[Fig. 47] shows a specimen of picture-writing as used by the hunting tribes of North America. It records an expedition across Lake Superior, led by a chief who is shown on horseback with his magical drumstick in his hand. There were in all fifty-one men in five canoes, the first of them being led by the chief’s ally, whose name, Kishkemunazee, that is, Kingfisher, is shown by the drawing of this bird. Their reaching the other side seems to be shown by the land-tortoise, the well-known emblem of land, while by the picture of three suns under the sky it is recorded that the crossing took three days. Now most of this, childlike in its simplicity, consists in making pictures of the very objects meant to be talked of. But there are devices which go beyond this mere imitation. Thus when the tortoise is put to represent land, it is no longer a mere imitation, but has become an emblem or symbol. And where the bird is drawn to mean not a real kingfisher, but a man of that name, we see the first step toward phonetic writing or sound writing, the principle of which is to make a picture stand for the sound of a spoken word. How men may have made the next move toward writing may be learnt from the common child’s game of rebus, that is, writing words “by things.” Like many other games, this one keeps up in child’s sport what in earlier ages was man’s earnest. Thus if one writes the word “waterman” by a picture of a water-jug and a man, this is drawing the meaning of the word in a way hardly beyond the American Indian’s picture of the kingfisher. But it is very different when in a child’s book of puzzles one finds the drawing of a water-can, a man being shot, and a date-fruit, this representing in rebus the word “can-di-date.” For now what the pictures have come to stand for is no longer their meaning, but their mere sound. This is true phonetic writing, though of a rude kind, and shows how the practical art of writing really came to be invented. This invention seems to have been made more than once, and in somewhat different ways. The old Mexicans, before the arrival of the Spaniards, had got so far as to spell their names of persons and places by pictures, rebus fashion. Even when they began to be Christianized, they contrived to use their picture-writing for the Latin words of their new religion. Thus they painted a flag (pan), a stone (te), a prickly-pear (noch) ([Fig. 48]), which were together pronounced pa-te-noch-te, and served to spell pater noster, in a way that was tolerably exact for Mexicans who had no r in their language. In the same way they ended the prayer with the picture of water (a), and aloe (me), to express amen.
This leads on to a more important system of writing. Looking at the ordinary Chinese characters on tea chests or vases, one would hardly think they ever had to do with pictures of things. But there are fortunately preserved certain early Chinese characters, known as the “ancient pictures,” which show how what were at first distinctly formed sketches of objects came to be dashed off in a few strokes of the rabbit’s-hair pencil, till they passed into the meaningless-looking cursive forms now in use, as is seen in Fig. 49.
Fig. 49.—Chinese ancient pictures and later cursive forms (after Endlicher).
Fig. 50.—Chinese compound characters, pictures and sounds.
The Chinese did not stop short at making such mere pictures of objects, which goes but little way toward writing. The inventors of the present mode of Chinese writing wanted to represent the spoken sounds, but here they were put in a difficulty by their language consisting of monosyllables, so that one word has many different meanings. To meet this they devised an ingenious plan of making compound characters, or “pictures and sounds,” in which one part gives the sound, while the other gives the sense. To give an idea of this, suppose it were agreed that a picture of a box should stand for the sound box. As, however, this sound has several meanings, some sign must be added to show which is intended. Thus a key might be drawn beside it to show it is a box to put things in, or a leaf if it is to mean the plant called box, or a hand if it is intended for a box on the ear, or a whip would show that it was to signify the box of a coach. This would be for us a clumsy proceeding, but it would be a great advance beyond mere picture-writing, as it would make sure at once of the sound and the meaning. Thus in Chinese, the sound chow has various meanings, as ship, fluff, flickering, basin, loquacity. Therefore the character which represents a ship, chow, which is placed first in [Fig. 50], is repeated afterwards with additional characters to show which particular meaning of chow is intended. A recognisable pair of feathers is placed by it to mean chow = fluff; next, the sign of fire makes it chow = flickering; next, the sign of water makes it chow = basin; and lastly, the character for speech is joined to it to make chow = loquacity. These examples, though far from explaining the whole mystery of Chinese writing, give some idea of the principles of its sound-characters and keys or determinative signs, and show why a Chinese has to master such an immensely complicated set of characters in order to write his own language. To have introduced such a method of writing was an effort of inventive genius in the ancient Chinese, which their modern descendants show their respect for by refusing to improve upon it. At the same time it is not entirely through conservatism that they have not taken to phonetic writing like that of the western nations, for this would for instance confuse the various kinds of chow which their present characters enable them to keep separate. But the Japanese, whose language was better suited than the Chinese for being written phonetically, actually made themselves a phonetic system out of the Chinese characters. Selecting certain of these, they cut them down into signs to express sounds, one to stand for i, another for ro, another for fa, &c. Thus a set of forty-seven such characters (which they call accordingly the irofa), serve as the foundation of a system with which they write Japanese by sound more accurately than our writing conveys it.
