We have also in our own
language
traces of similar not-ambiguities.
Ezra-Pounds-Chinese-Friends-Stories-in-Letters
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.
CHUI
CHUI tempts to several false analogies: how do we connect sew, beat, hammer and
awl?
I think the clue is in the simple radical for short tailed bird. The bird has a sharp beak
and pecks, some hammers look not unlike certain birds. The thread and (? ) four stitches is the pictorial explanation of what happens with that particular piercing. Clay walls are hammered together but I do not think this is the primary association between the divergent senses of the sound chui.
CHUI belongs in the leather and root class. The verbal sense carries over quite clearly into at least three ch'ui: to beat, and two kinds of mallet, differentiated in ideograms.
The CHUN and CH'UN groups (lips and spring) are independent and extraneous from our locative or cut conjugations but CHU ? N umlaut has clear indication of place above, latin super or altus, as with the water rad/ deep sea, italian mare alto. The third chun, even, equal must be taken as ''level up to'' and chun water level or plumb-line is one wd/ say its relation. The verbal sense of the 15th chun can only be traced thru its noun, hornless deer (bind, seize, collect). But superior, ruler, high (with mountain rad/) etc. belong, I shd/ say without question to our verb CH.
CH'UN umlaut might seem scattered were it not for the graphic signs. Grain heaped in an enclosure; the chief place above the sheep; the dress on the noble; granary, flock and skirt for a lady.
CHUNG we have already located as the perpendicular axis potently locative, the weight that draws to the centre, with ch'ung.
The single CH'OU is an eloquent picture of grind with the teeth (teeth and foot), and augur to bore a hole.
Let us now return to our omitted CH forms.
CHE^ circumflex, 19 ideograms
1. wise (hand, ax, mouth) clear cut, know intuitively cutting clean into.
The sense of cut (CH) is clear in a number of cases, in others the pictogram indicates the primitive association with cutting (five axes, a knife). The wagon rad/ is given two sounds che^ and chu ? umlaut, and the ideograms with two signs assigned them always
216 appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951)
raise doubts. There is however a conjunction of wagon and cut in No. 1 & 17, the track of the wheels, a cut in primitive life as distinct from the hoof-prints. Among the meanings of 18, cover, hide, screen, intercept. The sound gives a general sense, the pictogram indicates the particular (more or less) object acting or acted upon. Various che take their sense from the wagon, indicated in their graphs. In four CH'E^ circumflex we have four very nice illustrations of cut and of e^ as ex.
No. 1 remove and through, cuts both ways.
2. pull, drag, haul, tear (remove by wagon) I think the original sounds for ax
and cart have melted together
3. remove, reject.
4. clear water, connecting with the ''through'' sense in No. 1 as indicated by
similar ideogramic adjunct to the radical. THREE CHEN
1. pregnant;2. even,uniform,placeevenlycf/chunwater-levelorplumbline;3. pillow, cross bar at back of a carriage.
29 CHE^N circumflex, EUDAIMON, the ANVIL
The list looks heteroclite enough at the start.
1. (chen in index, shen in its own page in Tsang) men and horses in large
company, crowd.
2. heart rad/ fearful
3. to rouse, restore, terrify, save (a hand that moves up or down? )
4. pour, add, deliberate.
5. I, me, we, subtle, incipient (pictogram, moon and eight over heaven)
6. kind of tree, target.
7. hazel
8. sink deep
9. curious, jewel, treasure.
10. examine
11. boundary, raised paths, terminate.
13. truth, immortality, pure (the eye looking straight)
14. ANVIL, stone and divination sign
15. propitious, spirit and the great sign of CHANGES, the shell and the direction
16. the steelyard (up, down, cf/3)
17. needle, to probe (bamboo rad/)
18. gentry, the literati, graduation, the girdle, to bind. (she^n in text che^n in
index)
19. utmost, highest, attain
20. look at, examine
21. UNCORRUPTED,thegreatsigninIKing,theshellanddivinationsign,the
carapace and a direction.
22. rich, wealthy, to give.
23. bar behind carriage, to move, turn (indicated in pictogram)
appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951) 217
24. deep in wine
25. pin, needle (metal rad/) sting, probe, pierce.
26. a mart, a great trading town, to repress, to keep in subjugation, to ward off
an evil influence.
27. ideogram mound and wagon: rank and file, battalion, set in array
28. ToSHAKE,VIBRATIONthe51stsignoftheCHANGES. Hereisourkey,to
couple with ANVIL
29. bird like a secretary falcon.
One is tempted to connect Chun with the CH of location, or motion, and up and down with the steel-yard.
But the predominant number of meanings of the sound, which is even onomatopoeic, if you like, centre round the anvil, the hammer of Thor falling upon it.
