the eighteenth chapter, for example, is devoted to language and philology, and it will repay a reading. From this book we learn that the "Shuo-wên" was at this period regarded as the ultimate standard of appeal; its readings of the canonical works were taken against those of the current texts. Yen Chih-t‘ui was also author of two works specially devoted to matters relating to etymology. These were the "Chêng-su-yin-tsŭ" (證俗音字), and the "Tzŭ-shi" (字始). Yen was a native of Lang-ye (瑯琊), the modern Yi-chow in Shantung.[1]
About this time the son of one of the North Ch‘i Emperors introduced to native scholars an expedient which, though it did not meet with much popularity, deserves some notice. It is known as Tzŭ-ch‘ie (自切) or Tzŭ-fan (自反) and among Buddhist writers as Ch‘ie-shên (切身), all expressions having the meaning of self-spelling. By this expedient the sound of a character is given in the composition of the character. Thus the sound te is expressed by 丁也, that is, ting 丁 and ye 也; to make tsi, the initial tsu 足 is placed at the side of i 亦. Properly, the character which gives the initial is placed at the left side of that which yields the final, but the rule was not generally observed. This mode of representing sounds is expressly stated to have been derived from the Buddhists, but it was apparently used before the Indians came into the country. The translators of the Buddhist sacred books, however, used this method to some extent in transcribing Sanskrit sounds, and so made it popularly known. It is not improbable that a closer study of Chinese would show that the apparently meaningless composition of many characters is the result of an attempt to make them self-pronouncing.[2]
During the short-lived Sui dynasty, from 589 to 618, the study of the language continued to flourish. Much attention was now paid to the tones and the sounds of characters generally, rather to the neglect of other matters relating to the history of the language. We find mention of a book written about this time
