No More Learning

Let us again approach our 64 ch sounds
chu, chueh ch'i chi chih ching chiang cheng chung chiung
We know that King Wan gave great attention to choosing his CHIH ? , and a struggle
toward an exact philosophic terminology will have led us to consider this the point of rest, the centrum circoli of Dante's vision in the Vita Nuova. 5
The chih whether we write it with the hitching post sign or with the leaf bursting from the branch is undoubtedly ON the spot. Despite exceptions a good many ch sounds can be read as indicative of place or of motion.
The ideogram is uninflected, yes, and it shows what need not be shown to the companion in the forest, that is, whether an altar or a tool or a grass shoot is being prepared or approaching, with chueh or chieh.
The chung is the middle in profundity, the weight drawing to the centre.
The careful reader will want fuller examples, which I shall try to give without prejudice, having first indicated a few more general suggestions.
yu ? toward or approaching, yu grasped
yuan, the yon at rest, yih the wilderness beyond it.
For agglutinative suggestions we may begin with ang up, iang down from above, ao
possibly high ung possibly weight. I am for the moment neglecting the question of tone, as it happens by chance to be omitted from Mr Tsang's excellent dictionary. It never yet did a problem any harm to have it approached from a different angle. The root problem will be whether tone functions as inflection or as a clear distinction between quite different concepts, or with nuances or both. (as for example Li strength, and Li measure, the latter including i rectitude)
A certain number of ''an'' certainly agglutinate into words implying tranquility. Further examination will show how much is related and how much fortuitous.
The mysterious WEI might seem to have no common fount for its fifty meanings, but starting from a root picture of leather most of these meanings can be found in association with either the thong or the curtain, or to have leathery qualities. Eighteen KO (leather) ideograms are on the contrary, with two exceptions, apparently heteroclite.
Starting in the midst of the CH sounds we find
CHAO out of 20 we have six knives (let us say bright knife blades) 2 claws and one lance. Chao, omen (dots separated by something listed as legs rad/ not under pa); summon
(cutting voice)
ideogram chao or hua, search, paddle, to oar; beckon (hand plus knife-blade voice)
bright (sun blade); dawn (whence ch'ao court, a. m. attendance at court etc. ) enlighten, etc. fiery gla[n]ce, summons.
5
Cf. Confucius, 232: ''There is no more important technical term in the Confucian philosophy than this chih (3) the hitching post, position, place one is in, and works from. ''
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951) 209
claws: bamboo claw, a skimmer or ladle.
basket for catching fish (to claw fish, seems unlikely, and the sign is more probably
allied to cho or chao to cover).
first, begin[n]ing, Chu (or chao) clear, bright.
announcer, edict
hasten to visit, pierce.
We have clear indication of the root meaning to cut, and slight possibility of
combination with AO (to examine later) in CH'AO
eleven rather uninteresting ideograms, 4 containing shao (few) and three nest. Nest
with knife, attack; idem with strength, toil at, fag; quarrel; ridicule (court voice); seize, take ladle out (vide chao, ladle) fray, slight epidemic, ch'ao or chao paper money.
TEN CH'E^N circumflex
1. [? ] dust, stirring of earth beneath the deer's feet
2. [? ] dawn
3. [? ] coffin, especially the inner one
4. [? ] stare scornfully, glare
5. [? ]ministerofstate(pictoriallythebigeye,sonorously? the''bignoise'')
6. [? ] large clam, a sacrificial vessel
7. [? ] inner garments, lie beneath, give alms, patronize. The congeries
clear in the pictogram, dress and relatives or affection.
8. [? ] avail one's self, take advantage, follow, GO TO MAEKET
9. [? ] a day, a time, 7 to 9 a. m. , 5th of the 12 stems, third moon, seasonable
animals
10. [? ] (printed chen in text) arrange, set in order, spread out. I shd/ say
rather SHAKE into order. And the old stale, that which needs to be shaken.
The pictorial link is <radical> sign 9 which appears in the composition in 2, and in 6, sacrificial vessel, as well as in Chen (not circumflex) pregnant, in che^n [? ] circumflex rouse, idem 22 rich, wealthy, give [? ], and under the cloud rad/ in the SHAKE sign, [? ]
Which brings us again to our CHENG focus.
CHENG, CHE^NG, and CHING
Let us break the alphabetic order to look at <the> two very interesting CHENG
ideograms. The better known (to perfect, bring to focus) shows the sun's lance coming to rest on the precise spot. The other a mouth over the mysterious jen (gen) ninth of the ten divining stems in no case to be mistaken for the similar sign meaning a king. T. lists a ''Six Jen'' as a book of magic regarding the lucky stars.
