Early South Indian Palaeography c8.s2.t3: Chinese Writing
Early South Indian Palaeography c8.s2.t3
- Language
- English
Chinese Writing
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To a foreigner Chinese writing presents a strange sight; the reason, however, is not far to seek. The apparent modernity of most other modern scripts is conspicuous by its absence in Chinese writing. This modernity is after all their phonetic development; and Chinese writing is wholly different from them not only in the forms
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"The use of Sumerian characters to write Semitic names may have accelerated the conversion of ideographic into phonetic signs. But it complicated the result. A given sign is now liable to stand for one or more concepts, the sound of the Sumerian name of the concepts and the sound of the corresponding Semitic word. The complexity is much greater, since the same sign even in Sumerian might stand for several words, and so for several sounds. Probably Sumerians and Babylonians never felt any difficulty here, but for modern scholars the transliteration of Sumerian names into European alphabets is always difficult, and readings change. Within the last ten years, for instance *ur-nina* has been changed to *Ur-nanshe*, *Ur-engur* to *Ur-nammu* and so on". (Gordon Childe, *Man Makes Himself*, p. 183.)
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of its characters, but in their basic structure as it is still ideographic, though very much conventionalised. There is no systematic correspondence between the written characters and the sounds they represent. "The Chinese written language has no alphabet, for it has no spelling. It likewise has no visible parts of speech. The same character without change of form may be used as a noun, verb or adjective; all grammatical relations being indicated by position in the sentence. It is a language of roots and has no grammatical terminations to denote number, case, tense, person or other grammatical modifications. There are no inflections, the language being devoid of conjugation, declension and every form of grammatical construction. There are devices employed for indicating parts of speech, but they do not affect the drawing of the characters, which are made up of an old assortment of ideograms, phonograms and arbitrary symbols, often combined in the most illogical and whimsical manner."¹¹⁸
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¹¹⁸ Mason, *op. cit.*, p. 156.
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The reason for the peculiarity of the script, as Diringer observes, lies in the language itself.¹¹⁹ The three kinds of human speech are the isolating, agglutinative and the inflecting. The Indo-European and the Semitic languages are familiar instances of the inflectional variety. Chinese belongs to the Tibeto-Chinese family of languages, which are partly agglutinative and partly isolating. Perhaps, Chinese, as such, was once an agglutinative speech, but is now isolating, that is, it does not contain terminations or other grammatical forms.¹²⁰
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¹¹⁹ Diringer, *op. cit* p. 98.
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¹²⁰ *Ibid.*
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"The old prefixes and suffixes having been worn away and having lost their significance are replaced by independent words without the possibility of a real inflexion. Thus, as a rule, if it is desired to modify the sense of a word in respect to time, place or other relation, this is not done by adding a prefix or suffix (that is by incorporation of a vowel or a syllable with the main word as it is done in the agglutinative languages) but by adding some other separate word having a meaning of its own. Therefore, the whole language as spoken in its many dialects and written in a number of ways, consists of rudimentary monosyllables and compounds made from monosyllables.”¹²¹
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¹²¹ Diringer, *op.cit.*, p. 98.
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The ‘tones’ in Chinese speech, an apparent obstacle to the foreigner, actually render the language easier. They are indeed vital to the speech, almost as important as the vowels. The same word uttered on a low pitch may mean one thing on a rising pitch another, and on the high pitch yet another. Some scholars, therefore, call Chinese and allied languages ‘polytonic’.¹²² The Chinese syllables numbering about four hundred and fifty together makeup some one thousand two hundred combinations, largely owing to these tones. And yet even these one thousand two hundred words should be hardly sufficient but for *homonyms*, that is words with same sounds but different meanings.¹²³
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¹²² The number of tones vary from language to language and dialect to dialect.
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¹²³ “If these homonyms were to be written in alphabetic script, the ambiguity would certainly be much greater than it is in the present writing, in which, for example for the sound *shih* there are 239 characters (54, 40, 79 and 66 respectively for the different tones) . . . . . However, thanks to the means of variation (that is, the tones) each word is pronounced in a different musical note, and the Chinese language has been able to retain its power of expression. Another device which facilitates to understand the exact meaning is the employment of “synonym-compounds”, that is to say, pairs of words of similar meaning which make each other recognisable”. (Diringer, *op.cit.*, pp. 99-100.)
