ts derivatives are all _i_. A considerable number of phonetics are
nearly or entirely obsolete as separate characters, although their
family of derivatives may be a very large one. [Ch], for instance, is
never seen by itself, yet [Ch], [Ch], and [Ch] are among the most
important characters in the language. Objections have been raised in
some quarters to this account of the phonetic development of Chinese. It
is argued that the primitives and sub-primitives, whereby is meant any
character which is capable of entering into combination with another,
have really had some influence on the meaning, and do not merely possess
a phonetic value. But insufficient evidence has hitherto been advanced
in support of this view.

The whole body of Chinese characters, then, may conveniently be divided
up, for philological purposes, into pictograms, ideograms and
phonograms. The first are pictures of objects, the second are composite
symbols standing for abstract ideas, the third are compound characters
of which the more important element simply represents a spoken sound. Of
course, in a strict sense, even the first two classes do not directly
represent either objects or ideas, but rather stand for sounds by which
these objects and ideas have previously been expressed. It may, in fact,
be said that Chinese characters are "nothing but a number of more or
less ingenious devices for suggesting spoken words to a reader." This
definition exposes the inaccuracy of the popular notion that Chinese is
a language of ideographs, a mistake which even the compilers of the
_Oxford English Dictionary_ have not avoided. Considering that all the
earliest characters are pictorial, and that the vast majority of the
remainder are constructed on phonetic principles, it is absurd to speak
of Chinese characters as "symbolizing the idea of a thing, without
expressing the name of it."

The "Six Scripts."

The Chinese themselves have always been diligent students of their
written language, and at a very early date (probably many centuries
B.C.) evolved a sixfold classification of characters, the so-called
[Ch][Ch] _liu shu_, very inaccurately translated by the Six Scripts,
which may be briefly noticed:--

1. [Ch][Ch] _chih shih_, indicative or self-explanatory characters. This
is a very small class, including only the simplest numerals and a few
others such as [Ch] "above" and [Ch] "below."

2. [Ch][Ch] _hsiang hsing_, pictographic characters.

3. [Ch][