CHARACTER

CHARACTER, in a general sense, signifies a mark or figure, drawn on paper, metal, stone, or other matter, with a pen, graver, chisel, or other instrument, to signify or denote any thing. The word is Greek, χαρακτήρ, formed from the verb, χαρασσειν, insculpere, "to engrave, impress," &c.

The various kinds of characters may be reduced to three heads, viz. Literal Characters, Numeral Characters, and Abbreviations.

1. Literal Characters, is a letter of the alphabet, serving to indicate some articulate sound, expressive of some idea or conception of the mind. See ALPHABET.

2. These may be divided, with regard to their nature and use, into Nominal Characters, or those we properly call letters; which serve to express the names of things: See LETTER. Real Characters; those that instead of names express things and ideas: See IDEA, &c. Emblematical or Symbolical Characters; which have this in common with real ones, that they express the things themselves; but have thus further, that they in some measure personate them, and exhibit their form: such are the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians. See HIEROGLYPHIC, SYMBOL, &c.

3. Literal Characters may be again divided, with regard to their invention and use, into particular and general or universal.

Particular Characters, are those peculiar to this or that nation. Such are the Roman, Italic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Gothic, Chinese, &c. characters.—See HEBREW, GOTHIC, CHINESE, &c.

Universal

Characters. Universal Characters, are also real characters, and make what some authors call a Philosophical Language.

That diversity of characters used by the several nations to express the same idea, is found the chief obstacle to the advancement of learning: to remove this, several authors have taken occasion to propose plans of characters that should be universal, and which each people should read in their own language. The character here is to be real, not nominal: to express things and notions; not, as the common ones, letters or sounds: yet to be mute, like letters, and arbitrary; not emblematical, like hieroglyphics.

Thus, every nation should retain its own language, yet every one understand that of each other, without learning it; only by seeing a real or universal character, which should signify the same things to all people, by what sounds soever each expresses it in their particular idiom. For instance, by seeing the character designed to signify to drink, an Englishman should read to drink; a Frenchman, boire; a Latin, bibere; a Greek, πίνω; a Jew, שׁוֹת; a German, trinken; and so of the rest: in the same manner as seeing a horse, each people expresses it after their own manner; but all mean the same animal.

This real character is no chimera; the Chinese and Japanese have already something like it. They have a common character which each of those nations understand alike in their several languages; though they pronounce them with such different sounds, that they do not understand one another in speaking.

The first and most considerable attempts for a real character, or philosophical language, in Europe, are those of Bishop Wilkins and Dalgarme: but these, with how much art soever they were contrived, have yet proved ineffectual.

M. Leibnitz had some thoughts the same way; he thinks those great men did not hit the right method. It was probable, indeed, that by their means, people, who do not understand one another might easily have a commerce together; but they have not hit on true real characters.

According to him, the characters should resemble those used in algebra: which, in effect, are very simple, yet very expressive; without any thing superfluous or equivocal; and contain all the varieties required.

The real character of Bishop Wilkins has its just applause: Dr Hook recommends it on his own knowledge and experience, as a most excellent scheme; and to engage the world to the study thereof, publishes some fine inventions of his own therein.

M. Leibnitz tells us, he had under consideration an alphabet of human thoughts; in order to a new philosophical language, on his own scheme: but his death prevented its being brought to maturity.

M. Lodwic, in the Philosophical Transactions, gives us a plan of an universal alphabet or character of another kind: this was to contain an enumeration of all such single sounds, or letters, as are used in any language; by means whereof, people should be enabled to pronounce truly and readily any language; to describe the pronunciation of any language that shall be pronounced in their hearing, so as others accustomed to this language, though they had never heard the lan-

guage pronounced, shall at first be able truly to pronounce it: and, lastly, this character to serve as a standard to perpetuate the sounds of any language. In the Journal Litteraire, an. 1720, we have a very ingenious project for an universal character. The author, after obviating the objections that might be made against the feasibility of such schemes in the general, proposes his own: his characters are to be the common Arabic, or numeral figures. The combinations of these nine are sufficient to express distinctly an incredible quantity of numbers, much more than we shall need terms to signify our actions, goods, evils, duties, passions, &c. Thus is all the trouble of framing and learning any new character at once saved; the Arabic figures having already all the universality required.

