Egyptian Oedipus, Volume 3

THE HIEROGLYPHIC THEATER. CHAPTER II.

...propagating [the idea] that the first invention of letters was discovered by the Emperor Fohi Fuxi, the legendary first emperor of China, whom Kircher identifies with the biblical line of Noah, who was taught this only by the descendants of Noah. For as was related in the first Volume, Ham original: "Cham" first transferred his colonies from Egypt into Persia, and from there into Bactria; we have established that he is the same person as Zoroaster, the King of the Bactrians. Now Bactria, the most remote region of Persia, bordering the Kingdom of the Mughals, is situated in such a convenient location that from there, colonies could easily be transferred into China—the furthest nation of the inhabited world. Along with these colonies, they were able to transfer the first elements of letters, which they had learned (though imperfectly) from their father Ham and from Mercury Trismegistus, the advisor to Ham's son Mizraim original: "Mefraimi," the biblical progenitor of the Egyptians and the first teacher of hieroglyphs. Certainly, an argument of great weight that leads me to believe this is

Chinese characters are similar to hieroglyphs.

those ancient characters of the Chinese, which in every way rival the hieroglyphs. First, it is clear from their own chronicles that the first Chinese constructed their characters from all things of the world, and the very form of the characters demonstrates this more than enough. Just like the Egyptians, they formed their characters from animals, birds, reptiles, fish, herbs, tree branches, ropes, threads, points, circles, and similar things, though arranged in one way or another. Later, however, the Chinese became more learned through experience; when they saw the great confusion in such a vast heap of animals and plants, they imitated these variously shaped characters with certain strokes of points and lines, refining them into a shorter method which they use to this very day. Indeed, the number of these is so great that

The huge multitude of Chinese characters.

today, no one is counted among the highest literati who does not possess a knowledge of at least eighty thousand characters; and thus, the more letters a person knows, the more learned he is considered compared to others. Nevertheless, ten thousand of these are sufficient for learning the language so that one can converse passably. Furthermore, the Chinese have their letters arranged in no way like an Alphabet, as is the custom with other nations, nor do they have words composed of letters and syllables.

Individual Chinese characters correspond to individual words.

Instead, individual characters correspond to individual words and names; and thus they need as many characters as there are things they wish to express through the concepts of the mind. For instance, if someone attempted to translate an entire Calepinus A reference to the "Dictionarium" by Ambrogio Calepino, which was the standard comprehensive dictionary of the time; Kircher uses it to mean "an entire vocabulary." into their language, it would be necessary to have as many diverse and different characters as there are different words in it. They use neither declensions nor conjugations, since all these things (as will be seen shortly) are implied in the characters themselves. Therefore, one must be endowed with a great memory if they intend to reach even a moderate level of learning proper to the Chinese. It is for this reason, not without merit, that those who have reached the highest level of erudition—spending their entire lives and undergoing the greatest labors to learn the characters—are assigned the first ranks and titles in the administration of the Kingdom.