These remarks will, perhaps, explain the general composition of Chinese characters. By far the greater part of them are now formed, either of the original pictorial symbols, greatly modified, indeed, and changed from their likeness to the things they stand for, or of those joined to each other in a compound character, partly symbolical and partly phonetic. The former part is called the _radical_, the latter the _primitive_. The Chinese divide the characters into six classes, viz., imitative symbols, or those original figures which bore a resemblance to the forms of material objects; indicative symbols, where the position of the two parts point out the idea; symbols combining ideas, a class not very unlike the preceding, but more complex; inverted symbols; metaphoric symbols, as that of the natural heart, denoting the affections; and lastly, phonetic symbols. Out of twenty-four thousand two hundred and thirty-five characters, (nearly all the different ones there are in the language), twenty-one thousand eight hundred and ten of them are phonetic, or as much so as the nature of their composition would allow, though there is no other clue to the sound than to learn the sound of the parts or of the whole, either from the people themselves or from a dictionary. The Chinese tyro learns the sounds of most of the characters, as boys do the names of minerals, by tradition. As he stands before his master, he and the whole class hear from his mouth their names, and repeat them until they are remembered. Consequently, almost an infinite variety in the sounds of the characters arise from this mode of learning them, while the meanings remain fixed; though there still remains enough resemblance in the sounds to show their common origin, as, _bien_, _meen_, _mien_, and _meeng_, all meaning _the face_, and written with the same character. The local differences in pronunciation are so great within a few hundred miles, in some parts of China, that the people barely understand each other when they speak; and even in two towns fifty miles apart, the local patois can be detected, though the dissimilarity is not so great as to prevent their inhabitants conversing together. For purposes of intercourse among civilians, who being from distant parts of the empire, might otherwise find considerable difficulty in making themselves understood if each spoke his own local patois, there is a court dialect which not only civilians, but all educated men are obliged or expected to understand. This is the common pronunciation over the northeastern provinces of Chihli, Shantung, Nganhwui, and Kiangsu, and somewhat in the contiguous provinces also, though everywhere in these regions with some slight local variations. This dialect is called _kwan hwa_, and has been usually termed the _mandarin[109] dialect_, but it is properly the Chinese spoken language, and the variations from it are the dialects and patois. It is evident, however, that one sound of a character is no