Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1895-03-07
CHIN ES e
Have n Language which Even the Ma.
tives Don't Know

Have a Language Which Even the Ma.
tives Don't Know.
OF the 10000 arbitrary signs for
ideas which. the great Chinese die
tionary contains, those who take the
highest literary degrees master only
5000. Officials must know that num-
Der, and this knowledge constitutes
Chinese education. Little or no at
tention is given to the arts or sci
ences. A person who knows 5000
characters is considered very well ed
ucated. A foreigner is considered apt
If he masters one character day.
There are PA characters which
correspond to our alphabet. They
are termed the radicals. About six
sevenths of these characters are words
in themselves. also. There are eight
dialects differing SO entirely that they
may be considered as different Ian
guages. This refers to the spoken
language only. The written language
is language in itself. 1t is addressed
to the eye only, and cannot be under
stood if read aloud. A person may be
able to speak one or more dialects and
still be unable to read single word.
Or one may be thoroughly conversant
with the written characters and not be
able to make sentence understood.
The written language is supposed
to have been originally hieroglyphic,
that is, made up of picture represen-
tations of objects. Ancient Egypt used
circle with dot in the center to
~ h.
The Chinese have modified the circle
to a square. This is so with other
signs, which wero probably circular
originally, because the Chinese use a
brush instead of pen, and it is much
more difficult to make an accurate
circle with a brush. Their ink, which
is commonly known as Indian ink, is
composed of SCOT and glue
The Chinese language has been
spoken longer than any other Ian
guage extant. 1t is 5000 years old.
Before the Old Testament was writer
it was spoken. Considering all it's
dialects together, 500,0O0,OOO people
speak it to-day. The written Ian
guage is the same throughout the en-
pire. With very slight notifications
it is the written language of the Jap
anese who adopted it in the eighth
century. No Chinese can understand
the japanese spoken language, neither
can Japanese understand the speech
of the Chinese, but an educated Jap
anese can write letter that Chinese
can read and understand any letter he
may receive from him.
The Chinese admire their written
language very much. They think
there is nothing in art, literature or
science to compare with it. So great
is their reverence that you will never
see any paper with Chinese characters
on it flying about their streets All
along the roads at intervals are placed
little boxes, with placard on them
bearing the words, reverence writ
ten characters" All scraps of printed
paper are put in these boxes. and men
connected with the temple gather
them, and they are burned before
the gods.
Foreigners can seldom do more
than learn one dialect, written or
spoken, in a lifetime. To speak one
dialect it is necessary to know, at
least 5000 words. There are no
declensions of nouns and no conjuga-
tions of verbs. One well-known trans
lator of the Chinese classics did not
speak enough words to be understood
by his Chinese servants. The great
est difficulty in the spoken language
lies, not in the vocabulary, but in the
infections necessary to be given.
Thus the Chinese word ''see" has
eight Meanings corpse, a spoon, to
die, to give, to flash, to manifest, to
lose or to exist, according to the in
lection given by the voice. The
Chinese are not generally educated.
About one man in every hundred can
read and write, and about enc out of
thousand women.