Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/478

the objects represented: such are, in fact, the beginnings of every system of written signs for thought, not less necessarily than onomatopoetic utterances, designating acts and qualities, are the beginnings of every system of spoken signs. Thus, the sun was denoted by a circle with a point within, the moon by a crescent, a mountain by a triple peak, a tree and a man by rude figures representing their forms, and so on. Signs were provided thus for a considerable number of natural objects; those, namely, which are most familiarly noted and most easily depicted. But such cannot supply otherwise than in small part the needs of a written language, any more than onomatopoetic signs those of a spoken language. Their store was notably increased by the compounding of two or more simple signs; as the vocabulary of a language by the composition of spoken elements. For example, the signs for 'mountain' and 'man,' put together, signified 'hermit;' those for 'eye' and 'water' signified 'tear;' those for 'woman,' 'hand,' and 'broom,' meant 'housekeeper.' A simple symbolism often came in to aid, both in the case of single and of compound signs. A banner pointing one way signified 'left;' the other way, 'right;' an ear between two doors gave the meaning of 'listen;' 'sun' and 'moon,' taken together, indicated 'light;' 'mouth' and 'bird' made up 'song,' and so on. This is equivalent to the transfer of meaning of a word, effected through a simple association. But the most abundant means of multiplication of the resources of Chinese expression was found in the introduction of a phonetic principle, and the combination of phonetic and ideographic elements into a compound sign. The language, as we saw in the ninth lecture, is full of homonyms, words identical in phonetic form but of different meaning: a sign being found for a word in one of its many senses, either by direct representation or by symbolism, the device was very naturally suggested of making the same sign answer for some of its other meanings also, by the aid of an appended diacritical sign. It was quite as if we, for instance, had learned to signify sound in "safe and sound" symbolically by a circle (as being peculiarly the complete, unbroken figure), and had then suffered it to represent the same