kenny wrote:DeFrancis has passed away. We should use kinder words in our critiques on him.
Yes, we should use kinder words. We should discuss the issues only without any qualifying words. DeFrancis' article fully reflected the knowledge of his time, not knowing Gong's system. As it is still widely read online, we should point out its errors regardless of his being passed away. I will discuss his article with three issues.
1. DeFrancis' understanding on the term of ideograph
DeFrancis wrote:This view was taken up and expanded on by the well-known Father J. J. M. Amiot in a longer article in which he described characters as;
Father J. J. M. Amiot wrote: images and symbols which speak to the mind through the eyes -- images for palpable things, symbols for mental ones. Images and symbols which are not tied to any sound and can be read in all languages. ... I would be quite inclined to define Chinese characters as the pictorial algebra of the sciences and the arts. In truth, a well-turned sentence is as much stripped of all intermediaries as is the most rigorously bare algebraic demonstration. [Mémoires 1776:282-285]
There are five points about ideograph from the above passage.
a) Images and symbols which speak to the mind through the eyes
b) Images and symbols which are not tied to any sound
c) Images and symbols which can be read in all languages
d) as the pictorial algebra of the sciences and the arts
f) a well-turned sentence is as much stripped of all intermediaries
While DeFrancis was opposing all these five points, he argued strongly against only the top two points, a) and b).
Note: Amiot did not have a system like Gong's to support his five point claim. There were only a few simplest and most interesting examples, not a system.
DeFrancis wrote:Apart from the error of thinking that Chinese characters are unique in evoking mental images, where Creel and others from Friar Gaspar da Cruz right on down go astray in their characterization of Chinese writing is to succumb to the hypnotic appeal of the relatively few characters that are demonstratably of pictographic origin and to extrapolate from these to the majority if not the entirety of the Chinese written lexicon.
2. DeFrancis' position on linguistics.
DeFrancis wrote:Their discussions of Chinese writing are confused and contradictory -- at one time seeming to say one thing, at another something else, but coming down ultimately to a conclusion, that is completely untenable.
Creel (1936:91-93) wrote:
That Chinese writing was pictographic in origin does not admit of question. On the other hand, Chinese is not, and was not three thousand years ago, a pictographic language in the sense that it consisted of writing by means of pictures all or most of which would be readily understood by the uninstructed. ... The Chinese early abandoned the method of writing by means of readily recognizable pictures and diagrams. ... It was in part because the Chinese gave up pictoral [sic] writing that they were able to develop a practicable pictographic and ideographic script, with comparatively little help from the phonetic principle. To draw elaborate pictures of whole animals, for instance (as is done on some of the Shang bones), is too slow a process. The course taken in many parts of the world was to conventionalize the picture, reduce it to a simple and easily executed form, and then use it to represent homophonous words or parts of words. The course the Chinese have chosen has also been to conventionalize and reduce, but they then use the evolved element for the most part not phonetically, but to stand for the original object or to enter with other such elements into combinations of ideographic rather than phonetic value. This parting of the ways is of the most profound importance.
The last two sentences are the crux of Creel's thesis. Where Boodberg and others, as noted earlier, see phonetic elements, Creel sees elements that are conventionalized or reduced forms used "to stand for the original object or to enter with other such elements into combinations of ideographic rather than phonetic value." This emphasis on ideographic symbols that are merely conventionalized forms of pictographs leads Creel into the fanciful explanations of Chinese characters that were so sharply condemned by Boodberg. Boodberg's refutation contained in learned journals known only to specialists could do little to counter the impact of Creel's views expressed in his popular The Birth of China. Here Creel says: "We have specialized on the representation of sounds; the Chinese have specialized on making their writing so suggestive to the eye that it immediately calls up ideas and vivid pictures, without any interposition of sounds" (1937:159).
Here, Creel emphasized that Chinese characters are not tied to any sound.
DeFrancis wrote:With regard to the principle, it matters little whether the symbol is an elaborately detailed picture, a slightly stylized drawing, or a drastically abbreviated symbol of essentially abstract form. What is crucial is to recognize that the diverse forms perform the same function in representing sound. To see that writing has the form of pictures and to conclude that it is pictographic is correct in only one sense -- that of the form, but not the function, of the symbols. We can put it this way:
QUESTION: When is a pictograph not a pictograph?
ANSWER: When it represents a sound.
Here, DeFrancis insisted that Chinese characters are all representing sounds.
Both Creel and DeFrancis were correct. So, they are both wrong too. Chinese characters are representing both ideas and sounds. Please read Gong's system at
the-new-chinese-etymology-f16/the-entire-framework-of-this-new-chinese-etymology-t33.html 3. DeFrancis' objection to the term of ideograph
DeFrancis wrote:The error of exaggerating the pictographic and hence semantic aspect of Chinese characters and minimizing if not totally neglecting the phonetic aspect tends to fix itself very early in the minds of many people, both students of Chinese and the public at large, because their first impression of the characters is likely to be gained by being introduced to the Chinese writing system via some of the simplest and most interesting pictographs, such as those presented at the beginning of Chapter 5. Unless a determined effort is made to correct this initial impression, it is likely to remain as an article of faith not easily shaken by subsequent exposure to different kinds of graphs.
Again, only the simplest and most interesting pictographs were available to DeFrancis on this ideograph issue. There was no system.
DeFrancis wrote:The term "ideographic" has been used not only by those who espouse its basic meaning but also by others who do not necessarily accept the concept but use the term out of mere force of habit as an established popular designation for Chinese characters. I find, to my chagrin, that in my previous publications I have been guilty of precisely this concession to popular usage without being aware of the damage it can cause. As a repentant sinner I pledge to swear off this hallucinogen. I hope others will join in consigning the term to the Museum of Mythological Memorabilia along with unicorn horns and phoenix feathers.
In Gong's system, Amiot's five points are all correct.
a) Images and symbols which speak to the mind through the eyes
b) Images and symbols which are not tied to any sound
c) Images and symbols which can be read in all languages
d) as the pictorial algebra of the sciences and the arts
f) a well-turned sentence is as much stripped of all intermediaries
However, Amiot did not prove them with a system beyond a few interesting examples. This led DeFrancis' objection on the idea of ideograph which is viewed by DeFrancis as Mythological Memorabilia along with unicorn horns and phoenix feathers.
Of course, DeFrancis was wrong but is excused as he did not have a chance to know any better.