New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1894-04-04
CHINESE LANGUAGE.

CHINESE LANGUAGE.
SOME or THE cuRlosITIEs or THE
GEAR SPLITTING JARGoN.v
Musicians Soy It Has an Affinity With the
Notes of Birds-No Alphabet and No
pies of Chinese Talk.
The superficial observer often refers to
The Chinese spoken speech as an ssear
splitting jargon" and to the written
speech as s'hieroglyphics Frequent Wis
itors to any "Chinese, quarter" notably
a large chinatown" like that of Los
Angeles, will soon become SO familiar
with this SO called jargon as to note that
it Is far more musical than the English
speech. Musicians are authority for the
statement chat the Chinese language has
more affinity (when spoken) with the
notes Of birds than with the tones of any
other language. This is perhaps because
the Chinese, having no alphabet, must
have many tone combinations to give
the various expressions and meanings to
the thousands Of characters.
Having no alphabet, the Chinese Ian
guage has more symbols than all Of the
alphabets in the universe combined, and
there are more tone combinations for the
expression Of those symbols than in all
other tongues. Each tone is attached to
a character, and one character is made
to mean several different things, accord
ing to the tone used. In Chinese the
tone gives the meaning. Aword spoken
with a falling infection means one
thing, and quite another when spoken
with rising infection. We often hear
a Chinaman. as he walks along the street
talking with his companion, utter word
in falling infection which sounds like
n-go. This means 'I." 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 call
ing some hoodlum ''goose.' He gives
the falling infection to the first syllable,
and the rising infection to the last, and
in a rather musical voice. This would
be difficult 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 infexi-
BILE as written words and must be so used,
or the exact meaning is lost. All the
expressions of human passions-laugh-
ter or sorrow-must be expressed by the
same infexible words and precise &C
cents. There are only five tones in the
Chinese voice, but as every word has all
of it's syllables accented there are rs per-
mutations, and these are almost always
in constant use, even in ordinary CONVEX
sation. A question may be asked with
or without a rising infection, according
to the word used.
Chinese adjectives are nouns. For
'many thanks" it is "thank thank" A
'great man" is greatness man." Some
times 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 laun-
dryman wishes to tell you that II have
washed he says, II pass over wash"
Their adverbs are mostly formed by join
ing together nouns and verbs, as Finish
day" for yesterday" To cook is to ''eat
rice" Every noun is plural and includes
all there is of that article, unless it is
limited by the expression zone piece" as
zone piece house." Instead of ''wife and
children" they express family and wife"
The word woman means ''father man."
If repeated, it signifies ''scolding." The
noun always remains in the same shape,
and the verb has but one form instead of
the many known to the English Ian
guage. The Chinese language has no de-
clensions, subjugations, moods, lenses,
propositions, conjunctions, adverbs, first,
second and third persons, no singular
and plural, and no gender except by the
addition Of a few participates in rare in
stances. It 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
otherwise, is plural.
There are about &C, 600 characters used
in the Chinese language proper, but the
average Chinaman no more learns all of
those characters than the everyday
American learns the 100, 900 words in the
English language. The Chinaman, how
ever, learns on the average more than
does an American in q similar position
IN life. A Chinaman who can neither
read nor write is rarity. Chinese is
not monosyllabic language, as many
suppose, and it is impossible to utter in
Chinese any but the shortest sentences in
monosyIlables-
In writing the Chinaman makes one
complicated but integral character for
each word, but that word may be prop
erly spoken in two, three or four sylla-
bles. His syllables are divided by no
longer intervals than are his words, and
that is what makes his language sound
to foreigner like a singsong jargon.
We do not know whether he is telling
story OF attempting a song. The Chinese
perhaps think the same thing Of an Amer
lean, who bites off his words and swal-
lows them or telescopes one into another
Business men in this city thrown in
contact with Chinese merchants who
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