Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/486

 474 CHINA (LANGUAGE AND LITKBATUEE) Bridgman in the " Chinese Repository " (Can- ton, 1836). The Urh-ya, the last of the thir- teen classics, is a kind of dictionary of terms used in the classical and other writings of the early ages. Tradition ascribes the authorship to Tsze-hea, the disciple of Confucius, and the nucleus of it is even said to have come down from Chow-kung, regent of the empire in the beginning of the Chow dynasty. The work is divided into 19 sections, according to subjects, as 1, Ancient Terms; 2, Words; 8, Phrases; 4, Kindred Relations; 5, Houses; 6, Utensils, &c. ; each term being found with a brief ex- planation in its own special category. The oldest commentary, by Ko Po, a scholar of the 4th century, is generally published with the text. Other works have been written on the Urh-ya, but none of equal reputation with this. This is the type of a class of works which, though admitted as appendages to the classic division, are yet put in the lowest grade. Another work of some reputation, arranged on the same principle as the Urh-ya, is the Luh shoo koo, written about the close of the Sung dynasty. Although there are many cyclopaedias arranged on this principle, there are comparatively few works that we should call dictionaries. A more general plan is to arrange the characters under a fixed number of radicals. Several of the best known lexicons on this plan have been already mentioned. The Chinese were first initiated into the science of analyzing sounds by the Hindoo missionaries in the 5th century, and the Yuh peen is the earliest extant work in which we have the system of syllabic spelling applied. This sys- tem consists in the employment of two charac- ters to represent the pronunciation of a third, the exponent characters being followed by 4j0 ttfee, implying bisection. The initial of the first exponent is then to be prefixed to the final, including the tone of the second. The result is the sound of the character required. From that time began the practice of indicating the sounds of characters in the dictionaries. A third class of dictionaries is those in which the characters are arranged throughout according to the sounds; a certain number of symbols being selected as finals, to which all others with the same finals respectively are referred. These dictionaries are first divided into four parts, corresponding to the four tones, and subservient to these is the arrangement of the finals. The earliest of this class extant is the T^ang-yun, a production of the 8th century, with a system of 206 finals. The Tsee yun che ehang foo, a small work by the historian Sze-ma Kwang, is the first of this class in which the Hindoo sys- tem was adopted. He employs 36 initials, under which are arranged, according to the four tones, 8,130 characters. The Le poo yun leo was issued under imperial patronage in the llth century, to rectify the disorders that were creeping into the rhymes at the examinations. The original copy had only 9,590 characters, but in an augmented edition subsequently pub- lished the number amounted to 13,647. The Woo yin tseih yun, which appeared about the end of the 12th century, contains 53,524 char- acters, and reduces the number of finals to 160, under each of which the characters are referred in order to the 36 initials. In the 13th century, Lew Yuen of Ping-shwuy again reduced the number of finals to 107, and his system with slight variations has continued in use to the present time. The Hung woo ching yun, which was published under the immediate patronage of the first emperor of the Ming dynasty, reduces the number of finals to 76. Although this work is well known, it never came into general use. About the commencement of the present dynasty, Koo Yen- woo, a scholar of great talent and acquirements, wrote several small works of this class. P'wan Luy, one of his pupils, was the author of the Luy-yin. In this he makes a selection of 147 finals, and increases the number of initials to 50. He treats largely of the modern changes in pronunciation. The Woo ehay yun suy, published in 1692, is ar- ranged according to the 106 finals. The Tin yun ching go is a concise work of modern date, arranged according to 65 finals. The Woo chay yun foo, published early in the 18th century, has 86 initials and 128 newly selected finals. The Woo fang yuen yin, a dictionary of the Mandarin dialect, published in 1710, has 12 initials and 20 finals. The Pei wan yun foo, compiled under the special superintendence of the emperor and published in 1711, is arranged according to 106 finals distributed among five tones. It is usually bound in 110 thick vol- umes, and is probably the most extensive lexi- con ever published. The quotations from pre- ceding works are extremely numerous and complete, far exceeding anything of the kind that had been done before. Works of this class are very numerous, and much more used by students than the radical division. In the number and extent of their histories the Chi- nese stand unrivalled. Their dynastic history alone is a marvel. During the Sung dynasty the " Seventeen Histories," including so many dynasties, were published in a single work. Under the Ming a corresponding work was issued, with the title of the " Twenty-one His- tories ; " and during the present dynasty the " Twenty-two Histories " and " Twenty-four Histories" have successively* appeared. These are the work of nearly as many authors, the history of each dynasty being generally written in the period of its successor, with aU the ad- vantages of access to the national archives; and several of the authors stand high in the literary scale. The last named collection, be- ginning with the She Ice, and ending with the Ming the, or " History of the Ming dynasty," numbers in all 8,264 books or sections, and averages probably two or three of these books to a volume. The whole are written on a generally uniform plan, though each differs somewhat in detail, and there is much diversity