We have, in the sound, locative CH verb in its intensive form. The graph is fruit not of the animalistic era but sabic, our precursors have passed from the realm of magic to that astrologic observation we may as well say astronomic. There can be <no> hesitation in admitting that CHENG has to do with motion.
CHE^NG with e^ circumflex
The best known ideograms are: [? ] to correct, govern, reality lawful regular (chih rad/) 10th in T's list
[? ] GOVERNMENT, to rule, chih in composition with going along radical. 8th in T's list.
? ? appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951)
And for clarity we will number the rest.
1. [? ] an assistant
2. [? ] to ride, take advantage of opportunity
3. [? ] spy out the attentive man looking at che^n (inquire) the great
ideogram from the Book of Changes translated by Z. D. Sung, firm and
correct, to have a shell and a direction. 6
4. [? ] attack, invade, levy taxes
5. [? ] summon, testify, prove, enlist, proof, evidence
6. [? ] rescue, aid by hand (watch the ideograms which contain the aid
component)
7. [? ] get free from, make an effort
9. [? ] the common orange
11. [? ] with the water rad/, clear, limpid, settle
12. [? ] fire rad/ vapor, distill, bring forward, multitude mist, a prince, to
decoct, bring forward. A confusing lot until one gets to the root of the picture: the WINTER SACRIFICE, which includes the sign (no. 1. ) for an assistant)
13. [? ]tocontest,wrangle,quarrel(thisideogramisincludedin7,14,16,17, and 20) I suspect someone's ear was unattentive at some moment during the past 5000 years, and that there is a pull from ANG (up)
14. [? ] a fabulous leopard with five tails and a horn.
15. [? ] chronic malady
16. [? ] look angrily, open the eye
17. [? ] harpsichord, a kite (? ang), an aerial harp fixed to a kite.
18. [? ] To steam, boil, vapor, hemp torches, all, numerous, you have
guessed that this grass head ideogram contains ''winter sacrifice. ''
19. [? ] SINCERITY, the perfect word, the sun coming to rest on the precise
spot verbally.
20. [? ] To remonstrate (word and contest)
21. [? ] witness, evidence. Word and sacrificial dish as found in teng (com-
plete, record)
22. [? ] plain, prairie, a feudal state under Chou.
CHIEH [? ]. to lie between, assist, good.
I think we have here CH, one, two, that is the IEH equals erh, sequence, increase,
with the hand root using both, and the limit meaning from the idea of sequence the verbal idea of place
CH, i, erh.
CH'IEH
The same, with perhaps greater emphasis on the ONE, TWO, idea, whether to
separate or to put together. In both the united and divided forms, the same concepts, water penetrating between, comb sequence, eyelashed on-to'd.
6
210
Z. D. Sung, The Symbols of Yi King (Shanghai: China Modern Education, 1934).
appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951) 211
CHIEN.
The list of ideograms almost an essay on the nature of HEAVEN. Place, unity, equity. There is but one EN in Tsang's dictionary. Taking
I, the unifier
ERH, the second
e^ circumflex, as a divider
the A in CHA might seem difficult.
It is associated with the thorn stroke, and starts in simplest form meaning sudden.
Most of the meanings follow that indication, the bursting into bud, the derived meaning in fasten, not the thorn pin.
If the CHIEN group of ideograms gives us an essay on the nature of heaven, we have here, with the wrn holding the wranglers in suspense, several in indications of early concepts of government, or to put it differently the sound gives the general, and the picture the more detailed indication of what part of government, or good order is indicated or emphasized.
CH'ENG
two ideograms: elevated, dignified
[? ]: call, designate, praise, RAISE, take up, plead, weigh. A steelyard. Growing grain
or crops rad/ with hand gripping what? I suppose the steelyard or at least beam or handle of primitive balance.
Adjectivally: suitable, fit.
The vowel in the up indicator is decidedly undecided, f e^ circumflex feng is a mountain peak or summit.
As to the relative durable durability of vowels and consonants we may have to wait Carlo Scarfoglio's long meditated work on comparative philology. 7 Toward which the present scattered notes might with luck make their small contribution.
CH'E^ NG
e^ circumflex and separate
1. [? ] city, town, citadel, to raise or build a city.
2. [? ] warning, precaution, correction, chastise
3. [? ] support, uphold, contain, confess, succeed, inherit, promise, be hon-
oured (aid element, winter sacrifice origin)
4. [? ] prop up, support, a leaning post
5. [? ] the 1/100th part of an inch, rule, pattern, limit, period, task, to
measure, to estimate.
