A Note on an Early Logographic Theory of Chinese Writing Yuen Ren Chao Harvard Journal of Asiatic Sudies, Volume 5, Issue 2 (Jun., 1940), 189-191, ‘Your use of the ISTOR database indicates your acceptance of ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, A copy of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use is available at hup://www jstororg/about/terms himl, by contacting ISTOR a jstor-info@umich.edu, or by calling JSTOR at (888)388-3574, (734)998-9101 or (FAX) (734)998-9113, No part of a ISTOR transmission may be copied, downloaded, stored, further transmitted, transferred, distributed, altered, oF otherwise used, in any form or by any means, except: (I) one stored electronic and one paper copy of any article solely for your personal, non-commercial use, or 2) with prior written permission of JSTOR and the publisher of the article or other text, Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies is published by Harvard-Yenching Institute. Please contact the publisher for further permissions regarding the use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupslwww jstor.org/journals/hyi hum, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (©1940 Harvard-Yenching Institute ISTOR and the ISTOR logo are trademarks of JSTOR, and are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office For more information on JSTOR contact jstor-info@umich.edu, ©1999 ISTOR hupslwww jstor.org/ Mon Jul 26 17:56:44 1999BRIEF NOTES A NOTE ON AN EARLY LOGOGRAPHIC THEORY OF CHINESE WRITING Yuen Ren Cao MGtE ‘Yau Usivenaree In 1987, Peter A. Bonners wrote: “ Pictograms and symbolic signs do not constitute in themselves Graphs, i-e., elements of a written Language. In order to become such, they must be con- ventionally and habitually associated with certain semantic- phonetic values... (Chin. ma, not hippos, equus, Pferd, ete.) .”* Farther, “the term ‘ ideograph’ which is so widely used by both Iayman and scholar is, we believe, responsible for most of the misunderstanding of the evolution of writing. The sooner it is abandoned, the better. We should suggest the revival of the old term ‘logograph.’ Signs in writing, however ambiguous, stylized, or symbolie, represent words.”* Booonexa would certainly have been pleased, if he had had access to a little known work of another Peter, Peter $. Du Poxcrat, to find in it a striking confirmation. Writing in 1838, Du Poxceav said: “ Chinese characters represent, words of the Chinese language, and ideas only through them . . . those characters are necessarily applied to a particular language, and therefore, their object not being to represent ideas independ- ently, but at second hand through the words of that particular idiom, they are not entitled to the name of ideographic, which has been inadvertently given to them.”* Du Ponceav’s book forms the second volume of Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philo- sophical Society. It is in the form of a letter addressed to John. Vavouw (pp. 1-142), to which are appended a “ Vocabulary of the Cochinchinese Language” (pp. 148-84°and 10 plates for "Peter A, Booonine, Some Prolepical Remarks on the Bvolution of Archaic Chinese, HAS, 2.4.351 * Op. cit, 892 footnote * Peter §, Du Poxceat, A Disvrtation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese Syrtom of Writing, Philadelphia, 1888, pp. xi and sx 189190 BRIEF NOTES characters), and a “Cochinchinese and Latin Dictionary ” (pp. 185-876), both prepared by Father Joseph Morrone. So old a book on the Chinese language, written as it was by one who was admittedly not a Sinologist, and encumbered with linguistic data which have mostly been superseded by later dictionaries, would usually be expected to be found, i.e., hidden, in the corners of main libraries, rather than occupying the limited space of the work- ing libraries of seminar rooms or the desks of individual workers. And it is easy to find in it errors of fact or judgment which would favor such disposal of it. Quite unconscious of the central import- ance of the “ phonetics” or “ primitives” for the very theory that he is expounding, Du Ponceau mistakenly takes the 214 “ radi cals” to be the elements for forming all characters. In another place (p. 78), he confuses the transliteration of foreign names, Kerle-se-too-se for Christus, with the system of fan-ch'ieh :k (e+ De=ke. Again (p. 84), he falls into the common error of taking the Mandarin dialect to be the same thing as wénli. Finally, I consider it an unpardonable sin of omission to have left out all ion on tones in the vocabularies, although it was given iginal manuscript, a sure sign that Du Ponceau cannot lered a student of Far Eastern languages. With such poor language equipment, it is all the more remark- able that Du Ponceau had such a sound and penetrating view of Chinese writing, while others of his time and ours, though much better trained in the field, have failed to understand it. In pre- senting the thesis that Chinese writing represents words, Du Pox- ceaw makes a useful generalization which places Chinese writing in a more understandable perspective. “I do not believe,” he says, “ that what may be properly called the elements of language, consists only of the sounds separately represented by the signs which we call letters. The word element is relative, and is sus- ceptible of various significations” (p. $1). “Sentences are ele- ments in relation to discourse, words to sentences, syllables to words, and simple sounds or letters * are either syllables or the elements of syllables. These are the elements of speech; and writing, “The phrase “or letters” is added as concession to popular usage, In another place (p. 30), he explcty calls attention to the popular misasage.BRIEF NOTES 191 believe, may be so contrived as to represent all or any of them” (p. 83). From this general standpoint, he concludes (p. 36) : “that the Chinese system of writing is improperly called ideo- graphic; it is a syllabic and lexicographic alphabet. It is syllabic, because every character represents a syllable; it is lexicographic, because every syllable is a significant word.” In this connection, it is interesting to note that Booosexa ® uses the term phoneme, in discussing Chinese, precisely in the sense of a syllabic phoneme. Du Poxcrav takes Western Sinologists to task for following the Chinese tradition of regarding a character as having a pronuncia~ tion and a meaning. This is, to be sure, the expressed view of most Chinese scholars of today as well as of yesterday. ‘The study of tait *F constitutes the Lesser Learning or hsiao heiieh. Tzit is made of three elements, shape (to avoid the use of the term “ form”), sound, and sense. A more recent term 2vén teit hoiieh (the science of writing) puts the whole thing in even worse light. One very peculiar circumstance, however, is that while professing this tra- ditional view of the science and its subject matter, Chinese scholars singe the earliest times have gone right on following the very line of thought that modern men since Du Ponceav have advocated. From Liv Hsi’s Shih ming 2088784 of Han through Tar T‘ung’s Liu shu ku SAW down to the present, etymologists like Cuno Ping-lin, Six Chien-shih,* and Yano Shu-ta 3A@R. 2 G&L, WHEE have taken for granted that formulae like “ jén ché jén yeh, i ché i yeh ” AAU form the key to all study of Chinese words. Therefore, in spite of the tradition of a science of characters, which have sounds, together with all the misleading implications therein, it is only the young Chinese students and the old Western Sinologists who have been misled. The Chinese professors from the Han down to the present day have known better than they have professed. Since Du Ponceau was not mis- led this makes his book new and by no means superannuated, so ong as there are still believers in the ideographic nature of Chinese writing. “A concentsaly osfer toi that of Sins Ya wi sn, APACER Sha LS RYACBESCHEIM, OF Y Gap, No.1, Test Vian Ansiversry Tae, 1988, 777838,