The Morning Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Okla.) 1919-1927, 1921-11-27
HoW to MemOrize
Queer Language
of the Chinese

NEW hORk.-No need to puzzle
longer over the meaning OF those
qaeer idoographs and hieroflypichs
adorning your laundry ticket; you
can learn Chinese at u glance.
Az starter; Three little written
ripples mean water; the ideograph
for man" with tho sign for "a"
alongside, signifies humanity; por-
tray the sun and moon separately
and then Join them TO make
bright" It's as simple as hash!
There are only $4,000 Of these
ldeographs In the language OF Con
fucius and after you have learned
TO write them you begin all over
again and learn how to pronounce
them Mandarin dictionary may
look as strange to you as >would n
glass OF real pre-Volstead firewater,
but you would soon lose this fatal
ist1c opinion II you could hear the
exotic sounds floating over Trinity
churchyard from the class In Chinese
at New York university. which has
the largest class in Chinese in the
country Harvard quit teaching
Chinese 40 years ago. but has lust
announced that now term will
begin again this winter. There ~
also a small Chinese language class
at Columbia University.
But lot DIR. Jennings p. Chu, the
t9acher, tell us about It:
'Of course they can learn II. but
the process Is not altogether pain
less. My students pursue the Wis
dom OF the Orient for an hour and
half ON Monday evenings. 1 will
tell you Just what they can do nj
the end of a years work: They can
carry on simple, ordinary conver-
sation. write from $50 to 400 words
ana read little. Quite a number
or these students also take the sec
ond year course. The New York
university school OF commerce has
been teaching Chinese for several
years. The students enjoy studying
our language. You should hear how
well they can distinguish between
rronunciations OF "chih" and "ch'ih. i"
But the student must have an ear
and a tongue as well as a taste for
Chinese. for the infection il very
important.
Some knowledge Of the language
Is indispensable for anyone who pro-
poses to have business dealings in
China,
II am afraid we can't hone for
Some delightfully."- simple remodclingI
OF our ancient tongue, so that il can
be picked up like many others.
You sec, you have not accepted Es-
peranto. The new methods of
writing Chinese are Just as unwei-
come in my country. For a fair
sized vocabulary YOU can worry along
with about 1000 characters, al
though there are more than $4,000
In our language. There are 2lA
radicals.
Not All Picture Words.
Many people have the mistaken !
idea that almost all of the Chinese
characters are pictorial whereas
only 10 per cent are pictorial. al
though the ideographs are often in
troduced as compounds with other
characters You see. there are many
words OF which you could hardly
draw a picture-such as eleemosy-
nary. elf-determination, etc. 4. Some
chihese characters are helther
phonetic nor pictorial They are
beyond description.
''As regards the new phonetic sys- |
TEN for China, this may be used gen
orally enough TO make Il serviceable |
In time, but now, certainly. its prac- |
tical scope is small.
''To be successful commercially or
socially In China you must still know |
the old methods. or course. the pic |
tured character gives the reader no
clue TO its pronunciation. When you |
see ~Urd ~ YOU iansuase sUu
have some idea how 10 pronounce y.
Not so with MS. Tn the new phonetic
system there are 80 letters. These
are placed beside the written charac-
ter and indicate the pronunciation
and in process OF time they may he
come th9 word itself, with the mean
ing and pronunciation apparent at
the same instant, But II requires an
unknown number OF years for pho
netic Ietters IN become aualaa nnated
with $4,000 characters"
As we intimated In the beginning.
why allow your laundryman TO put
something over you when you can
take your Chinese as you take your
daily castor op2
Don't you ever get dizzy5" we
asked a very young and very oeei-
dental student In DIR. Chu's class
''Wo pu shih," he replied II you
get what we mean, Or whether YOU
do or not.