Великобританската представа за китайския език между 17 и 19 в.
The British Concept of Chinese Language Between the 17th and the 19th Centuries

Summary/Abstract: During the period under discussion the idea of the Chinese language underwent a substantial change. While in the seventeenth century – when Britain was in the grip of a powerful sinophile sentiment – many intellectuals were inclined to view the language and the writing system of the Middle Kingdom favorably, seeing in the Chinese characters a remnant of the first human language, during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries the popular views changed and the Chinese language was examined with a more critical eye. The paper discusses these changes, focusing on a few authors whose views can be considered fairly representative of the prevalent societal trends at the time. Among the authors I discuss are John Bell, Samuel Johnson, Francis Bacon and John Webb.

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