ATHANASIUS KIRCHER’ THEORY OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE APPEARANCE
This study presents the main provisions of the theory the origin of Chinese language, presented by Athanasius Kircher (1602 - 1680). Kircher, who known primarily for his studies on the Coptic language and attempts to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, was also interested in Chinese. In modern historiography he is called among the predecessors of figurism - hermeneutic doctrine, whose Jesuit followers support the doctrine of the single primordial Verity given in the divine Revelation, which Noah’s descendants spread across all nations and continents. Kircher considered Egyptian hieroglyphics to be the invention of Mercury Trismegistus. Ham, Noah’ Son, identified with Zoroaster brought hieroglyphs to China. Kircher did not associate hieroglyphics with the spoken language, and therefore offered only a symbolic interpretation of ideographic writing. The Chinese letters, according to his opinion, was not the bearer of the secret, but he considered it a universal mechanism, providing mutual understanding of the speakers of different Chinese dialects, as well as people of Japan, Korea and Vietnam, whose languages differed from Chinese. The article presents the first Russian translation of chapters 1 and 5 of the sixth part of the treatise China illustrata , which sets forth the views of A. Kircher on these subjects.