On the other hand, unfavorable as its characteristics are to the supposed antiquity and extent of their civilization, he nevertheless considers these very peculiarities of their language in the light of decisive proofs of the high antiquity of the Chinese nation, viewed simply as a distinct branch of the human race.
In the last chapter were discussed the peculiarities of structure which distinguish the Egyptian and Semetic tongues from those of the Indo-European class; peculiarities which were shown to consist, not in a fundamental difference of elements, but simply in various conventional arrangements of the same elements. This explanation will now be proved to apply also to the characteristics which distinguish the Chinese from the principal Asiatic and European languages, with this qualification however, that these characteristics, as contrasted with those of other classes of tongues, imply a separation from a parent stock at a much earlier era in the history of the human species than those which have been noticed in the last chapter, as distinguishing the Indo-European, Semetic, and Egyptian languages respectively.
According to Adelung’s lucid analysis, the following are the principal steps by which language is formed. 1. The first words are vowels, or sounds produced simply by the opening of the mouth and the emission of the breath. 2. Next in order are monosyllables, consisting of a vowel and a consonant preceding, as in P-a. 3. Arise monosyllables, formed of a vowel between two or more consonants, as in P-a-p. 4. Lastly are constructed polysyllabic words, formed by a combination into one word of two or more of the monosyllabic terms.
The African, American,(129) European, and all the Asiatic languages, with the exception of those spoken in China and the contiguous countries of the south-west of Asia, display a consummation of all these four stages. The Chinese exhibits results of the first and second steps of the series only. In other words, the Chinese may be described not simply as a language _purely monosyllabic_, but as one in which the _monosyllables are of the most elementary and infantine character, viz., those which consist of one consonant and a vowel_ (_as in_ PA). They have no words which have a second consonant, as in P-A-P.