Arnoldus Montanus, Atlas Chinensis (1671)
Full Text
Not available
EEBO/TCP
Not available
Date
1671
Author
Translator
John Ogilby Note: 12/10/2005
Book title
Atlas Chinensis: Being a Second Part of A Relation Of Remarkable Passages In Two Embassies From The East-India Company Of The United Provinces, To The Vice-Roy Singlamong And General Taising Lipovi, And To Konchi, Emperor Of China and East-Tartary. With A Relation of the Netherlanders Assisting the Tartar against Coxinga, and the Chinese Fleet, who till then were Masters of the Sea. And A more exact Geographical Description than formerly, both of the whole Empire of China in general, and in particular of every of the fifteen Provinces
Publication place
London
Printer
Thomas Johnson
Publisher
Author
Text type
printed book
Genre
Hard-word, term-of-art, and dialect dictionaries, glossaries, and definitions
Subject area
mathematics
Summary
"Characters and Languages," pp. 718-23
Word-group
type: alphabetical
Word-entry
type: headword
Alston
XIV.241
Wing
D 242, M 2484
Other editions
The Chineses (saith Trigaut) express not with any Letters of the Alphabet their Language in Writing, as almost all other People on the Earth, but draw as many Figures or Characters as there are Words and Things to signifie; so that if any one would Translate a Dictionary out of English into their Language, he would need as many several Characters as there are Words. As to what concerns the number of these Characters, though according to the greatness of any Subject, the more of them are requir'd, yet they have brought them all within the compass of seventy or eighty thousand; all which stand written in order in a Book call'd Haipien: besides which there is another much shorter (which teaches to Read, Write, and Understand their Books) which at most contains not above eight or ten thousand. If in their Reading they chance to meet with a Word which they understand not, then they turn to their great Dictionary, like one who learns the Latine or French Tongue; by which we may conclude, that the more Characters the Chineses know, the more Learned they are accounted: therefore it must be one of an exceeding Memory, that will be reckon'd a Scholar amongst them. (p. 718)