Che^n is the thundering heaven and CHIEN the calm or the righteous.
Even we say a horse chestnut for something larger that looks like a chestnut, and bull has similar connotations.
Again the old rule of english philology that the oldest words are those that have diametricly opposite meanings that is, that need gesture to indicate which way they depart from a median.
There are M. graphs that do NOT indicate any reason for their pronunciation. It takes no wild fantasy to get sheep over big meaning excellent. This ideogram is pronounced as mei, as for the lure of a lady's eyebrow, and the meaning fills up and extends over the space between graph and sound.
It is not our job to say what our precursors ought to have done, but we can try to find out why they did it.
MENG circumflex is uniformally dark in 4 cases.
1. [? ] dreams (grass net over evening) 2. sun below horizon, 3. setting
moon (moon blind kitten)
4. [? ] people are graphed as ''lost families,'' ideogram in combination:
rascals, gypsies, or in phrase, take census of the people.
5. [? ] severe, cruel: eldest dog or animal
6. [? ] small boat or junk etc. of all the dark ships, greek and latin.
7. [? ] direct reverse to brightness, bud represented as grass over MING (sun
and moon) to shine. J
Tsang gives under a hundred J words the most known being JEN, man, and JE^N, circumflex, manhood. There are two clear ideas, or two sides of the generative heat, hard and the soft, masculinity, femininity, a considerable number of J come over directly in various gen- english or latin origin, generation, gentle, etc. ; the values ascribed to i, an, and, ung (activity) hold good in a number of cases.
P the divider, pair and peer
In several hundred P ideograms we find knife after knife, not the violent ax that says ''ch. '' PAN is the quiet equitable cut, the half. One does not expect a universal answer, the P idea shd/ be tested not as cut but as division, and as comparison. If PIH, North, is
? ? ? 218 appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951)
written with a ladle or dipper, that may be sky sign, but does not give indication of sound. P as in part.
PA, P'A, PAI start us off with such neat fits into our scheme that one expects ructions further down the list. The sense of P is divided not cut. The knife radical is TAO and the radicals differ from the meaning of the sound root to good purpose, that is they permit the graph to make the distinction which the gesture or the visible implement can make in the pre-graph era, thus whether the partition is made by cutting or wrapping. Rake and harrow divide by even measurings, or approx even with primitive instruments.
Not only the Pa of eight and six, the evenly dividing numerals, but the agglutinated I and AN follow our conjectured line, I, unity, equitable.
PAI, white is, I think according to Aristotle, the colours united. Pai meaning plain white silk enters an interesting phrase ''the three pai,'' purple, black and yellow silk used as presents, the ceremony being as important as the actual colour. Spread out seems to escape our classification, hand and net over ning (to be able) but note the ulterior guide that Tsang offers us as to usage, this PAI means, to arrange, and pendulum (certainly the equitable divider).
Branch, PAI with water rad/ means also to appoint, to allot. Cypress is written tree- white, white it is not, but it is of all trees the most united, the most that is a single upright, the most neatly bundled.
P'AI we note is not PA'I and may shed light in several directions, it allows us to proceed on supposition that the A is separative and the I implies what ought to be. The FEI rad/ incorporated in 1 and 3 first with observant man rad/, and secondly with hand, shows two uprights with three prongs turned outward. With hand this gives, place in order, exclude, a line, a row. The PAN fit neatly, note that PAN, remove, transport is pictured separate by boat, the hand is combined with PAN, an affair, definitely not with ch'uan, and the shou rad/ being here a peaceable pole. And I think we might formulate, or almost frame the hypothesis that the IMPLEMENT is graphed, because it is what you can graph, whereas the action is sounded.
If that holds we have made considerable progress if not in tracing the process probably followed in creating the chinese language, at least in putting together a mnemonic gadget that might help occidental beginners, occidentals at the start of their chinese studies.
Full list of all cases wd/ require making a dictionary but the cases of PAN emphasize that values ascribed both to P and to AN, division serene, semicolons indicate that the meanings belong to different ideograms: board, plank; class, troops; slice, petals, carpels of an orange; beautiful eyes the black and white clearly divided.
Secondary derivative meanings, i. e. those growing from the implement can, with a little good will, be followed in Tsang or any other competent dictionary.
P'AN, I think the dissillable emphasizes or tends to verbal connotation, thus PAN half, P'AN to halve. PANG rather more so, class, party, assist. The only way you can divide by silk is to bind. PANG is used for bivalves, oysters and clams. P'ANG is onomatopoeic for the noise of stones crashing, and the association with that emphasis may give the meaning of heavy to the ''rainside,'' i. e. heavy rain P'ANG, etc.
PAO, to divide by wrapping A O, ab alto 1. shooting start, clearly from above
2. defend, guardian, feed.