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It would thus be clear that every distinct idea must have a separate sign peculiar to itself, and that every new idea would require a new symbol distinct from any of the old symbols. As the language developed, to represent complex ideas in writing special characters had to be evolved.¹²⁴
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¹²⁴ For instance an idea such as: “to announce the death of a parent or relative by the nearest mourners on the seventh day” was represented by the following character: word 'fu' meaning father is a hand with two marks over it; being an illustration of the world-wide ethics of domestic responsibility." (Mason, *op.cit.*, p. 157.)
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[Figure:] In this, the left hand character in the compound is, the sign ‘to speak’; the right hand one is that for ‘to devine’. The square shaped figure in the first character is the picture of the mouth, and is its written symbol. The four lines above it represent ‘words’. All three signs are among the 214 radicals which form the basis of the written languages. The spoken word that stands for all this circumlocution is simply ‘fu’. The character for the same Fig. 11. Chinese gestures (1-2 command; 3-5 vow, oath; 6-9 refusal; 10 refuse to marry; 11 usurpation.)
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
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Despite all these oddities, speaking from the stand point of the evolution of the script itself it must be said that Chinese writing too was originally pictographic. Even the present day conventionalized script exhibits recognisable traces of its original pictographic nature, and this is particularly so as regards the construction of the characters. But the subsequent evolution of Chinese writing is not entirely along the lines of development of other scripts. As Mason observes, "it is not exactly ideographic nor is it purely phonetic. Many words are wholly ideographic and few are exclusively phonetic. It appears to be a system based on ideography advancing into phoneticism, but arrested at this stage".¹²⁵ We have therefore to conclude that Chinese writing got stuck up in the 'transitional' stage. The question of the origin of Chinese writing is far from clear. The influence of Cuneiform has been suggested, but as Diringer remarks, this does not seem probable.¹²⁶ Of course there are certain internal similarities, but they obtain among all ideographic scripts. Diringer holds that the theory of idea-diffusion gives us perhaps the right solution ; but as we have already observed, that theory is still in the realm of speculation.¹²⁷ Based on the same theory is the notion that some great Chinese personality, influenced by writing in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and elsewhere, must have invented Chinese writing. Traditional belief attributes writing to the influence of the eight mystic trigrams, *pa kua* (eight divination-diagrams), commonly employed in divinations, and the hexagrams derived from the trigrams or to the knot-device similar to the ancient Peruvian *quipus*.¹²⁸ However that may be, the use of tally-sticks, the typical Chinese gestures (*Fig. 11*), ornamentation, ritual symbolism and similar factors must have definitely played an appropriate role in the evolution of the charcters of Chinese writing.¹²⁹
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¹²⁵ Mason, *op.cit.*, p. 157.
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¹²⁶ Diringer, *op. cit.*, pp. 100-101.
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¹²⁷ See *ante*.
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¹²⁸ Diringer, *op. cit.*, p. 101.
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¹²⁹ *Ibid*.
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Mason suggests the following classification of the Chinese characters : ¹⁸⁰
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¹⁸⁰ Mason, *op.cit.*, pp. 158-9.
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i. *Hsiang hsing* : Pictograms or hieroglyphs, which include all the characters representing the conventionalized rendering of primitive pictures, totalling some six hundred, of which two hundred and fourteen signs have been selected as keys or determinatives, the so-called radicals.
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ii. *Chih shih* : Suggestive signs, representing ideas to the mind by the relative positions of the component parts of the signs : as the ideograph of the sun above a line—the horizon—to suggest the idea of 'morning'.
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iii. *Hui i* : Combined ideograms : Characters made up of two or more of primitive signs so associated as to convey the meaning of the idea to the mind through the eye : as the sun and the moon to indicate 'light' ; a mouth or a bird to indicate singing.
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iv. *Chuan chu* : Inverted signs : signs in which the meaning is conveyed by the inversion of the character of a significant change in position of its component parts—as the hands pointing to the right or the left to indicate these directions, or characters above or below a line to indicate these positions.
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v. *Chia chieh* : Metaphysical or borrowed signs—compound signs which suggest a fanciful meaning borrowed from the association of signs in the character—as 'beautiful' represented by a woman and a bird ; love by a woman and a child.
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vi. *Hsieh sheng* : Phonograms — These constitute the mass of the written characters in the language. They are composed of different, specific, phonetic signs combined with one or more ideographic determinatives or 'radicals' to give the particular meaning and to distinguish between homophones. In writing, the Chinese do precisely as the Egyptians did : set the picture of the specific idea or thing intended—the ideograph—beside the phonogram to illustrate the particular meaning and differentiate from many other homonyms.
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The radicals, called *tse-pu*, used, as we have seen, as determinatives may be classified into the following kinds:
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1. Natural objects and phenomena.