I wish the calligraphers wd/ decide whether the lower right hand component of this
and the next sign is a jen [? ] or a wang [? ]. At any rate we have the grain rad/ with an orifice and a wang (not a jen) as printed in Tsang.
6. [? ] exhaust, extreme limit, be pleased with, hasty, presuming, exhaust. 7. [? ] to gallop a horse.
7
The Italian journalist Carlo Scarfoglio translated into Italian EP's Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1954). See his L'Antologia classica cinese (Milan: All'Insegna del Pesce d'Oro, 1964).
? 212 appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951)
Does our orderly eng in government [? ] include the up concept, as it very well might? The NG terminal is decidedly active in any case, in the verbal inflection conjectured.
BUT the chinese verb does not inflect according to the latin specification that the verb indicates time. Our hunting precursors lived in the eternal present, as with Frobenius african who denied that they had any ''fables'' such as Aesop's brought by the whites. They, the dark tribesman, told what the little antelope was doing AT THE MOMENT of the narration, not in a dim lost era.
34 CHING, 1. well [? ], 10 ax [? ]
2. [? ] capital, a high peak a mound, ten million, exalted
3. [? ] cautious, watchful (two on tip toe? )
4. [? ] cut one's own throat
5. [? ] to brand the face (capital plus knife)
6. [? ] strong, stiff, hard.
7. [? ] region, district, condition of life
8. [? ] bye-way, diameter, radio radius, adj. district, prompt.
9. [? ] heart-azure (vide infra) passions, feelings, facts, an affair
11. [? ] banner, signalize
12. [? ] sun above capital: view, scenery, regard kindly large.
13. [? ] three suns, clear, crystal.
14. [? ] ferry, overflow (water-pencil)
15. [? ] run thru, straight across, creek joining two places, fountain. 16. [? ] iris of eye, pupil, eye-ball
17. [? ] pity, value respect, boastful, elated, handle of spear
18. [? ] finish, examine thoroughly, at last, only
19. [? ] strong, violent, two hsiung under two li (erect, stand up rad/)
20. [? ] (or ts'ien) bamboo rad? creels, cage, cross-bow. 21. [? ] cleaned rice, sperm, expert
22. [? ] the warp, classics, regulate, already, past
23. [? ] jar, vessel, exhausted, all
24. [? ] thorn, bramble 25. [? ] flower of the leek
26. [? ] warn
27. [? ] mirror
28. [? ] pitfall, hole
29. [? ] quiet, tranquil, standing azure
30. [? ] ornaments, paint the face, darken the eyebrows.
31. [? ] grasp the azure, peaceful, quiet, meditate in quiet ponder. 32. [? ] (of keng) the neck or throat
33. [? ] frighten, startle
34. [? ] whale, huge (dark fish)
appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951) 213
We may have to give up Morrison's ''azure'' and accept O. Z. Tsang's ''green, blue, black, grey'' for this radical, CHING [? ], which occurs in 5% of our CHING. The Ching Nu is the Goddess of Frost.
The ax cuts, the well and the pit are excavations. The sun's ax is its brightness, a ching cut is a clean cut the ax rad/ occurs in the delightful picture cut the cackle (tuan) in the Chin Declaration (in the Great Learning). 8 The NG component of height is clearly present in one, and possibly present in five items of little collection.
CHING does not belong to the locative CH verb inflection. conjugation of the locative verb CH.
17 CH'ING (azure or green-black-blue-gray in five of them)
1. [? ] turn upside down, squander, test, smelt, incline
2. [? ] cool, cold, refreshing (our azure combines here with ice, infra with sun, water and word)
3. [? ] strong powerful (capital-strength)
4. [? ] high official
5. [? ] blessing, happiness, good, congratulate 6. [? ] to lift, to raise
7. [? ] weather clear after rain (sun-azure)
8. [? ] stand for lamp, bow or dish
9. [? ] pure, clean, purify (water-azure)
10. [? ] musical stone (onomatopoeic, but also indicating clear tone) but note carefully that the ideogram is also used for gallop a horse, and empty, exhausted. vide supra
11. [? ] Narrow clam or muscle
12. [? ] witness, prove, verify by evidence
13. [? ] invite, pray (word-azure)
14. [? ] light, dissipated, easy, mitigate, take off edge. This is a monkey-
puzzle on carriage rad/)
15. [? ] azure etc.
16. [? ] head inclined, 100 mow, and instant (ladle-head)
17. [? ] tattoo faces of criminals (capital black)
CHIO [? , ? , ? , ? ] and CHIU are extraneous to our verbs in CH, i. e. both to
location <(tumulus)> and to cut.
