Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/259



In the last Chapter we saw an instance of one word in Chinese having to serve many uses, and it could easily be shewn that several other words also have wide ranges of meaning. Now in so far as a language has not separate names for particular mental and material objects it may be regarded as a defective instrument. The deficiency may be taken to indicate careless observation, lazy thinking, and a comparatively low state of culture on the part of those who use the language. But a careful examination of the vocabulary of one people and its comparison with those of others will shew that among nations which have reached some degree of civilization the lack of terms is usually partial and relative. A language may have in many cases several names for one object, and terms to represent not only the great but also the minute differences among resembling or related varieties, and it may also have a rich store of words for certain departments of knowledge. Yet it may be sadly wanting in terms to denote certain other objects and distinctions which are seen to exist in other languages.

Now with respect to its store of available materials some Western critics, as has been stated above, have pronounced the Chinese language to be poor, while others have declared it to be rich. As to its formal destitution, its utter want of inflections, there is no doubt or dispute. But whether its stock of words is small and inadequate, and inferior to the stores of other languages should be decided only after careful investigation and comparison. That Chinese is in certain respects poor in terminology when its vocabulary is contrasted with others better known to us may be at once granted. It has not, for example, so many terms for God as one, nor so many names for a lion or gold as others; and there are many expressions in Western science and philosophy for which it would perhaps be impossible to find Chinese equivalents. But they judge ill who say that it is in phrases for moral