2. Botanical and mineral objects:—wheat, rice, bamboo, salt, metal, stone, gems etc.
3. Zoological objects:—man including parts of the body, horse, dog, ox, tiger etc.
4. Utensils:—knife, spoon, vase, boat etc.
5. Actions:—to see, to eat, to touch, to walk slowly, to kill, to enter etc.
6. Qualities:—large, small, high, low, slender, black, perverse etc.
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According to Diringer, there are two fields of development in the history of Chinese writing:—¹³¹
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¹³¹ Diringer, *op. cit.*, p. 106.
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1) The external forms of the Chinese symbols and
2) The systematization of the Chinese characters.
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The major changes in the shapes of the single symbols arose from the changes in the materials used for writing. For instance, when the narrow bamboo stylus was used to write on silk and slips of bamboo or wood, lines and curves could be easily traced and they were all of equal thickness. Bronze tools, shaped like the ‘burin’ or knives were employed for the engraved script. The use of the writing-brush called *pi*, made of elastic hair, exercised a good deal of influence on the formal evolution of the script. Curves virtually straightened, and the characters were made more conventional, ‘obliterating’ thus the likeness to the original pictures. Further development was initiated by the invention of paper in A. D. 105.
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The main varieties of early Chinese writing are the *ku wên* or ancient figures; the *ta Chuan* or ‘greater seal’; the *hsias Chuan* or ‘lesser seal’ and *li shu* or ‘official script’.¹³² There were many varieties of *li shu*, which developed in course of time. Apart from these, Chinese calligraphy knows many other forms, more than hundred ornamental scripts with fancy names.¹³³
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¹³² Five other kinds of Chinese writing said to have been employed under the Ch‘in dynasty (221–206 B.C.) are the *k'o fu*, inscribed on tallies, the *ch'ung shu*, fanciful characters shaped like birds or insects, the *mu yin*, used for stamps or seals, and two varieties of the *shu shu*, one employed for official notices and the other used for inscriptions. Another style of writing, the *pa fên* lies midway between the *husiao chann* and *li shu* (Ibid., p. 107).
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¹³³ Diringer, *op.cit.*, p. 108.
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The systematization of Chinese characters should be given due importance in any survey of Chinese writing. What with the 'ideographic-transitional' nature of the script, and its many varieties which have evolved in the course of historical development, the vast territory of China and the poor means of communication, there was the "excessive multiplication of symbols including numerous useless, doubles, abbreviations, cursive varieties, faulty forms due to the ignorance of many scribes and so forth".¹³⁴ In order to steer clear of this veritable jungle of symbols, Chinese scholars even in early times were particularly engaged in introducing some method in their writing. The main problem was classifying the written characters into groups according to their affinity. The earliest attempt was made in *Erh ya* compiled about the eleventh century B. C. In the third century B. C. Li Ssu published the official catalogue, *San ts'ang*, containing 3,300 characters. In the second century A. D. Hsü Shēn brought out the lexicon, *Shuo wēn*, improving on Li Ssu's catalogue and classifying the Chinese characters. He reproduced 10,516 symbols (of which 9,353 were simples and 1,163 doubles) under 540 rational keys or *radicals* (classifiers). With the sixth century A. D. commences the publication of phonetic dictionaries; classification was based on the sound and tone of the words. Since then phonetic dictionaries had been published, off and on, down to the eighteenth century A.D. when "K'ang-hsi (1662-1772) published his famous dictionary containing 44,449 Chinese characters classified under 214 keys only, the greater part of the symbols, more than 30,000 being either out of date or doubles or faulty signs."¹³⁵
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¹³⁴ *Ibid.*
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¹³⁵ *Ibid.*, p. 111.
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We have already noted the six-fold classification of Chinese characters followed by the Chinese lexicographers.¹³⁶ The main difficulty in any study of Chinese writing is that it is not organically integrated with the language as such. As Diringer notes, it "represents the forgotten speech of several thousand years ago. It appeals therefore to the eye rather than to the ear. The Chinese written language, notable for its richness of expression and flexibility, is in its rules of composition, its style and its vocabulary, far removed from the vernacular, which, besides, developed dialects so different that they are mutually almost unintelligible. Scholars who cannot understand each other's speech can read the same books and communicate by writing''.¹³⁷
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¹³⁶ See *ante*.
