 
 are reduced to labials in the first instance, so the vowels are redu- 
 ced to a which would be the first to obtain currency because it is 
 most observable by the eye. 
 
 III. 
 
 GROUPING OF THE LETTERS. 
 
 The tongue of any one speaking is from time to time moved 
 upward to contract or shut the sound passage. The lower lip moves 
 upward also. This makes a fourfold division, that is to say we have 
 gutturals, palatals, dentals and labials. The upper lip and teeth 
 with the palate are at rest. The lower lip, and teeth with the lip, 
 front and ])ack of the tongue are always kept moving. The air 
 coming from the lungs may be a breathing or a voice. In either 
 case there is the formation of a letter in Chinese. The breathing 
 is h which may be high or low, the high breathing being caused 
 by increased quickness in vibration in the sound passage at the back 
 
— 17 — 
 
 of the tongue. With voice the letters formed may he b, d, g^ z, 
 zh, m etc. The vowels are also in two series. The upper and lower 
 «, '/, wh3n initial are all distinguished in old native dictionaries. 
 The upward movement of the tongue at its three points of de- 
 parture, the hack, front, or point, may contract, divide, or close 
 up the sound passage and may contract it more or less. To close the 
 passage at hank, teeth or lips, is to make A-, ^, p. To divide it in 
 the middle at the upper gum is to make /. To contract the sound 
 passage in a very slight degree is to produce vowels. If we make 
 the passage very small, we pronounce consonants. In a midway 
 position we have Avbat Mr. Bell calls glides. There are in all 
 thirty six vowels, twelve glides and about eighty consonants. Among 
 these the lip letters, nasals and throat letters are included with 
 those formed by thetongue. Less than half of these are in use 
 among the Chinese. 
 
 The waves of vocal air on arriving at the soft palate either pass 
 along the nose tube, or the mouth tube, or both. In the nose tube 
 there are no modifications of the sound at least in Chinese ( i). In the 
 mouth channel the modifications are those of a flexible tube liable to 
 contraction and expansion at every point of the journey to the lips. 
 The soft palate marks the division into nasals and non-nasals. 
 
 Among the vowels W and Y become consonants when they begin 
 a word. But this is not all. They are employed when preceded by 
 A", h, 5, 6'/i, j9, /, M, n. I to form compound initials. Thus we have 
 formed with w such syllables as Javan. kivei^ hivmi, hwei. shiocn^ 
 chiven, Iwan, Iwan. Among these the last /o«/i is rather an instance 
 of a true diphthong, the sound of o being distinct. Wq have with y 
 such syllables as chiuen^ Imue?i^ sie^ i:ye, iye^ mye, nye, lye. In 
 ^, 1^ ^''^^^^ "year", yien "eye" w^e have a clearly sounded i 
 
 i\] There are howevpr nasals in Ainoy. 
 
— 18 — 
 
 followed by c. But most of such syllables have y and this letter and 
 10 may be viewed as consonants just as we have 5 and sh helping to 
 make up the compound consonants /.s- and Uh. The reason that u 
 and i only among the vowels can become consonants is that they 
 contract the sound passage more than olher vowels. 
 
 The aspirate precedes w^ ?/, and s with the vowels. It fol- 
 lows k. t^ and p, wliich close the passage. We should write "^ 
 iLwei and not liul because tho w is here a consonant. So we 
 should spell _^, ^ hsyiien "dark", 'chyuen "the whole", if we 
 would be consistent and exact, because y is here a consonant. In 
 hs the process is as follows ; the breath tliat forms the aspirate ha- 
 ving escaped finds the sound tul)e contracted into the narrow shape 
 required to produce the sound s. This contraction bei^ins at the 
 middle of the roof of the mouth and continues to the rim of the pa- 
 late. A shrill sibilation passes along on the right and le;t of the 
 tongue the middle of which is raised longiludiiially so as to be 
 higher than the sides. The compound initial hs before the vowels 
 ?, u has come out of ///, Idi^ si^ sii^ sounds \vhich formerly existed, 
 and which still exist in Nanking Mandarin. It is the narrowness 
 of the tube caused by the configuration of the vowel i and conso- 
 nant y and of the letter s that causes this peculiar sound. The 
 configuration of s remains but more breath passes. The aspirated 
 A", ^ p^ are simply the union of two letters in each case. The ob- 
 ject of this is to increase the resources of a limited syllabary. Kai 
 "ought" is distinguished in this way from /chai " to open. " 
 
 The sibilants s and ah are the most suitable letters to make 
 compounds with t. These compounds originated in a simple t. 
 There was an insertion of 5 and sh at different periods to make 
 more variety in the syllabary. The monosyllabism of the language 
 forces the two consonants into the closest proximity. They coa- 
 
lesce so accurately that they become undivided to the ear. This is 
 specially true of t and sh which become ch. The closeness of the 
 union brings the upper and lower teeth together. In old Chinese 
 there was no general change of k to ch. But this phenomenon has 
 now appeared in north and west China. When k precedes i or u 
 it becomes ch. That is to say the tongue closes the voice passage 
 not at the back but in front. It does so because the vowels which 
 follow require the front of the tongue to be drawn up and there will 
 consequently be a saving of exertion by omitting the check at the 
 back. 
 
 Among all the Chinese letters, h, ic\ y, 5, and sh are the only 
 consonants that follow an initial. The insertion of / and r is com- 
 mon in other languages. Not so in Chinese. The h inserted as an 
 aspirate appears to have been needed to intensify a shade of mea- 
 ning. W and tj have been inserted from an endogenous tendency 
 to widen the pith of the word stem. Thus chiang '' a river" ;^X 
 comes from kong. Shwang "a pair" comes from shong. Fur- 
 ther the letters s and sh are both insertions and have no connection 
 with the root. The initial t which they follow is radical and so is 
 the final which they precede. The cause of these insertions was 
 that more syllables came to be needed. 
 
 Vowels may be grouped as belonging to the back or front of 
 the tongue. A, 0, u and short a (um sun] are back vowels and are 
 in old Chinese fond of /t(l) as a final. The vowels z, c ( in mcn)^ u, 
 6 are front vowels and are fond in old Chinese of^ or ^ as a final. 
 If the a in ^J shan " mountain " and ]^ shang " merchant" be 
 compared they will be found to differ. The a of shang has a larger 
 
 (I) As in Shanghai where vowels pronounced chiefly with the back of the tongue 
 prefer final k. Those which require the aid of the lips and teeth have there no 
 linal consonant. 
 
20 
 
 oral cavity and prefers ng while the less expanded a of [_[j shan 
 prefers the nasal n. If we divide the vowels into groups according 
 to their natural relationship we may obtain light on the old conso- 
 nant finals. Thus in Peking the diphthong iau M^ hiau " learn " 
 is an index to the lost final k. This diphthong does not occur in 
 words whose final was t or p. 
 
 The vowels may be divided into rounded and not rounded. 
 The rounded are a, u [in sun, run), i, a (in man). The round- 
 ing takes place all along the voice cavity, and becomes visible at 
 the lips. 
 
 Mr. Melville Bell also divides vowels into primary and wide. 
 The vowels in ^ i, '^ she, ^ fen, are primary. The vowels 
 in fi^ t^a, [Jj slum, ^ hsin, are examples of wide vowels. The 
 vowels in ^, ^ iu, to are primary while u in |^ tung is wide. 
 Wide quality is occasioned by the expansion of the pharynx and the 
 drawing back of the soft palate. In Shanghai the wide vowels be- 
 long to the short tone in most instances. 
 
 The causes of variation in letters may be noticed quite plainly 
 in some cases. Wlien it is said that back vowels such as a, a, u 
 and some others are fond of k, it means that the muscular contrac- 
 tion producing k affects the size of the oral cavity. When final p 
 changes to final /.; the tongue moves down by sympathy, widens the 
 cavity and produces some one of the back vowels. 
 
 So also a change from final p to final t would tend to produce 
 high vowels by the rising of the tongue when it forms t. 
 
 Afterwards when p, t, and /r, were all dropped, the tongue not 
 requiring to make the checks t and k, would naturally sink and there 
 would appear a predominance of a, o, and u. It would then be 
 easy for w and y to slip in just after the initial. Thus kak would 
 become chiaii, or kau. 
 
— 21 — 
 
 A variation in vowels would be produced by the change of final 
 mion and to ng. The letter n requires the tongue tip to move up. 
 This would cause the preceding vowel to narrow its cavity. The 
 letter ng replacing m would occasion an expansion of the vowel ca- 
 vity and open the way in consequence for new vowels and diph- 
 thongs having their location in the neighbourhood of the soft palate. 
 The reason why we have pen " root" for the old pu7i is that e [io 
 in natmi) is a back vowel like u ( oom good J. 
 
 The cause of the migration of letters from without inwards is 
 economy of energy or change of muscular action. The change from 
 g and k to A, as in gau or kau 'Hhick " to heu^ saves the pressure 
 of the tongue against the soft palate. The change of 6, d and g^ to 
 p^ tf k saves the puff of voice which sonant letters require. These 
 little economies are not however allowed by the presiding mind until 
 there is a guarantee tliat the intelligibility of speech will not be 
 diminished. There are compensations also in many ways. The 
 new language for instance often uses two words where one would 
 suffice. In the old language the orthoepy was distinct and the style 
 laconic. In modern speech words are often clipped and incomplete, 
 but there is more expansiveness of phrase to balance this loss. 
 
 The cause of variability is economy of energy, or rest from 
 muscular contraction in one spot, or the effort of the mind to in- 
 crease the powers of the syllabary and then make new words. 
 Advance in industry and civilization demanded new words, and this 
 is the way in which the demand was met. 
 
 Another distinct cause of change in some consonants is the 
 narrowing of the oral cavity when the vowels i. ii are pronounced. 
 The effect of this narrowing is that ts and k both become ch. The 
 raising of the front of the tongue towards the front of the palatal arch 
 to make i and ii is anticipated and sh is the result. In other words 
 
— 22 — 
 
 5^ is akin to i and ii and becomes inserted before them and after the 
 initial k or i. Tsing "quiet" and king'^' to honour" both become 
 citing. S after t becomes sh in these circumstances. 
 
 The vocal variations employed by the human will to modify mo- 
 nosyllabic words may be stated as aspirating, nasalizing, sibilization, 
 lingualization, insertion of vowels and of /and r after an initial, 
 prefix of A- before p, t, or k, insertion of 5 after ^, t, k, lengthening 
 and shortening vowels. In Chinese t changes to s and takes s after it, 
 but it is not so with p and k. Yet k changes to tsh. While Spanish and 
 Japanese change /"to h, Chinese prefers to change /*; to h. Chinese 
 never inserts r or / after an initial check. 
 
 IV 
 
 DEV3L0PMENT OF TONES AND OF THE UPPER AND LOWER SERIES OF 
 VOWELS AND CONSONANTS. 
 
 The voice is originated at the top of the wind pipe by the passage 
 of air through the glottis causing the vocal cords to vibrate. The vi- 
 bration is communicated by the air as it passes out of the glottis 
 through the mouth and nostrils as a sound differing in quality in 
 individuals. The vocal cords have great variety of length and ten- 
 sion. They are narrow bands two in number which are about one 
 third shorter in women than in men. The tones and piich in the 
 human voice are regulated by the muscular action brought to bear 
 on these cords and on the air which passes between them. 
 
 The pronunciation of Chinese is marked by a double pitch and by 
 simple or compound inflexions of tone. All features of this kind 
 constituting tone and pitch, with loudness and quality of the voice are 
 imparted to the vocal breath, while still in the larynx. Thus every 
 word in fact receives its upward or downward inflexion or its mo- 
 
— 23 — 
 
 notone effect before it comes under the shaping influence which ori- 
 ginates vowels and consonants. But on account of the brief time ta- 
 ken up by the pas^ago of the air and the action of tlie nerves and 
 muscles on the various organs employed in speech, this priority in 
 utterance of tone as compared with vowels and consonants is not 
 parceived by the ear of the listener. 
 
 We have in China the upper and lower series of letters and tones 
 in the old middle dialect, and of tones only in Fukien and Canton. 
 These are separated by an interval of a second in city dialects and 
 by a wider interval in country places where enunciation is more em- 
 phaiic. This means not a widening and contracting of the sound chan- 
 nel, for pitch and tone have nothing to do with this. It means sim- 
 ply a difference in the rapidity and slowness of the vibrations in the 
 vocal cords and in the air wljich passes through them. 
 
 This double pitch sometimes becomes triple when a parlicular 
 intonation is set very low whather as monotone or infloction. 
 
 The question when the upper and lower series commenced is his- 
 torically very much the same with the question when thedistiiiclion 
 between voiced and unvoired consonants or sonants and surds began. 
 It is necessjry to bear in mind that the difference^ between voiced and 
 unvoiced does not affect the quality of a vowel. In the Tang dynasty 
 the difference in pitch which we now find uniformly maintained from 
 Shanghai to Canton must have certainly existed, and we may assume 
 that it existed long before that time, the mandarin pronunciation in 
 Avhicli the sonants have disappeared being then entirely unknown. 
 The surds present all the appearance of having been intruders. For 
 example '^hlruj in the old Geography [Jjy'^^^ Shan-hai-ldruj 
 and some other early authorities is pronounced (jing or (jiang, The 
 word 1^ chieh, kiai, "street" is but the changed form of |^ cliU, 
 gil, "highway." The evolution here taking place is that of ^^ to k. 
 
24 
 
 The word ^ ycing, clom '-light" is the original from which M 
 c'hang^ fam^ is derived. For very many surd initials a correspond- 
 ing sonant is easily found. The sonant has been the mother form 
 from which the surd has been evolved. We see this in mandarin 
 where what were once sonants are all now surds. Hence the so- 
 nants being primitive and the surds derived we may conclude there 
 was in the primitive state of the language no difference of pitch in 
 pronouncing the initial consonants. When the surds were evolved 
 the douhle pitch would be originated at the same time in order to 
 give them more distinctness. 
 
 The tones include rising and falling inflections and monotones. 
 In the fifth century after Christ there were but four. They were 
 called from their quality even, rising, departing, entering. This 
 was several centuries before mandarin was in existence. In choosing 
 names for the four tones the makers of the first tables of sounds se- 
 lected the words even, rising, departing and entering because these 
 words exemplified the tones of which they were the names. The 
 even tone was a monotone without inflection. The rising tone was 
 a rising inflection. The departing tone would have been called the 
 "TC hia shenxj or the t^ lok sheruj in the sense ^'falling", but this 
 would not have been fitting because hia was in the rising tone and 
 lok in the entering tone. The tone called J?« shemj by the makers 
 of the early sound tables was heard as it is at present in south 
 China with the catch of which Mr. Melville Bell speaks as a de- 
 pression of the epiglottis such as any one may observe when in 
 the act of swallowing. This is precisely what the Chinese use as 
 the entering or short tone, when k, t^ p, are not pronounced as at 
 Shanghai where j9 and i as finals are no longer heard. The epiglot- 
 tis closes the glottis and this is indicated by final h in the dictiona- 
 ries of Morrison, Medhurst, and Williams. 
 
— 25 — 
 
 In tlie Odes of B. C. 800 there are three tones, but in 
 the poetry of the Han dynasty there are four. Thus we learn that 
 tone;? are of gradual introduction. Language began without them. 
 In the Chinese development of language it was the nasals, sonants, 
 and vowels that were most important. At first tones were not 
 needed, they came in when final letters b3gan to be dropped. This 
 we learn from the fact that it was only in words with vowel 
 endings that the rising tone was at first used. All the words ending 
 in m. 71, 7i(j, were then heard in the even tone and this state of 
 things continued down to the time of the poet Cli'ii-yuen, about 
 B. C, 300. If we consult Twan-vil-ts'ai's tables we find that ^ 
 s^ew ''otd age", ^ tueu "approach", were with |§] do "way, 
 doctrine", heard in the rising tone. But it gony "together", ^ 
 50?zf/ "to escort", were in the even tone. Before the Odes were 
 written, if we judge by the evidence befort us, no single word 
 ending with ng, n or m, had left the even tone. The same is true 
 down lo the time when the departing tone with vowel finals first 
 appeared. In the Han poetry departing tone words with vowel 
 finals began eurly to rhyme with each other. The Tai-yuen-ldng 
 of Yang-hiufang shews this and also the collection in six volumes of 
 Ilan and Wei poetry published in the IT^^i century by Mei-ling- 
 tsu. In the same work words now in the rising and departing lone 
 with consonant finalsareall found rhyming with words in the rising 
 and even tone respectively. Should the curious inquirer examine 
 these volumes, he will find |y^ shi, ^ lum the departing tone and 
 ^, ^^ fan, hwati, in the even tone. From this fact we learn 
 that just as in the previous age when the rising tone was forming 
 the vowel finals moved first to be followed subsequently in the 
 Han dynasty by the consonants, so it was with the departing tone. 
 First in the Han dynasty the vowel finals moved and after the age 
 
 Y'^ OF THB f^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
— ^6 — 
 
 of the Three kingdoms, A. D. 300, the consonant finals followed. 
 Thus it was that in the 5'^ century when the discovery of the 
 tones was made, the number was stated to he four. The poetry of 
 the Three kingdoms enables us to decide that the deporting tone, 
 Sir Th. Wade's -i^^Mone, was not completed till the 4''* century. 
 
 The four tones remained undisturbed from the fifth century 
 till about the 11 ^'i when the even tone on account of the change 
 from sonant to surd which then took place was divided into two 
 parts, the l^t aad 2"^! tones of Sir Th. Wade. Intonation began 
 to play the part which had hitherto been played by surd and- sonant. 
 China became weary of sonants and abandoned them for ever. 
 Aspirates and surds took their place and they were pronounced in 
 a new tone. The addi tonal muscular force which makes voice was 
 exchanged for that which produced an intonation. A little later the 
 entering tone lost its finals k, t, and p. They do not appear in the 
 Baschpa transcription made in Marco Polo's time. The cause was 
 that the muscular force required to close the mouth barriers was 
 felt to be too great an exertion. The brigade of words which 
 b?langed to this tone became scattered, some joining one of the new 
 tones and some another. This was a relief to the lone-forming 
 muscles in the walls of the larynx which objected to the extra work 
 caused by the bisection of the even toae. 
 
