The Chinese Language in European Texts [electronic resource] : The Early Period / by Dinu Luca.

Introduction: Entering the Language Continuum -- 1. Silence, Script, and "New Understandings" -- 2. Figures, Hieroglyphs, and Ciphers,- 3. Ships, Bricks, and the Majesty of Writing: The New Century -- Conclusion.

This detailed, chronological study investigates the rise of the European fascination with the Chinese language up to 1615. By meticulously investigating a wide range of primary sources, Dinu Luca identifies a rhetorical continuum uniting the land of the Seres, Cathay, and China in a tropology of silence, vision, and writing. Tracing the contours of this tropology, The Chinese Language in European Texts: The Early Period offers close readings of language-related contexts in works by classical authors, medieval travelers, and Renaissance cosmographers, as well as various merchants, wanderers, and missionaries, both notable and lesser-known. What emerges is a clear and comprehensive understanding of early European ideas about the Chinese language and writing system.