Mower County transcript., 1871-07-06
The Chinese Language.

| In lcNIulIiS LHo EIlSlISjl a Cullu UcHlNk
with letters, but in Chinese he begins with
sy)lables, because there are no letters, for
what we should call letters are words
Instead Of our twenty six letters the
! Chinese have about five hundred syllables,
! most infinite formation, to make their -ty
or sixty thousand words, each of WITCH is
rcpl resented by separate character From
the paucity of their syllables, they have to
give them great many meanings, as, for
Instance, Rev s. r. Brown informs us that
the syllable chae has two hundred and
twelve Specifications, Ching one hundred
and thirteen, etc. Hence, if one China
man says to another simply chae, he may
mean any one of two hundred and twelve
things, which is practically nothing, and
he has, therefore, in order to limit it some
where, to speak another syllable Of
kindred meaning, either before or after it,
These two syllablcs sometimes three) he
utters 80 quickly together that they form
one word as much as in English, which
fact makes it Inaccurate to call the Chinese
a mOnosyllable language. In other words
the arrangement of syllables in English is
| inevitable, 80 that in case Of the word
"incomprehensibilily,' for instance, we
cannot write any two Of the sylablcs to
gether to make another word, while the
Chinese (supposing it had so long a word,
though it has none longer than three syl-
lablcs) Can pick it to pieces and make
perhaps dozen, perhaps two dozen, new
words.
Let me use homcly illustration. Sup.
pose two Cinnamon sit down on opposite
sides Of q table, one Of them with five
hundred little blocks, each of which is
furnished with glue Oh both ends. He
might pick up and show to the other any
of them, aud he would call out any one Of
its dozen Or hundred meanings, each of
which has its own symbol or character !;
but in order to communicate any extended
or precise information, his friend must
glue them together in couples or threes
This is why the Chinese is not, as it is
usually called, monosyllabic language.
We can say in English, II went to town
last night and found my friend, and went
with him to see the play" all in monosyl-
lables; but it is impossible to express in
Chinese anything but the very shortest
sentences in words Of one syllable, as 81
say" (ngo sh'co), or "Who are your" me size
Mue y A rapid speaker in English does
not separate his syllables by greater inter-
walls than he does his words; neither do
the Chinese. The error Of calling the
language monosyllabc has arisen from the
fact that. in writing, the China:nan makes
one cumbrous and complicated but solid
character for every word, but that word
may, nevertheless, be spoken in two or
three syllahles.
But will skip over these less interest
ing mechanical Details and come to gene
raj facts. Ouc advantage the Chinese has,
amid its appalling difficulties, is the sim.
pliclty and English naturalness with which
the words are arranged in Sentences 1t
has no strained and cum bersomc involu-
tlons, by which one word qualifying an
other is found two or three lines distant,
as in German or Greek, and especially in
Japanese; but the words are built up one
upon the other iu the simple, easy success
sion Of nature, in what Max Mueller calls
the architcctonic order" Thus to trans
late as literally as possible the sentence
"tien yun hcnuu, tsing mem" tsie no yu.
san" rca''s, Heaven will rain, please you
find umbrella" Then, to omit the Chinese,
we have this: "Plrase you to- morrow
come my house eat rice"
TO sum it all in a word, if Chinese were
only written with our letters, it would be
easier for third person to acquire than
English itself: 1t is delightful for its
childish simplicity in that respect, for the
absence of propositions, conjunctions, adj
verbs and others Of those dreadful "parts
Of spc"ch," which were the nightmare of
our school days. No dcclcnsions, no con
jugations, no moods, no 'euscs, no first
second and third person singular and plu-
raj, no gender Except by the addition of a
few particles in certain cascs); nothing
but these little naked, innocent bits Of
words strung along together. If you find
verb it never has but one form, instead
Of the seven hundred or more of those re-
norseless Greek verbs in MI; if you have
a noun, it always remains in the same
shape.