The advantages are immense. For, 1^mo, We have here a stable, faithful interpreter; never to be corrupted or changed, as the popular languages continually are. 2^do, Whereas the difficulty of pronouncing a foreign language is such as usually gives the learner the greatest trouble, and there are even some sounds which foreigners never attain to: in the character here proposed, this difficulty has no place: every nation is to pronounce them according to the particular pronunciation that already obtains among them. All the difficulty is, the accustoming the pen and the eye to affix certain notions to characters that do not, at first sight, exhibit them. But this trouble is no more than we find in the study of any language whatever.

The inflections of words are here to be expressed by the common letters. For instance, the same character shall express a filly or a colt, a horse or a mare, an old horse or an old mare, as accompanied with this or that distinctive letter, which shall show the sex, youth, maturity, or old age: a letter also to express the bigness or size of things; thus v. g. a man with this or that letter, to signify a great man, or a little man, &c.

The use of those letters belongs to the grammar; which, once well understood, would abridge the vocabulary exceedingly. An advantage of this grammar is, that it would only have one declension and one conjugation: those numerous anomalies of grammarians are exceeding troublesome; and arise hence, that the common languages are governed by the populace, who never reason on what is best: but in the character here proposed, men of sense having the introduction of it, would have a new ground, whereon to build regularly.

A new universal character has been proposed by Mr Northmore of London, by which different nations may communicate their sentiments to each other. His original plan was, to make the same numerical figure represent the same word in all languages. But he found afterwards that it might be improved, by using a figure not for every word, but every useful word. And even these he thinks might be abbreviated by adopting certain uniform fixed signs, the number of which would not exceed 20, for the various parts of speech. Words of negation, he proposed, to be expressed by a prefixed sign. A few instances will explain the author's meaning.

Suppose the number 5 to represent the word see,
6 — — — — — a man,
7 — — — — — happy,
8 — — — — — never,
9 — — — — — I

Characters. "I would then (says he) express the tenses, genders, cases, &c. in all languages, in some such uniform manner as following:

"From the above specimen, I should find no difficulty in comprehending the following sentence, though it were written in the language of the Hottentots:

9, 8, 5, — 7, 6. I never saw a more unhappy woman.

"Those languages which do not use the pronoun prefixed to the verb, as the Greek and Roman, &c. may apply it, in a small character, simply to denominate the person; thus, instead of 9, 8, 5, I never saw; they may write, 8, 5, which will signify that the verb is in the first person, and will still have the same meaning."

Our author thinks, that according to this scheme of an universal character, about 20 signs, and less than 10,000 chosen words (synonyms being set aside), would answer all the ends proposed; and that foreigners, by referring to their numerical dictionary, would easily comprehend each other. He proceeds next to shew how appropriate sounds may be given to his signs, and an universal living language formed from the universal characters.

To attain this end, he proposes to distinguish the ten numerals by ten monosyllabic names of easy pronunciation, and such as may run without difficulty into one another. To illustrate his scheme, however, he calls them, for the present, by their common English names; but would pronounce each number made use of by uttering separately its component parts, after the manner of accountants. Thus let the number 6943 represent the word horse, he would not, in the universal language, call a horse six thousand nine hundred and forty-three, but fix, nine, four, three, and so on for all the words of a sentence, making the proper stop at the end of each. In the same manner, a distinct appellation must be appropriated to each of the prefixed signs, to be pronounced immediately after the numeral to which it is an ap-

pendage. Thus if pla be the appellation or the sign of Character, the plural number, fix, nine, four, three, pla will be horses.

"Thus (says our author), I hope, it is evident that about 30 or 40 distinct syllables are sufficient for the above purpose; but I am much mistaken if eleven only will not answer the same end. This is to be done by substituting the first 20 or 30 numerals for the signs, and saying, as in algebra, that a term is in the power of such a number, which may be expressed by the simple word under. Ex. gr. Let 6943 represent the word horse; and suppose 4 to be the sign of the plural number, I would write the word thus, $\backslash overline\{6943\}$; and pronounce it, fix, nine, four, three, in the power of or under four. By these means eleven distinct appellations would be sufficient, and time and use would much abbreviate the pronunciation."

But the difficulty is not in inventing the most simple, easy, and commodious character, but in engaging the several nations to use it; there being nothing they agree less in, than the understanding and pursuing their common interest.

