St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1895-05-25
TWO LANGUAGES IN CHINA.



Oao Il Writes, and tAo Other, Very MoeA
Dsasrsae spekss.
C. Imbault Huart. in . manual for
the acquisition of the spoken Chinese
language. gives some very interesting
information about this tongue, con-
cerning which very little il generally
known, and that very little very inac-
curately. Mr.. Huart lays it down as .
principle that there arc two distinct
languages in China. or. more accurate
~ speaking. two forms Of the same
language, tho one written the other
spoken. The first consists of signs or
characters of one or mo- strokes of
the brush. to each of which is conven-
tionally attached . sound. As the key
board Of the human voice ID limited.
and - it was Impossible for the cycle
OF Chinese knowledge to be 50. it re-
suits that We find . host of
characters that have identically
the same sound, that is to
say, that are pronounced alike,
while ut the same time having . par
ticular sense. In consequence Of this
multiplicity Of homophonous terms,
this language can not be spoken; it is
only to be written It has n its prin-
cipal character absolute monosylla-
bism.
The spoken language. ON the con-
trary, is pollysyllabic. Most of the
words therein arc formed of the aggre-
CATION of two or mors sounds, to each
Of which, in the written language, cor
responds . single character. It is
spoken, not written The principal
character Of every primitive language
has been monosyllabism- Every lam
guage. monosyllabic in its infancy, has
sfterward developed. by means Of vari-
ous processes, which in the Indo-E Euro
pean languages have been juxtapos!-
tiOn. attraction, composition, etc, and
in the Semetic languages. detection.
and thus polysyllabism has been
reached. The same has been the case
with the Chinese. The spoken Ian
guage, says Mr.. Huart, had necessarily
to originate before the written, and the
Chinese characters were devised for
figuring the idea that the sounds of the
spoken language represented.
Mr.. Huart gives IN example that
clearly shows how the spoken language
passed from monosyllabism to polysyl-
labism. The sound fou, having sever
nj meanings, would have inevitably led
to confusion. Upon this sound being
heard isolatedly.'i it could not have been
known what fou it was . question Of
whether it concerned ''father, "wife. :"
of ito hide" etc. In order to avoid
such ambiguity, the Chinese added to
fou. father" the word ts'inn, '.rela-
tive" and fou-ts'inn, ''father-relative." !"
then signified father" to fou. "'wife, :"
was added jenn, '.human being" and
fou-jenn then signified woman"
"wife;" before fou. ito hide" was
placed mai. Ito inter-" and mai-foa
took the meaning Of ito place ones
self in ambush" etc. The idiom has
become fixed by usage word un-
der the protection of which every
thing is placed in China. The most
learned member of the Forest of PEN
ellis" institute Of China), would be in
capable of analyzin9 the first sentence
presented TO him, or of explaining it
dramatically. If he were asked why
the sentence was constructed in such .
manner rather than in another, or
why such . word was found 1T the be-
ginning and mot st the end. he would
never be able to tell. He would an
swer that he knew that il should be 50,
but that he did not know why. The
Europeans and Americans arc the only
ones capable Of snaiyzing . sentence,
ard they alone have been able to de-
duce rules of grammar and syntax in
order to guide students and teach
them to learn correctly how to con-
struct Chinese sentences. - Revue