Of 3 CHIUNG, the first with a secondary meaning of peak wd/ seem to be <the
first> CHIU mound, tumulous plus NG
and the third CHIUNG [? ] is locative (far off, remote)
CHO 17 uniformally expressing the idea: to lay hold of with the pictogram whowing
what does or is done to, no connection with CH verbs be at, or cut [? ].
CHOU [? ]
The great dynastic name, given as verb: provide, extend, make a circuit; adjective:
enough, close, secret; bend, revolution, circumference. Certainly associated with idea of motion.
8
Cf. Confucius, 77: ''ideogram of the ax and the documents of the archives tied up in silk. ''
214 appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951)
19 ideograms in a mutilated copy of Tsang picture as with grass indication: wrinkles mostly what lies close together, and in some cases what revolves. On the whole it seems to belong to our CH locative. Various CH'OU can be associated with the CH cut idea without great strain, and by ref/ to the pictograms. The first CH'O to stab, is a clear case.
CHU, to go out of
THE GREAT GENATIVE, root of a tree lying
above ground, BAMBOO (the radical)
A half hundred ideograms in the CHU list, a rule, a lord, to halt to go out of, several of
them clearly indication: origin, others baffling till we come to the clue in the 14th. ''root of a tree lying above ground,'' that picture unites the heteroclite for the eye. The bamboo radical indicates a particular result of root, something from which a thing goes, or on which it stays, a SOURCE. This CHU is definitely of the locative verb.
As with WEI, leather, we have apparently heteroclite meanings.
We have also in our own language traces of similar not-ambiguities. To hide, conceal, to give a hiding. The leather curtain, the lash, the thong that binds, the showing a whip to a dog in produce respect or fear. So with the 32nd CHU, beat down, build, erect, flap, the picture is dulcimer (bamboo radical) over a tree. The ambiguity of up, down, flap, are all equal to verb ''y to bamboo,'' i. e. to do what the bamboo does or is under for. The ''dulcimer'' includes ''work'' and a sign (I shd/ say for motion) that has no defined meaning as a separate ideogram. 41. punish, eradicate
CHU 2
We root in the ground to root up, and we are said to be rooted when we stop and stand firm.
The CHU list is too long to reproduce here, but the earnest reader can enjoy himself with it if he be so minded.
In tracing our CH conjugation we may even end with the idea that to ''be at'' or move, and to CUT have something in common. We ''cut along,'' we depart, part and split. The ax makes a clean cut and separates. An active and an intransitive CH are not inconceivable.
CHU ? , with the umlaut is not going to fit very neatly into scheme so far outlined. We find however a carpenter's square, utensil, arrange. If chu ? (umlaut) enters our scheme at all it must be pre- it must have to do with preparation. Someone else must determine whether the cauldron preceded the altar. In the boiled sacrifice they are the same. An element which Tsang gives as meaning: great, huge, combines with the arrow sign to make the carpenter's square. A saw is found lower in the list, also some saw tooth mountains. The saw may be onomatopoeic.
I leave chu ? with judgement suspended.
CHU ? however does seem, in 24 ideograms fairly consistent in indication either preparation or unpreparedness; the preparation distinguished in the pictograms to show whether the preparation is in the cook house or the field, or by the pestle, for unprepared perhaps I shd/ write irresolute, hesitant (feet rad/). Both CHU ? and CH'U ? umlaut seem heteroclite, all one can observe is that if the groups seem without nexus, the individual words also seem without very comprehensible centre to their divergent meaning ascribed to them singly. Whether one shd/ postulate various lost terminal
appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951) 215
consonants, and leakages of meaning from other groups I do not know. I see nothing here to help define the CH verb.
CHUAN however seems fairly consistently to include the idea of turn, indicated definitely in 5 out of 13 ideograms, and for the most part directly relatable to either the CH of motion or of cutting.
Most of the 13 CH'UAN are clearly ''connect'' with pictogram of what (string, stream, beam) with a couple of violent exceptions, possibly emphasized chu'an, chu(boat) ang. CHU ? AN and CH'U ? AN <umlaut>, the first fairly heteroclite, the second definitely indicating curvature which is also indicated in the pictograms, two of 12 chu ? an and 6 of
11 chu ? an (small circle, wriggle of snake)
CHUANG, CH'UANG, idea of weight, strength, bed is frequent.
CHUE, CHUEH, CHU ? EH umlaut) CH'U ? EH (umlaut), this suffix EH is the latin ex,
horn, projection, husk
The chue is ambiguous in sound, but the pictogram contains ''out of. ''
Chu ? en and Ch'u ? en connect with the chu ? an and ch'u ? an.