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¹³⁷ Diringer, *op.cit.*, p. 110, "Tradition assigns the invention of the development of Chinese 'phonetics' or spelling to Buddhist missionaries from India translating their sacred books into Chinese, who were anxious to introduce some system in order to read and explain their holy scriptures correctly. However, the most important system of Chinese spelling is the syllabic method *fan ch'ieh* which gives the sound of a character by writing two other characters, the first to represent the initial and the palatalization, the second to represent the final—including the vowel—the labialization and the tone." (*Ibid.*)
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The classification followed in modern dictionaries is three-fold: (1) according to the meaning of the words; (2) phonetic, according to the sound and the 'tones' and (3) graphic according to the external form of the symbols. On the whole there are 214 categories of characters in Chinese writing, distinguished by certain *radicals* or *keys*, according to the number of strokes they contain. The direction of writing is vertical, from above downwards, the columns arranged from right to left.
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By its very nature Chinese writing was very complicated and cumbrous to influence people of other cultures. Yet the Annamites and some non-Chinese peoples of China adopted it not to speak of the Japanese.¹³⁸ The Japanese who learnt the art of writing from the Chinese were responsible for a thorough simplification of the script occasioned by the structure of their language.¹³⁹ Japanese is a polysyllabic language while Chinese is monosyllabic. "The Chinese characters which are verbal phonograms could only be used for the polysyllabic Japanese words by being treated as syllabic signs. A number of characters sufficient to constitute a syllabary having been selected from the numerous Chinese verbal phonograms, it was found that the whole apparatus of determinatives (or *keys*, *radicals* or *primitives* as they are termed in describing Chinese writing) might be rejected, being no longer indispensable to the reader. By these two changes an almost incredible simplification of the Chinese writing was effected. But though syllabism is a great advance on a system of verbal phonograms, yet it is necessarily somewhat cumbrous owing to the considerable number of characters which are required.”¹⁴⁰
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¹³⁸ Chinese writing has, however, influenced externally many other scripts, particularly the Mongolian scripts and the Korean alphabet. (*Ibid.*, p. 117).
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¹³⁹ Haddon, *Evolution in Art*, p. 218.
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¹⁴⁰ The development of Japanese writing stopped with the invention of the syllabaries. “The fact that during more than a thousand years it should never have occurred to a people so ingenious as the Japanese to develop their syllabary into an alphabet may suffice to show that the discovery of the alphabetic principle of writing is not such an easy or obvious matter as might be supposed.” (Isaac Taylor, quoted in Haddon, *op. cit*).
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We have seen how the Egyptians too stopped short of the final development of true alphabetic writing. This only confirms that there must be a large gap between the penultimate and the ultimate stages. The Semites who lived in the delta of lower Egypt during the five or six centuries of the Hyskos dynasty, seized on the alphabetic symbols of the cursive Hieratic developed by the Egyptian scripts for secular writings. “Their language and mode of thought being different from that of the Egyptian scribe, and having no sacred traditions to hamper them, they were able to break away from the trammels of antiquity. They were wise enough to drop the useless number of the phonogram and ideogram and so they dissected out, as it were, the alphabet from the cursive hieratic”.¹⁴¹ This reform of the script was a vital necessity for them as it gave them ‘a ready and simple method for recording business transactions’. The spread of the alphabet to other lands and peoples is mainly due to the early oversea traders, the Phoenicians, who distributed it, so to say, along with their wares. The Greeks who also had learnt the alphabet from the Phoenicians, however, perfected it to a degree not contemplated by others. This improvement in notation “enabled them to register thoughts more ennobling than the records of commerce. It is scarcely conceivable that Greece could have risen to her intellectual pre-eminence if she had been shackled with phonetic writing. Evolution in notation is necessary for the evolution of mental processes”.¹⁴²
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¹⁴¹ Haddon, *op.cit.*, p. 220.
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¹⁴² *Ibid.*
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The short survey of the history of writing in the foregoing pages does not include many of the deeper aspects of the problems; neither is it extensive in its range, as many countries have been omitted, mainly for considerations of space. And for its length perhaps it is too cramped with somewhat technical details, the contours of which are none too clear; and thus, it may be that facts often get telescoped into speculations. Yet in one sense, this arrangement is inevitable—but not undesirable for that—for where we do not have incontrovertible evidence we are tempted to build probable hypotheses and the line between hypothesis and pure speculation is often quite thin. The study of writing is still not such a well-developed subject as some of the other branches of history. There is plenty of research to be done, many intricate questions to be answered and for all we know, as we answer them more questions will crop up. And thus we go on goaded by the urge for that elusive ideal of perfection. Already we have many a mighty achievement to our credit, but more is to be learnt. We have gathered a fair percentage of good wheat, but the harvest is not yet over.