directions of the Chief, and partly from his own ideas, as
well as the occasional suggestions of the bystanders. The
written part was then torn off from the scroll and handed
to the Chief, who delivered it to me with the utmost con.
fidence of its being understood: but his mortification and
disappointment were extreme on perceiving that, he had
oyerrated our acquirements *.
* Note on the peculiar character o f the written language in that quarter*
o f the globe.
In China,1 Japan, Corea, and the islands in the adjacent seas, the spoken
languages are different from one another; the written language, on the contrary,
is the same in all. Thus a native of China is unintelligible to a Corean
or Japanese, while he is speaking, but they mutually understand one another
when their thoughts are expressed in writing. The cause of this may be thus
explained. We in Europe form an idea in the mindj and this we express by
certain sounds, which differ in different countries; these sounds are committed
to writing by means of the letters of the alphabet, which are only symbols of
sounds, and, consequently, a writing in Europe is unintelligible to every one
who is ignorant of the spoken language in which it happens to be written. The
Chinese and the other natives in these seas have, on the contrary, no alphabet;
no symbols of sounds; their ideas are committed to writing at once without the
intervention of sound, and their characters may therefore be called symbols of
ideas. Now, as the same characters are adopted in all these countries to express
the same ideas, it is clear that their writings will be perfectly intelligible to each
other, although their spoken languages may be quite incomprehensible. .
The case of the Roman numerals in Europe furnishes a ready illustration of
this symbolical language. There is nothing in the symbols 1, 2 , 3, &c. by which
their pronunciation can be ascertained when presented to the eye, yet they communicate
meaning independent of sound, and are respectively intelligible tó the
inhabitants of the different countries of Europe; while, at the same time, the
sounds by which a native of one country distinguishes the written symbols 1, 2 y
3, &c. are unintelligible to all the rest.
D