Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey through the Country from Pekin to CantonBarrow, John, Sir
History
Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey through the Country from Pekin to Canton
Barrow, John, Sir
China -- Description and travel
Pekin. Canton.
1. Ye yat
2. ul ye
3. san saam
4. soo see
5. ou um
6. leu lok
7. tchee tsat
8. pas pat
9. tcheu kow
10. shee shap
11. shee-ye shap-yat
12. shee-ul shap-ye
20. ul-shee ye-shap
30. san-shee saam-shap
31. san-shee-ye saam-shap-yat
32. san-shee-ul saam-shap-ye
100. pe paak
1000. tsien tseen
10,000. van man
100,000. she-van shap-man
If then, in this highly civilized empire, the oral language of the
northern part differs so widely from the southern that, in numerous
instances, by none of the etymological tricks[15] can they be brought to
bear any kind of analogy; if the very word which in Pekin implies the
number _one_, be used in Canton to express _two_, how very absurd and
ludicrous must these learned and laboured dissertations appear, that
would assign an oriental origin to all our modern languages?
[15] Such as the addition, deduction, mutation, and transposition of
letters, or even syllables. Thus Mr. Webbe thinks that the derivation of
the Greek γυνὴ _a woman_, from the Chinese _na-gin_, is
self-evident.
Whatever degree of affinity may be discovered between the sounds of the
Chinese language and those of other nations, their written character has
no analogy whatsoever, but is entirely peculiar to itself. Neither the
Egyptian inscriptions, nor the nail-headed characters, or monograms,
found on the Babylonian bricks, have any nearer resemblance to the
Chinese than the Hebrew letters have to the Sanscrit; the only analogy
that can be said to exist between them is, that of their being composed
of points and lines. Nor are any marks or traces of alphabetic writing
discoverable in the composition of the Chinese character; and, if at any
time, hieroglyphics have been employed to convey ideas, they have long
given way to a collection of arbitrary signs settled by convention, and
constructed on a system, as regular and constant as the formation of
sounds in any of the European languages arises out of the alphabets of
those languages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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