So that in the whole colloquial language of China, an European may make out 342 simple monosyllabic sounds, which by the help of aspirates, inflexions of voice, or accentuations, are capable of being increased by a Chinese to 1331 words. And as the written language is said to contain 80,000 characters, and each character has a name, it will follow, that, on an average, 60 characters, of so many different significations, must necessarily be called by the same monosyllabic name. Hence, a composition if read would be totally unintelligible to the ear, and must be seen to be understood. The monosyllabic sound assigned to each charter is applied to so many different meanings, that in its unconnected state it may be said to have no meaning at all. In the business of common life, the nice inflexions or modulations, that are required to make out these thirteen hundred words, may amply be expressed in about fifteen thousand characters, so that each monosyllabic sound will, in this case, on an average, admit of about twelve distinct significations. This recurrence of the same words must necessarily cause great ambiguity in conversation, and it frequently indeed leads to ridiculous mistakes, especially by foreigners. Thus, a sober missionary, intending to pass the night at a peasant's house, asked as he thought for a _mat_, but was very much surprised on seeing his host presenting him with a _young girl_; these two objects, so very different from one another, being signified by two words whose pronunciations are not distinguishable, and consequently one or the other requires to be used with an adjunct. It was a source of daily amusement to our conductors, to hear the _equivoques_ we made in attempting to speak their language. A Chinese, when the sense is doubtful, will draw the character, or the root of it, in the air with his finger or fan, by which he makes himself at once understood. But as some of these monosyllabic words, as I have observed of _ching_, have not less than fifty distinct significations, which the nicest tones and inflexions, even of a Chinese voice, are not able to discriminate, such words are generally converted into compounds, by adding a second syllable, bearing some relative sense to the first, by which the meaning is at once determined. Among the significations, for instance, of the monosyllable _foo_ is that of _father_, to which, for the sake of distinction, as _foo_ has many significations beside that of father, they add the syllable _chin_, implying _kindred_; thus, a Chinese in speaking of his parents invariably says _foo-chin_ for father, and _moo-chin_ for mother; but, in writing, the character of _chin_ would be considered as an unnecessary expletive, that of _foo_ being very differently made from any other called by the same name.