The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1894-09-30

NNHN VIII NAH SAAAAC1
set down IN vertical columns, they may, II nee
essary, be written horizontally from riehtto left'
n.
The spoken language Of China IL not nearly 20
dinfcult OF requirement rs the writing, but use
alone can teach IL, since memory IL not aided oy
grammar or by derivation. II IL well known that
the Chinese speech IL by no means homogeneous
and uniform. Not only does the vernaculsr Of
the educated class differ from that OF the peas
ant, the sailor, the artisan, or the trader. but
each region has It's dialect. There is more DIFF
ference in the speech Of the different prov
inces than between the various patoiso Of France;
go much 80 that, according to M. Hove
lacque, the Government ohcials sent TO
serve In the province Of Fou-kien or OF
Canton cannot, unless natives Of the district, get
on without interpreters. The dialect of Canton
is spoken in the south. while that Of Fou.kien
extends a little further to the north along the
eastern coast and to the ncighboring islands; In
the central provinces OF the empire, and at
Nnnkin and Pekin. the Mandarin dialect pre-
walls; this is the vernacular of . wide tract Of
country, and also the oficial and literary Ian
guage Of the whole Middle Kingdom.
The three principal dialects are distinguished.
II seems, chiefly by the sound. The letters b, d,
and O exist only In the dialect Of Fou-kien. All
the o. so largely used in transliteration. tSono,
tsicnU. chang. represent merely a nasal reinforce
ment resembling the French reinforcement OF
final m or n. The Mandarin language omits In
pronunciation tho initial compound ng; thus
nod, ngo. npe, n0dn, are pronounced a, o, q, an
K followed by 4 as in ktd, kio, ktu, which re-
mains hard in the south, has become 10 In the
north, for example, tstd, tsto, tstu. We have
seen that the O Is unknown in literary Chinese;
the truth Is that every word In IL Is composed OF
an initial consonant or spirant, followed by
a vowel simple or nasalized; for instance. Ia,
great; IA, father: mu, mother; &c. A sim
gle and very doubtful exception to this rule Is
the word which signifies two" and ears:
eul, ulh. urh: the vowel seems here to precede
the consonant, but the sound Is confused and
dificult to transcribe: II is an effort toward
the pure liquid r. which the language does not
possess. They write and pronounce France, for
example, Folan-tsi. In the dialects Of Canton
and Fou-kien the short words may be ter
minated by q strong, explosive consonant like X,
4. or ID. There are In all the dialects short words
and long. the quantity of which depends on the
accent or tone. The tones invented to distin-
guish between syllables Of the same sound. but
Of very diverse meaning, number 8 in Fou.
kicn. 5 In the Mandarin dialect; at Pekin.
only four tones or accents are used, three long
and one short. These accents increase the num-
Der OF roots from $50 to 1880. 1t is obvious
enough that In this system, deprived OF the aid
Of sufi the raw material Of Language Is of
the poorest. Only by a marvellous ingenuity
have the Chinese been able, without any other
resource than mere opposition. to acquire 49,
900 signs, that is To say 10000 ideas. and to ap-
ply their imperfect instrument TO every form OF
literature, philosophy. ethics. history. poetry.
and the drama. To VI. Lefevre, as to most Eu-
ropeans. this ingenuity seems displayed at the
expense Of persplcuity. logical composition. and
tn.ui.a,io, To opr rninda the thouuht NJ the
Chinese. like their art, lacks perspective;
either it is stifed beneath a mass OF details
which is not properly subordinated TO the
whole, or. the whole being considered through n
sort OF fog. the sense Of reality Is lost: the
ideas appear either trite. diffuse. and prosaic,
or incoherent and phantasmal. TIL Chinese
chronicles are interminable: the enumerations
are incongruous; the poetical imagination of
the writers Is weak. and its form Is dishgured
by mannerisms. The author of this book would
not. Of course, maintain that science Is mac
cessible to the minds OF the Chinese, but II is,
he thinks. to their language and writing. and
these they cannot renounce without losing all
their past history.
The dominion Of the Chinese tongue is limited
or the north by Corean, Manchu, and Mongo-
lian, which are agglutinatlve languages; In the
south IT. is found sporadically along the Indo-
Chinese coast, in the commercial centres. where
IL contends with Malay. Although the type
Of monosyllabi' languages, Chinese Is not
the only one. Annamite, Siamese, Burmese.
and Thibetan are also examples. The countries
where these tongues are spoken. however, arc
but outlying parts Of the great Chinese empire,
to which they have been, at times, united by
vassalage or alliance. They are parts OF that
great slice of Asia which inclines toward the
east and turns away from the rest Of the con-
tinent. thus constituting one Of the few portions
OF the globe where such fossil languages could be
protected In their growth. The hereditary ten
dency TO monosyllabism must have been very
strong throughout this vast area to resist infu-
ences and conquests which lett the Middle
Kingdom indeed intact, but which were not
wanting in Thibet and ndo-China Buddhist
missionaries established their principal sect in
Thibet. and have reigned there for nearly twenty
centuries. In Cambodia, for which M.L.efevre pre-
fers the name Gambodge, the Aryans OF India
founded a iourishing kingdom and a brilliant
civilization, of which admirable ruins still sur
vlve at Ang-Kor-wat. where learned men have
deciphered the inscriptions In Sanskrit and Pail.
Nevertheless, the old type OF race and institu-
lions in the end prevailed, and with 1t the an
Client form OF language. From their fugitive
civilization the inhabitants of Thlbet have in
herited only the worst OF legacies, a'narrowing.
childish, and debased form Of Buddhism.