Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

are absolutely symbolical, because they can excite the idea of an indefinite plural merely by convention, for their number, taken as it is marked, excites only the idea of the definite number three. By convention, therefore, these three lines express the plural, and they must consequently be considered as a symbolical character. But mark what has happened; by joining these three lines with transversal lines, which connect their high extremities with the lower, we produce an undulating line, and this evidently is the original of the arbitrary mark which has been substituted for the primitive character consisting of three lines. But we have seen the three lines to stand for the syllable noue, expressing the plural; and, therefore, we find that the undulating line also stands for the same syllable, noue, and equally expresses the plural; and as this syllable, noue, begins with an N, as soon as the alphabet was formed, the undulating line was taken to express that letter. Hence it happens, as I have already observed, that the Egyptians, by the very nature of their characters, like the rest of the Orientals, never can mark the vowels, but in writing exhibit only the figure of the object, or the conventional sign which has been employed instead of this figure.

This custom of mixing figurative and symbolical characters has been pursued in China also; and, no doubt, the Chinese adopted it after the example of the Egyptians. For, in the instances I have already quoted, this mixture of figurative and

symbolical characters is most evident, although, by the succeeding alterations, these figurative characters of the Egyptians can scarcely be traced to their original figures. If the view which I take of this subject should prove true, what then shall we say of the Chinese? They are no longer that ancient nation, who boast of a chronology which overturns all the antiquities of our globe; they are a colony of the Egyptians, though, perhaps, more than any other people, they have preserved their monuments, and thereby the memory of their origin. This, Carli had suspected long since; and many other writers, as well as Carli, have thought so; and now the Egyptian monuments, or rather the discovery of the original method adopted and pursued by them, confirms this opinion of Carli. I shall endeavour to the possibility of doubt. tian hieroglyphics, the animals had different significations, for sometimes they were used to convey the simple idea of the animal, and at other times the abstract and symbolical notion of a thing, which apparently had not the least relation to it; but then another hieroglyphic was added, which served to shew and express this allegorical meaning. This is also what the Chinese do. In their writing, the simple figure of a dog, for instance, or, what is the same, the arbitrary mark which has been employed instead of the figure of a dog, serves to excite the idea of that animal; but if this mark is joined to

establish this fact beyond We know, that in Egypfigure of the different

the character expressing a man, then these two marks no longer mean a dog and a man, but exhibit a third idea, and that is humility; and if, instead of the sign expressing man, we employ the sign which is used to signify a face, then these two characters no longer signify a dog and a face, but the sense of smelling. And again, if instead of the sign of a face, we employ the one which exhibits a field, then we shall have another signification, and that is, the action of hunting, or the chace.

This is still more evident from the character by which they express the night. This character is composed of three signs, one signifying obscurity ; another, the action of covering, and a third a man; so that the whole literally means the obscurity covering man, that is, night.

To express the idea of knowing, or being aware, they employ a character which is composed of two signs, one representing a mouth, and the other an arrow, which symbolically means the power of hitting; so that the whole group signifies, the speech that hits like an arrow. Indeed, of this symbolical signification of the arrow, we have an example in the Holy Scripture. In Ezekiel xxii. 21., we find, "The king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He was mixing his arrows." As the best commentators have translated it. And this most undoubtedly refers to the custom of almost all the Orientals, in a doubtful case, to shoot away arrows, to know what they were to do. On each of the

arrows they had written one of the answers that decided the question, and the answer which was written on the arrow that hit the mark, was the very one which was followed.

It is the difficulty of discovering this analogy, or rather the symbolical meaning of each character, that renders the Chinese language the most difficult of any. For, in order to understand the meaning of each word, we should be well acquainted with their manners, customs, laws, religious habits, prejudices, in short, with whatever has belonged and does belong to the people, and this no doubt is the origin of the emphatic and bombastic style and modes of speech used by all the Orientals.

Two more circumstances I shall quote, and I have done with the Chinese.

We have seen that the Egyptians inscribed, in an oval or a ring, the names of certain individuals; and in the Chinese books, the names of individuals are oftentimes equally enclosed in a ring. The Egyptians, in their manuscripts, invariably wrote in a perpendicular line, and went from right to left; and this is precisely the manner in which all the Chinese books are written. I might carry this comparison to a greater length, but from the examples I have quoted, it has been sufficiently proved, that in the invention of the characters, in their disposition, and in their simple as well as symbolical meaning, the Chinese have closely followed the example of the Egyptians; and that in the written languages of these two nations, we

find originally words made up by the assemblage of two or more characters, each of which exhibited the figure or arbitrary mark of any object to which they had attached a sound or a word.

Things were in this state when, fortunately for the benefit of mankind, there appeared in the land of Egypt a man, who observed that each monosyllable ended by a sound which, with little variation, was repeated in all monosyllables. These sounds, to which we have given the appellation of vowels, were soon distinguished, and it was found that each figure or character, which hitherto had been taken as expressing the whole monosyllable, might be taken as the representation of the first part of this monosyllable, which was more varied, and more liable.

That such must have been the case, appears from the very nature of the sounds or words by which the primitive simple figures were called individually; and I hope to be able to make the whole intelligible to you, by examples taken at random from the Egyptian language.

We shall take, for instance, the words ro, the mouth; suo, or soo, a grain of corn; tot, the hand. In all these words, the last termination, or sound, is always the same, always o, though the beginning is different, being T in tot, R in ro, and S in soo. Again, in the words rime, a tear; se, or si, a child; tse, or tsi, the daughter, we have another general termination in e, or i, attached to three other sounds of the R, the S, and the T; it was, therefore, evident

« FöregåendeFortsätt »