 The successive origination of the tones is historically proved. 
 Their growth can be measured by centuries; they have taken the 
 place of the alphabet as aids to the mind in forming words, and they 
 may be compared to new forests of timber growing over coal beds 
 whose vegetation was quite of another sort and tells of a very dif- 
 ferent climate from that which nourishes the forests of to-day. 
 
 Since it is indubitable that the tones are evolved one from 
 another in the later development of the language it is to be expected 
 
— 27 — 
 
 that the various groups of letters in the earher age before the inven- 
 tion of writing would also be evolved one out of the other. There 
 is in language a development resembling the gradual and uniform 
 change claimed for the rocks of the earth by the best geologists. 
 Lip letters slowly became tooth letters and sibilants and gutturals 
 till the alphabet was complete. 
 
 The origin of the Chinese tones is to be sought in the restric- 
 tions of the syllabary and vocabulary, and in the convenience found 
 in making use of intonations to express opposite meanings or 
 variations in sense. Tiius, ;f"^J| ki, with the meant ^'fulcrum'', ^ 
 ^'pivot", ''centre of motion", "source" even tone. When 
 the word ^ Jd "how many" was formed it took the rising tone, 
 and was written with ^ because it had a surd initial, but was dis- 
 tinguished from it by the new intonation then originating. Ancien- 
 tly the left hand appendage, the wood radical, would not be used. 
 A Chinese hinge is an upright pivot on which the post of a door 
 revolves. The same word is a table or stool small in size. It may 
 be derived from a verb of cutting and compared with the par- 
 ticle A;o in che-ko ^ ^ "this", and with the pronoun iMl fvi^ 
 chi ^'that". 
 
 The slow growth of the Chinese tone system and its tendency 
 to subdivision in localities are very marked. Slow growth is in 
 favour of a uniformitarian theory of development for the Chinese 
 language. The fact that such a peculiarity as the tone system is 
 not primeval but has grown up by gradual change is also in favour 
 of the theory that at an early stage the Chinese language was one 
 with the other Asiatic languages. 
 
 Lastly, the reason why the tone age came after the age of the 
 lip and tooth letters was because change began at the lips, advan- 
 ced inward over the tongue, and at length reached the throat, the 
 
-$8- 
 
 proper seat of tones, of the aspirate, and of the upper and lower 
 pitch of the voice. 
 
 There is an analogy between the late use of tones in Chinese 
 and their late introduction into European speech. The use of the 
 upper rising inflection for questions in European languages is a case 
 in point. This interrogative inflection has pushed out the interro- 
 gative particles to a large extent and taken their place. We can 
 ask questions in modern speech without special particles because 
 we have this inflection. Greek and Latin were much more plen- 
 tifully supplied than we are with interrogative particles. 
 
 Also in English we make nouns out of verbs by varying the 
 syllabic accent. We form convict out of convict^ concert out of 
 concert^ convert out of convert. This was not the case in Greek 
 and Latin. In those languages syllables specially appended dis- 
 charged this duty. 
 
 In the Greek language the prevalence of tones was a very 
 peculiar and deeply marked characteristic. As in Chinese tones 
 followed the alphabetic development and took the place to some 
 extent of various old forms which are found some of them in Homer. 
 When Aristophanes of Byzantium marked the Greek accents B. C. 
 200, he professed to follow Attic models. As to the age when 
 tones entered the Greek language we are in ignorance. All we 
 know is that Attic speech paid great attention to the tones. There 
 was time enough between the age of Homer and B. C. 200 for 
 considerable changes to take place in tones, but what those changes 
 were we cannot tell. 
 
 There can be no doubt that in Cicero's time the interrogative 
 force w^as marked by inflection. He says of Catiline : " Hie tamen 
 vivit. Vivit? immo vero etiam in Senatum venit.'' The first "mv7'' 
 has the inflection of the indicative which would be either even or 
 
quick falling. The secoiicl " ?;m7 " necessarily has the rising oi* 
 interrogative inflection and it must have heen uttered with great 
 vivacity to open the way for the sentence following: '-he comes 
 even into the Senate." In this sentence the chief accent is on the 
 middle syllable of Senatum and the verb venit at the end is ligblly 
 pronounced. It is by the influence of Turanian grammar that the 
 verb occurs at the end of the sentence. 
 
 The time when sonants became surds was probably early in 
 the lone period. Surd initials are common in the oldest parts of 
 the Book of History. Tsang ''to bury", t'ien "heaven " , and the 
 like are not very primitive looking. Tsa7i(j is derived from "to 
 hide". r'zV??z is that which is spread out. If they originated in 
 the dental period as is possible, the surds may be conjectured to 
 have branched off from the sonants at that time. 
 
 V. 
 
 SKETCH OF THE CHANGES THROUGH W^HICH THE LETTERS OF A 
 CHINESE WORD MAY PASS. 
 
 In the Chinese syllables in the old language vowel endings are 
 rare. It is better to regard a closed syllable as the type of a Chinese 
 word. Originally the sound might be bam^ ha or ah ; am, ma, or 
 mam. I and o taking the place of a would increase the number of 
 primeval syllables to eighteen. Probabihty is in favour of m over 
 b. In primitive gesture language the act of closing the lips after 
 the vowel a is very likely to have been in use as a signihcant action. 
 To close the lips and then pronounce the vowel would be a more 
 complex action. We may therefore assume that am and ab pre- 
 ceded ma and ba. 
 
 But passing over that period in th^ evolution of language when 
 
— 30 — 
 
 ab may have preceded ba, it will ba well to recognize that a syllable 
 closed at both ends is more suitable to tha genius of the Chinese 
 word. 
 
 The hand strikes an object. A noise of collision is heard. 
 By the tendency to imitation the mind strives to reproduce the 
 sound and operates ou the mouth through the nerves. The most 
 susceptihie part is the lips. In pronouncing bam there is an act of 
 closing the lips first. The soft palate closes the nose passage. The 
 sound b is then heard. A follows it and m at the end, involving an 
 act of opening the lips, and then closing them. Considering the 
 facility felt in using the lips, there can be but one opinion as to the 
 probability that they were used in forming letters before the other 
 vocal organs. 
 
 Let us ask what we have in this word bam for the noise of 
 collision. It commences and ends with a letter which is in both 
 cases visible to the eye by the action of the lips. The vowel a also 
 is made exceptionally visible by the opening of the lips as we 
 pronounce that letter. Two hard objects meet violently. The 
 sound is not exactly bam, but we make it so by an adroit use of 
 our lips, thus improving upon the first rough imitation. After 
 successive efforts to reproduce the sound, some one form obtains 
 currency in a small community. Let it be bam.. 
 
 We find in Chinese that b may become^ or for p aspirated, 
 or m. We very frequently find roots which agree in meaning and 
 differ only in initial as ba7i(/, dang^ (jo^ng^ and of these there are so 
 many examples that they suggest a law. The only reasonable 
 explanation is that interchange in the initial has caused this pheno- 
 menon. 
 
 As examples let the following be considered : ^ pcing, j^ 
 siang. ^ k'wang "assist, be at the side of any one, aid". The 
 
— 31 — 
 
 verb '*to lift up" is expressed by ;j^ bat^ j^ di, ^ chic, kU. 
 ''Form ofa Ibing" is expressed by fSff fan, harn^ dj^ chwang^ dong, 
 ^ hsing, hing. Frozen and bard substances are li)]^ ping "ice", 
 }^ ling "ico", p||] kang "steel". "To ^\ind rop3, or otber 
 ohjects", is ^^p'on, ban, ^M ckan, dan, J^^nliwen ''bind up", 
 ;^ chiuen, kiuen ''roll up". Tbe adverbs for "enougb, satisfied", 
 "^pau, pok "satisfied", J^ tsu, tsok '-enougb", ^ keu, kok 
 "enougb". "Knives" are Jl^ pien, pirn "stone, lancet", ^ 
 chen, tim "lancet, needle", ;^j chienjiim "sword". '-Prosperous' 
 is fcng, shcng or king. "AH" is ^ p'u, ^ tu or ^ kiai, 
 chieh. "To seek " is ^ mik ^ sok, ^ qieu, c'hieu, gok. ."A 
 jar" is p'ing, ying or kcmg. 
 
 Exampbs are so numerous tbat tbe best bypot'iesis appears to 
 be tbit tbe initial bns cbanged from labial to dental or guttural. 
 Tbis is more probable tban tbat separate roots were created. 
 Usually tbis leap from labial to dental and guttural took place before 
 the invention of the characters. But in some instances we may 
 observe in phonetic characters tbe proof of transition after tbe in- 
 vention of writing from dental to guttural initial. For example 
 a citing^ king is Hang in ^ and its old sound was probably 
 dang from wbicb Hang (1) would be evolved. Tbe characters be- 
 gan to come into use before Ibis transition of initials was completed 
 and so tbe sounds of some phonetic characters begin with ^, or 
 with kin some words and with 1 in others 
 
 In modern Chinese m as a final has been replaced by ng and 
 by n. There is no lack then of recent evidence of tbis transi- 
 tion. If there were need of ancient proof of transition of this kind, 
 
 (I) In the 1st century Yang-hiung used '^ for the sound giang, and Ihe wlia'e 
 was ca'.led giang because it was long ^ chang, from which giang would be deri- 
 ved. 
 
 1 
 
 f^ 
 
V? 
 
 y 
 
 ^ 
 
 — 3-2 — 
 
 we have it in characters like ^ which has the old value bam and 
 the new value feng. It is formed from j^ bam ''all", and in the 
 'yr . odes it rhymed with final m, and ranked as having that final. This 
 
 was ahout B. C. 800. 
 
 Thus there appears to he great ilexihility in some Chinese 
 words. Let us follow our example bam "to strike", into some of 
 its derivatives, ^^fj'ang, bem "to meet, strike together", an intrans- 
 itive verh. j^ feng, hong "to meef, ^^ pang "sound of stones 
 falling"„ an intransitive verb. So ^ is "the roar of water", or ^ 
 '*of a storm of snow in winter". In this case p'ang is the noise of 
 the wind. ^ peng "fall of a mountain", "^^ p\mg "fall of a rock". 
 Such'a word as j^ feng "wind", may be the imitation of the roaring 
 blast or of objects falhng through the violence of the wind. The 
 word is one; the natural sounds it represents are various. Such a 
 word as l[f^ ping "ice" may have been named, while the final was 
 still w?, from the noise of collision heard either when objects fall 
 on ice, or when ice is broken. "A staff" is ^^pang. The "bee" 
 is ^ feng and this name must be thought of as bam like the others, 
 and as in other cases must be assumed to be derived from the most 
 obvious natural sound. This will of course be the hum of the bee. 
 But it may also b3 viewed as the noise of collision heard when this 
 and similar insects strike against hard objects. 
 
 There are several derivatives beginning with cli and t. Ch is 
 Y changed from ^ as Ms from p. jt^ chivang "strike against an 
 
 object", ^ij c'hwang "to wound ", ;^|J "to begin". This word is 
 used of the agent in commencing any work or when the first sod is 
 dug or a new era begun. We have initiaH in :J7' ^^' ^^^^^ " ^^ 
 beat" 3E^* tang "ear pendents". Objects when hanging come into 
 collision. The resulting sound furnishes a name for the act of 
 swaying to and fro, "To obstruct the way" ie named *^ tang 
 
— 33 — 
 
 from the noise of collision. "A small gong beaten by pedlars" is 
 ^ tang, ^ t'ang is "to slip down, fall or lie down", from the 
 noise heard. 
 
 If we examine words with k or h as initials and having mean- 
 ings that shew them to be derived from a root " to beat", they 
 are not few in number. "A hanging stone" or "bronze plate 
 used as a musical instrument " is called ^ cWing^ kHng. Any 
 thing hanging across the way is hwang-ts'i iff^ ^, "Across " is 
 heng. "Across the ages" in the sense "constant", is heng 'jg. "He 
 who crosses the path of reason and acts wildly" is hwang-iang. 
 Such words may be referred to the sense ^' obstruct " as their source. 
 liping "ice" is derived from the noise of collision, so 2g chHang, 
 ^2«?i^, gjS te^ "hardy", "strong", ?|| ying, ngang "hard" 
 may originate in the same way. j^^ k'ang " resist", is the same 
 word as ^ tang " oppose" and ^/e/?,^, hang " strike against". 
 If we meet with final m, it is the same thing. With the aspirated 
 k as initial we find ;^ k'am " to strike, to stone ".^ k'am " to 
 impede", ^ k'am "to stab, kill". Just as ^ tang "oppose" is 
 also tang "to bear, support", so ^ k'am is also "support, sus- 
 tain". There can be little doubt that as tang means "to bear" 
 because the a(^ dang "staff" which strikes is used to carry articles 
 as a shoulder pole, so k'am means to bear because it is connected 
 with ;;j>n kang ^'a pole used in carrying, to carry". In both cases 
 the noise of collision originates a verb "to strike" tang, k'am, and 
 a noun, the instrument chang^ keng or king^ "that which beats". 
 It also originates tang "bear", k'am "bear". 
 
 Any stem or upright long bone may be heng or king ^^, 
 whether the bone of the leg, or the trunk of a tree, or a spoon used 
 in stirring broth. "To pass" is ^^ cliing which is another way of 
 saying /dc/?//. The oar by whicli boats are propelled is called tsiang 
 
 A'^ 
 
34 
 
 because it boats the water. In thus collecting some of the derivatives 
 of the one verb "to strike'', we have seen exemplified the number 
 and variety of possible letter changes through which the root may 
 pass. But they might be easily increased if we included for instance 
 chung "bell", lincj-tang ' *hand bell", and many more words origin- 
 ating in the sound of roUision. We might select words ending in 
 n, such as ^ /)?/?" divide", ^ pan "distribute", -^pan '4ialf ' 
 ^^p'an "cut in half", gff twan''Q,\xV\ g| " a cut off piece ",^J 
 k'an '' to cut", ^ k'an "see", ^ chien^ kien *^see, perceive", ^ 
 kwan "see, look at". All these and many more with final n may 
 come from the same root "to strike", the original final m having 
 changed to n. We might then point io^^kam^ kien "see", 
 ''mirror", as an example of the original root kam "to see", also 
 occurring in ^ lam. "to see", with the initial changed. Seeing 
 is distinguishing, and we distinguish by dividing. 
 
 The preceding case of ham "to strike", with this long variety 
 of changes embraces the whole period since the first formation of 
 the root and it is not surprising if during the thousands of years 
 which have since passed away the root should be metamorphosed in 
 a very high degree. But if we simply fix our thoughts on one 
 thousand years, what do we see within what is a comparatively 
 brief period? The changes are numerous, but they do not take 
 such extended leaps as in earlier times. Within 1000 or 1200 
 years we have the upgrowth of the Mandarin language. The 
 voiced shut consonants have been changed for the unvoiced and for 
 aspirates. Many words have changed m for w and|) for /", but 
 such changes as from p to t and to ^, do not occur. Thus we 
 learn that the farther we go back in the history of the language, the 
 more striking and revolutionary are the letter changes. Shght 
 transitions satisfy modern speakers. In ancient times it was not so. 
 
— 35 — 
 
 On the whole all researches bring us back at last to the lip letters 
 and to unity. 
 
 The direction of change has usually been froui the lips and teeth 
 inwards, but not exclusively. A few examples of change oip and 
 m to t, 5, sh, and k will help to make this principle more intelligible 
 to any who may not be satisfied of the existence of the law. 
 *'Even", ^ pHng, biny, ^ teng. ^'Bright", ^ ping, ^ 
 ining,^ hang, -^ kwang "light". "Comet" /j'ei, sui, ^ hwei. 
 *' Brush" fu. shiva, sau, ^.hwei. "Behind" ^ pei "back", 
 :|t; pet "north", fj^ so '^north", ;^ heu "behind". ''Side", 
 p'a7ig, bang, ;j^ leng "side of a table, of a cube etc", kiang 
 ''boundary". "Return" ^ fan, ^ chiven "turn", ^ hwan 
 "return". Fan is in fact the same as ^pien "to change", and 
 possibly may be the hand turned over, or a derivative from p'a7i 
 "to grind, revolve". Another instance is ^2^ei, '{^ ti, "^ hia, 
 each meaning "low". Now it appears to be sufficiently ascertained 
 that in former times the change was from without inwards, so that 
 p or m became t or n, and t or n became k, h or ng. Thus ming 
 " bright" might become ^m^/. It might also easily become ning, as 
 may be judged by the fact that at Shanghai ivei "tail" is we, al- 
 though the old sound is mi. This may be illustrated by the story of 
 the Fuchow servant who was sent to buy some yang mei, his master 
 meaning the arbutus fruit then in the market. Instead of this he 
 brought sheep's tails ijang ivei. His master excused him because 
 he himself had used a wrong tone in pronouncing wei "tail" which 
 is in the rising tone and in Fuchow is called 7nui, 
 
 The change of ni to dz may be illustrated by the word ^ 
 clzing " quiet" from ^ ning. Ning is a common classical word 
 while dzing is occasionally classical but chiefly a modern word. The 
 initial w/in^ nin "man" and other words changed to js^2 about 
 
— 36-^ 
 
 A. D. 1000. When the characters were made^ -^ the character 
 for fruit would be called da or na. It is now kwo. How do we 
 know that the old sound was da ? In reply it may be said that this 
 with twenty or more other phonetics in common use have the ini- 
 tial / or k. All such phonetics must have had when first written the 
 initial from which the letter / has been evolved. This would be 
 </, or n. 
 
