they amount to 1,203. Its pronunciation varies in different provinces, but
that of Nanking, the ancient capital of the Empire, is the most pure. Many
dialects are spoken in the different provinces, but the Chinese proper is
the literary tongue of the nation, the language of the court and of polite
society, and it is vernacular in that portion of China called the Middle
Kingdom.

3. THE WRITING.--There is an essential difference between the Chinese
language as spoken and written, and the poverty of the former presents a
striking contrast with the exuberance of the latter. Chinese writing,
generally speaking, does not express the sounds of the words, but it
represents the ideas or the objects indicated by them. Its alphabetical
characters are therefore ideographic, and not phonetic. They were
originally rude representations of the thing signified; but they have
undergone various changes from picture-writing to the present more
symbolical and more complete system.

As the alphabetic signs represent objects or ideas, it would follow that
there must be in writing as many characters as words in the spoken
language. Yet many words, which have the same sound, represent different
ideas; and these must be represented also in the written language. Thus
the number of the written words far surpasses that of the spoken language.
As far as they are used in the common writing, they amount to 2,425. The
number of characters in the Chinese dictionary is 40,000, of which,
however, only 10,000 are required for the general purposes of literature.
They are disposed under 214 signs, which serve as keys, and which
correspond to our alphabetic order.

The Chinese language is written, from right to left, in vertical columns
or in horizontal lines.