Chinese and Sumerian

THE CHINESE CLASSIFICATION OF WRITTEN

CHARACTERS AND THE SUMERIAN PARALLELS ORSEPROTODYEES

THERE is a curious parallel between the use of the Chinese script by the Japanese and Annamese and the use of the primitive Sumerian script by the later Semitic population of Babylonia and Assyria. It is well known that every Sumerian character represents a word, and that there is a double use of these characters in Semitic writing; where for the most part they represent mere syllables without regard to their original meaning, but also and often they are used ideographically, to suggest the idea or meaning of the Sumerian word; in which case a Semitic equivalent is substituted in reading the sentence in which the Sumerian symbol occurs. Precisely so, in Japanese, a Chinese character may stand for a mere syllable, or it may represent an idea, in which case it will be read, not as a Chinese monosyllable, but as a Japanese word of the same meaning, which may very likely be polysyllabic. Thus the Chinese f& ch’ang, ‘long’, may be written in a Japanese sentence to express the same idea, but it will be read xagaz, which is the Japanese word for ‘long’, just as the Sumerian *» GID would be read aru in an Assyrian sentence. In Annamese the Chinese characters, variously modified, are mostly used as mere syllables or indications of sounds; with which may be compared the use of the Sumerian script in ordinary (syllabic or so-called phonetic) Assyrian writing.

Chinese writing has undergone little change during the past two thousand years. Its beginnings are lost in the mists of antiquity. Native legend ascribes the invention of it to Fuh-hi, the founder of the monarchy, whose date is variously given as B.C. 2952-2837 (Williams), 2953-2838 (Giles), 2852-2738 (Mayers), and who is fabled to have been conceived ‘by the inspiration of Heaven’. After twelve years’ gestation he was born at Ch‘éng Ki, in the region of Hwa Sii (near the modern Singan Fu). From his capital Ch‘én (the modern Kai-féng Fu), he instructed the people in the arts of hunting, fishing, and pasturage. Before his time they were like beasts, clothing themselves in skins, and eating raw flesh; knowing their mothers but not their fathers, and pairing without decency. One day a ‘ Dragon-horse’ rose at his feet from the waters of the Yellow River, and presented to his gaze a scroll upon its back inscribed with mystic diagrams. From these, and from the movements of the heavenly bodies (see note, p. 15), he devised the system of written characters, with which he superseded the method of keeping records bymeans of knotted cords (which must have been something like the Peruvian quipos). After forming the six classes of characters