 On the opposite side of this question allusion may here he made 
 to examples shewing that the direction of change is sometimes from 
 the throat outwards. For example when k becomes ch and when 
 sh or h becomes /", this is the case. Thus die "cart'' was ancient- 
 ly ku^ and chu "dwell" was anciently ku also. 
 / Guided by these facts we may conclude that labial initials and 
 finals met with in Chinese words are relics of primitive times, 
 while the other letters are of later origin and have been evolved 
 from the lahials. Gutturals have been formed by evolution from 
 labials or from tooth letters. The letters which the tongue makes 
 by approaching the palate were formerly evolved from tooth letters, 
 but more recently from gutturals. The law of evolution is from 
 without inwards and instances disagreeing with this law are excep- 
 tional. 
 
 Old words in Corean and Japanese should be compared with 
 Chinese words under the hght of the law of evolution. For example 
 Japanese 2(^r.wM/ "fountain", Corean suim "well", are doubtless the 
 Chinese ^ tsing^ old sound tsim. 
 
 There are instances of change from final w, io p. of final nio t 
 and of final ng to k. Thus san and sat both mean "to scatter". 
 The labial initial j; occurs in po "sprinkle, winnow" and in pan 
 "distribute", fen ''divide". The real root is the hand because we 
 have also fang "to let go", which is reducible to a yoo[ pam. The 
 
— 37 — 
 
 adjective loan "disorganized", is simply san "scattered", with the 
 initial changed. This example seems to show that.9rm is older than 
 sat and that the order of derivation is from n iot and not from t 
 to n. 
 
 j^The point of departure was the lips and the direction of change 
 was from the lips inward. From this it follows that etymologies are 
 to be sought in labial forms. Thus we ask what is the origin of the 
 words for '^constant". We have p'ing, stun, ch'ang and heng. 
 The answer must be that p'ing *'even" is the source of all these 
 w^orcki^No otlier etymology is likely to be right. 
 
 The proofs of change from labial initial to dental and guttural 
 initial, may be regarded as six. 1. Phonetics. The phonetic 
 Aj has the value ^zam and cho. ^ foo, bu "woman" with bam- 
 boo radical is sau "sweep, brush". ^ "black" is hak ovmak. I 
 omit for brevity twenty or more other phonetics which might be 
 adduced. 2. Since final ni changes to ng, n, p, and final |) to t and 
 k as the dialects shew, the initials m and p may also have gone 
 through the same changes at an earlier stage. 3. The great number of 
 cases that may be adduced where the meaning and final agree and 
 the initial differs requires the acceptance of a law of change in ini- 
 tial. 4. The uniformitarianism of nature is opposed to separate 
 origins for roots with dental and guttural initials when one labial 
 root is enough. 5. Physiologically there is no greater difficulty in 
 passing from /; to d than from b to v and /", and the great length 
 of time during which the Chinese language has lasted would easily 
 allow of interchange between such well defined letlers as the labials, 
 dentals and gutturals, now being considered. 6. Physiology shews 
 that the lips arc so well supplied with muscles and with blood, so 
 flexible, so capable of assuming the tight configuration which the 
 vowel V and the labials require , that as word makers they would 
 naturally precede all (he stifTer vocal organs. 
 
Q 
 
 — 38 — 
 VI. 
 
 ORIGIN OF WORDS. 
 
 Since gesture preceded the language of the voice it is necessary 
 to consider what gestures could be transferred and made permanent 
 in human language. These were chiefly three, those of the mouth, 
 he hand and the foot. 
 
 The mouth gestures would embrace as one prominent feature 
 the act of shutting the aperture by pressing the lips together. This 
 made the letters m, b^ and afterwards jj. In addition to this the 
 same gesture might serve to indicate silence, swallowing, disap- 
 pearance, concealment, burying, bringing to a close, dumbness etc. 
 Such incipient words would take m as their final, and in the first 
 instance b or m as their initial. The opening of the lips would con- 
 veniently represent the act of asking for food, the feeling of hunger 
 and some other ideas, and it will be observed that while the mere 
 opening of the lips helps to make no lip consonants, it aids the vowels 
 greatly. This gesture is necessary for the sound of a in particular, 
 and in fact for all the letters except the lip consonants. The 
 infant to receive nutriment rounds its lips, and in speaking they are 
 rounded also for the sound of o, one of the oldest vowels. In 
 ''Visible Speech" the author shews how the width of the lip aperture 
 is varied so as to pronounce what lie calls the high, middle and 
 low vowels whether primary^ or wide. The upper lip moves but 
 does not descend because the jaw is fixed. The lower lip goes 
 down to the greatest extent when the vowels in psalm, on, all, 
 man, are pronounced. It falls to a less extent for the enunciation of 
 the vowels in ?^/? , ask. high. door. home. It goes down to the 
 least extent when the vowels in eel, ill are heard. It is not the 
 lips only that become wider and narrower lo make vowels, there 
 
^so- 
 ls a corresponding expansion and contraction of the voice cliannel 
 within the lips back to the throat and this is effected by the tongue. 
 At first a few vowels would suffice and they would be attained by 
 successive attempts to imitate the vowel sounds in nature. These 
 by the three successive widenings of the lips would be a, i and o 
 only. 
 
 Interjections are the language of the feelings. They are not 
 words; yet the use of the voice in interjections would involve in each 
 of them a more or less definite configuration of the mouth. They are 
 such as fl, ha^ ya, o. ho. Feelings of joy and grief are expressed 
 by certain muscular movements attended by sounds which might 
 become words. 
 
 VThe hand is used in striking or in pointing. But pointingpsl 
 having no sound would take its vocal representation from the act of 
 striking. Let us suppose that it was ba, bam or bab. This would 
 /in the first instance represent the hand, the implement used by the 
 / hand in striking, the act of striking or pointing, and the person 
 struck or pointed at. Here we have in a rudimentary form two 
 nouns, a verb and a pronoun. Subsequently distinctions would be 
 made by help of the existing three vowels and labial consonants 
 aided by gestures and each of the nouns, and other words would 
 gradually acquire a sound peculiar to itself. When labials proved 
 ^sufficient the tooth letters would be added to the stock. 
 
 ^A4; the same time the formation of words expressive of pulling 
 and pushing, driving and leading, pointing to the right and left, 
 before and behind, above and below, throwing, scattering, embracing, 
 cutting, moulding things into shape and a hundred other actions 
 of the hands would each be on the path towards an earlier or later 
 completion. In the formation of words for all these ideas separate 
 roots would not be needed. They would be derivatives and these 
 
/ 
 
 — 40 — 
 
 derivatives would not he formed as in polysyllabic languages ^y 
 adding syllables, but by modifications in tbe monosyllabic base. Tbe 
 modern word 7nai ^'to buy and sell" whicb bas been already refer- 
 red to is a case in point. "To sell" is mai in tbe departing tone. 
 This sense originated in tbe period wben this tone was in course of 
 formation . Tbe new derivative took tbe material which was supplied 
 fiy its environment. It first occurs in tbe Cban-kwo-ts'e, a work 
 of the 3^ century before Christ. The departing tone was then 
 about to appear. A new sense to a word requires a new peculiarity 
 bX sound to mark it and this was afforded by tbe new tone. Tbe 
 meaning '-to buy" occurs also for tbe first time in the history Cban- 
 kwo-ts'e and in a contemporary author Ilan-fei-tsi. It is there- 
 fore quite clear that mni *'buy" and mai "sell" were then two words 
 newly formed from one and distinguished only by tone. We seek 
 for their root in ^ meu "trade". This is an old word which 
 means exchange, and like Mj yi and other common words having 
 this sense, can be best referred to the action of the hands in changing 
 tbe place of things for its origin, because the traffickers would in 
 negotiation necessarily use their hands a good deal in showing what 
 they meant. A root meaning hand was taken as the name. 
 
 The use of the /bo^n gesture language while more limited than 
 that of the hand would also be not small. Tbe operations of stam- 
 ping, kicking, running, walking are all attended by noise. These 
 indefinite sounds cannot be successfully imitated by the voice so 
 that they shall take the form of distinct words. But men did what 
 was possible for them to do. They took a root ba, hap, or bam, 
 and to this they added a modifying peculiarity for each special sense. 
 They took some piece of tbe material, whether labials, vowels, or 
 gestures existing in their environment and with it modified tbe word 
 they already had. What they did with men "to trade" in order to 
 
— 41 — 
 
 make it into ?;m/ and w?fl/ "huy" and '-sell" two thousand years ago, 
 they also did a long time before with words meaning "foot" or "wal- 
 king" for example. They formed them by letter changes one after 
 another into words each expressing some action of the foot. What 
 was accomplished by a change of intonation in modern times was 
 accomplished by letter changes in very ancient times. 
 
 It does not appear that the gestures however expressive made 
 with the help of the eye, chin, head, shoulders, neck, were capable 
 of being utilized in the formation of words. They were not accom- 
 panied by sounds. 
 
 A sound was needed as a base. To this it was necessary to add 
 some new peculiarity which was supplied by the lips, the teeth, 
 tongue, palate or other organs. The new peculiarity once added 
 the word was competent for a place in the vocabulary, if accepted* 
 by the people. 
 
 In imitating sounds heard in nature whether those of cutting, 
 striking and hammering or the call of birds and other animals, the 
 vowels of the voice are more near to the sound than the consonants. 
 Thus a in the crow's note, i in the hinny of horses, u in the call of 
 doves w^ould be so reproduced anywhere. But in regard to the 
 initial consonant the human imitator would take b or m, uniformly 
 in the first instance because the lips were in gesture making already 
 in active use and m and 6 were easy to produce. 
 
 The aid afforded by sounds is plainly indicated by the feeble- 
 ness of the eye as a helper in word making. Words of seeing are 
 reducible to words of cutting. Thus ^ chien "to distinguish 
 bjects, to see", is best explained as derived ultimately from ^ 
 pien "distinguish", which is originally a verb "to cut". 
 
 Words needed something to make them current and perma- 
 nent. What was it ? It was the diiferentiating element. Without 
 
— 42 — 
 
 this they would be like fading leaves falling in clouds to the ground. 
 What made them seeds which could take root and exert a living 
 power ? It was the special sound given to each w^hen they were 
 launched into life. This sound went subsequently through many 
 changes till words reached their present form. The hidden capa- 
 bilities of the voice were the reserve of power which the mind 
 possessed. Each new idea had its symbol when required and it 
 was the tendency to imitation which prompted the instinctive effort 
 so to use the voice as to utter the appropriate symbol. M and A 
 beijig the easiest letters come to be pronounced by the infant Avatch 
 ing its mother's lips. Ma becomes the name of the object pic- 
 tured on the retina; because ma is an easy sound to pronounce. 
 The suppleness of the lips caused by their adaptation to take the 
 infant's nutriment gives labials an advantage. 
 
 The mind was when in the infancy of language constantly 
 feeling so to speak for a word. If no sound presented itself 
 suitable to represent the idea which the mind desired to name, the 
 hand or foot or the implement held by the hand, would supply the 
 want. But if there were a sound it would be used for the required 
 name so far as it could be successfully imitated. The sound would 
 e combined with the name of the hand. 
 
 Words which are names of common objects of interest to the 
 observer would be first formed. Those which describe frequent 
 acts of the hand would especially be among the earliest. The 
 necessity of distinguishing between ivhat belongs to me and what 
 belongs to another icoutd force the demonstrative pronouns into 
 existence. Adjectives could not be far behind, because they ex- 
 press opposite quaUties. The hand would be actively engaged in 
 all such cases in intensifying contrasts and thus pushing forward 
 the origin of words. 
 
— 43 — 
 
 Where there is a significant gesture there is the germ of a 
 word. In any natural sound we have nutriment which may help 
 the new word to germinate. The idea is mental and stands first in 
 order. The gesture comes next, and it suggests the name of the 
 hand as a sign for the idea. Some natural sound attending the 
 action acts as a guide to the lips in uttering some cry of the nature 
 of a word. That utterance makes the word, which thus consists of 
 four parts contributed by the mind, the hand, the natural object 
 causing vibrations in the air, and the lips. The word however can 
 only enter the conventional vocabulary of a tribe by repetition, by 
 use in the hearing of others and by such modifications in the 
 uttered sound as are needed for intelligibiUty. 
 
 The crow's call is a. Men heur it as caiv or ka. In old 
 Chinese it is ^ o "black". In modern Chinese it is kwa. It 
 may be Kraehe^ or corvus or korax^ or gorch. The k prefixed indi- 
 cates that k was a favourite initial at the time when any nation 
 adopted it in the name of this bird. The names fu^ mu "father, 
 mother" were probably 6«, w^a, and belong to the labial period in 
 Chinese. The words ta ov dap "to step", tseu^ ^50 A; "to walk", 
 have received their initials in the dental period. The old form i 
 would be bap. Easy sounds formed the -feM^r^s^-^ith^ fi^st ^ 
 persons recognized by children learning to speak naturally took as 
 their names the first distinct utterances from the children's lips. 
 The cuckoo is heard in China as in Europe and is called Pookoo. 
 The Chinese name is just as good an imitation of the bird's call 
 as the English. Both p and c are added to the natural sound. 
 
 The natural sound must be added to the name of the hand or 
 other intermediate agent to make the word. In the acts of grinding, 
 shaking, falling, weeping, laughing, shouting, whispering, there is 
 in each case a sound which the wordmakcr in the primeval nges 
 
— 44 — 
 
 heard as we hear it. Love presses close, anil therefore it is ai 
 which means both things. Fear leads men to tremble, and chan, 
 king, k'ung, mean both to fear and to tremble. There can be no 
 doubt then that natural sounds are a part of words. So in Chinese 
 "to search'' is the noise made by a pole striking the bottom in lake 
 or river. "To come" is the sound of approaching feet, and 'Agoing" 
 is that of travellers departing. As the difference in the ideas is in 
 direction, the hand must have pointed and occasioned by its in- 
 tervention a difference in the roots. Should no sound be heard the 
 mind gives the name of the hand to the idea, unless some associated 
 idea suggests an appropriate name. Should the name of the 
 hand be adopted some modification in sound will give it currency. 
 Words have their source both in the imitation of natural sounds 
 and in the varied and efficient activity of the hand which aided the 
 mind greatly in the first progress of language. In the formation of 
 the demonstrative the name of the hand is made the pronoun 
 because it is also the verb '^to point". 
 
 We may without hesitation accept this view of the imitation 
 of natural sounds, notwithstanding the impossibility of reproducing 
 them fully. The mind has resources to compensate for the defi- 
 ciency in the admirable variety of vowels and consonants producible 
 by the vocal organs. The produced word is far better than any 
 facsimile of the natural sound would be because the wordmaker 
 when using his stock of sounds uses them under the control of a 
 law. The vowels and consonants form a system of sounds organi- 
 cally connected. What began with the imitation of inarticulate 
 nature ends with an admission to a place in the organic creations of 
 language. 
 
 Nor need we be afraid that if the labial vowels and consonants 
 were the whole stock of letters at the commencement of language 
 
— 45 — 
 
 that the number of words would be too limited. Words are made 
 one by one by derivation, and they are still being made after so 
 long a time has elapsed since language commenced its career. As 
 soon as a need of new letters was felt they would be added with 
 the aid of the tongue and teeth. The power of changing one letter 
 into another is a faculty of the mind which is constantly in exercise. 
 The vocal organs are so constructed as to admit of this easy transi- 
 tion. The lower lip for instance can touch the upper teeth. This 
 makes /"and v. The tongue by touching the upper teeth makes d 
 and t. The closing of the lips may be changed for the shutting of 
 the tooth barrier by the tongue. This act gives new words begin- 
 ning with d, /, and n for old ones beginning with 6, p, and m. By 
 varying the mode in which the tongue is applied to the gums and 
 palate / and the sibilants are formed. All these and the other let- 
 ters being produced by slightly shifting the lips and tongue it is 
 reasonable to expect that new words would be originated by a slight 
 shifting movement as they were required. Thus "to send out" 
 is fajig. "Let go" isp'm^, old sound bang. It is changed from 
 bam '*the hand" because the stretched out hand points in the direc- 
 tion of the sending. Fang comes to mean "place", and also 
 ''square" because the hand can point to the north, south, east and 
 west. F changes to h, and we have hiang "direction, directed 
 towards, a general name for place, village". If /"is replaced by the 
 original p we have pang "a list, written from right to left in co- 
 lumns". Fam " a mould, pattern". Ch'tvang^^a square frame of wood 
 work". K'lvang "a square basket, eye socket, door frame, window 
 frame". Siang *'box". Lung ^'cage". 
 
 Even before the tooth letters were taken, there were twenty 
 seven syllables without counting/) as distinct from b and much may 
 be done with a syllabary of twenty seven nnd unlimited gestures to 
 
y 
 
 hoot. A labial period might exist for a long time with this stork. 
 Letters slipped from the lips inward to make new letters as they 
 were required. 
 
 Most words were formed not by independent creation bat by 
 derivation. The reason of this is that less effort is required to form 
 a new word by derivation, and currency in the n^itional vocabulary 
 is more readily obtained for words originated in this way. 
 When the new word is introduced the organs of the voice are 
 already accustomed to produce certain sounds and this they do 
 instinctively. Take as an example feng "to offer with the hands". 
 Old sound bang. Two objects placed side by side are pictured by 
 the hands so placed as in making a salutation. The root is 6«m 
 "hand", and the natural sound imitated is the noise of coHision. 
 The pronunciation slips inward, and cKeng ^ is heard. The 
 meaning becomes "offer gifts to a superior", the sound slips to the 
 back of the tongue, and ^ kung is "to offer tribute". There is 
 but one root to these words. It is useless to search anywhere but 
 in the labial word for the true root. The claims to the honour of 
 originating this group of words seem to lie between feng "join the 
 hands in offering", p'eng "meet in collision with noise" and jp'awf/ 
 '*side". But in fact the hand ^'ham'' and the noise of colUsion 
 combine to form the root, the word feng is still a derivative, 
 and hand '-bam'' is the root. 
 
