Reading Chinese in Oxford - Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer - page 51

The most consistent language-learning Hyde did was numbers. This is always a
goodplacetostart,giventhecompletelackofambiguityofnumbers.Ononesheet
hehaswritteninacolumnthenumbers1to13,then20to40bytens,then100and
either 1,000 or 10,000 - it is hard to tell which number he has written, since he has
crossed one out and written in the other. His confusion is not surprising, for num-
bers are not just numbers: they operate within systems. In England the system for
highernumbersistocounttheminthousands,whereasinChinesetheyarecounted
in tens of thousands. Once recognised, though, systems are refreshingly context-
free, even content-free. To Europeans they were mechanisms that logic could un-
lockonceyouhadthekey.ThekeytoChinese-spokenofbyHydeandmanyoth-
ers as the clavis sinica - was what every hopeful Orientalist longed to find so that
he could decipher Chinese without having to go to China and spend years learning
the language, which would be the fate of mere mortals like me. It is possible to
learn Chinese, but it cannot be done by picking up a shiny key and unlocking the
language with a twist of the wrist.
Where we can watch Michael and Hyde working together is on the Selden map.
The original writing on the map is entirely Chinese, but beside many of the labels
are ghostly translations and annotations in spidery European letters. The writing is
so minuscule, the ink so faded and the paper so worn that it is easy to miss what
theyhavewritten,evenifyougetthechancetoseethemapinreallife.Buttheyare
there. Michael's distinctive hand always comes first, showing how to pronounce
eachcharacter.HisromanisationsarethenfollowedbyLatintranslationsinHyde's
rather more cramped hand, sometimes character by character, sometimes word for
word. To anyone who has applied for a library card at the Bodleian, the scribblings
come as a surprise. The memorable moment during registration is having to recite
a solemn promise, which begins (the original in Latin, of course): 'I hereby under-
take not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any
volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody.' (The pledge
goes on to enjoin readers not to kindle fires inside the library, a hold-over from the
centuries without central heating.) One supposes librarians weren't so squeamish
in earlier days, besides which Hyde was in charge. For studying the history of the
map, however, this lapse is a godsend, because it lets us watch Michael and Hyde
at work.
The romanisations are correct, if unconventional, but there were as yet no con-
ventions for writing out Chinese in roman letters (for that matter, English spelling
hadn't even been standardised). Michael's romanisations betray a mix of the of-