On the Ideographic Element in Ancient Chinese

Abstract

Some two years ago the writer published a paper calling attention to the curious fact that whereas almost no one has denied the existence of a large ideographic element in Chinese writing, the technical study of Chinese by Western experts has been directed almost exclusively toward phonetic phenomena 1). It was suggested that, especially in view of the great accretion of new materials in the form of recently excavated and recently deciphered inscriptions, the important and largely neglected field of Chinese ideography should receive more careful study. A few more or less tentative principles for such study were posited. Propositions which, if demonstrable, give valuable support to the major theses of my earlier paper have been published by Professor Peter A. Boodberg of the University of California in a recent article in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 2). It is generally recognized that, due to the phonetic poverty of contemporary Chinese, literary texts are unintelligible if read aloud. Even of literary pai hua Professor Karlgren has written that 'If we transcribe a few passages with ordinary letters, and then try to