 Our philology is much simplified by reducing almost all roots 
 to the class of derivatives, and this is required by the law of least 
 exertion. The multitude of speakers who learned to make the tran- 
 sition fron feng to c'heng and to kung found the task easy because 
 it was only the initial that needed change. 
 
 Among the modifications which are used to mark new words 
 aspiration is important. It existed before the invention of the 
 
OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 — 4/ — 
 
 characters,. for many words in the oldest records have it. It was 
 much used in new derivatives. For instance a ycvh jmn ''to divide" 
 is in existence. Another word with peculiarities of meaning as 
 for example "cut in two with a knife" is required. The way chosen 
 to effect this modification in sense is to aspirate the initial and re- 
 tain the root. The result is p'an with an aspirate attached to the 
 labial cheeky. Economy of energy marks this mode of making new 
 words. 
 
 Independent creation of roots in language being unnecessary 
 is extremely unlikely. Derivation from a few labial roots requiring 
 but little exertion to pronounce them is sufficient to account for the 
 growth of the Chinese vocabulary. 
 
 Gesture alone could never have been expanded into language. 
 But language was possible by effecting through the voice a transi- 
 tion from the communication of thought by gesture to speech as we 
 know it. rMelnK&ad gestures -first and then learned to makejvords 
 by imitating sounds. Gesture was therefore the precursor of lan- 
 guage, and language took its place because it was capable of beiiig 
 brought to greater perfection as a mode of coaimunicating thought 
 than gesture ever could be. Gesture and language existed together 
 in the early stages of language and gesture when it became unne- 
 cessary was abandoned through the operation of the law of least 
 exertion. 
 
 A root sometimes joins another to make a new noun. An 
 edible fungus used in Chinese cookery is called mu er "wood ear" 
 because it resembles an ear and grows on certain trees. This is 
 an example of late formation and of those compounds of two words, 
 which very commonly occur in the modern language. It consists 
 of species and genus, or of subject and attribute. If ear be taken 
 as a class, wood marks the species. Or ear may be viewed as a 
 
 f 
 
— 48 — 
 
 part of the tree when the mind chooses tree as a starting point. 
 
 New words are the divided parts of old words. From dap 
 "to step'' come ^ iseu '^to walk", J^ tsok "foot" and ^ or J^ 
 fi "hoof. All are named from the act of stepping which was 
 dap as will be shown farther on. A hoof is a foot of a special shape 
 and a certain modified pronunciation was set aside to describe 
 it. Such a variation was the result of a law according to which a 
 difference in sound accompanies a difference in sense. 
 
 If we look into the process here presented to us a little closely, 
 we shall find that ^sew the verb "walk" and tsUj tsok the noun 
 "foot", were not allowed to remain long undivided. The mind 
 decided to drop the final consonant when the idea was that of a 
 verb, and for the lime to retain it to mark the noun. Two words 
 were tiius formed out of one. The use of the word fljg "thigh" 
 for the whole leg suggests that this word also is a derivative from 
 J^ tsu. We have too j||t ch'l "sole" and ^ chiau, kiak "foot". 
 The final k in two of these w^ords points to identity between them. 
 Can we not also find a labial initial and final ? It is not far to seek. 
 The adjective "low" is ^pei^ ^^ ti or "^ hia and these may be 
 considered as reducible to one word by making allowance for letter 
 changes. Pei and ti have final k in their phonetics Q hak^ and 
 ^ dik. The foot would be used in the days of gesture language 
 to indicate what is low. We have J[j^ /i "bottom", ^ ^/"pe- 
 duncle, stem, calyx, bracts ". The word means all these things 
 because the essential idea is the lower part of a flower, or branch. 
 Another derivative is ^^ ti, da, dap, "earth, the ground". Stamp- 
 ing with the foot would very naturally originate tbis word. Its 
 phonetic -j^ tje has final p. Placing these facts together we 
 conclude that the original sound was bap and that all these \vords 
 are derivatives exhibiting varying stages of letter change. The 
 
— 49 — 
 
 foot, here called bap from the noise of stamping, is wordmaker in 
 this case in place of the hand Avhich usually holds that honourable 
 office. 
 
 The connection of gesture with language may be illustrated by 
 the old practice of knocking the forehead against the ground. This 
 is called ^ tun n& sheu. The oriental custom of prostration is 
 thus expressed in old Chinese. Tun is "to strike against''. In 
 modern letter writing ^«^?z sheu is the equivalent of •' yours respect- 
 fully". It is also used for nodding through drowsiness which 
 is called ta tun. But nodding means assent also and the initial is 
 changed to ex-press this new idea as in -^ ylln, Vp chun. The 
 idea of fidelity in ^g si7i, -'trustworthy", ''to trust", may be 
 thus derived, and j|§ yin -'real" fur prostration was once the 
 symbol of fidelity. The ease with which the prostration act can be 
 imitated in its details, would materially assist in originating these 
 and other derivatives. Many thousand years ago men would 
 eagerly mimic the drowsy man's nodding and compare it with 
 prostration to excite laughter in o'hers. Thus new words would 
 originate. 
 
 Marks were made for some words even before the invention 
 of writing. The numerals were marked by counters which were 
 suggested by the fingers, for the fingers are counters and are the 
 basis of decimal arithmetic. -^ ch'l "to know", p^ sh'i, shik "to 
 know", 1^ chik "make a mark", |g ki •• mark, remember", ^ 
 hwa, gak "mark, picture", ^ sik "know", ^ clil "sagacity", 
 may be derivatives from a finger making a mark as a sign of 
 knowledge. The name of the hand seems to be the root. The 
 sound is tik. The mark is a dot or a down stroke. Tik has 
 become kj\ ch'l and ^ sICl. Confucius said W fflJ ^ >2 
 mak ni tik ti "Isecrellv make a mental mark". This is what 
 
4 
 
 4 
 
 — so- 
 men did when they formed the Chinese words meaning to know. 
 They used a finger as a sign, or they made a mark on the sand or 
 set down a counter. This became to them the verb to know. In 
 Amoy ch'i " know " is called ti, and this sound is a waymark by 
 which we may learn the original form of the word. 
 
 VII. 
 
 PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 The time for the first appearance of roots would be the labial age 
 when gesture prevailed extensively and in the civilized period when 
 the upgrowth of various arts originated many new words. During the 
 same period the principles and usages of grammar would grow into 
 authoritative shape. All this would happen before the invention of 
 writing. At that time, B. C. 2500, we find that the arts of weaving, 
 agriculture and astronomical observation were known , while the 
 old grammar was fully developed. Let us call B. C. 5000 to 
 4000 the labial period, B. C. 4000 to 3000 the dental period and 
 B. C. 3000 to 2000 the guttural period. When the characters 
 were invented the guttural age was not finished for we find trares 
 in the phonetic characters indicating this fact. Thus ^J cA/ew, 
 kim, sword, has a phonetic which is pronounced ts'ien, and lien 
 and which would be dim when the characters were made. The 
 age of the two oldest tones extended from B. C. 2500 to 1800. 
 The age of three tones reached from B. C. 1800 to B. C. 300. The 
 age of four tones existed from B. C. 300 to A. D. 1000. The age 
 of five tones commenced about A. D. 1000 and has continued till 
 the present time. 
 
 The age of metallurgy gave occasion to the terms iwan, lien 
 j^ ^^ to smelt, to refine. Perhaps they were derived from pien. 
 
to change, or from fen to burn. So ^jj fang, to spin, is probably 
 derived from ^ fang^ send out, and the idea of the word is length- 
 ening. J^ clii, tak, to weave, is probably derived from the cros- 
 sing of threads in weaving. It would be tap and from this tak 
 would be derived. It is the same as iM tso^ tsak, make, do, which 
 also means hand work, and that work is frequently done in lines 
 crossing each other. Such words as these indicate that the period 
 when the mechanical arts flourished was the period also when 
 dental initials came into use. We find dental initials in fi^ lun 
 wheel, lun, chwen revolve, ^^^ lu stove. The arts of metallurgy 
 and pottery would render illustrious the fourth millenium before 
 Christ and open the way for the art of writing and of astronomical 
 observation in the third millenium when music, navigation, metal- 
 lurgy, and metrology were greatly expanded. 
 
 The new grammar, that of the mandarin language and the 
 dialects, has been developed during the thousand years that have 
 passed since the Tang dynasty. It is very remarkable how little 
 trace of the mandarin grammar we can find before A. D. 1000. 
 Can it have been that the creative genius that originates gramma- 
 tical forms slumbered till then and awoke anew after an inactivity 
 of three thousand years ? Native scholars have searched industrious- 
 ly for examples of colloquial speech in the writings of the historians 
 but have found none earlier than the 6"^ century. In the Sui shu 
 
 we read M M ^ M ^ — ^^ ^ i^ <lf ^ "^ ^ 
 
 "That a niang, my mother, should not give me a good wife is cer- 
 tainly detestable". The phraseology is thoroughly modern and collo- 
 quial in its spirit. This passage might be spoken on the stage now as 
 mandarin of a somewhat old type. Chau yi, a critic of immense 
 learning, vouches for there not being a sentence of modern colloquial 
 
— 52 — 
 
 speech in any of the early histories (1) yet in criminal cases at the 
 present time the testimony of witnesses is not seldom given in its 
 original colloquial form, in memorials laid before the throne. We 
 may then conclude that the creating genius of the language only 
 began in the fifth century to formulate the modern colloquial idiom. 
 Its variety of word groups linked by agglutination are new but they 
 are made chiefly after old models, Many hundreds of new groups 
 of old w^ords have been added to the already rich treasure of lix.ed 
 phrases existing in the book language. Thus the mandarin speech 
 and the local dialects have in modern times grown to their present 
 shape. 
 
 In the Peking Gazette we meet with modern phrases such as 
 ^ J^ ^ §© pu c'heng ski Vi for impropriety in action. The 
 official style rests on the Book of History, the Shu ching. But il has 
 newly coined phrases such as this which is scarcely more than two 
 or three centuries old. 
 
 . . VIII. 
 
 / Causes of variation in words. 
 
 Cmbw words are formed by derivation from older words. The mind 
 influences the vocal organs and causes a change in pronunciation 
 so as to suit a corresponding change in the idea. Dom is the imme- 
 diate root of ^ liang^ measure. Tung is the form that dom takes 
 when a barrel is thought of. The old sound was dom. It is a barrel, 
 or a cyhnder. A bamboo cylinder would be a very convenient mea- 
 sure in early times. D changes to / and final m to ng. The result 
 is Hang measurement, to measure, Hang, grain, tribute in kind. 
 
 (1) See the work Ke.yii tsung kau published about 1780 by Chau yi. 
 
— 53 — 
 
 These variations commence witlj the sporadic novelty of an indi- 
 vidual, proceed from the individual to the locality, and from the 
 locality extend through the nation. The changes which occur can 
 only ohtain firm hold on tlie language by the united effort of many 
 persons. What we usually see is usage firmly fixed and marked by 
 no variation. Speakers limit themselves to certain sounds and never 
 think of departing from tradition. Yet a change enters, extends in 
 spite of this conservatism and gradually prevails over a wide extent 
 of country. To gain this triumph there must be the union of various 
 persons, influenced by a tendency to imitation and unanimously 
 accepting some change which occurs in the speech of an individual 
 /Avho is taken as a model. 
 
 In the Chinese language the tendencies to variation, are some 
 what like the modifications we see in the vegetable world in endo 
 gens, while the natural history of polysyllabic languages is rather 
 like that of exogens. Monosyllabism is controlled by a limitation in 
 form and area and all changes have a restricted range. The field of 
 evolution is bounded by the monosyllabic limitation. The word 
 grows inwards in monosyllabic languages and outwards in those of 
 polysyllabic structure. 
 
 (^ The desire to emphasize a special sense is the cause of an 
 immense number of variations. The verb tung, to understand has 
 been formed from dung ^pj "see clearly" by change from lower to 
 upper series, that is to say, by change from the voiced to the unvoi- 
 ced initial. Search in deep water is implied in the three dots 
 on the left. The verb ^ fsung^ to follow, lower even tone, was 
 formerly dzung. It became tsung with the departing tone with the 
 sense follower. With the upper even tone it means footsteps. The 
 word in the sense "vestiges" may originate in the root Sff fan^ bam^ 
 model, ^^^ ch'ing, to tattoo, make impressions. But the verb to 
 
— 54 — 
 
 follow would naturally be demonstrative in origin because tbe band 
 can point out tbe path followed. 
 
 [y Variations are caused by the iveariness felt in constant repeti- 
 tion. The people of a neighbourhood may long retain a particular 
 configuration of the vocal organs , but after some decades of years 
 they will certainly lire of it and a change will occur which will 
 gradually become popular Such local changes are independent of 
 special sense. They arise from a desire to modify the configuration 
 of the organs. Consequently they occur contemporaneously in all 
 the words which have that particular configuration. Thus the 
 voiced consonants have about A. D. 1000 been abandoned in fa- 
 vour of the unvoiced in the whole country north of the Yang-tsze- 
 kiang. At the same time that ^ bing became p'ing with an aspirate 
 |^[ doong also became toong with an aspirate. This was the rule 
 in the even tone or p'ing sheng. In the other tones the unvoiced 
 shut consonant without aspiration was uniformly adopted. Doong 
 to move is never t'ung with an aspiration in mandarin because it has 
 the departing tone. It is heard toong. 
 
 Qj/ This weariness springing from repetition explains the origin of 
 such extensive changes as the universal abandonment of the voiced 
 consonants in favour of the unvoiced, but when the change has been 
 well inaugurated the imitative tendency inherent in the human 
 species may be sufficient to explain its further extension. This 
 tendency to imitation leads a son when he leaves his home and 
 comes under other influences to modify his pronunciation quite 
 unconsciously. A difference in the sound of certain words as 
 pronounced by father and son may be noticed in China by the obser- 
 vant investigator, but he need not ask a son why he pronounces 
 differently from his father for he will deny the fact from a sense of 
 duty. The weariness of constant repetition shews itself to be 
 
00 
 
 powerful as a destructive agency by dropping initial or flnal letters 
 altogether. In the early stages of language the speaker was obliged 
 to pronounce these letters and he made the effort for the sake of 
 intelligibility but omitted them when he found that the muscular 
 action they required could be curtailed without detriment to clearness. 
 The speaker gains something if he can be intelligible for instance 
 with a mere aspiration instead of k. When letters are dropped 
 there may he a curtailment of muscular action or a change in the 
 muscles employed. When ma^i " ten thousand " becomes wan^ 
 muscular closing of the lips is abandoned and the contraction of the 
 sound passage by the lower lip and back of the tongue is substituted. 
 The inuscles find rest in change as well as in ceasing to per- 
 form their habitual contractions and the Chinese language having 
 gone through a very long history the number of variations in letters 
 is remarkably great. In Canton many words that should have initial 
 A, or k with the aspirate, take /*. In Shensi f is heard for sh in 
 very many words. In Fuchow final k is employed instead of final 
 t and p which are quite lost. In Amoy final t is found for final p 
 in some words. Yet in others the Amoy dialect has retained the 
 ancient final p when in the Kwang yiin dictionary of the 7^^ century 
 p has been changed to t. In Fuchow the final letters m and n are 
 exchanged uniformly for 7iy. These examples are sufficient to shew 
 that in the caprices of dialects the most useful distinctions of sound 
 may be recklessly sacrificed to save exertion. In Fuchow the 
 final letters t, p^ n, m are resigned without a sigh in order that the 
 muscles may not be at the trouble of enunciating them. The conse- 
 quence of this improvidence is that Chinese from a distance listen 
 to the dialect as an unknown tongue. It should be added that varia- 
 tions are caused by mountain ranges which shut a people in and 
 greatly diminish intercourse. In these circumstances accidental 
 
g 
 
 — 50 — 
 
 variations are easily exaggerated into ditTerences so important that 
 tlie brogue of a valley becomes almost another language. 
 
 A powerful cause of variation in language is the limitation of 
 the attention to certain particulars in objects of thought. A new 
 aspect is observed in the idea and this must be symbolized by a 
 new modification in the sound. The new thought becomes both 
 clearer and more limited in proportion to the attention given. The 
 thinking of the mind closely exercised upon natural objects increa- 
 ses human knowledge and civilization advances. Every Avord 
 descriptive of objects or acts comes to have a new and larger mea- 
 ning, and usually a modification of the. word will take place. Thus 
 liang «good» is from the same root as c'hen(j ^^ sincere, ^ ling, 
 good (honorific), ^ cA'ewf/, to complete, ^ cheng^ complete, 
 round, put in order ^ tsang, good, j£ cheng, correct, ^ tang 
 correct, befitting. One root originating these moral words may be 
 tang that which is in front and has no onesidedn9ss, that which is 
 in the middle. 
 
 (^ Limitation of sense is a cause of variation as in tlie fol- 
 lowing examples. To pierce is expressed by t'am. It may be 
 pricking with a needle or breaking through with a blunt instrument, 
 or cutting through with a sword. The instrument whether of 
 iron, stone or wood draws to itself the mind's attention. A name 
 is given to the implement and it is usually the same as the verb 
 t'am which happens to be popular at the lime. Thus tsam is hair 
 pin, ^^' chim, chen is needle or lancet '0-j', t'sim^ cliien is 
 stripof bamboo ^, tsam is a chisel or to chisel ^. The last of 
 these words is used for engraving on copper or stone. The wants 
 of man as artisan induce new variations in this way from the old 
 word. The workman does not create a word from nothing. He 
 modifies an old word and forms a derivative. 
 
Let us take as an example t'sang, to hide. This is the same 
 essentially as doong cave, and doong bn-rol. The sound beard 
 through reverberation from the walls of a tubular interior is written 
 as dom. It may be an echo or a musical sound. 
 
