Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/345

Rh has seen all the great nations of Europe coming to ask for trade and treaties and for the privilege of living in China. Her subjects also have travelled to foreign lands and mixed largely with the “Ocean men.” They have read books which tell of the arts and sciences, the natural and artificial products, and the languages and religions of all countries. Some of them have even compiled such books or otherwise described the foreign lands and peoples with which they became personally acquainted.

Reserving the consideration of Indian words in Chinese for the next Chapter I now give some examples of foreign other than Indian terms to be found in the spoken or written language. The examples to be given do not belong in an equal degree to what is properly the language of China. Some of them, it will be observed, have been for a long time treated not as aliens but as citizens, while others are at most only tolerated as recent squatters from abroad. Some, moreover, are recognised as current only in one part of the empire, or in certain districts, or among peculiar classes and societies. It must also be admitted that the foreign words in Chinese, brought together here, are only examples, only occasional specimens picked up by the way. They are not discoveries reached by patient study and critical research directed to that end, but merely findings in the desultory reading of an indolent amateur.

Honouring, as is meet, the classical languages of ancient Greece and Rome we begin our circuit with them. It cannot surprise us, however, to find that very few expressions from these languages seem to have found their way into Chinese. Even the names of the countries seem to have been scarcely known in the Midlde Kingdom until a comparatively modern period. Among the specially educated native scholars we find a few who know at least the name Latin. This word is transcribed la-t‘i-na (拉體納) and la-t‘i-no (喇提諾), and it occurs now and then in the writings of scholars who profess to describe European countries. It is used to designate our Western letters and writing.

We find, however, certain terms, even in a comparatively early period of the Chinese language, which seem to have at least