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.
CHUI
CHUI tempts to several false analogies: how do we connect sew, beat, hammer and
awl?
I think the clue is in the simple radical for short tailed bird. The bird has a sharp beak
and pecks, some hammers look not unlike certain birds. The thread and (? ) four stitches is the pictorial explanation of what happens with that particular piercing. Clay walls are hammered together but I do not think this is the primary association between the divergent senses of the sound chui.
CHUI belongs in the leather and root class. The verbal sense carries over quite clearly into at least three ch'ui: to beat, and two kinds of mallet, differentiated in ideograms.
The CHUN and CH'UN groups (lips and spring) are independent and extraneous from our locative or cut conjugations but CHU ? N umlaut has clear indication of place above, latin super or altus, as with the water rad/ deep sea, italian mare alto. The third chun, even, equal must be taken as ''level up to'' and chun water level or plumb-line is one wd/ say its relation. The verbal sense of the 15th chun can only be traced thru its noun, hornless deer (bind, seize, collect). But superior, ruler, high (with mountain rad/) etc. belong, I shd/ say without question to our verb CH.
CH'UN umlaut might seem scattered were it not for the graphic signs. Grain heaped in an enclosure; the chief place above the sheep; the dress on the noble; granary, flock and skirt for a lady.
CHUNG we have already located as the perpendicular axis potently locative, the weight that draws to the centre, with ch'ung.
The single CH'OU is an eloquent picture of grind with the teeth (teeth and foot), and augur to bore a hole.
Let us now return to our omitted CH forms.
CHE^ circumflex, 19 ideograms
1. wise (hand, ax, mouth) clear cut, know intuitively cutting clean into.
The sense of cut (CH) is clear in a number of cases, in others the pictogram indicates the primitive association with cutting (five axes, a knife). The wagon rad/ is given two sounds che^ and chu ? umlaut, and the ideograms with two signs assigned them always
216 appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951)
raise doubts. There is however a conjunction of wagon and cut in No. 1 & 17, the track of the wheels, a cut in primitive life as distinct from the hoof-prints. Among the meanings of 18, cover, hide, screen, intercept. The sound gives a general sense, the pictogram indicates the particular (more or less) object acting or acted upon. Various che take their sense from the wagon, indicated in their graphs. In four CH'E^ circumflex we have four very nice illustrations of cut and of e^ as ex.
No. 1 remove and through, cuts both ways.
2. pull, drag, haul, tear (remove by wagon) I think the original sounds for ax
and cart have melted together
3. remove, reject.
4. clear water, connecting with the ''through'' sense in No. 1 as indicated by
similar ideogramic adjunct to the radical. THREE CHEN
1. pregnant;2. even,uniform,placeevenlycf/chunwater-levelorplumbline;3. pillow, cross bar at back of a carriage.
29 CHE^N circumflex, EUDAIMON, the ANVIL
The list looks heteroclite enough at the start.
1. (chen in index, shen in its own page in Tsang) men and horses in large
company, crowd.
2. heart rad/ fearful
3. to rouse, restore, terrify, save (a hand that moves up or down? )
4. pour, add, deliberate.
5. I, me, we, subtle, incipient (pictogram, moon and eight over heaven)
6. kind of tree, target.
7. hazel
8. sink deep
9. curious, jewel, treasure.
10. examine
11. boundary, raised paths, terminate.
13. truth, immortality, pure (the eye looking straight)
14. ANVIL, stone and divination sign
15. propitious, spirit and the great sign of CHANGES, the shell and the direction
16. the steelyard (up, down, cf/3)
17. needle, to probe (bamboo rad/)
18. gentry, the literati, graduation, the girdle, to bind. (she^n in text che^n in
index)
19. utmost, highest, attain
20. look at, examine
21. UNCORRUPTED,thegreatsigninIKing,theshellanddivinationsign,the
carapace and a direction.
22. rich, wealthy, to give.
23. bar behind carriage, to move, turn (indicated in pictogram)
appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951) 217
24. deep in wine
25. pin, needle (metal rad/) sting, probe, pierce.
26. a mart, a great trading town, to repress, to keep in subjugation, to ward off
an evil influence.
27. ideogram mound and wagon: rank and file, battalion, set in array
28. ToSHAKE,VIBRATIONthe51stsignoftheCHANGES. Hereisourkey,to
couple with ANVIL
29. bird like a secretary falcon.
One is tempted to connect Chun with the CH of location, or motion, and up and down with the steel-yard.
But the predominant number of meanings of the sound, which is even onomatopoeic, if you like, centre round the anvil, the hammer of Thor falling upon it.
Che^n is the thundering heaven and CHIEN the calm or the righteous.