 The tubular space prolongs it and it becomes a word when 
 imitated. To bury is Isang. Stolen property is tsang. The larger 
 viscera of the body are called tsang as being store houses for cer- 
 tain things, and as being hidden from view. A granary is t'sang 
 or lim. These special meanings attached to one old word, mark so 
 many new derivatives, all within the limits of a monosyllable. In 
 the polysyllabic languages of Europe derivatives are formed by ad- 
 ding syllables but not exclusively so. Life from live, tore from tear, 
 and sarg, song from sing, are changes within the monsyllable, and 
 are analogous to the mode of derivation in Chinese. We find tsang 
 to bury in the book of history and conclude that while it is now in 
 the departing tone it was originally in the even tone. Hence it was 
 not by tone that it was first distinguished, but by initial. It was 
 marked by the sibilant (s to distinguish it from dz. This w^as 
 before the invention of writing, for then the fs phonetics already 
 formed a distinct class by themselves. At that time tsang to bury 
 a^fd dzang to bide might very well coexist. 
 sj Civilization introduces words. Let us take a word from medi- 
 cine. The Cheu li speaks of nine viscera and nine openings to 
 the body. Let us suppose the date of the first use of tsang for the 
 viscera to be B. C. 600.. The sonant initial dz was used, "^he 
 name being given shews that great attention was tlien bestowed on 
 medicine, and indeed at the same time or later a large number of 
 new medical terms appear in the native literature. This new vo- 
 cabulary was the fruit of application of mind, bestowed at that time 
 on a special branch of knowledge. 
 
— 58 — 
 
 The effect of fashion on variation should be here noticed. 
 Many changes in pronunciation take place without change in the 
 idea. This is on account of sporadic variation which through ten- 
 dency to imitation spreads like fashions in dress, in gardening, or 
 in household economy, over a wide tract of country. If at such 
 a time a variation in idea should occur the controHing mind would 
 select the new pronunciation which was then in fashion to mark the 
 variation. Thus "^ tang is to represent. The commercial idea 
 to pledge and a pledge are derivative senses. They are marked by 
 the departing tone. 
 
 Among causes of variation in words which should be carefully 
 noted is that of fancied cacophony. There is no reason why pap 
 should not be a good word. Some dialects of old Chinese have it, 
 as the Corean dialect for example, in which, /a, law, is pap. Yet 
 in many dialects p twice in the same word is not allowed. The 
 latin m may be repeated as in 7nemoria. It is cacophonous in 
 Chinese and the last m is changed for ng. But in primitive Chinese 
 it was quite possible for m to occur twice in the same word. The 
 fear cf cacophony sprang up in later times and varies according to 
 the locality. It has originated most extensive changes. 
 
 Compensation is a law by which for instance if a final conso- 
 nant is dropped a vowel becomes a diphthong to balance the loss. 
 Obsolete words become limited to use by readers who meet them 
 in studying old books. Such words are liable to 5pma/lawsof 
 variation in sound. Some words are avoided by authors and remain 
 in local speech. Such words come to be affected by local laws of 
 variation. Thus dialects grow up. Often the reading pronuncia- 
 tion differs from the colloquial pronunciation. But local variations 
 gradually disappear and the mandarin speech is always gaining 
 in territorial extent upon the tract occupied by provincial dialects. 
 
— 59 — 
 
 The reason of the victorious progress of mandarin is found in 
 the influence of the court and the efforts made by all influential 
 persons to strip their speech of provincialism as an aid in dischar- 
 ging their official duties. The custom of the country is for no one 
 to take office in his own province and when an officer goes to the 
 seat of his dignity he takes his own neighbours and friends with 
 him as followers. This tends to diminish the influence of dialects. 
 
 The honorific principle has given occasion to the appearance of 
 numberless words. It seeks to use a large variety of special phrases 
 to honour kings and aristocmtic persons. An immense num- 
 ber of words which would have hecome obsolete are kept in per- 
 manent use by this principle which insists on a distinction in speech 
 according as the person spoken of is to be honoured or to be 
 treated as a common man or as an inferior. 
 
 The causes of variation are, i , imitation of sporadic novelties, 
 2, emphasis on special sense, 3, weariness of constant repetition, 
 4, rest sought in change, 5, limitation of the attention, 6, effect of 
 fashion, 7, fancied cacophony, 8, civilization making new words, 
 9, honorific principle, 10, compensation, 11, phonetic decay resul- 
 ting from the law of least exertion, 12, the shape of the mouth 
 changing for one letter often affects its neighbour. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Agency of the hand in word making illustrated. 
 
 The letters pronounced with the lips being in an advantageous 
 position for use in the formation of language we may suppose bam 
 or bap to be the first Chinese word for band or it may have been ba^ 
 or ma. The same would be the demonstrative. Through the 
 
great variety of dialects, and the great age of the language all sorts 
 of changes have taken place and the sound of each word is in a state 
 of uncertain flux. 
 
 The roots for pointing and the hand are 
 :^^ ch'i ilk, to point, finger jf^ sh'i^ zhi, to point 
 ^ pei, pak arm ^ pH, thumb 
 
 •^ sheu, hand ^^ tien, fim, point 
 
 Some common actions performed with the hands are expressed 
 hv t'le fullowins; roots 
 
 "^ 2^0, pat, scatter J^ nio, ma, rub, grind 
 
 ^h ^'P^ ^^1^6 ^old of ffli^^- P^^- ^^old. 
 
 ^ kit, kok, hold j[^ c'h'i^ clik, hold 
 
 ^^. Aw, kok, resist j^ la, lap, draw 
 
 ^ shep, take hold ^ tsip, take with the hands 
 
 ^ hing, hold ^ fui, push 
 
 :^ di, lift :j^ yap, press down 
 
 ^ p<7W^, /;«//?,, assist ^iJ«^i7, ;?am, bind 
 
 ^ /«wf7, j9a/«, let go ^"^ pau, pok, hold in the arms. 
 
 Whenever the hand is prominent in acting, the name of the hand 
 would naturally occur to the word maker. To this he would add a 
 rough imitation of the sound of the action as in grinding. The 
 frequency of b,p, and m in the preceding examples is remarkable. 
 But p changes readily to t, and t changes readily to 5, sh and ch. 
 So too p and t change to k and h and it is by these changes that 
 many words once having labial initials and finals have lost them. 
 
 The initial sli of ^ sheu hand is to be viewed as changed 
 from t. This t occurs in the Amoy c'hiu, hand, and in the phonetic 
 value tok of vj" fsun, inch, found in such words as ^^ tek to get 
 Ifiij* cheu, tok, elbow^ ^, sheu. guard, ^sheu, dok, old age. 
 
— 61 
 
 g>j* VaUj chastise. In all these words tok, or dok is the ultimate 
 sound at which we arrive if we go back far enough. If we go back 
 still farther we obtain ^ p'ok to strike lightly. 
 
 We must not separate the hand from the demonstrative, which 
 it helps to form. P and m appear in '^^pi ^ meu, ^ mei, ^ 
 mo. The reason that pi, that, the farther demonstrative is pi, and 
 this, the nearer demonstrative^ is ts'i ][J], is that pi was the older 
 and was pushed out by the new comer, as the young cuckoo in the 
 sparrow's nest pushes out the little sparrows soon after they arc 
 hatched, Ts'i would be formed from di the Soochow demonstrative, 
 this. When it appeared pi became that. 
 
 The history of tso left and yeu right was analogous to this. 
 Tso or tsap would be the old word for the hand and it would be 
 usually the right hand. Tsap would be formed from tap and dap, 
 for in Chinese surds are the offt^pring of sonants. When sheu 
 came into use it pushed out tso which was then used for the left 
 hand. The right hand needed a special mark and it dropped sh 
 and became ~j^ yeu. The final p of tso is detected by comparing 
 the characters in which it figures as a phonetic with words like 
 them in sense and having linal p. By continuing this process 
 the name for right hand becomes dok- or dik. The left hand 
 would in the early stages of the language be without a special word, 
 because it' was not a powerful aid in word making like the right 
 hand. The various energies of pointing, driving, pushing and the 
 rest were all the acts of the two hands taken together or of the right 
 hand only. The hand has also aided in making words to express 
 the direction of movements and the position of objects in the space 
 which surrounds the word makei*. Words of outward motion and 
 a position in front of the speaker would naturally originate in the 
 forward motion of the hand or in simply pointing forwards. To 
 
stretch out is chan or chen or ehang. Of these the primitive form 
 was tam. Then we have six derivatives from tarn, namely Eg 
 chang, j^ chan, ^^ shen to stretch out and gj dzin, ^ sin, 
 y^ tsin. The adverb and adjective "before" is thus explained. 
 Sienand tsin are two surd derivatives formed from the sonant dzin. 
 The same root with m as initial appears in^ mien, front, face. 
 
 The hand points back and helps to form j|^ t'ui, go back, :^ 
 heu, guk, behind, ^ pei, pak, back, :|(^ pei, pak, north. The 
 origin of these words is in the name of the hand which points. 
 Front would be first formed and when it took a tooth initial, the 
 old demonstrative ^ pi could be appropriated to express the sense 
 behind. This seems to be the reason of the occurrence of p in 
 hack and north. 
 
 Special relations above and below obtained words to express 
 them also with the assistance of the hand. To press down is gap. 
 To press up or support above is t'ok. 
 
 To send out is fa, pat, |^, and also fang, pang ^. P has 
 become h in |^j hiang, towards. Fang, square, a place, is the 
 same word with hiang. Its original meaning is sending out. As 
 there are four principal directions in which a messenger may be 
 sent it became convenient to use fang in the sense square. Hiang a 
 village is also the same Avord. It is the place towards which motion 
 is directed. When the hand points out the direction of motion 
 a clear picture is formed in the mind and it becomes natural to 
 use the name of the hand as a word to express forward motion 
 in the direction indicated. The soul calls for clearness of outline 
 when it proceeds to make words. It advances from the clear 
 to the obscure and from the near to the distant. Every new word 
 formed in this way is a hand subjected to a fading process and then 
 revivified in a new shape to suit some fresh phase in the thought 
 of the period and form another addition to the vocabulary. 
 
— G:\ — 
 
 The idea of pusliing upwards seems to be connected with the 
 notion of upward motion generally. The hand in representing the 
 idea of ascending motion or of an object being above another, may 
 simply point upward or it may push upward. The word :^ tok is 
 used for water bearing up solid objects on its surface. One of the 
 words for ascend is also ^ chi, tok, and we have too J& ku, chti, 
 kuk, to lift. To float ^^ fu is probably of the same family. The 
 hand pushing upward may have originated all such words, from its 
 primeval form bap. While this took place the other form of the 
 hand root, namely bam, may have originated those words ending in 
 ng which indicate upward motion. They are such as shang, teng, 
 cheng and feng, to elevate with the two hands, which last had a 
 labial initial b or v the original of the modern f. 
 
 The idea of upward motion is made more (^omplex by the 
 circumstance that the body rising from a sitting attitude may have 
 shared with the hand in the origination of the roots. We have for 
 instance. ^ k'i, c'hi, rise and jft. hing, rise. These may be repre- 
 sented in gestures by the hand, the body, the head or even the foot. 
 All we can say here appears to be that in word making in this case 
 the hand would probably have the chief share. The chin or foot 
 might be used in pointing, but these grotesque acts would prove 
 abortive in making words. The absence of serious effort would be 
 too obvious, and imitation Avould not be thought of. We still feel 
 compelled to assign the honour of the chief place in word making 
 as the mind's instrument to the hand alone. 
 
 The etficiency of the hand as the mind's chief aid in wordma- 
 king would be much increased by the use of a staff for a certain 
 class of ideas. A bow and arrows, a knife, a hatchet, a spear, a 
 measuring rod multiply to a still larger extent the hand's efficiency. 
 
 The activities of the human hand are numberless and its im- 
 
— 64 — 
 
 portance in word-making is proportioned to" those activities. The 
 hand takes hold of things for instance to save them from danger. 
 This idea is expressed by keu ^ keu a hook, or to hook. Of this 
 word another form is 5^ kieu, chieu to save. Also ^^0, tap, unite 
 by hooks as in erecting an awning, or tent, connect, with. Both 
 these roots symbuhze the hand taking hold as with a hook. So also 
 in the w^ord kieu save, tliere is an allusion to the act of the hand in 
 the radical on the right, whirh is pok, to «rap» here used with the 
 meaning hand. Another word for save, and also meaning pull up, is 
 J^ bat and it has the labial initial. T'ui i^ to push, select, is the 
 action of the hand pushing from within outw^ard or upward. It has 
 the tooth initial, and is aspirated for intensity. The name of the 
 hand and some natural sound make up this word. The hand 
 drawing anything towards itself is :j|^ wan ^| yin i^ yuen. The 
 hand by its construction, being able to take hold of things firmly 
 and draw them in any direction, the mind assigns the name of the 
 hand to any such action. We know that final n is evolved from m 
 and initial y from t, and thus we conclude the original form of this 
 verb to have been tarn from bam one of the hand roots. The wrist, 
 Avan, derives its name from its use in this action and on the other 
 hand gives its name to measures. C'hi, tak, a foot, is the length of 
 the hand and has no connection with the human foot. Metrology 
 belongs to the dental age in Chinese development. Take as another 
 example 7^ t'ok used for the width of the stretched arms and the same 
 as ^ pau, embrace. Both these words are derived from the hand. 
 For rubbing and touching we have M^ fu, pok, touch, press 
 down, soothe with the hand, mo, rub, feel, ya, gap, to press down 
 with the hand, j^ t'sa, rub, brush. This last at Shang-hai is k'a 
 and it is a good example of the change of the tooth initial to a 
 guttural in a limited locality. It appears in another form as j^ 
 
— 65 — 
 
 t'so, rub betwen the hands. When the rubbing is done by the 
 hand with the aid of file, sand paper, or brush, there is a difference 
 in the instrument. But as the act is the same the name is retained. 
 It must however be sh'ghtly altered or it could not obtain currency 
 as a name. By some easy modification, the new word serves as a 
 sign of the sense newly given. So also the words for brush, and file 
 may be credibly referred to this origin. They are ultimately derived 
 from hand or from tbe verb to point, not without aid from the 
 natural sound. That the transition can be made without difficulty 
 from the old word to a new one with variation in sound and in 
 sense, is due to the mind's effort successfully made to limit its at- 
 tention to certain particulars. 
 
 Since the labial root may be pap, pam, map or mam, we may 
 expect to find a series of derivatives from hand with m. n, and 
 ng as their final letters. This is the reason that ts'eng is also a 
 word for rubbing as in mo ts'eng. The final ny is from /??.. Ts is 
 from t. T is from^. 
 
 The evolution of the substantive verb, at least the most com- 
 mon one, should be traced through the sense straight, right, to the 
 original root, the hand. The substantive verb rests on the adjective 
 ''right" as its basis in this instance, for it is more abstract than 
 that word, and the abstract is born from the concrete. Pointing o- 
 riginates the notion of a straight line and then developes the idea of 
 right. The quality of crookedness developes its opposite, wrong. 
 The adverbs not, no, are expressed by pointing in the opposite di- 
 rection. The mind directs the arm to point in opposite direc- 
 tions and thus is seen to possess in fact the power to form 
 grammatical opposites with sounds to mark them. From the hand 
 was regularly derived the substantive verb, which when developed 
 with the help often of two or even three roots was found to 
 
— 6G — 
 
 exhibit just this opposition. In other words it is afTirmative and 
 negative. To say ''it is right" is to say *'it is". The verb '-is" 
 may be described as the verb "is right", in a more abstract stage. 
 In Chinese the demonstrative pronoun ^ shf, means right and it 
 may also be used for it is. Its opposite is ^, ^, pu, or fei, which 
 are modifications of tlie farther demonstrative ^ pi. There is 
 just as good reason for tracing negatives to a pronominal origin as 
 the substantive verb in its affirmative shape. In both cases it is 
 an affair of pointing. While the hand points in the reverse direc- 
 tion the mind assigns the negative significatidn. The root in final 
 p has originated the substantives verbs (1) and demonstratives. We 
 may suppose that in affirming the mind would be better pleased 
 with the sharper sound final p, or k to which it changed, than with 
 m. Final m is better adapted for simple description which wel- 
 comes a prolonged nasal. Final m is very suitable for taking and 
 keeping hold of a thing. We find it in bing, ping, (2) handle, 
 hold in tbe hand, ping, weapon, and hence the holder of weapons, 
 the soldier. Yet this opinion that final m suits words which express 
 continued action must not be held too stiffly, because to hold in 
 the hand is also chii or kok. But in predication it is clear that the 
 mind avoided final m, and initial m also, and decidedly preferred p, 
 t, and k as better suited by their sharp outline to realize its attitude 
 of decision. 
 
 It may be stated on a principle that can scarcely be controverted 
 that the mind in making and using two names for hand at first 
 would be led to this variety by the prominence of quick decision in 
 predicating and that of sweet and prolonged melody in description. 
 
 (1) ^ ^ Jtt wei, shi, nai. Also >^ yeu to have, there is, it exists. 
 (?) -p icj^ ping, handle i^^ bing evideneo, something held in the hand. 
 
— 67- 
 
 P, (, and k, are suited for commands and assertions, wliile m, n 
 and ng are adapted for unaccentuated narrative. 
 
 X. 
 
 Nouns and verbs. 
 
 The parts of speech known as nouns and verbs are in the first 
 instance not divided. Thus food and to eat are one thing to the 
 mind when first observing. The hand places food in the mouth. 
 Tlie ear hears a sound of eating. The eye has seen the food. The 
 nerves of taste and smell give additional information to the mind. 
 A word bam or bap would be made. As a substantive this would 
 be food. As a verb it would be to eat. The letters b, m, a, would 
 be adopted because they are all easy to pronounce. The final m 
 would mark the continued sound of eating and be partly imitative. 
 Final p or b would mark a sound closed rapidly, and would also be 
 imitative. The root was bam or bap at first. It became ^ 
 zhik. by change of letters and this was the form when the 
 character was invented. But there were at that time also ^ tsiau, 
 ^ ju, and later there was p^k'iak, which ultimately became c'hi. 
 The word ^ fan_, ban, rice, food, is a derivative from bam food. 
 Final n is changed from m. There is no essential difference between 
 verb and noun in these cases. But when the mind desires sharp- 
 ness of idea, a special modification in the sound is added. 
 
