B.C. 200; and that time or its middle point, в.c. 650, may be taken as a convenient way-mark for testing the progress of development.

The writers of that age were in possession of what is called the Ku wen as their medium for expressing their ideas in a written form. That this was not identical with the colloquial language of the day may be argued from the fact that the founder of the Wen chang or modern literary style, and the founder of modern poetry, both lived within that period. Tso kieu ming, whose amplification of the Ch'un ts'ieu of Confucius has been recently translated by Dr. Legge, is greatly admired as a master of style. His book is used as a guidebook in the art of sentence-making, in the effective use of particles, in judiciousness of grouping, and in a vivid and pictorial arrangement of facts in a narrative.

But in attaining this excellence it is manifest that he was refining upon the popular language, and helping to found a new style. He must be regarded, then, as an epoch-maker in the development of the book language. Under him it began to diverge more widely than before from the colloquial style. In proof of the existence of dialects in the time of Tso kieu ming, reference may here be made to some dialectic words which have been pointed out by Legge. In proof that the book language was once colloquial, it is sufficient to refer to the more popular of the Odes. They must have been in the language of the common people.

The poet whose appearance helps to mark a great turning-point in the development of the literary language was C'hü yuen in the third century B.C. Under his hands the ancient poetry, which was thoroughly colloquial, became more cultured. Instead of being the simple outflow of feeling, put into words bearing a rhythmical form but colloquial, poetry became distinguished for a specially ornate phraseology. The poems which Confucius collected were vernacular, or chiefly so, and differ in this respect from those of C'hü yuen.

The existence of the Er ya and other dictionaries of archaisms published in the Cheu and Han dynasties, is of itself a proof of the fact that Confucius looked back on a lengthened time of literary antiquity preceding his own. It had then become necessary to explain old words. Obsolete names were constantly increasing in number. The language was stereotyped in its characters, but the living words which those characters represented were constantly

changing, as in all languages. Many of their modifications in sound were so prominent to the speakers that they felt prompted to make a change in the character, or originate a new one. No new words were introduced. All that appear to be such are merely old ones transmogrified.

Hence new characters arose which to some extent chronicled the successive changes that occurred in the history of words, as they acquired new senses, abstract or concrete, or lost old ones. There can be little doubt that t'së, së, tsï, Z chï, ♬ shë, all having the meaning this, are modifications of a single demonstrative.

The way in which writers of the time of Confucius, or earlier, allude to ancient times, is instructive. When they speak of their history, they look on it as real, and there is such a substratum of solid fact in it, that it seems correct to look on much of it as real rather than mythical. They were men without any great amount of superstition; with as little as has been possessed by the learned of any ancient nation: e.g. Tso explains that a comet is not a portent of evil. Confucius had indeed a veneration for the past, which in a superstitious age might have misled him; but in a practical, thoughtful, critical, and learned time, such as his time was, would be less likely to render his judgment erroneous. There is no doubt that he looked at the facts of the Shang dynasty as truly described in the Shu king. He traced indeed his own genealogy to the imperial house which then ruled China. In regard to the Hia dynasty, his praise of its calendar, and his allusion to the costume that then prevailed, should be allowed to imply not only the existence of that dynasty, but the possession of books which described with a certain minuteness the condition of China at that time. But this implies that writing was in use in the Hia dynasty, that is, in the period extending from B.C. 2100 to B.c. 1700. This agrees very nearly with the time for the origin of writing asserted by the Chinese, viz. B.C. 2300. The existence of a calendar implies the existence of the art of writing.

The age previous to the time of Confucius witnessed the production of the poems embodied in the Shï king and in the Stone Drums, recently translated by Dr. Bushell. All the odes of those times are in rhyme, and therefore contain evidence as to the state of the language when they were written. Thus, the final consonants were ng,

n, m, k, t, p, as in the Canton and Amoy dialects at present. In those dialects there are some irregularities, which may be corrected by the tonic dictionaries and the poetry. In the rhyming consonant finals, if we wish to know which is right, when the usage of the dialects or of the poems is observed to differ, an umpire will be found in the tonic dictionaries, by whose decision we may prove the dialectic usage to be irregular.

It is a great step in our researches to know that the six final consonants assert themselves beyond contradiction in the rhymes of the Shi king. It also appears by the same authority that there are perhaps 100 common words which had the finals k, t, or p in в.c. 800, but had lost it in A.D. 600. Thus we learn that during the time of Confucius, of Ts'in shï hwang the conqueror, and of Sï ma t'sien the historian, one important tendency of the language was to drop its final mutes. We also learn that in those times there was no such great revolution proceeding in the language, in regard to final letters, as during the period from A.D. 600 to the present time. The phonetic elements of the language were then in a state of comparative steadiness and quietude, anterior to the great changes afterwards to occur.

SECTION 4.-The Chinese Writing as a Body of Characters is an Index to the State of the Language at the Time it was Invented.

