monte xr EyoLurtow ye 1/feurroms MufnoguyrMique "er DE W'écurun Guinoise. "van Won. KeNx—Paul Geathner. Paris, "10-france sulates Tome. I.
The writer of this interesting little book begins by asking the question "Can we trace human eivilization to one single source?" He points} out that some writers think that the first Chinese peoples came from the West (ie, Central Asia) and then suggests that Egypt and China—the two greatest nations of antiquity—may have drawn their civilization from some place in Western Asia, i. from a common source. He tries to prove this by reference to the two systems of writing (Egyptian and Chinese) and finds various resem lances therein, The earliest kind of Egyptian writing was a rough sort} of drawing of some object—a "pie~ fogram" such as are found carved on rocks and on ancient implements, og. a man killing " hippopotamus, picture was later naturally rated into two, a man and a hippopotamus, and still later the sign for man was simplified into an arm. holding a spear, and here we have the origin of writing, Amongst such early pictograms are the sun, the moon, @ man, a boat, an arrow, pyramid, ete.''Then a' slight change might be made to develop the original idea, e., a man leaning on stick means an old man, whilst a man dancing means a joyful man, Such signs were used by the Eeyptians 4,000 years before the Chinese. Then since "man's laziness has worked for the progress of writing" _qsigns were abbreviated and, for stance, the head of an animal was used instead of drawing the whole animal, But the Egyptains also invented another method. The pic-fogram had two parts, a picture and a sound and by using the sound the same sign could represent one or more ideas s0 e., the same sign is ed for a "beetle" and for the verb to be" since both sounds are alike in the spoken Language.
The next development was by choosing a certain number of characters and giving them the consonantal sound (dropping the vowel) and in this way the Egyptians invented the alphabet—e.g., "hill" (sound qa) became q and "mouth (sound ro) yeeame ¥. The 22 letters chosen were sufficient for the sounds in the Egyptian spoken language. There was, however, another movement and the two ideas developed simultaneously, Since the same character could have several mean-Ings ''determinant" was added to jow the meaning "me" meaning yo" has an eye with it "me" meaning "serpent" has a serpent and hhenee a number of signs (detormin ants) were used to enable the meaning of the "sound" to be derstood; or we might say there were two parts in each pictogram, tone which suggested the sound and another which suggested the mean-
Those who have any knowledge of Chinese characters will have seen that there are many similarities between the system employed by the Bayptians and that used by the Chinese. Tie earliest Chinese character writing is pictographic but course, with this method, it is ex-Hremely difficult to express many) dens and hence the Chinese found, og the Egyptians had done, that a sharaeter has (we rises, a pietovial and a phonetic and by using the ound of u character many other ideas sould be expressed. For "instance ang (3) means sheep, but the sound "yang" also means happiness, and sot: (yang) was also used to mean happiness. This however, might result in confusion and so a gri was added to show the meaning fe, fe¢yang) with two dots unaerneath means "happiness". (This re might call the determinant).
So with the use of a certain number present an enormous number of ideas:
have the sane sound in the spoken language. Briefly it may be id that the Chinese and Egyptian Jangunges are alike in that (1) Both languages (Chinese and Egyptian) are pictographic, (2) Break up the picture into their component parts, (3) the early form of each represents almost the same objects {people, birds, fish, utensils, ete.), (4) The sign'is used both for the 1g it originally represented and iso for other ideas with the same sound, (5) Both use determinants The author therefore comes to the /writings" and that if there are great. resemblances it is owing to the "laws of the human mind which are shown just as much onthe banks of the thut this does not prove that China and Egypt have common source or came from the same place. 'The author has succeeded in writing a very interesting book and though it may be' doubted whether he has: managed to' do much towards answering his original question he at least has presented a good many. facts about the two languages in a very readable manner.. The first volume has aroused our curiosity. Tt will be interesting to see how far the author proves'his thesis in the second.
Bunce.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.