 The primary identity or rather chaotic mixture of noun and 
 verb is unquestionable. Reason extracted them from the pheno- 
 mena in which they lay mixed. This may be seen in the words used 
 for measuring. We have a labial root in p pok, to guess at. We 
 also have ^ lu, dok, estimate, measure, j^ ch'wai, guess, ^ 
 
- 6^ - 
 
 t'sai, guess. The guttural forms are f]J ku, to estimate, ^ k'wei, 
 guess at. There are also several words formed from the root ending 
 in a nasal, as -^liang, estimate, measure, 4^ t'sun to guess at, /^ 
 siang, think of. Here the root with final k twice occurring meant 
 probably tapping with the hand or with some implement and would 
 be called bap. From this the words just mentioned with vowel 
 finals would be formed. The liict that the hand and arm are used 
 as measures would give the hand and the names by which it was 
 known a preponderance of influence which would powerfully tend 
 to lend currency to certain forms among those specified. Chang, 
 a measure of ten feet, was a long staff such as would be used in 
 bearing burdens. Ch'i ^ t'ak, a foot, is the hand. It was ancient- 
 ly not more than eight English inches in length. There was a time 
 when f^ c'hifoot was the same with sheu band and tu to measure. 
 
 The need felt for subdivision led to one word becoming a verb to 
 estimate, another word a foot measure, and a third some other verb. 
 The nasal ending attached to substantives like chang or verbs like 
 liang to measure, is changed from the primitive final m. Words used 
 as measures have usually dental initials and perhaps this shews that 
 they were formed in the age of growing civilization which we may 
 call the second or dental period of word creation. The mind saw 
 before it a carrying pole tarn, and proceeded to think of it as having 
 a certain length. Time effected changes and it became dong and 
 afterwards chang a measure of ten feet in length. It was further 
 thought of as tam a weight sufficient for one man to carry. Then 
 tam came to have this sense and to mean 100 lbs. Tam therefore 
 means a load, a cwt, a carrying pole, and to carry. This is sufficient 
 proof that verbs and nouns are simply branches from one root. 
 
 Verbs branch out also into various subordinate species. To 
 walk, to stamp, to run. to leap, are one word originally. We find 
 
-69 — 
 
 the word ^^ dap with labial final, to step. We also have ^ tseu 
 to walk, ^ p'au, to run, '^ shep, pass a ford, f^ liep, to stride, 
 leap, hunt. The longer root bam is represented by ^ hing, to 
 walk, formerly gang. In the classics we have ^ j^ ^ ^ 
 si me bang bang, four horses running. Here the primitive initial 
 b is retained. To arrive at a place is also derived Irom the same 
 verb. Thus "^ fu, an adverb for «just reached)), ^ fu, arrive 
 at, ^ chi, ^Ij tau, ^f^ ti, ^ gip, chi, arrive, are all referable to 
 this root. So it is with the adverbs "t fang, |^|] kang, just at that 
 time. They are to be explained as coming from bam, fang, belong- 
 ing to the late labial period and kang to the guttural period. The 
 noise of the foot striking the ground may be credibly supposed to 
 have originated all these verbs and verbal derivatives. 
 
 The words for falling afford a convenient illustration. The 
 oldest is S^ peng, fall heavily. Since it became archaic it has been 
 used solely of the emperor's death. Falling is seen by the eye and 
 heard by the ear. It must then at first have been imitative. 
 Knowing what we now do of the laws of change in Chinese sounds, 
 to what ultimate form can we reduce this very ancient word so suit- 
 ably and with so much probabihty as to bam ? The later words which 
 occur are i^jr]f t'an'j^ c'hing, and kiang or chiang to fall. But the 
 first change of bam would be into bap and this is the root of lok, 
 chui, tik, liet, all meaning to fall. Their present form is the out- 
 come of many ages of constant use on the tongues of a very active 
 minded people. The root has therefore lost its primitive appearance. 
 Such examples show how the history of w^ords may be simply that 
 of unity subdividing into ten thousand branches. From whichever 
 branch we begin our inquiries we end in one common root, which 
 was of necessity labial. 
 
 Another point to be here noted is that all verbs are nouns. A 
 
verl) is a word, a thing, and as such it is a substantive. Chinese 
 verbs are all capable of being declined. They take the form of a 
 gerund or of an English present participle ^ p^ |fflE f^ wo shwo 
 wu yung, my speaking is of no use. P^^ -^ c'hi wan, finished ea- 
 ting. Such examples shew us the verb in its old state still unvivi- 
 fied by the greater vital force of Indo European or Semitic grammar. 
 Chinese verbs have the marks of primitive antiquity. They are 
 without sharply defined tenses such as aorists and futures. Nor 
 are they furnished with inflections for the persons or to distinguish 
 moods. Chinese verbs are unchiselled fragments, fresh from the 
 quarry. That force of the mind which creates inflections belongs 
 to words in a later stage among people of a more vigorous imagina- 
 tion. In Greek the clearness of outline in aorist tenses is very re- 
 markable and is due to mental vigour and extraordinary creativeness 
 The Latin verb has more of the substantive in its conception and 
 form than the Greek has. The Chinese verb in this respect is 
 more like the Latin. Every verb takes the possessive case after it 
 and is rather decHned than conjugated. 
 
 The evolution of the Chinese verb is the first great step made 
 in the path of development of the grammar of actions. The root is 
 in this case some action. The Chinese grammar treats the action 
 as a noun with movement, in space and in time. It obtains a transi- 
 tive force when a noun follows. Thus jen ch'i ma, man ride horse. 
 Here are two nouns and an action. The picture on the retina gives 
 information of this. The mind then creates in the verb a transitive 
 force in accordance with the observed fact. .Thus c'hi to ride 
 becomes transitive as the effect of the mind's thought. It is the 
 gift of reason that enables tlie soul to do this. The Mongol gram- 
 mar is very different. Hwun mori onina, man horse rides The 
 noun in the accusative is in the middle of the sentence. The verb 
 
-71- 
 
 oni has a present tense termination. To account for these peculiari- 
 ties possessed by the Tartar language we must suppose a prehistoric 
 mixture of races resulting in increased vigour which led to the in- 
 version of the order of words and a system of tense suffixes. The 
 absence of such inversions and tense suffixes as occur in Tartar and 
 Dra vidian languages justifies the view that the Chinese is more 
 primitive than any of these languages.' Inversions in the order of 
 words are unnatural and therefore not primeval. In accounting for 
 the evolution of the Chinese language our task is the easier just 
 because of the absence of such inversions, and the fact that the 
 order of words accords with that of the plioenomena which they 
 represent. 
 
 The simphcity of the Chinese verb may be illustrated by the 
 formation of the causative, the passive and the instrumental auxi- 
 liaries. 
 
 The causative verbs ^^ pel. ^ ling, -^ shi, ^ chi may be 
 traced ultimately to the demonstrative or the band. Their diffe- 
 rences in form are caused by letter change and by the constant 
 effort of the mind to attach to words certain minute moditications 
 in sense. Pei is to give and the phonetic Q has a final k. Gi- 
 ving and causing are both expressed by stretching out the hand and 
 the name of the hand or of the demonstrative is assigned to the act. 
 The word hng command is simply a sound, the sound which gave 
 the command when the word was first made. Ling is from ding, 
 dom, bom, by the usual process which exists in modern time as a 
 relic of what took place anciently. The effect witnessed takes as 
 its name the sound heard. The words '^ sbT, send, S^ chi may be 
 identified with ^ pat, send out. Sending is changed to causing 
 just as giving is changed to causing. The origin of all these words 
 is in pointing and they are separate branches from one primitive" 
 
— 79 
 
 root of some early lime when men gave attention to a certain 
 sound they heard and while they pointed in the direction from 
 which it came imitated it with that very small stock of letters they 
 were then able to employ. There is no good reason why we 
 should not identify these words with the eai-ly demonstratives 
 g^ zhik and :^ pak. The phonetic of j^ shi another word for 
 giving, has traces in it of a final p. If we miss the original labials 
 in one word we find them in another. The initial lip letter of ling 
 « command » is found in ming « command ». 
 
 The menial activity which originated the causatives was at 
 work long before the invention of the characters, for in the oldest 
 literary fragments the causatives exist, but since that period the 
 process of taking words from the vocabulary and giving them a 
 causative sense has continued without interruption to the present 
 time. The favorite modern causative is^chiau. This effect is 
 produced by many uniting in a common aim, and through a long 
 period controlling unconsciously the meaning of words so as to 
 impart to them gradually a new signification. 
 
 The passive as a mode is not in the mind, but the power to, 
 make it is there. The Chinese use as passives the words ^ pei, ^^ 
 ching, ;^ ngai, ^ sheu, ^ meng. Pei and meng mean tocover. 
 Ching is to pass over. Ngai is to come into close contact. Sheu 
 is to receive. The phonetic indicates final k in ^ sheu and in 
 ^ pei. The mind has metamorphosed these words into signs of 
 the passive at different periods in the history of the language. 
 
 In ^ W pei tse, to be beaten, we have an example of order 
 inverted. To beat, tse, old sound tak, is a transitive verb and 
 should stand before the person heaten. The mind however chooses 
 to make the object nominative and searches for some word such as 
 
— 73 — 
 
 word beat as its accusative. Pei is the passive auxiliary and tse 
 is a verb treated as a noun in the accusative. What is chiefly to 
 be noticed here is the power exercised by the human will over the 
 materials of language, which are moulded to its use as they are 
 required. No grammatical forms are originally in the mind and when 
 the mind manufactures them it is always by taking common words, 
 depriving them, of a large part of their signification and assigning 
 to them a special use. Roots are in no sense a part of the original 
 furniture of the mind. There is a profuse supply of materials at its 
 disposal and these are shaped and trimmed till they acquire an ap- 
 titude for the special use to vvbich by the mind's selection they are 
 destined. 
 
 The instrumental auxiliaries are yi in the book language, and 
 M pa and jj^ tsiang in the colloquial. The first of these is perhaps 
 S wok, take in the hand. Pa is the same in sense. Tsiang to 
 lead is the same as ling which is the hand used in pulling or leading. 
 
 E. G. Jg ^|J A "ip ^ P^ "^ j^" ^^^^ ^'^' ^® P"^ ^^^^ °^^" ^^ 
 death, or more paraphrastically, he took that man and put him to 
 .death by legal process. Clauses are subordinate or final. The 
 instrumental particle with its substantive forms a subordinate clause 
 followed by the principal verb in the indicative. The indicative 
 always stands last. The voice marks by emphasis the principal verb. 
 The instrumental verb is passed over lightly. 
 
 The auxiliaries of the past tense are in the old language 2^ 
 yi, ^ ye, gep, [IJ chi, ki, all meaning already, past. These 
 words would be verbs meaning to finish, from the act of cutting. 
 The modern language has taken other words in place of these 
 such as "Julian j||S kwo meaning to finish, to pass. To yi is 
 added^^ king, ching, to pass. 
 
 Nouns are in the old language furnished with a few case par- 
 
— /4 — 
 
 tides in the form of prepositioas. The words ^ yii, at, used for 
 the dative and locative cases, ^ tsai at, locative, are alike in their 
 use and would very probably be the same word originally because 
 the hand can by pointing supply their place. They would therefore 
 be demonstrative in the first instance. 
 
 In the time of the earliest Chinese literature there was then 
 the locative with a preposition to mark it. The instrumental also 
 was marked by certain verbs as above stated. This shews plainly 
 that if we judge by the literary remains of four thousand years ago, 
 uouns were up to that time joined by agglutination, and very slight 
 use was made of case particles. The possessive ^ chi was sparingly 
 used. It was a demonstrative changed to a possessive by gradual 
 use and was probably called tik. The frequency with which ^ 
 yti occurs at that distant period indicates how strong is the tendency 
 in the most agglutinative languages to change some ve.ib into a 
 locative preposition and how early this tendency is felt 
 
 The substantive verb is the hand pointing. 
 
 The negative is the hand pointing in the opposite direction. 
 
 The causative is the hand giving and sending. 
 
 The passive is the hand covering or passing. 
 
 The instrumental is the hand taking. 
 
 The locative is the baud pointing. 
 
 Gesture maintained some temporary connection between the 
 hand and these derivatives at first, but this would disappear as soon 
 as they lost their concrete sense and became formal. 
 
 The development of the instrumental had proceeded so far that 
 in the beginning of the Book of History we find that \^ yi which 
 was originally a verb '' take " had come to be used in the sense (as 
 Legge (1) gives, it) ''and thence proceeded to", or as it may be 
 
 (I) Legge Shoo king p. 17, -20. 
 
— /o — ^ 
 
 taken -'and so was able to''. The wise king Yau had made 
 his virtue conspicuous and thus provided went on to the love of 
 the nine classes of his kindred. The word yiis both a conjunction 
 '' and " in this case, and an adverb implying the sense ** from this 
 he w^ent on to ". But the more common sense of yi in this ancient 
 document is^ in order to, as " in order to fix the central point of 
 summer". Here we can see the nature of the instrumentality. It 
 is the observation just mentioned of the meridian star which to their 
 eternal honour the astronomers of that ancient time were able to 
 make. By comparing these two uses of the instrumental particle 
 in this, which in one of the oldest documents in the world, w^e can 
 gauge the progress made at that time in developing the instrumen- 
 tal. We may note that it was an age when the interrogative and 
 negative modes of speech were thoroughly current, and only the 
 relative pronoun was rather behindhand in its growth. 
 
 XI 
 
 ADJECTIVES. 
 
 Adjectives are closely connected with verbs and nouns. For 
 example Q pe, bak, white, is re illy a word for light. Light appears 
 when a hole is pierced in a wall. To pierce is ts'e or ts'ak. The 
 labial initial if restored gives bak white. We have also feng for al)un- 
 dant which with the initials 1, sh, and h becomes lung, sheng, hing, 
 the last of which is both a verb to rise and an adjective prosperous. 
 
 Adjectives are usually in pairs. W^hen direction is indicated 
 by adjectives verbs of motion are involved in the idea. The band 
 indicates direction by pointing in the case of above, upper, below, 
 
— 76 — 
 
 right, left, front, back. The idea may become also an adverb or a 
 postposition. It is so with J^ ^^^^"8' ascend above, upper, with 
 pti Chung, to strike the middle, central, middle, within. Beside the 
 natural sounds imitated, the hand itself would be so important a 
 factor that its name would inevitably enter into the composition of 
 many of these words, to a greater or less degree. Right and left would 
 be named from the act of pointing. The hand in a perpendicular 
 attitude would give origin to the words ^ shu, upright ^^ tsung, 
 perpendicular, MiJ shu, tree, j^ chu pillar, Tjtj^ ancestral tablet and 
 others. The hand pointing horizontally would originate j^ heng, 
 horizontal. The hand when pointing forward would become 
 wyT c'hien, front, -^ sien, before, preceding. The hand point- 
 ing back would become pei, pak, back, and later it would 
 originate >^ heu, guk, behind. Pei, north, anciently pak, 
 is of the same origin. In ]^ nam, south, two ideas inhere, The 
 direction comes from the hand pointing south. But there is pro- 
 bably the idea of warmth included, and -jj^ yen, yem, dam, flam- 
 ing, hot, is possibly the word the sense of which has become en- 
 twined with the hand in making this root. High and low are expres- 
 sed by pointing. Hence ^ kau, kok. ^ tsun, ^ cho, tok, 
 ■^ kwei, kok, ^ ch'ung, dom, j^ c'hiau, gok, all mean high, 
 while ^ pei, 'f^ ti, "|\ hia, ge, mean low. Two roots, one 
 with final k for p, and the other with final m appear here. The 
 name of the foot is included in the root for low because it gives a 
 sound, and there is evidence of this connection in the fact that J^ 
 tsok, f^ chiau , kiak, foot, J^ ti, sole of the foot, closely resemble 
 ti low, in sound and meaning. The words for high, probably include 
 as an element kak, horn, the horn of the cow, deer, and other 
 animals, when the form has final k or a vowel. Those which have 
 a nasal ending may include the sense of the verb stretch chang^ the 
 
// — 
 
 arm being stretched upward to represent height. 
 
 The words^ ming, ^ liang. ^ lang and;)^ ping all mean- 
 ing bright may be derived from a fissure or cle&, ,|^ feng, hong, 
 bom. With the same root ^^ t'ung, penetrating, permeating and 
 perhaps *^ t'sing, c'hing, clear, may be connected. 
 
 Words meaning dark or misty J^ am, ngan, dark, "^ meng, 
 blind, ^^ meng, dream, & hwun, dusky, muddy, appear to be 
 all derived from the hands covering something, a sense expressed by 
 mom, but the lips in this instance may just as well express the sense 
 by gesture. While the lips were in succession closed, opened and 
 closed again, there was an expulsion of breath and a vowel inserted. 
 
 Words expressive of the senses, blunt, rough, wild and diso- 
 bliging, are likely to originate in a root meaning to resist which 
 is found in tang to resist with the connected root dik to oppose. 
 We find man, slow, man, wild and intractable, tun, blunt, c'hi, 
 slow, wan, perverse, Ian, indolent. 
 
 The idea of the beautiful seems to come from softness and a 
 slight and graceful shape. Mei, beautiful, and mei the plum which 
 is named from it are distinguished only by tone. When the rising 
 tone began to appear 3600 years ago the word beautiful took a new 
 intonation to define the adjective as a distinct thing from the noun. 
 The plum flower has given a name to the chain of mountains be- 
 tween Canton and the provinces of Hunan and Kiangsi. The great 
 fame of the flower only dates from A. D. 300. After this time 
 it began to be a very favorite subject for painters and poets and was 
 known as the queen of flowers. But though the flower is extreme- 
 ly pretty, bursts into pink and white blossom in the early spring 
 each year, and has a delicious fragrance, it may have been from 
 the fruit tliat it received the name mei beautiful, for strawber- 
 ries and raspberries are also called mei, so that mei means sweet 
 
f8~ 
 
 and soft. With a change of initial we have ^ jo, nok, soft. ^ 
 jeu, soft, ^ kiau, chiau, pretty. 
 
