Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1900-12-14
CHINESE BOOKS.
Are Written without an Alphabet
and Are Incapable of Being
Read Aloud.

A language without an alphabet
sounds sufficiently curious, especially
when it is added that it is written
language and the medium of communi-
cation throughout that enormous ex-
panse of territory, the Chinese empire.
Not only has the Chinese language no
alphabet, but it is actually true that
in its purest form, though it could,
literally speaking, be read aloud, the
sounds would have absolutely no sig
nificance whatever to listener, says
the London Express.
To the reader, of course, the written
or printed page would convey all that
the author wished it to. But in order
to convey it's meaning, say to blind
person, the reader would be compelled
to find his own words, chosen from the
spoken Chinese language. And his
translation" would be much more
roundabout and lengthy than the writ
ten version.
Some idea of this singular fact may
be gathered from the estimate that
the fable of the Fox and the Grapes"
which can be told in 100 English words,
could be narrated in IS Chinese written
characters. To tell the story in spoken
Chinese would require 1863 words.
Written Chinese is practically uni
form throughout the empire, and has
hardly altered during the entire course
of Chinese history. The spoken Ian
guage, on the other hand, is constantly
changing, and prevails in several dia-
lects, some of which are quite unin-
telligible to Chinese from the different
provinces.
But even the purest form of spoken
Chinese is almost incomprehensible to
a foreigner, except by the most arduous
study, ard after years of application
the European continues to make the
most ludtcrous blunders. The reason
for this is that the Chinese tongue has
but 500 to 1000 elementary words,
which form the base of their language
AS the alphabet does of ours. In or
der to spin out these to their needs,
they pronounce them in different
"tones," each "tone" giving an entire
ly altered meaning.
In some parts of the empire as many
as eight "tones" are in use, giving
eight Specifications to words whose
actual pronunciation is otherwise the
same. No wonder the European ear
jibs at the task!-the ninth meaning
of Greek particle is nothing to the
eighth "tone" of Chinese noun.
Chinese has no grammar as we know
grammar. According to its position
in a sentence word is either noun,
ad jectiye, verb or adverb-the word
itself remains the same. In this re-
spect Chinese is baby" among Ian
guages. But, like so many other things
that the celestial has invented and-left
as he invented, the Chinese tongue has
never grown up. And yet, with all it's
drawbacks, the literary men of the
flowery land have contrived to make it
serve their purpose. But almost altth
classicah philosophical and historical
works of the Chinese are written in the
queer characters that only mean some
thing to the eye and cannot be made
to mean anything to the ear.
Where the Chinese language-writ-
ten or spoken--came from nobody
knows, any more than they know where
the original Chinese themselves came
from. But it is probable that the
primary Chinese characters existed
5000 years ago pretty much as they do
to-day. They are written in vertical
columns, which begin on the right Of
the paper. The instrument is brush
and thick solution of India ink is the
medium-the paper the familiar fimsy
material made from rice straw.
Oddly enough, though, the Manchus.
who are the ruling race in China, as
well as their Tartar relatives, the Mon
gols, speak a language related to the
Chinese, they have proper alphabet,
derived indirectly from the west. 1t
was borrowed from the Syriac, which
was derived from the Aramaic which
came from the Phoenician alphabet.
And the Roman letters of to-day owe
more than little to the Phoenician.
So the Tartar writing is at one end OF
chain that stretches to our own A BIC.
The Tartars owe their alphabet to the
Christian missionaries known as the
HISTORIANS. But that is another story.
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