1939/01/01 by Peter A. Boodberg · 17 citations
Social Sciences · #Chinese history and philosophy #China #State (computer science) #Literature #History #Element (criminal law) #Asian studies #Martial arts #Law #Art #Political science #Computer science
paper · doi:10.1163/156853239x00062
published in T oung Pao 35(1), 266-288 (Brill)
openalex publication_date 1939/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
With martial stalk, the ghost of 'Ideography' haunts again the platform of sinological Elsinore. In TP 34. 265-294, Professor Herrlee Glessner Creel, taking exception to some statements in the present writer's 'Proleptical Remarks' (HJAS 2. 329-372), directed against his efforts to revive 'ideography' as a method of interpreting Chinese characters, attempts to re-state his position in a curiously constructed article entitled 'On the Ideographic Element in Ancient Chinese'. Though written in a lively, controversial vein, the paper fails to produce a single new fact which would help us to clarify the important problenm of the structure and genesis of Chinese writing, and enlightens us very little on the nature of 'ideographic' ectoplasm. The article inakes it painfully obvious, on the other hand, that the discussion of the cardinal points of the origin and development of the Chinese written language cannot be fruitfully continued, so long as the champions of 'ideography' refuse to define what they mean by an 'ideogram', and to explain coherently their reasons for disregarding in specific cases long-established evidence pointing