The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-02-24

| guage mas more sym bOlS than all of the
| alpha bets in the universe combined, and
there are more tone-com binations for the
expression of those symbols than in all
other tongues. Each tone is attached
to character, and one character is
made to mean several different things
according to the one used. In Chinese,
the tone gives the meaning. A word
spoken with falling infection means
one thing, and quite another when spok.
en- with rising infection. We often
hear Chinaman, as he walks along
the street talking with his companion,
utter word in falling infection which
sounds like n-go. This means II He
is talking of himself-perhaps saying
how great he thinks himself to be- But
if he drawls out the sound, long and
| even, he is calling some hoodlum q
goose He gives the falling infection
to the first syllable, and the rising in
| Election to the last, and in rather must
cal voice This would be a rather diff
cult feat for an American. No matter
| in what mood he may be, he may not,
and perhaps cannot, change the accent
The voice may be louder or in "a minor
key, but the tones are AS inhexible as
written words, and must be so used, or
the exact meaning is lost. All the ex-
pressions of human passions-laughter
or sorrow-must be expressed by the
same lnf1exible words and precise accents
There are only five tones in the Chinese
voice, but as every word has all of It's
syllables accented there are twenty-five
permutations, and these are almost ssal-
ways in constant use, even in ordinary
conversation. A question may be asked
with or without rising lnt1ectlon-ac
cording to the word used.
Chinese adjectives are nouns: For
"many. thanks" it is thank thank :"
A great man" is greatness man. :"
Sometimes a noun is formed of noun
and verb, as barber, whom they call
"shave-head teacher" The verbs have
neither moods nor lenses, and when your
laundryman wishes to tell you that
I have washed" he says, Il pass over
wash" Their adverbs are mostly formed
by joining together nouns and verbs, as
finish day" or yesterday" To cook is
to eat rice" Every noun is plural and
includes all there is of that article. I'M
less it is limited by the expression one
piece" as "one-piece house, Instead of
wife and children they express it
means father man." Ii repeated it sig
nifies "scolding." The noun always re-
mains in the same shape, and the verb
has but one form, instead Of the many
known to the English language. The
Chinese language has no declensions,
subjugations, moods, lenses, propositions,
conjunctions. adverbs, first second and
third persons, no singular and plural,
and no gender, except by the addition
of few particles in rare instances. 1t
is evidently simple and easy to learn,
one of the simplest and most curious
things about it being, as above stated,
that every noun, unless qualified other
wise, is plural. Those who have wrest-
led with Lindley Murray will perhaps
appreciate the Chinese language for its
few parts of Speech
There are about 60, 900 characters used
in the Chinese language proper, but the
aevarge Chinaman no more learns all of
those characters than the everyday
American learns the 100000 words in
the English language. The Chinaman,
however, learns on the average more
ton in life. A Chinaman who can
neither read nor write is rarity. Chin
ese is not monosyllabic language, as
many suppose, and it is impossible to
utter in Chinese any but the shortest
sentences in monosyllables. In writing,
the Chinaman makes one complicated
but integral character for each word,
but that word may. be properly spoken
in two, three or four syllables. His
syllabl are divided by no longer inter
walls than are his words. and that is what
makes the language sound to a foreigner
like sing-song jargon. We do not know
whether he is telling story or attempt
ing a song. The Chinese perhaps think
the same thing of an American, who
bites off his words and swallows the m,
or telescopes one into another.
Business men in this city thrown in
contact with Chinese merchants who
speak pure Chinese say that it is not
difficult to learn. Instead of twenty-six
letters, not including the useless &, the
Chinese have 500 or 600 syllables, and
these are com bined into various forms
to make the ZOO words in their g die
tionary." These syllables vary in mean
ing according to the tone in which they
are spoken or the stress used in writing
them. A Chinaman can unite any two
of the 600 syllables and make an jntelli-
gible word. This is not the case with
the English language. This fexibility
is perhaps owing to the shortness of their
words (seldom more than three sylla bles)
and the tone or strokes belonging to the
syllables when spoken or written. A
syllable may mean one of hundred
things, and its particular meaning is
limited by placing another syllable of
similar significance before or after it,
using it's particular one, or stroke when
writing. Sometimes the syllables are
uOUCI Od al SUM iVpiu odNSSooAOu OAoU
they seemingly form one word. but the
trained Chinese ear notes the tones, and
he is easily understood-the marvellous
subtleties Of accent conveying the ex
preston to nicely. He does not have
to state proposition, and then. in order
to make himself clear, restate it by the
usual "or, in other words" There are
no "other words" with the Chinese The
tone gives the meaning.
The Chinese have a system of 214 radi-
Gales, having various strokes from one
to seventeen, which are combined with
the characters. Each radical has sepa-
rate meaning, generally denoting the
simplest object, as man, sky, earth,
water, king. The student first learns
these, which answer to the A B G.: he
next studies the syllables, or combina-
lions. and thus he has learned to read
and spell. Grouping the syllables into
words depends upon his powers of speech
or of composition in writing
What is properly known as "slang" is
not known to the Chinese. Their lam
guage is sufficiently copious without re-
Sorting to the bruta forms of speech.
The most whitening contempt For the
keenest of satire may be expressed in
the politest terms. J.M.S.