Even we say a horse chestnut for something larger that looks like a chestnut, and bull has similar connotations.
Again the old rule of english philology that the oldest words are those that have diametricly opposite meanings that is, that need gesture to indicate which way they depart from a median.
There are M. graphs that do NOT indicate any reason for their pronunciation. It takes no wild fantasy to get sheep over big meaning excellent. This ideogram is pronounced as mei, as for the lure of a lady's eyebrow, and the meaning fills up and extends over the space between graph and sound.
It is not our job to say what our precursors ought to have done, but we can try to find out why they did it.
MENG circumflex is uniformally dark in 4 cases.
1. [? ] dreams (grass net over evening) 2. sun below horizon, 3. setting
moon (moon blind kitten)
4. [? ] people are graphed as ''lost families,'' ideogram in combination:
rascals, gypsies, or in phrase, take census of the people.
5. [? ] severe, cruel: eldest dog or animal
6. [? ] small boat or junk etc. of all the dark ships, greek and latin.
7. [? ] direct reverse to brightness, bud represented as grass over MING (sun
and moon) to shine. J
Tsang gives under a hundred J words the most known being JEN, man, and JE^N, circumflex, manhood. There are two clear ideas, or two sides of the generative heat, hard and the soft, masculinity, femininity, a considerable number of J come over directly in various gen- english or latin origin, generation, gentle, etc. ; the values ascribed to i, an, and, ung (activity) hold good in a number of cases.
P the divider, pair and peer
In several hundred P ideograms we find knife after knife, not the violent ax that says ''ch. '' PAN is the quiet equitable cut, the half. One does not expect a universal answer, the P idea shd/ be tested not as cut but as division, and as comparison. If PIH, North, is
? ? ? 218 appendix: ''preliminary survey''(1951)
written with a ladle or dipper, that may be sky sign, but does not give indication of sound. P as in part.
PA, P'A, PAI start us off with such neat fits into our scheme that one expects ructions further down the list. The sense of P is divided not cut. The knife radical is TAO and the radicals differ from the meaning of the sound root to good purpose, that is they permit the graph to make the distinction which the gesture or the visible implement can make in the pre-graph era, thus whether the partition is made by cutting or wrapping. Rake and harrow divide by even measurings, or approx even with primitive instruments.
Not only the Pa of eight and six, the evenly dividing numerals, but the agglutinated I and AN follow our conjectured line, I, unity, equitable.
PAI, white is, I think according to Aristotle, the colours united. Pai meaning plain white silk enters an interesting phrase ''the three pai,'' purple, black and yellow silk used as presents, the ceremony being as important as the actual colour. Spread out seems to escape our classification, hand and net over ning (to be able) but note the ulterior guide that Tsang offers us as to usage, this PAI means, to arrange, and pendulum (certainly the equitable divider).
Branch, PAI with water rad/ means also to appoint, to allot. Cypress is written tree- white, white it is not, but it is of all trees the most united, the most that is a single upright, the most neatly bundled.
P'AI we note is not PA'I and may shed light in several directions, it allows us to proceed on supposition that the A is separative and the I implies what ought to be. The FEI rad/ incorporated in 1 and 3 first with observant man rad/, and secondly with hand, shows two uprights with three prongs turned outward. With hand this gives, place in order, exclude, a line, a row. The PAN fit neatly, note that PAN, remove, transport is pictured separate by boat, the hand is combined with PAN, an affair, definitely not with ch'uan, and the shou rad/ being here a peaceable pole. And I think we might formulate, or almost frame the hypothesis that the IMPLEMENT is graphed, because it is what you can graph, whereas the action is sounded.
If that holds we have made considerable progress if not in tracing the process probably followed in creating the chinese language, at least in putting together a mnemonic gadget that might help occidental beginners, occidentals at the start of their chinese studies.
Full list of all cases wd/ require making a dictionary but the cases of PAN emphasize that values ascribed both to P and to AN, division serene, semicolons indicate that the meanings belong to different ideograms: board, plank; class, troops; slice, petals, carpels of an orange; beautiful eyes the black and white clearly divided.
Secondary derivative meanings, i. e. those growing from the implement can, with a little good will, be followed in Tsang or any other competent dictionary.
P'AN, I think the dissillable emphasizes or tends to verbal connotation, thus PAN half, P'AN to halve. PANG rather more so, class, party, assist. The only way you can divide by silk is to bind. PANG is used for bivalves, oysters and clams. P'ANG is onomatopoeic for the noise of stones crashing, and the association with that emphasis may give the meaning of heavy to the ''rainside,'' i. e. heavy rain P'ANG, etc.
PAO, to divide by wrapping A O, ab alto 1. shooting start, clearly from above
2. defend, guardian, feed.