Next, as to the cuneiform writing, such as is to be seen at the British Museum on the huge man-headed bulls of Nineveh, or on the flat baked bricks which were pages of books in the library of Sennacherib. The marks like wedges or arrow-heads arranged in groups and rows do not look much like pictures of objects. Yet there is evidence that they came at first from picture-writing; for instance, the sun was represented by a rude figure of it made by four strokes arranged round. Of the groups of characters in an inscription, some serve directly to represent objects, as man, woman, river, house, while other groups are read phonetically as standing for syllables. The inventors of this ancient system appear to have belonged to the Akkadian group of nations, the founders of early Babylonian civilization. In later ages the Assyrians and Persians learned to write their languages by cuneiform characters, in inscriptions which remain to this day as their oldest records. But the cuneiform writing was cumbrous in the extreme, and had to give way when it came into competition with the alphabet. To understand the origin of that invention, it is necessary to go back to a plan of writing which dates from antiquity probably even higher than the cuneiform of Babylonia, namely, the hieroglyphics of Egypt.
The earliest known hieroglyphic inscriptions of Egypt belong to a period approaching 3,000 B.C. Even at this ancient time the plan of writing was so far developed that the scribes had the means of spelling any word phonetically, when they chose. But though the Egyptians had thus come to writing by sound, they only trusted to it in part, combining it with signs which are evidently remains of earlier picture-writing. Thus the mere pictures of an ox, a star, a pair of sandals, may stand for ox, star, sandals. Even where they spelt words by their sounds, they had a remarkable way of adding what are called determinatives, which are pictures to confirm or explain the meaning of the spelt word. One short sentence given as an example from Renouf’s Egyptian Grammar, shows all these devices. The meaning is: “I (am) the Sun-god coming forth from the horizon against his enemies.” Here part of the pictures of animals and things are letters to be read into Egyptian words, as shown underneath. But others are still real pictures, intended to stand for what they represent. The sun is shown by his picture, with a one-mark below, and followed by the battle-axe which is the symbol of divinity, while further on comes a picture of the horizon with the sun on it. Beside these, some of the figures are determinative pictures to explain the words, the verb to walk being followed by an explanatory pair of legs, and the word enemy having the picture of an enemy after it, and then three strokes, the sign of plurality. It seems that the Egyptians began with mere picture-writing like that of the barbarous tribes of America, and though in after ages they came to use some figures as phonetic characters or letters, they never had the strength of mind to rely on them entirely, but went on using the old pictures as well. How they were led to make a picture stand for a sound is not hard to see. In the figure a character may be noticed which is read R. This is an outline of an open mouth, and indeed is often used to represent a mouth; but the Egyptian word for mouth being RO, the sign came to be used as a character or letter to spell the sound RO or R wherever it was wanted. So much of the history of the art of writing may thus be read in a single hieroglyphic sentence.