The phonetic principle in the formation of characters is based on identity of sound in the words written with the same phonetic. Just as final k rhymes uniformly with final k in the old poetry, so k in the phonetic part of characters where it appears as a final keeps its place in the same phonetic in all characters formed from it. For example, in the inscription on the third of the Stone Drums,lak 'pleasure,' rhymes with dry land,' here used for sword,' and also with siak 'let go,' shak 'to shoot,' and some other words. K final therefore existed in the sound of these words in north-western China 2600 years ago.

lok

6

So the words ma 'horse' andma 'to revile' are known to have had the same sound at the time of the invention of writing, by their being written with the same phonetic. In this case the phonetic is a picture of a horse. Sometimes the origin of the phonetic is not known.

Thus from the use of the same phonetic in luk

'wealth and honour,' and luk ‘ green,' we learn in the same way that k existed in both these words. The k now found in 白 bak 'white,' was also there when the characters were invented about B.C. 2200 (as I think), in the words written with the same phonetic, pakhundred,' pek, the third title of nobility, the beg of the Turks, who received it from China in the Han dynasty; in pak 'the animal soul,' and p'a 'fear,' where it has been since lost. The character for 'white' was first invented and called bak, which was the common name for the colour at that time. 'Cypress,' 'animal soul,' the 'third title of nobility,' 'fear,' 'hundred,' 'to assist', 'blue,' 'azure,' 'green', p'e 'to strike with the hand,' g p'a 'a napkin,'pe 'pressing' urgent,'pe 'a ship,' pe 'dregs of wine,' were all written with this character, or that for a hundred, only differing from it by a stroke. An appropriate ideographic element is added. 'striking,' rice for that of and so with the others.

The radical hand is added for the sense of wine dregs,' walking for that of urgent,'

The existence of final t, be shown in the same way. lim 'water dropping.' So also dam or t'am 'reaching,' extending to,' is used in t'am 'deep,' sacrifices offered seven months after the decease of parents, to 'feel with the hand,' to 'think,' to pay beforehand for things bought, to 'talk,' a 'dark-coloured horse,' 'edge of a sword,' 'take into the mouth greedily.' Each meaning has its appropriate ideographic sign, viz. water, sacrifice, hand, heart, ancient shell money, viz. pei, words, horse, metal, mouth.

final p, and the finals ng, n, m, may Thus lim 'forest,' is used in

Thus the same sort of syllabic constitution belonged to the language when the writing was invented as now. The Canton and Amoy dialects also are seen by this process of proof to retain at the present day the final letters which existed so many ages ago. The Chinese characters furnish their own key in a manner most satisfactory and convincing.

But there was a past in the Chinese language anterior to the invention of the characters. Its words were undergoing changes at an earlier period. It would be a very interesting result if we should be able to find out what alterations in the syllabary were silently proceeding (e.g. final Ρ to final m) at the time the characters were made; and also, if, from the evidence furnished by the words themselves, we

should be able to learn what changes had completed their course, or nearly so, before the characters were made (e.g. d to s, sh, 1). To show what can be done in this field, I must proceed to letter-changes. The appearance of ch, f, and h, was probably subsequent to the formation of the characters. Ch comes from t and d. F comes from p. H comes from k. When did these three changes take place? In the Amoy and Tiechiu dialects we find evidence that they are still proceeding. The Mandarin chai to break,'chi 'regulate,' 'heal,'c'ha 'tea,' chung middle,' ch'e an 'imperial order,'

c'hang 'joyful,' 'extending,' c'hau 'tide,' are in the Tiechiu vocabulary ti'a 'break,' ti rule,' te tea,' tang 'middle,' t'ek 'imperial order,' tiang 'joyful,' tie tide.' The tonic dictionaries also give t, t', and d as the initials of these words. Now let it be considered that in the phonetics there is no appearance of any difference between ch and t. Nearly 300 phonetics are now found with the initial ch occasionally occurring. Most of them have also the initial t, either in Mandarin, or in the Amoy and Tiechiu dialects, or in the tonic dictionaries. The direction of change is always from t to ch, never from ch to t. The further we go back, the less do we find of ch, and the more of t. Under the Han dynasty, the Turkish word Tengri for Heaven' was transferred into Chinese by a character now pronounced Cheng, but then evidently called Teng. Pan ku, the historian of the Han period, has preserved this word. In the Book of Odes, where natural sounds are frequently written phonetically, it is advisable always to change the Mandarin ch to t or d. Going back to the time of the invention of writing, there is no proper place among the phonetics for ch as an initial. T, t', and d meet the requirements of each phonetic much better, as will be found by trial.

A special advantage we have in examining Chinese sounds is the limitation of the field. The monosyllabic type has never been interfered with. The primitive monosyllable is a monosyllable still. The intrusion of r and after the initial mute, so common in European languages, is still a future possibility, and no more, to the speaker of Chinese. These facts lend to the language a wonderfully primeval aspect, which should attract to it the earnest study of all who are interested in the examination of the oldest facts in human speech. On this account the appearance of certain letters in the syllabary for the first time assumes in Chinese a special importance. This gradual