Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1871-07-06
The Chinese Language.

In learning the English a child begins
with letters, but in Chinese he begins With
syllables, 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,
and these are combined together in an al.
most infinite formation, to make their f -ty
or sixty thousand words, each of WITCH is
represented by a separate character. From
the paucity of their syllables, they have to
give them a great many meanings, as, for
instance, Rev. s. r. Brown informs US that
the syllable caoe has two hundred and
twelve Specifications, ching one hundred
and thirteen, ETC. Hence, if one China
man says to another simply chde, 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 syllables sometimes three) he
utters so quickly together that they form
one word as much as in English, which
fact makes it inaccurate to call the Chinese
monosyllable language. In other words
the arrangement of syllables in English is
inevitable, so that in case of the word
"incomprehensibility," for instance, we
cannot write any two of the syllables to-
gether to make another word, while the
Chinese (supposing it had so long word,
though it has none longer than three syl-
lables), can pick 1t to pieces and make
perhaps dozen, perhaps two dozen, new
words.
Let me use homely illustration. Sup
pose two Cinnamon sit down on opposite
sides Of table, one of them with five
hundred little blocks, each Of which is
furnished with glue on both ends He
might pick up and show to the other any
of them, and he would call out any one of
its dozen or hundred meanings, each of
which has its own symbol or characte r;
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-
tables but il 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 she
sue 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 monosyllabic has arisen from the
fact that, in writing, the Chinaman makes
one cumbrous and complicated but solid
character for every word, but that word
may, nevertheless, be spoken in two or
three syllables.
But will skip over these less interest
ing mechanical details, and come to gene
raj facts. One advantage the Chinese has,
amid its appalling difficulties, is the SIM
plicity and English naturalness with which
the words are arranged in sentences. 1t
has no strained and cumbersome involu-
tons, 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 in the simple, easy success
sion of nature, in what Max Mueller calls
the architectonic order" Thus to trans
late as literally us possible the sentence
"tien gan hea-yu, tsing ne-nd tsie no gu
san," reads, "Heaven will rain, please you
find umbrella" Then, to omit the Chinese,
we have this: PLEASE you tomorrow
come my house eat rice"
To sum it all in 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, ad-
verbs and Others of those dreadful parts
of speech" which were the nightmare of
our school days. No declansions, no con-
jugations, no moods, no lenses, no first,
second and third person singular and plu-
raj, no gender except by the addition of
few particles in certain cases.; nothing
but these little naked, innocent bits of
words strung along together. If you find
verb ii never has but one form, instead
Of the seven hundred or more Of those re-
morseless Greek verbs in MI; If you have
noun, it always remains in the same
shane