 AH those adjectives which refer to space must have originated 
 with the demonstrative, or with the hand. 
 
 All those adjectives which describe colours are borrowed from 
 the names of coloured objects, Hwang, yellow, is from kim gold. Lam, 
 blue, is from the sky.Lii or lok, green, is from soft herbs. ^ ch'i 
 or tak, red, is from flesh [^ jeu, nok. Hung, red, is from t'ung, cop- 
 per. Ilek M black is from the crow. Wu, j^ a classical word for 
 black is also from the same bird. 
 
 Most of the other adjectives are metamorphosed from actions. 
 Dim to sink originates shim, shen, deep. Hwo, living, is from hwo, 
 move, shake. Tung, east, means rising. Si, west, is falling. Nam, 
 south, is the hand stretched in front. 
 
 All those adjectives which imply reality and the sense of belong- 
 ing to, are derived from the act of affirming, ^ zhet, real, is the 
 same as ^ zhik, to be, and ^ yeu, it is so. All the three words 
 mean the hand pointing. Perhaps hi ^ tie, attached to, conse- 
 quences, and JM shu, zhok, connected with, belong to, may be so 
 explained. 
 
 Adjectives being the names of qualities are nouns. The eye 
 sees colour before the mind becomes conscious of the presence of 
 the object to which the colour belongs. Therefore the adjective 
 stands before the substantive which it qualifies. The simplicity of 
 Chinese construction does not allow of the adjective following the 
 substantive, except where it is the predicate in a sentence. 
 
 The Chinese mind in comparing two things does not insert 
 the substantive verb and lengthen the quality which is observed to 
 differ by adding a syllable such as er, as we do. Thus, John is 
 taller than William. The form is " John compare William tall". 
 
— 79 — 
 
 Hence there is no need of a comparative or superlative suftix. 
 
 Yet adverbs for more and most are commonly prefixed to 
 adjectives. For more ^ yii, good, surpassing, go beyond, is 
 used. It is perhaps the same as piau and wai, outside, and is deri- 
 ved from a labial root attended by the act of the hand stretched out 
 in front to picture something going past another thing. The word 
 keng more is the same as tseng and liem, to add, and if we go far- 
 ther back we have meng, mom, to cover. Adding is expressed by 
 the hands covering the object to which addition is made and thus 
 the name of the joined hands becomes the root. 
 
 The superlative adverbs for most are verbs of cutting M^ chi, 
 gik 5^ dzit^ chioh, or of arriving, ^ chi. Cutting and walking 
 both have natural sounds which must have entered into the 
 composition of these roots. While the adverb was still a verb, 
 the adjective was a substantive. The change of the verb into an 
 adverb helped to change the noun into an adjective. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE NUMERALS. 
 
 The first efforts of man to count would be with the fingers. 
 But these were not named separately, and we must look elsewhere 
 for the origin of the numbers one to ten. 
 
 Of all the ten, the last is the easiest to explain. Shi ^ is in 
 the old language, zhip, and this is a bundle or collection. We have ^ 
 dzip, to collect, and ^ shok is to bind. We have it with a labial 
 initial also, namely ^0 fu, bok to bind. Ten then means a bundle 
 and the fingers limit the number in the bundle to ten. Final k is 
 from p. 
 
-80 — 
 
 With this explanation before us it is quite clear that the ma- 
 kers of the Chinese numerals had counters. They u?ed sticks or 
 slips of some kind and they tied them together in bundles to count 
 with and to use in divination. This was the beginning of their rude 
 arithmetic. At present the Chinese in counting begin with the right 
 hand thumb and end with the little finger of the left hand. Ten is 
 the symbol of completeness because it is the number of the fingers. 
 
 If the Chinese had counting sticks when they named unity, a 
 name for counter would become a name for one. A counter is iS 
 
 Pvt* 
 
 c'heu, dok. We have ^ dik |j|jp chi jj^ dek ^ dok, all meaning 
 only. This seems to su^igest that — • yi, called chit at Amoy, the u- 
 niversal word in Chinese for one, may be the name of a counter and 
 contemporaneous with the words for " only '' just mentioned. 
 
 We have a labial initial in ^ ^|# vi, mi, wei, only, forwliich 
 initial m occurs in the Fuchow dialecL The name dok for counter 
 would be a word for cutting in the first instance. 
 
 But one may have been named from pointing, and chi to point, 
 may be its root. The counter may have been named from the hand 
 and the act of numbering may have thus originated. That is — , 
 ^f, 1^, ^g , yi, sheu, shu chi may all come from the hand. The 
 numbers two, four, five, and eight are the effects ofdivisionand the 
 names for all these numbers might naturally be verbs to cut, mo- 
 dified. 
 
 Two, er or ni, would be to cut. The other words liang and 
 shwang, a pair, are identical. For 1 and sh are both formed from d. 
 |g[ T'ung, dong is together, the same, and so it comes to mean a 
 pair, and two. The later root of pj^ liang, two, is then |^ t'ung, and 
 the earlier ^^ ping, which preserves the lip initial. As to J^ er, ni, 
 if it does not derives its origin from a verb to cut in two, it may be 
 changed from ^^ tui, opposite, because the fore finger is opposite to 
 the thumb. 
 
-81- 
 
 Sum, three ~ may be formed from Pfl chung, tang, the mid- 
 dle, originally tam. From this old word, sam, three, was formed by 
 change of t to s. The reason is found in the position of the third fin- 
 ger, in the centre of the right hand. It is also probable that |^ 
 dung, and 'fife ping, together, have had an influence on the formation 
 of sam, three, as earlier they assisted to make Jiang, two. But the 
 •;hief influence would be tam, central, indicated by the third 
 linger (1). 
 
 FourpQ SI, would be ^J siak, to cut, because two cuts at 
 right angles make four, and nothing would be more obvious to the 
 mind on the watch for a name than the act by which four was made. 
 
 Eight /\ pat, is accounted for by the action of a verb pat to 
 cut ^Ij pit, dividing some object into eight pieces. 
 
 Five j£ ngo, ngak, may be explained as a verb to cut ^J 
 k'ak. The bundle of ten is in five divided into two halves. But as the 
 hands are usually the symbols of five and ten it is perhaps prefera- 
 ble to account for ^wu, five, as ^^ wu, ngu, to oppose, resist, the 
 two hands being so held as to represent this idea. The idea of oppo- 
 site is restricted and modified by mental suggestion so that it takes 
 the meaning five. If this etymology be correct the Chinese word 
 for five would be formed in the guttural period. The correspon- 
 ding dental and labial words are ;^ ti, oppose, g£ p'ei,to match, 
 1^^ fut, oppose. 
 
 Six -^ lok, lieu, may mean an addition. It agrees in 
 phonetic elements with ^ sii, zok, to add, in succession, succeed 
 to. Lok means then an addition of one finger to the five of the 
 right hand. 
 
 Sevent t'sit, c'hi. Beginning to count from the right thumb 
 
 (1) Dr. Koelle in " Etymology of Turkish numerals '" e.xplains liiree in lliis way. 
 Jour. xVsiat. Soc. 1884 . 
 
— 82 — 
 
 the forefinger of the Jeft hand signifies seven. Perhaps it is named 
 from the action of that finger in pressing and touching ^ t'sie, to 
 touch, feel the pulse. 
 
 Nine, ^ ku, chieu. Probahly this word means deficient or 
 one short of ten. Deficient is c'hiue ^ k'iuet. From this chieu 
 may have been formed. 
 
 Chinese like all other Asiatic languages spoken over wide areas 
 had the decimal notation when the numerals were made, for eacfi 
 number from one to ten has a name. Yet some of these ten names 
 may have been made before others. In the time of gestures two 
 threes might be used for six, and five and two for seven, by the use 
 of fingers, before lok and t'sit were in existence. 
 
 The word ^ swan, calculate, is plainly from unity expressed 
 by tan, single, and is to be included wih ^ c'him , counter, as 
 alike derived from the hand. This root appears also as chwen and 
 twan, solely. It may be taken from cutting and may be the same 
 with twan, a cut off piece. 
 
 A hundred is ~§ pe^ pai, pak. This word is evidently 'f^ 
 pe, pak, chief. The 100*'^ counter would be longer than the rest 
 or viewed as such and would therefore be called pek, chief. This 
 admitted, it shews that counters were in use when this name for 
 hundred was formed. 
 
 ^ C'hien, t'sin, a thousand. Tbis is the leader, the foremost 
 counter, -^ sien, first, before. 
 
 ^ Wan, man, ten thousand. This root means many, wide, 
 full. From these meanings it is derived by limitation of sense, a 
 strictly mental act. 
 
 -^ Yi or ik, 100000. From tik, a mark. It is also 
 100.000.000. The reason of the uncertainty in meaning is that 
 the word in itself only means a mark and the mark may be moved. 
 
— 83 — 
 
 3)|< Chau, djaii, 1.000.000. The yi multiplied by ten. This 
 also means mark or sign, and the special sense in given by the mind. 
 
 These numbers are mentioned as earJy as B. C. 1800, so that 
 they belong to the vocabulary of the ancient astronomy and mathe- 
 matics of the Chinese. 
 
 The word counter ^ c'heu, has ijeen important as an element 
 in making some words, as the verb 1[^ ^ c'hi c'heu, to calculate, 
 to devise plans. 
 
 Ordinal numbers are expressed by prefixing the demonstrative 
 ^ di to cardinal numbers, as ^ -|- ti shi, the tenth. As th in 
 the English ordinal is a demonstrative pronoun modified, so it is 
 with the Chinese ordinal prefix ti. The word ti indicates position 
 and is certainly a word of pointing, the pronoun di or -& shi. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE PRONOUNS. 
 
 The demonstratives may be referred for their origin to the 
 act of pointing. The instrument in pointing is however no other 
 than the hand, which would early obtain a name on account of 
 its activity in the language of gesture. The hand, the act of point- 
 ing, and the pronoun, would originally be represented by one word 
 and this would probably be the imitation of the noise of striking, by 
 means of the letters b, m, a. At first the need of the first and se- 
 cond personal pronouns would be less felt, because the two men 
 conversing were present. The third personal pronoun would be 
 sooner required because the person meant was absent. 
 
 One of the earliest words used as a demonstrative ^ pi, has a 
 
— 84 — 
 
 labial initial and from this would be derived sucb verbs as fa, send, 
 forth and pei, to give. Pi would change to meu Ml ,11-^, tsi 
 ^ , shl ^ , and also to !^ c'hi or gi. These may be distinguished 
 as the labial, the denial, tbe sibilant, the palatal, or the guttu- 
 ral demonstrative. Among these it is the palatal, che Jp[, that has 
 succeeded in best maintaining its position as a modern colloquial 
 word, as in cbe ko, this. The word ko is a connective also origi- 
 nally derived from the demonstrative. This is shewn by the fact that in 
 some Chekiang dialects as at the city of Haining, ke (jo, does duty 
 both for this and that. When the distinction of that from this 
 is required the people there say ke deu ke go " that, " while ke deu 
 means '' that place ". Thus a polysyllable has pushed out ^ pi. 
 Che jg this, is the sam^ word with ^ che, he who, that which. 
 The relative force is given to it by placing it at the end of a clause. 
 * So also it is the same with the possessive ti 6^. The demonstrative 
 gradually obtains the possessive and relative force as the result of 
 its position after a noun. This is nearly parallel wih our possessive 
 s with the apostrophe in English. The initial relative J^so, 
 '' that which " is also a branch from the same root. A demonstra- 
 tive preceded a noun as in J^ ^|| ^ 7]^ sochung chi mi, the rice 
 which was sown. Gradually it assumed the peculiar force of the 
 relative. Mi is rice. Chung is to sow. 
 
 The demonstrative ^ yi is ;;^ shi, or ][;[^ t'si, without the ini- 
 tial consonant. This seems probable because H[ yin chief, HI yin, 
 to lead, agree in sense with^|^ sien, thread and may be viewed as de- 
 rived from it. The change of s or t to y involved in this identifica- 
 tion is what often takes place, as in yang from chang, to grow, to 
 rear. Probably the change to y took place before t had changed 
 to A'. T was dropped and i inserted. 
 
 The mandarin j^ che, this, is formed from the old Soochow 
 
85 — 
 
 ^ di, this, by evolution of surd from sonant and of cli from t. 
 Tlie descending tone is retained. Soocbovv was colonized about 
 B. C„ 1200 and became historical about B. C. 500. The pronoun 
 di may date from that time. 
 
 The indefinite pronoun ^ meu, « some one », is changed from 
 the demonstrative and interrogative mo ^. Mo was originally 
 that, but the mind wanted an interrogative, and made use of this 
 root to obtain it. Some time after it wanted an indefinite pronoun, 
 some one, and again it made use of the demonstrative mo, which 
 is in fact another form of ^^ pi, that. 
 
 The interrogative pronouns are merely modifications of the de- 
 monstrative, and it is easy to tell by the initial letter from which 
 form of the demonstrative they have been evolved. Thus ||^ shui 
 who? is derived from dok or g^ zhok, and this is no other than 
 the old classical H$ shi, this, anciently called zhik. So also 'J^ ho, 
 what, is the demonstrative ^ c'hi, anciently gi. In the process 
 of evolution no factors were present but the mind suggesting the in- 
 terrogative sense, the hand pointing, the mouth uttering the 
 demonstrative in process of transformation, and the listener who 
 accepted the new meaning and gave his help to make it current. 
 
 When the question is asked how many? the demonstrative 
 with initial g is employed ; that is to say ^ gi, becomes ^ ki 
 with the rising tone. Mencius has ^ Q ki nit« how many days ». 
 The question how many persons or things is also often asked by 
 putting the opposites in juxtaposition ^ ^to, kwa, many, few. 
 The demonstrative ^ jo, nok, is interrogative or demonstrative 
 as it is also in its modern form ^p na. The rising tone asks a 
 question, which? The departing tone replies, that man or thing. 
 With -^ kan following it, jo is either interrogative how many ? or 
 it means « several ». 
 
-^86 — 
 
 The energy of the language forming faculty is very clearly seen 
 in the transformations which have taken place in the pronouns. 
 By the combined and unconscious efforts of many individuals, the 
 interrogative, the indefinite, the relative varieties have all been 
 formed from the demonstrative. This has been done by the mind 
 alone with the aid of the hands and voice. These varieties would 
 grow into existence by insensible degrees and could not be the 
 achievement of one man or one generation. Thus che this, na that, 
 are in the departing tone and belong to the age of that tone which 
 embraces in part the mandarin period. 
 
 The first and second personal pronouns may be presumed to be 
 of demonstrative origin, because the hand is freely used in pointing 
 to the speaker himself or to the person addressed. The Mongol and 
 Manchu hi, I, bida we, are a relic of the labial period. The Chinese 
 words ^ yii, ^, ^ wo, wu, I, Q tsi, tsa, should be viewed 
 as demonstratives, The correctness of this opinion is supported by 
 the fact that j^ nung is a form for the first personal pronoun in 
 Kanghi, but at Shanghai it is the second, as it is also in the Odes, 
 where for you, we have ^ Jung, Legge p. 497, pronounced nung.. 
 
 Hence we may conclude also that Q tsi, self, 2* ^^' self, are 
 sibilant and guttural forms of the demonstrative. In this case the 
 demonstrative by a decision of the will, means the speaker himself, 
 and the modern Chinese points his finger to his nose to indicate 
 this. For anything we know to the contrary this gesture may be a 
 relic of primitive antiquity. 
 
 The demonstrative, that is the name for hand, in its numerous 
 metamorphoses sometimes becomes the name of the place pointed 
 at. Ch'u place^ is thus explained. While the hand points and the 
 mouth utters instinctively the pronoun most suitable, the mind 
 may proceed in the use of its creative faculty, so far lo limit and 
 
-87- 
 
 realize the idea attached to the sound that the prononn ts't jjj^, or 
 some other, becomes an abstract noun and useful addition to the voca- 
 bulary with the sense place. The Japanese have tokoro for place 
 and the Mongols jug. The Japanese have also ba for place. Hence it 
 may be conjectured that the Japanese and Chinese languages were 
 in connection in the Chinese labial period, and that these two langua- 
 ges with the Mongol were in connection in the Chinese dental period. 
 Of course it is also possible that the Japanese and Mongol languages 
 have possessed an internal law of development like the Chinese and 
 they may have evolved these words without foreign concurrence. 
 
 The pronoun may also become a verb. We have a noun c'hu, 
 place, and we have also a verb chu, to dwell. The notion of long 
 continuance is 'mental and is added to the demonstrative. The 
 equivalent verb with initial k S kii or chii, to dwell, seems to be 
 formed from the verb chu or from the demonstrative with k. The 
 evolutionary process is continued one step more by inserting an as- 
 pirate and we obtain c'hu, to arrange, give a place to persons or 
 things. The transitive verb comes out of the intransitive. This is 
 a signal instance of the creativeness of the mind in its more vigorous 
 altitudes. At the same time such an exercise of vigour is not rare. 
 Thus one of the obsolete demonstratives is an, which appears in 
 the interrogatives an and yen used for where and how. This very 
 root appears an an adjective « at rest, » « quiet » and is also used as 
 a pronoun for the first person I and as a verb to arrange. The in- 
 transitive notion «being at rest in a place» is metamorphosed into 
 a transitive verb « to arrange things in their places. » 
 
 That the mind has this power of metamorphosing words is 
 shewn by the fact that all languages reveal this class of phenome- 
 na in their evolution. 
 
