# A Grammar of the Chinese Colloquial Language Commonly Called the Mandarin Dialect/Part 1/Chapter 1

A GRAMMAR of the CHINESE COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE, Commonly Called the MANDARIN DIALECT.
PART I. ON SOUND.
CHAPTER I.
Alphabet and Tone Symbols.
The following symbols will be employed for consonants: gutturals, k, k‘, ng; dentals, t, t‘, n; labials, p, p‘, m; aspirates, f, h; sibilants, s, sh, j, ts, t‘s, ch, c‘h; liquids, l, r; semivowels, w, y.
| 該 ,kai, ought. | 開 ,k‘ai, to open. | 哀 ,ngai, to grieve. |
| 底 ’ti, bottom. | 體 ’t‘i, body. | 你 ’ni, you. |
| 步 pu‘, step. | 普 ’p‘u, the whole. | 墓 mu‘, a grave. |
| 方 ,fang, square. | 𮎰 ,hwang, desolate. | 秀 ,sieu, elegant. |
| 收 ,sheu, gather in. | 然 jan, thus. | 走 ’tseu, to walk. |
| 秋 ,t‘sicu, autumn. | 周 ,cheu, all round. | 抽 ,c‘heu, draw out. |
| 樓 ,leu, upper room. | 兒 ,rï, son. | 彎 ,wan, to bend. |
| 憂 ,yeu, sad. |||
The aspirated consonants k‘, t‘, p‘, are pronounced by inserting the sound h, after the letters k, t, p. To obtain, for example, the aspirated from of t or p, enunciate the word Tahiti without the ​vowel a, and hap-hazard without the initial ha. These consonants rare as they are in western languages, occur extensively in those of southern and eastern Asia, and after some practice are as easily distinguishable to the foreign ear, as they are to the native.
The consonant ng, whether initial or final, is pronounced as in the word king. It should have a single letter as its symbol, but the Roman alphabet does not furnish one. It does not occur as an initial in the English language.
The aspirate h has a strong harsh enunciation, approaching before the vowels i, ü, to s, and in many dialects coalescing with that consonant. This letter will also be used at the end of words, as by many previous writers, to denote that they take a short in tonation.
J is the French j, and might be written zh. It is sometimes in English written z as in azure, also si as in confusion.
Sh, properly a single consonant like ng, is written with two letters for want of a better symbol.
Ts and ch, with their aspirated forms, are the only compound initials, or initials consisting of more than one consonant, four in Chinese words. Ch formed of t and sh, is written ch instead of tsh for brevity. The aspirate in these compound consonants occurs after t, not after s, for if t be omitted, the aspirate can be pronounced. Ts is pronounced as z in the German language and as ts in Whitsuntide. L ike ng and j, it does not occur as an initial in English, and hence, as in the case of those consonants, some effort is usually required by speakers of English, to attain the pronunciation.
In addition to the twenty two consonants occurring in the mandarin dialect, eight more will be necessary to express provincial sounds. They are g, d, b, v, h, z, dz, dj. They form a series of soft consonants, whose place is next to the aspirated letters k‘, t‘, etc. of the first paragraph.
The symbol h is used for a weak aspirate, which in some dialects accompanies the common harsh aspirate of mandarin pronuncia­tion.
​The pronunciation of Sucheu and Hangcheu having these eight consonants, in addition to those above-mentioned, possesses a flexibility and variety, which do not belong to the mandarin dialect.
The vowels required for expressing the sounds of the Kwan-hwa, or mandarin pronunciation are— i, e, a, o, u, ï, and ü.
