learn these by practice at school, and knows them intuitively, but European investigators have discovered that their number is limited, for practical purposes, to something between 1,600 and 1,700, from which, by the addition of one or other of the 214 radicals, at least seven-eighths of the characters in the Chinese language, variously estimated at forty or fifty thousand, are found. It is possible, therefore, by learning these phonetics, or primitives as they are sometimes called, to make a very close guess at the sound of any Chinese character, though it must be admitted that there are many exceptions to the rule.
Illustrations have been given above of the primitive and modern forms of certain Chinese characters. The former, it may be well to repeat, are more or less conjectural, for there is probably no genuine specimen in existence of a purely pictorial character. The so-called modern form is modern only by comparison, for it dates from at least the 2nd century b.c. It probably has remained unchanged from the time of the invention of printing in China, which, according to Mr. Watters, dates from the Sui Dynasty (a.d. 589-619), and we are safe in assuming that the written language of to-day "is to all intents and purposes the written language of twenty-five hundred years ago."[1] The earliest genuine specimen of connected Chinese writing is to be found on certain stone blocks or cones, commonly called the "Stone Drums,"[2] which are now deposited in the Confucian Temple at Peking. There are isolated specimens of an undoubtedly earlier date than the stone drums which have been copied from old coins and vases, but for the purposes of this chapter they need not be taken into consideration, as the originals are now probably not in existence. The exact age of the "Stone Drums " cannot be positively determined, but Chinese writers, with a few exceptions, agree in assigning them to the period of Hsüan Wang, in the Chou Dynasty, two centuries before the time of Confucius, which would make them about 2,700 years old. The inscriptions consist of poetry, written in what is known as the old seal character, commemorating one of the hunting expeditions of
- ↑ Professor Giles, China and the Chinese.
- ↑ An exception should, perhaps, be made in favour of a bronze tripod in a temple on "Silver Island," in the river Yangtsze, which is also assigned by many Chinese experts to the same date as the Stone Drums.
