Page:Oriental Religions - China.djvu/447

Rh at all events very early to be associated with the ideographic, as determinative of its special sound in the given case.

Combination of phonetic with picture-signs.

All the great ideographic systems, when they first appear in history, already contain a mixture of the two kinds of picture-writing. To the Egyptian, Japanese, and Chinese, we must now add the older (Anarian) cuneiform characters of Western Asia, as a wonderfully transformed system of picture-signs, with phonetic adaptations. It reached the same stage with the Chinese, having a syllabary, but not an alphabet ; an interesting fact when connected with the possible origin of this system also in the Mongoloid, sometimes called "Turanian," races. The proper name for these transitional systems would seem to be ideo-phonetic. What monuments of man's patient endeavor to combine and develop, as well as interpret, the forms of Nature for the clothing of his inner life!

Transition to alphabet

The third grand step in written language, from phonetic signs to alphabetic, consists in reducing the great variety of such images to a select few, each appropriated to a special elementary sound. All upward movement involves ideal attractions. Man has listened to the instrument of his thought till he has caught its ultimate component parts, and must combine them freely for himself. 1 His selection of signs corresponds with the analytic nature of the process by which those ultimate elements have been reached; its principle being to use a sign