| Vowel symbols. | English value. | Examples of use: | Examples of use: |
| i | i in marine. | 西 ,si, west. | 西 ,si, west. |
| i | i in wing. | 星 ,sing, star. | 星 ,sing, star. |
| e | u in sun. | 分 ,fen, divide. | 能 ,neng, can. |
| e | e in there. | 舍 she‘, cottage. | 舌 shèh, tongue. |
| | | 天 ,t‘ien, heaven. | 雪 siuèh, snow. |
| a | a in father. | 往 ’wang, to go. | 怕 p‘a‘, fear. |
| o | o in lone. | 可 ’k‘o, can. | 可 ’k‘o, can. |
| u | u in prune. | 都 tu, all. | 懂 ’tung, understand. |
| ï | e in tassel or in ample. | 思 ,sï, think. | 姐 ,tsï, sister. |
| | e in tassel or in ample. | 耳 ’rï, ear. | 知 ,chï, know. |
| u | u in plut. (Fr.) | 須 ,sü, must. | 君 ,kiün, chief. |
| ei | ei in ein. (Ger.) | 為 wei‘, because of. | 為 wei‘, because of. |
When a large number of vowels is needed, as in writing provincial sounds, accents will be introduced according to the well-known system of Sir William Jones. For the mode of using the accents adopted in the present work, see the fifth page. No great inconvenience occurs from dispensing with the accents in mandarin will be found on trial.
Some reasons for not adopting Dr. Morrison's spelling for the vowels will be now given.
First. It is better to spell a single vowel sound with one letter than with two, both for brevity and for accuracy. In writing ’ku, ancient, or c‘he, a carriage, koo and ,c‘hay, there is a sacrifice of analogy with other languages in the use of vowel symbols in favour of our own irregular orthography, and more than this, there is a loss of time inwriting through the increased length of the words.
Second. Dr. Morrison's spelling is not uniform. For example, ,chen, true; .men, door; ,keng, watch, which have the same vowel, are written by him chin, mun, kǎng. So also ’chï, paper, tsï‘, ​self, tsi‘, limit, ’sï, die, ’si, to wash are written in his system incorrectly with the same vowels: thus, che, tsze, tse, sze, se. By adopting another symbol for the vowel sound contained in the first, second, and fourth of these words, this irregularity is avoided. Further ü‘, to meet, kü‘, a sentence, having the same vowel, are spelt by Morrison yu, keu. By using the diæresis, y and e may both be omitted with advantage. Morrison spells .hwei, to return and .wei, to do, two words which exactly rhyme in their sound, in two modes hwuy and wei. So also the former of these word rhymes according to the same author with 雖 ,sui and 追 ,chui which he spells suy, chuy. In fact, ei should follow kw, hw and w, while ui is preceded by t, s, ts, ch, j, n and l. The voice passes quickly over w as in "swerve," but rests on u as in "ruin." Two symbols w and u are therefore necessary, a vowel and a consonant.
The symbols i, e, will be observed to have two sounds, according as their position is at the end or in the middle of a word. The medial i is always short in mandarin; the final, except with the short intonation is always long. Final h, which will be used ⟨to⟩ indicate the short tone, does not count as anything but a tone-⟨mask⟩.
For the short a of Sanscrit, represented in sun and son by u and o, e is here employed. This agrees with the usage of Premáre and other French writers. If a or u were taken as a the symbol of this sound, it would be necessary to introduce the accent for long quantities, in a large number of words. The same symbol e, will be appropriated to express the final vowel in .she, a snake, and similar words, and the grave accent will be used to distinguish the vowel in 硩 chèh, from that in 革 keh, the former being pronounced as e in "there," and the latter as o in "son."
The vowels a and o are in mandarin both long, whether as medial or final, and are never shortened into the a and o of the English words hat, hot. The accent therefore is unnecessary for these vowels, except for provincial dialects.
When e follows i in words ending with n, the sound represented is that heard in the English words "men," "mend," e. g. ’tien 㸃 a point. This e is pronounced a, in many parts of North China.
Perhaps the greatest difficulty in framing an orthography for Chinese sounds, is in finding a representative for the vowel part ​of the words rï‘, two, sï‘, four, tsï‘, a character, chï‘, knowledge, 日 jïh, a day, and similar words. The sound is easier to imitate than to write down. It is produced by enunciating the consonant without any of the common vowels following, only taking care to make the sound distinctly audible by a full expiration of vocal breath. To express it in writing, a new symbol, viz. i with the diæresis, is here proposed. By this means, the insertion of z is dispensed with, and confusion in the use of i or e is also avoided. A further advantage attending the use of a distinct symbol for this vowel is, that sounds such as 實, 日, 直, pronounced shïh, jïh, hïh, can thus be more accurately represented than by the spelling hih, jih, chih. Now vowel i is heard, and these words differ only a tone from the sound of 詩 shï, 之 chï, etc. To omit a vowel ⟨sym⟩bol altogether as in the system of the Chinese Repository, seems ⟨to be⟩ uncalled for, since the sound answers all the purposes of a (illegible text) vowel.