3. Literal characters may again be divided, with respect to the nations among whom they have been invented, into Greek characters, Roman characters, Hebrew characters, &c. The Latin character now used through all Europe, was formed from the Greek, as the Greek was from the Phœnician; and the Phœnician, as well as the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic characters, were formed from the ancient Hebrew, which subsisted till the Babylonish captivity; for after that event the character of the Assyrians, which is the square Hebrew now in use, prevailed, the ancient being only found on some Hebrew medals, commonly called Samaritan medals. It was in 1091 that the Gothic characters, invented by Ulfilas, were abolished, and the Latin ones established in their room.

Medallists observe, that the Greek character, consisting only of majuscule letters, has preserved its uniformity on all medals, as low as the time of Gallienus, from which time it appears somewhat weaker and rounder: from the time of Constantine to Michael we find only Latin characters: after Michael, the Greek characters recommence; but from that time they began to alter with the language, which was a mixture of Greek and Latin. The Latin medals preserved both their characters and language as low as the translation of the seat of the empire to Constantinople: towards the time of Decius the character began to lose its roundness and beauty; some time after, it retrieved and subsisted tolerably till the time of Justin, when it degenerated gradually into the Gothic. The rounder, then, and better formed a character is upon a medal, the fairer pretence it has to antiquity.

II. Numeral Characters, or characters used to express numbers, are either letters or figures.

The Arabic character, called also the common one, because it is used almost throughout Europe in all sorts of calculations, consists of these ten digits, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0.

The Roman numeral character consists of seven majuscule letters of the Roman alphabet, viz. I, V, X, L, C, D, M. The I denotes one, V five, X ten, L fifty, C a hundred, D five hundred, and M a thousand. The I repeated twice makes two, II.; thrice,

Characters. three, III. Four is expressed thus, IV. as I before V or X takes an unit from the number expressed by these letters. To express fix, an I is added to a V, VI.; for seven, two, VII.; and for eight, three, VIII. Nine is expressed by an I before X, thus, IX. The same remark may be made of the X before L or C, except that the diminution is by tens; thus, XL denotes forty, XC ninety, and LX sixty. The C before D or M diminishes each by a hundred. The number five hundred is sometimes expressed by an I before a C inverted, thus, ID; and instead of M, which signifies a thousand, an I is sometimes used between two C's, the one direct, and the other inverted, thus, CID. The addition of C and D before or after raises CID by tens; thus, CCIDCDD expresses ten thousand, CCCIDCCC a hundred thousand. The Romans also expressed any number of thousands by a line drawn over any numeral less than a thousand; thus, $\backslash bar\{V\}$ denotes five thousand, $\backslash bar\{IX\}$ sixty thousand; so likewise $\backslash bar\{M\}$ is one million, $\backslash bar\{MM\}$ is two millions, &c.

The Greeks had three ways of expressing numbers: 1. Every letter, according to its place in the alphabet, denoted a number, from $\backslash alpha$, one, to $\backslash omega$, twenty-four. 2. The alphabet was divided into eight units, $\backslash alpha$ one, $\backslash beta$ two, $\backslash gamma$ three, &c.; into eight tens, $\backslash iota$ ten, $\backslash kappa$ twenty, $\backslash lambda$ thirty, &c.; and eight hundreds, $\backslash epsilon$ one hundred, $\backslash zeta$ two hundred, $\backslash eta$ three hundred, &c. 3. I stood for one, $\backslash Pi$ five, $\backslash Delta$ ten, $H$ a hundred, $X$ a thousand, $M$ ten thousand; and when the letter $\backslash Pi$ enclosed any of these, except I, it showed the enclosed letter to be five times its value; as, $|\backslash bar\{\backslash Pi\}|$ fifty, $|\backslash bar\{\backslash Pi\}\backslash Pi|$ five hundred, $|\backslash bar\{\backslash Pi\}\backslash Pi\backslash Pi|$ five thousand, $|\backslash bar\{\backslash Pi\}\backslash Pi\backslash Pi\backslash Pi|$ fifty thousand.

The French CHARACTERS used in the chamber of accounts, and by persons concerned in the management of the revenue, is properly speaking, nothing else than the Roman numerals, in letters that are not majuscule: thus, instead of expressing fifty-six by LVI, they denote it by smaller characters, LVj.

III. CHARACTERS of Abbreviations, &c. in several of the arts, are symbols contrived for the more concise and immediate conveyance of the knowledge of things. For the