China and the Chinese

by Herbert Allen Giles

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 日 the "sun" and 月 the "moon" were combined to form 明 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, 日 "sun" and 木 "tree," combined as 東, "the sun seen rising through trees," signified "the east"; 言 "words" and 舌 "tongue" = 话 話 "speech"; 友 (old form

) "two hands" = "friendship"; 女 "woman" and 子 "child" = 好 "good"; 女 "woman" and 生 "birth," "born of a woman" = 姓 "clan name," showing that the ancient Chinese traced through the mother and not through the father; 勿 streamers used in signalling a negative = "do not!"

From 林 "two trees," the picture of a forest, we come to 森 "three trees," suggesting the idea of density of growth and darkness; 孝 "a child at the feet of an old man" = "filial piety"; 戈 "a spear" and 手 "to kill," suggesting the defensive attitude of individuals in primeval times = 我 "I, me"; 我 "I, my," and 羊 "sheep," suggesting the obligation to respect another man's flocks = 義 "duty toward one's neighbour"; 大 "large" and 羊 "sheep" = 美 "beautiful"; and 善, "virtuous," also has "sheep" as a component part,—why we do not very satisfactorily make out, except that of course the sheep would play an important rôle among early pastoral tribes. The idea conveyed by what we call the conjunction "and" is expressed in Chinese by an ideogram, viz. 及, which was originally the picture of a hand, seizing what might be the tail of the coat of a man preceding, scilicet following.

The third and greatest step in the art of writing was reached when the Chinese, who had been trying to make one character do for several similar-sounding words of different meanings, suddenly bethought themselves of distinguishing these several similar-sounding words by adding to the original character employed some other character indicative of the special sense in which each was to be understood. Thus, in speech the sound ting meant "the sting of an insect," and was appropriately pictured by what is now written 丁.

There were, however, other words also expressed by the sound ting, such as "a boil," "the top or tip," "to command," "a nail," "an ingot," and "to arrange." These would be distinguished in speech by the tones and suffixes, as already described; but in writing, if 丁 were used for all alike, confusion would of necessity arise. To remedy this, it occurred to some one in very early ages to make 丁, and other similar pictures of things or ideas, serve as what we now call Phonetics, i.e. the part which suggests the sound of the character, and to add in each case an indicator of the special sense intended to be conveyed. Thus, taking 丁 as the phonetic base, in order to express ting, "a boil," the indicator for "disease," 疒, was added, making 疔; for ting, "the top," the indicator for "head," 页, was added, making 顶; for "to command," the symbol for "mouth," 口 was added, making 叮; for "nail," and also for "ingot," the symbol for "metal," 金, was added, making 钉 釘; and for "to arrange," the symbol for "speech," 言, was added, making 訂. We thus obtain five new words, which, so far as the written language is concerned, are easily distinguishable one from another, namely, ting "a sting," disease-ting = "a boil," head-ting = "the top," mouth-ting = "to command," metal-ting = "a nail," speech-ting = "to arrange." In like manner, the words for "mouth," "to rap," and "a button," were all pronounced k'ou. Having got 口 k'ou as the picture of a mouth, that was taken as the phonetic base, and to express "to rap," the symbol for "hand," 手 or 扌, was added, making 扣; while to express "button," the symbol for "metal," 金 was added, making 釦. So that we have k'ou = "mouth," hand-k'ou = "to rap," and metal-k'ou = "button."

Let us take a picture of an idea. We have 東 tung = the sun seen through the trees,—"the east." When the early Chinese wished to write down tung "to freeze," they simply took the already existing 東 as the phonetic base, and added to it "an icicle," 冫, thus 凍. And when they wanted to write down tung "a beam," instead of "icicle," they put the obvious indicator 木 "wood," thus 栋 棟.

We have now got the two portions into which the vast majority of Chinese characters can be easily resolved.

There is first the phonetic base, itself a character originally intended to represent some thing or idea, and then borrowed to represent other things and ideas similarly pronounced; and secondly, the indicator, another character added to the phonetic base in order to distinguish between the various things and ideas for which the same phonetic base was used.