⟨In⟩ expressing the much larger number of vowel sounds found ⟨in⟩ provincial dialects, many more symbols are needed, which are ⟨at⟩tained by the use of accents. The acute accent is used for long ⟨vo⟩wels. The grave and circumflex accents, with the diæresis, de⟨not⟩e other modifications of the vowel. In the short tone, final h ⟨is⟩ added, as also k, t, p, when required.
Vowels with diacritical marks.
| I. | í as ee in see; i as i in sit, ï as e in tassel. |
| E. | é as ay in pay; e as u in but; è as e in there, then. |
| A. | á as a in calm; a as a in cat; à as a in man. |
| O. | ó as o in tone; o as o in lot; ò as o in gone; ö as ö in Göthe. |
| U. | ú as oo in fool; u as u in full; ü as u in nul (French); û ⟨as⟩ ö pronounced long; ù as u in but pronounced long. |
The sound here written ï, may be illustrated further by words such as mason, Whitsuntide, where the sound exists after s and ts. To obtain it, the n that follows must be omitted.
This is the system, slightly modified, introduced in the Chinese Repository several years since, and retained in other works issued at the Canton press.
​The following table will show how the orthography here adopted differs from those of Morrison and Medhurst, Premáre, Callery, and the Chinese Repository.
| | Morrison. | Premáre. | Callery. | Repository. | |
| pí | pe | pi | pi | pí | 比 |
| pih | pieh | pǐ | pǐ | pih | 筆 |
| shï | she | chi | xe | shí | 詩 |
| sï | sze | se | se | sz’ | 思 |
| tsï | tsze | tsee | tze | tsz’ | 兹 |
| pen | pun | pen | pen | pan | 本 |
| jen | jin | jin | jen | jin | 人 |
| shè | shay | she | shee | shiè | 蛇 |
| teh | tih | tě | tee | teh | 得 |
| tá | ta | ta | ta | tá | 大 |
| kúng | kung | kong | kum | kúng | 公 |
| tó | to | to | tô | tó | 多 |
| pú | poo | pou | pu | pú | 布 |
| sheng | săng | seng | xem | sang | 生 |
| lieú | lew | lieou | lieu | liú | 留 |
| kiüen | keuen | küen | kiüen | kiuen | 卷 |
| lún | lun | lün | luen | lún | 論 |
| káú | kaou | kao | kao | kaú | 告 |
| súi | suy | soui | suei | sui | 雖 |
| kièn | këen | kien | kièn | kien | 見 |
| rï | urh | eull | ell | rh’ | 兒 |
The only remaining symbols to be noticed are those for tones. The Chinese use a small circle at one of the four corners of the character to mark the tone. Instead of this mark, a comma turned away from the word, will be employed for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th tones, and a full stop for the fifth tone. Thus 梯 ,t‘i, 體 ’t‘i, 替 t‘i‘, 惕 t‘ih⹁, 題 .t‘i. The Chinese names of the tone-classes to which these five words respectively belong, are 上平 shang p‘ing, 上聲 shang sheng, 去聲 k’ü sheng, 去聲 juh sheng ​and 下平 hia p‘ing. But for reasons stated in the chapter on tones, they will for convenience be spoken of as 1st, 2nd, 5th, etc. in preference to retaining the native nomenclature.
In illustrating the colloquial language from dialects where the tone-classes are more numerous, full stops and double commas will be used. In such cases, there is always an arrangement in two series. For the upper series, commas will be employed, full stops for the lower, and double commas for other subdivisions. Thus 升 ,sheng, 省 ’sheng, 聖 sheng‘, 識 shïh⹁, 繩 .sheng, 上〫 ‘shang, 上 shang, 陷 hien‘‘, 實 shïh..
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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