Chinese and Sumerian

PREFACE

A .enctuy preface would hardly go well with a slender book. And it is a pertinent question to ask why an author, of whatever sort, should labour to say over again in brief all that he has already said at length. The slenderness of the present volume is happily not due to an early consumption of the available material. The introductory chapter, with its analyses of various Sumerian characters, mostly determined years ago, although here published for the first time, might have been considerably prolonged; especially if Professor Barton's valuable work on the Ovigin and Development of Babylonian Writing had come to hand before this book was sent to press (September 1912). The fifty pages or so of philological discussion which precede the detailed comparison of vocabularies, might easily have been extended to a hundred or more, had the writer chosen to publish everything lying at his disposal in the miscellaneous accumulations of years. As it is, some may think that he has given more than sufficient evidence of the imperfection of his own equipment for dealing with the difficult problems of speech and writing which the book makes some attempt to solve; and he will not be altogether dissatisfied with results, if an examination of his work should induce a few younger minds, starting with the advantages of a better education and higher natural endowments, to follow in a path in which it is perhaps not entirely presumptuous on his part to hope to be regarded hereafter as a humble pioneer.

The writer's thanks are due to the Staff of the Clarendon Press for the care and intelligence exhibited in the production of a work involving many material difficulties. He is especially sensible of obligation to the draughtsman whose calligraphy is well displayed in the Plates of Characters.

C, |, IBANEAE,

BLETCHINGTON RECTORY, OXFORD.