 The relative pronoun does not appear in distinct shape in the 
 
— 88 — 
 
 oldest documents. But we find it in the Song of the Five Sons 
 purporting to belong to B. C. 2188, and in the next chapter in the 
 history. The relative appears in these passages in the form ^ 
 che, " that which " or '^ he who " at the end of a clause. Perhaps 
 its being in both chapters is evidence of a great antiquity. The 
 earliest form is wei jen shang che, " he who is above men ", that 
 is the ruler of men. The demonstrative is placed below the noun 
 to individualize and limit a compound phrase for ruler. This sort 
 of relative construction is a step in advance of the phraseology in 
 which it is imbedded. The oldest Chinese style presents words in 
 a state of agglutination with a limited use of particles when com- 
 pared either with the learned or with the colloquial Chinese of mo- 
 dern times. The tendency of modern style is to multiply words of 
 form and attenuate tlie realism of ancient speech. 
 
 The relative may originate in the fading of the interrogative 
 force. Shui §^ was interrogative before it was relative, as it was 
 demonstrative before it was interrogative. Before the interrogative 
 was formed the only thing possible to do when a question was to be 
 asked was to use the demonstrative. The listener at last becoming 
 aware that it was used interrogatively gave it that sense and the 
 speaker differentiated it by some modiQcation in the sound. So 
 w^as it also with the relative. The interrogative pronoun lost its 
 interrogative force and the residuum of meaning became the rela- 
 tive. This is seen in the reply to the question what bird -jsf J^ 
 
 ho niau ? The answer may be ^ 391 ^ ^ »i^ P" ^^^ ^^^^ 
 ho niau I, do not know what bird. Here the interrogative is no 
 longer a question. It is a relative. The demonstrative from which 
 ^ ho, what, has been formed is ^ gi, c'hi. 
 
— 89 — 
 XIV. 
 
 ADVERBS, PREPOSITIONS AND CONJUNCTIONS. 
 
 The word how as a question is Ihe same as 'Svhat kind ? ". 
 It consists of the interrogative witli some noun of shape or form. 
 The colloquial tsen mo, how ? is shen mo ^ ^ Avhat kind ? 
 changed in its orthography. Again shen is zhim an old demons- 
 trative used interrogatively by the same mental power which formed 
 "pf ho, what, from ^L gi, that. The noun mo or mok mepns 
 mould, frame, and is reducible to map as yang. chwang, hing^ 
 all meaning shape, are reducible to mam. The last step in the 
 process is to identify map and tnam and thus we arrive at the be- 
 ginning of ttie evolution, with the mind, the hand, the vocal or- 
 gans and natural sounds, as the only factors active in originating 
 words. 
 
 The heavenly bodies, with the hand to make divisions, supply 
 words of time. The word day ji is the sun. Month is the 
 moon. The ideas daily, monthly, are simply the words day, month, 
 and they are adverbs if the word following is a verb. The words 
 sliT H^ , hour, ^ fen, minute, ^ miau, second, are all verbs of 
 cutting. Heaven ^ t'ien, is best referred to tan, chan, to expand. 
 It forms a name for day, and in modern Chinese becomes an ad- 
 verb, daily, when it precedes a verb, as ^ ^ 5^ t'ien t'ien lai, 
 he comes daily. The form in old Chinese is Q ^ ji lai, comes 
 daily. 
 
 Adjectives and verbs become adverbs by position as in ^:^ 
 ^ B^ king sheu jen shi, reverentially give the people a know- 
 ledge of the seasons. 
 
— 90 — 
 
 Prepositions are formed from verbs. For example ^ chi, 
 |ilj tau, ^gip, ^ fu, are the same word witii j^ tseu, walk, 
 which would originally have a labial initial and final, and had gone 
 through so many changes, even before the invention of the characters, 
 as not to be readily recognized. The substitutionary prepositions 
 are evolved from the verb dak, to change. They are ^ tai and ^& 
 t'i. 
 
 The conjunctions are also verbs or simple demonstratives. In 
 ^ "g* ^ -^ ^ san pak u lak zin, 360 days, the conjunction 
 ^yeu, is the hand with the initial letter lost. ^ yeu, was at first 
 in the even tone and so also was the conjunction ^ yeu, and. 
 When t!ie departing tone was introduced ^ yeu, was employed 
 for this conjunction. 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE SENTENCE. 
 
 In the communication of thought between the first men there 
 would be no inversions of the natural order of words. The sub- 
 ject or nominative would precede the verb, and the verb would 
 precede the object. The order is that of time. Since the quality 
 of a thing is observed usually before the thing itself the quafity or 
 any special characteristic comes first both in primeval and in mo- 
 dern Chinese grammar. It is followed by general terms. The 
 adjective precedes the substantive and species genus. When two 
 or three verbs come together their order is that of time. The spirit 
 of Chinese grammar is seen remarkably in its treatment of verbs as 
 substantives. 
 
-91 — 
 
 The following examples from the beginning of the Book of 
 History, the Shocking, will shew what the language was four thou- 
 sand years ago. Speaking of the emperor Yau, the history say ^ 
 ^ '^ f^ ^^'^^ mang tson tek, he was able to display high virtue. 
 ICak "was able" is the present k'o ^ '*raay" much used in 
 the modern language. Mang, bright, is here a verb, make brilliant. 
 In the early state of language the adjective and verb were still un- 
 divided. The adjective tson, high, ( the same as tsung and sung 
 high, the finals n and ng being both derived from final m) precedes 
 its substantive, virtue, tek, which is simply the verb tso, " make" 
 treated as a noun with special sense *' virtue " attached to it. Ano- 
 ther sentence is TJr '^ ^5^0 ^ ^ ^ ^ "^^ *^^"o ^^^^ 8^ 
 k'om nok go t'en. He then commanded Hi and Ho reverentially 
 in accord with the wide heaven ^^0 ^MJ^i^l^y^. 
 H^ lik zong nit get sing zhin kang zhu nin zhik, to make a calendar 
 and representations of the sun, moon, stars, and certain stellar bo- 
 dies. Nai, an adverb, '' then " is a demonstrative modified. Mang 
 " command " is from mam sound, cry of animals, etc. Hi and Ho 
 are the imperial astronomers. K'om, reverential, is from kung, 
 join the hands as a salutation. Nok '* agree with " is lai, lak, re- 
 ly on, lean towards, an action of the hand or arm. In " wide hea- 
 ven " the adjective precedes the substantive. Lik is to pass over 
 in succession, calendar. Siang is image, representations of the 
 heavenly bodies. The sun, moon and stars are in apposition 
 without conjunctive particles. '^Reverentially" is an adjective qua- 
 lifying the verb to give. The verb "give" has a nearer and farther 
 regimen "to men" " and the times for ploughing and sowing". The 
 verb governs directly the persons who receive the gift. A dative as in 
 western grammar is sometimes inserted as in |i^ -^ J^ J|i^ pin 
 yo gun zhin, he offered the sacrifice called pien " universal " to the 
 multitude of spirits. 
 
— 92 — 
 
 " The day is long" is rendered by ^ nit yong. *'The 
 meridian star is Antares'' is simply ^ ^ sing ha. A complete 
 year consists of 366 day'', is rendereds ^ ^ ^ ^ "^ ^ ^ 
 ■^ Q ge sam pak u lak zin u lak nit. Here ge is a fixed time ; 
 u, to have, is the connective " and "; zin is ten days and is probably 
 the same with ts'iuen, dzin, entire, in allusion to the ten fingers as a 
 symbol for completeness. 
 
 The predicative sentence, the day is long, is simply day long. 
 If we invert the order and say yong nit, a long day, we have the 
 adjective preceding the substantive. 
 
 Subordinate clauses precede conclusive clauses, as in the sen- 
 tence 1^ H ^ ^ P3 H^ ^Mi ^'^ "^" ^^^ ^^"^ ^^ ^^'^' ^^"^ 
 sot, by means of the intercahiry month fix the four seasons 
 and complete the year. In this sentence the instrumental 
 clause is introduced by yi W, a word which may be identified with 
 "^ yi, that, being distinguished from it by an intonation. Both 
 words are derived from the primitive word for the hand. 
 
 We cannot call these sentences examples of pure colloquial 
 idiom for we may detect contractions made in the historiographer's 
 office. Pien as a name of sacrifice, and c'hi as a name for the year 
 viewed as a fixed period, are instances of this. But independently 
 of this intermingling of a few words of the chancery, the syn- 
 tax comes clearly out to view as it existed in the spoken idiom of 
 the time. 
 
 The special quality of a thing precedes the thing itself because 
 the mind first notices a part and then the whole. The subject of a 
 sentence precedes that which is predicated of it because this is the 
 order of ordinary thinking. Of that Semitic quality in language which 
 first looks at the action and afterwards says who is the actor, the 
 Chinese as a rule knows nothing, for the language is not more 
 
-93 — 
 
 imaginative tlian the nation which made it and uses it. 
 
 Tiie Chinese sentence takes the middle path. It does not reveal 
 poetic instincts hy placing the verb before its nominative, nor 
 does it on the other hand place the verb at the end of a sentence after 
 the word which it governs. This unimaginative characteristic of 
 Tartar b)nguages is the result of mental dulness and is alien to the 
 Chinese mind, which has always encouraged industry and intellec- 
 tual cultivation. 
 
 Nations whose life is a series of adventures among mountains 
 and on the sea, and to whom war songs are a deUght, exhibit ima- 
 ginative characteristics in their languages such as the assignment of 
 the first place to the verb. The life of nomades restricts the intel- 
 lect within narrow limits and leads to that inversion by which the 
 verb comes last in syntax. The Chinese people belong to the 
 sober, middle class of nations. Steadily devoted to trading and the 
 cultivation of tlie soil they are neither poetic nor dull. Consequent- 
 ly the order of their syntax is strictly that of nature and time. 
 
 XVI 
 
 LANGUAGE IS CHIEFLY THE WORk OP THE MIND. 
 
 The mind is the soul considered as the thinker, the observer 
 seated in the brain and watching the outer world by means of eye 
 and ear. The senses, the nerves, the muscles, the tongue, the lips, 
 the larynx and the lungs were all made before the invention of 
 language. Thus splendidly endowed by his Creator man proceeded 
 to construct language. He was able to make words because he had 
 at his command the vocal organs with their wonderful adaptability 
 
-- 94 — 
 
 to become the medium of thought, and the hands with their multi- 
 form capacity for action. Language then could not have been formed 
 unless mind had been given to man enabling him to make the 
 higher use of these organs. Here then we have the evidence that 
 the soul is a gift from God distinguishing man from the other crea- 
 tures, and elevating him to a throne of superiority from which he 
 exercises dominion over them all. 
 
 The view advanced by some modern thinkers that the endow- 
 ment of reason was the result of language is untenable. Geiger 
 says " language created reason. Before language man was irratio- 
 nal". In this treatise I aim to shew that it was by the incessant 
 activity of the mind in receiving the reports of the sensations, in 
 directing the vocal apparatus of the mouth, and in wielding the 
 powers of the hands that language was slowly evolved. The mind 
 came first with its intellectual and spiritual faculties. Language 
 came into existence afterwards. There is no doubt that Geiger is 
 wrong here, because philosophy, literature, history and science are 
 the later products of the same mental power which first made lan- 
 guage. It is as unreasonable to place the appearance of reason 
 after the formation of language as it would be to place it after 
 .the appearance of literature, phiIo?ophy and science. These, with 
 language all come from the mind as the mind comes from God. 
 
 Yet the mind being complex it need not be said that it was as 
 a whole bestowed by the Creator at one time. The more intelli- 
 gent of the animals, especially among the vertebrata and articulata, 
 possess intellectual faculties analogous to those of man. What 
 ought to be contended for is that man has higher mental powers, 
 which have made him capable of forming language and producing a 
 literature with science and philosophy and which have also made 
 him a religious being. The powers which did this for man were 
 
— 95 — 
 
 a divine gift bestowed on him previous to tlio formation of language 
 and in these the animals did not share. 
 
 The divine gift of reason has assisted man to map out the ca- 
 tegories of grammar. It has also aided him in developing moral 
 ideas and words. Thus jen, benevolence, is from softness. Ai, love, 
 is coming near to. T'sz, maternal affection, is a sigh. Ngi or yi, 
 justice, is an act of cutting. Liang, honest and conscientious, is 
 roundness. Chung, loyalty, is the heart with the idea attached of 
 centrality. Liberality is width. Li, politeness, is represented by 
 straight lines drawn parallel and not only down but across. Sing, 
 moral nature, is that which is born or produced naturally. The 
 good, mei, is that which is beautiful. Badness, ok, is that which 
 is dirty. It may be confidently asked how could a merely animal 
 intelligence thus obtain the habit of elevating itself into the realm of 
 moral purity, and exhibit the power of reasoning from the material 
 to the immaterial as the Chinese roots shew that primeval men did 
 reason ? The creation of the moral vocabulary is at once a proof 
 of an ascending intelligence and of the possession of a gift which 
 the most sagacious animals have never been supposed to share. 
 
^ OF THE ^V^ 
 
 tXNIVEBSITY 
 
 Morft0 \)^ the same Hutbor, 
 
 SOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. TRtJBNER & CO., LONDO]!^. 
 
 EELIGION IN CHINA: containing a Brief Account of the 
 Three Religions of the Chinese. Third Edition. Post 8vo, 
 pp. xvi.-260, cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 
 " Dr. Edkins is a master of his subject ; and readers who wish to see the reli- 
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 and comprehensive manner, will find much to interest them in these pages. Dr. 
 Edkins gives the results of his labours in a field of research in which he has been 
 labouring for years, and he has the art, unlike some distinguished savants, of im- 
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 ' ' The friends of Christian missions owe a debt of gratitude to the author for his 
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 are, practically speaking, supplemental the one to the other." 
 
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 clear and unpretentious." — Scotsman. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE CHINESE 
 
 CHARACTERS. Royal 8vo, pp. 340, cloth. London, 
 1876. 18s. 
 
 "By this book sinology is led into a new path as difficult as it is full of promise. 
 As to Schott belongs the merit of having given to Chinese grammar a form corre- 
 sponding to its syntectical nature, so Mr. Edkins will be named henceforth as being 
 the first to undertake the discovery of the old sounds by means of a scientific 
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 monosyllables. .... The phonetic additions to the characters were treated by 
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 and of his investigations His recovery of the ancient sounds of old poems^ 
 
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 lating influence in a wider sinological circle." — G. v. d. G. in Literarisches Central- 
 Matt, March 31, 1877. 
 
 " Already had the wish been expressed by me (' Humboldt,' p. 69) that a man so 
 versed in the knowledge of Chinese and its dialects as Edkins imdoubtedly is, 
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 to light as far as possible all changes of sound and mutilations in Chinese 
 
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 with open mind and ear, in that branch of study which concerns the origin of the 
 ideographic and phonetic values of the Chinese written character. 
 
 ' • The Chinese wi-iting deserves, as much as the Egyptian and the Assyrian, 
 that the fullest attention should be directed to its origin and progressive develop, 
 ment, and not less to the method of construction that lies at its foundation ; and 
 certainly the present writer, so far as he has a right to pronounce judgment in a 
 field of knowledge unfamiliar to him is free to acknowledge with joy that by Mr. 
 Edkins an often surprisingly new light, clearing up many an obscurity, has been 
 shed on the object already illustrated on all sides. 
 
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 consists not only in his having obtained the most learned and interesting conclu- 
 sions on a vast number of characters, but also in his valuable and in many ways 
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 words, which is etymologically of extreme importance. 
 
 • ' Certainly we may without error venture to give in our allegiance to the general 
 proposition, that the sound of the phonetic part of a character is an index to the 
 pronunciation of the character at the time of its formation. 
 
 " Of what value this work is to the sinologue it is not for me to estimate in its 
 
— 3 — 
 
 full extent. But that to the philologists it opens up in many peculiar ways an 
 idiom so singular, as the Chinese shows itself to be, in the written character, in 
 sound, and in its own constitution, thus rendering it more capable of being under- 
 stood, I believe that I can testify with the most thankful acknowledgments to 
 the author out of a full soul." — Professor Potts of Halle in GoUingische Gelehrte 
 Anzeigen^ March 14 and 21, 1877. 
 
 A GRAMMAR of the CHINESE COILOaUIAL LANGUAGE, 
 
 commonly called the Mandarin Dialect. Second Edition. 
 
 8vo, pp. viii.-280, half-calf. Shanghai, 1864. 30s. 
 
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 recommended to his students. 
 
 PROGRESSIVE LESSONS IN THE CHINESE SPOKEN 
 
 LANGUAGE, with Lists of Common Words and Phrases, 
 and an Appendix containing the Laws of Tones in the 
 Peking Dialect. Fifth Edition. 8vo, pp. vi.-104, sewed. 
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 the Language of Europe and Asia have a Common Origin. 
 Post 8vo, pp. xxiii.-403, cloth. London, 1871. 10s. 6d. 
 
 " Mr. Edkins in this work has opened up a new field of inquiry in regard to the 
 existence of Turanian influences in the grammatical structure of Sanscrit. He 
 regards the inflexion of nouns by means of case-endings alone, without preposi- 
 tions in addition, as the adoption by Sanscrit of a Turanian rule. He thinks also 
 the position of words in a Sanscrit prose sentence is Turanian rather than Aryan. 
 It is an invariable law of the distinctively Turanian languages that related sentences 
 precede those to which they are related. It is another invariable law that the 
 finite verb is placed at the end of the sentence. In both these particulars, Mr. 
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— 4 — 
 
 seems to be the case with regard to the vernaculars which have baen developed 
 
 out of the old colloquial Sanscrit Perhap s all that can be said with certainty 
 
 is that in Sanscrit prose and in prosaic verse, related sentences generally precede, 
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 that Turanian influences have been felt even in Sanscrit." — Bishop Caldwell in 
 Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Language. 1875. Second 
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 "The question naturally suggests itself whether tbe primitive Aryan tongue 
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