Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/88

74 "Liu-shu-ku, the beginning of which was due to his father's teaching. This work, which was not published until 1320, is in thirty-three chapters (chuan) with an introductory one called "Liu-shu-t'ung-shi" (六書通釋) or General explanations of the six classes of characters. To the western student this is the best and most interesting part of the treatise. In it we have the author's theories as to the origin and development of writing, the connection between it and speech, and various matters of detail relating to the language. Some of its statements have been found to be erroneous and some of its theories have been declared faulty or absurd. But the essay is written in a liberal, philosophical manner, and Mr. Hopkins has done us a kindness by rendering it into English. In the book itself the characters are arranged under 479 classifiers, of which some are primitives yielding derivatives, and others derivatives which again yield further derivatives. These proceed according to the order of the six classes. Pictorial or Symbolic, Indicative, and so on, and they are marshalled under eight titles designating as many categories of mental or material objects. Following the "Shuo-wên," as he says (契以本文), he places yi (一) as the first of numbers at the beginning and makes his first group that of objects related to Number. To this succeed the words which belong to the categories of Heaven, Earth, Man, the Animal and Vegetable kingdoms, manual industries, and miscellaneous. The author gives the spelling of the character, the varieties of writing where such exist, the meanings apparently in what he considered the order of their development, and the derivatives formed from existing or conjectured primitives, generally supporting or illustrating his teaching by reference to classical authorities.

To the early part of the Mongol dynasty belongs the rhyme-dictionary commonly known as the "Yun-hui." This was published near the end of the 13th century, with the title "Ku-chin-yun-hui" (古今韻會) and was, according to some, the work of Hsiung Chung (熊中 or 忠), a friend of Liu Chien. In