China and the Chinese | Page 6

and again there is to be found in one character a certain portion which has already been observed in another, and this may well have given rise to the idea that each character is built up of parts equivalent to our letters of the alphabet. These portions are of two kinds, and must be considered under two separate heads.
Under the first head come a variety of words, which also occur as substantive characters, such as dog, vegetation, tree, disease, metal, words, fish, bird, man, woman. These are found to indicate the direction in which the sense of the whole character is to be sought.
Thus, whenever [CJK:72AD] "dog" occurs in a character, the reader may prepare for the name of some animal, as for instance [shi] shih "lion," [mao] mao "cat," [láng] lang "wolf", [zhu] ehu "pig."
Two of these are interesting words. (1) There are no lions in China; shih is merely an imitation of the Persian word shír. (2) Mao, the term for a "cat," is obviously an example of onomatopoeia.
The character [CJK:72AD] will also indicate in many cases such attributes as [huá] hua "tricky," [hêng] hên, "aggressive," [mêng] mêng "fierce," and other characteristics of animals.
Similarly, [CJK:8279] ts'ao "vegetation" will hint at some plant; e.g. [tsao] ts'ao "grass," [he] ho "the lily," [zhi] chih "the plant of immortality."
[mù] mu "a tree" usually points toward some species of tree; e.g. [song] sung "a fir tree," [sang] sang "a mulberry tree"; and by extension it points toward anything of wood, as [ban] pan "a board," [zhuo] cho "a table," [yi] i "a chair," and so on.
So [yú] yü "a fish" and [diao] niao "a bird" are found in all characters of ichthyological or ornithological types, respectively.
[rén] jen "a man" is found in a large number of characters dealing with humanity under varied aspects; e.g. [ni] ni "thou," [ta] t'a "he," [zuo] tso "to make," [zhàng] chang "a weapon," [jié] chieh "a hero," [rú] ju "a scholar," "a Confucianist"; while it has been pointed out that such words as [jian] chien "treacherous," [mèi] mei "to flatter," and [dù] tu "jealousy," are all written with the indicator [nu] nü "woman" at the side.
The question now arises how these significant parts got into their present position. Have they always been there, and was the script artificially constructed off-hand, as is the case with Mongolian and Manchu? The answer to this question can hardly be presented in a few words, but involves the following considerations.
It seems to be quite certain that in very early times, when the possibility and advantage of committing thought to writing first suggested themselves to the Chinese mind, rude pictures of things formed the whole stock in trade. Such were
[Illustration: Sun, moon, mountains, hand, child, wood, bending official, mouth, ox, and claws.]
in many of which it is not difficult to trace the modern forms of to-day,
[mì yuè shan shiu zi mù chén kou niú zhao]
It may here be noted that there was a tendency to curves so long as the characters were scratched on bamboo tablets with a metal stylus. With the invention of paper in the first century A.D., and the substitution of a hair-pencil for the stylus, verticals and horizontals came more into vogue.
The second step was the combination of two pictures to make a third; for instance, a mouth with something coming out of it is "the tongue," [gua]; a mouth with something else coming out of it is "speech," "words," [yán]; two trees put side by side make the picture of a "forest," [lín].
The next step was to produce pictures of ideas. For instance, there already existed in speech a word ming, meaning "bright." To express this, the Chinese placed in juxtaposition the two brightest things known to them. Thus [mì] the "sun" and [yuè] the "moon" were combined to form [míng] ming "bright." There is as yet no suggestion of phonetic influence. The combined character has a sound quite different from that of either of its component parts, which are jih and yüeh respectively.
In like manner, [mì] "sun" and [mù] "tree," combined as [dong], "the sun seen rising through trees," signified "the east"; [yán] "words" and [gua] "tongue" = [huà] "speech"; [y?u] (old form [Illustration]) "two hands" = "friendship"; [nü] "woman" and [zi] "child" = [hao] "good"; [nü] "woman" and [sheng] "birth," "born of a woman" = [xìng] "clan name," showing that the ancient Chinese traced through the mother and not through the father; [wù] streamers used in signalling a negative = "do not!"
From [lín] "two trees," the picture of a forest, we come to [sen] "three trees," suggesting the idea of density of growth and darkness; [xiào] "a child at the feet of an old man" = "filial piety"; [ge] "a spear" and [shou] "to kill," suggesting the defensive attitude of individuals in primeval times =