Chapter X: Structure of the Chinese Language (2)

While Mr. Dyer’s fonts were suspended by his death, an attempt was made by a benevolent printer, Herr Beyerhaus of Berlin, to make one of an intermediate size on the Le Grand principle of divisible types; his proposal was taken up by the Presbyterian Board of Missions in New York, and after many delays a beautiful font was completed and in use about 1859. At this time, Mr. W. Gamble of that Mission in Shanghai, carried out his plan of making matrices by the electrotype process, and completed a large font of small pica type in about as many months as Dyer and Beyerhaus had taken years. By means of these various fonts books are now printed in many parts of China, in almost any style, and type foundries cast in whatever quantities are needed. The government has opened an extensive printing office in Peking, and its example will encourage native booksellers to unite typography with xylographic printing. More than this as conducing to the diffusion of knowledge among the people is the stimulus these cheap fonts of type have given to the circulation of newspapers in all the ports; but for their convenient and economical use Chinese newspapers could not have been printed at all. It will be quite within the reach of native workmen, who are skilled in electrotyping, stereotyping, and casting type, to make types of all sizes and styles for their own books, as the growing intelligence of the people creates a demand for illustrated and scientific publications, as well as cheap ones.[298]

~PHONETIC CHARACTER OF THE LANGUAGE.~

Nothing has conduced more to a misapprehension of the nature of the Chinese language than the way in which its phonetic character has been spoken of by different authors. Some, describing the primitive symbols, and the modifications they have undergone, have conveyed the impression that the whole language consisted of hieroglyphic or ideographic signs, which depicted ideas, and conveyed their meaning entirely to the eye, irrespective of the sound. For instance, Rémusat says, “The character is not the delineation of the sound, nor the sound the expression of the character;” forgetting to ask himself how or when a character in any language ever delineated a sound. Yet every Chinese character is sounded as much as the words in alphabetic languages, and some have more than one to express their different meanings; so that, although the character could not delineate the sound of the thing it denoted, the sound is the expression of the character. Others, as Mr. Lay,[299] have dissected the characters, and endeavored to trace back some analogy in the meanings of all those in which the same primitive is found, and by a sort of analysis, to find out how much of the signification of the radical was infused into the primitive to form the present meaning. His plan, in general terms, is to take all the characters containing a certain primitive, and find out how much of the meaning of that primitive is contained in each one; then he reconstructs the series by defining the primitive, incidentally showing the intention of the framers of the characters in choosing that particular one, and apportioning so much of its aggregate meaning to each character as is needed, and adding the meaning of the radical to form its whole signification. If we understand his plan, he wishes to construct a formula for each group containing the same primitive, in which the signification of the primitive is a certain function in that of all the characters containing it; to add up the total of their meanings, and divide the amount among the characters, allotting a quotient to each one. Languages are not so formed, however, and the Chinese is no exception. Some of Mr. Lay’s statements are correct, but his theory is fanciful. It is impossible to decide what proportion was made by combining a radical and a primitive with any reference to their meanings, according to Mr. Lay’s theory, and how many of them were simply phonetic combinations; probably nine-tenths of the compound characters have been constructed on the latter principle.

The fifth class of syllabic symbols were formed by combining the symbolic and syllabic systems, so as to represent sound chiefly, but bearing in the construction of each one some reference to its general signification. The original hieroglyphics contained no sound, _i.e._, were not formed of phonetic constituents; the object depicted had a name, but there was no clue to it. It was impossible to do both--depict the object, and give its name in the same character. At first, the number of people using these ideographic symbols being probably small, every one called them by the same name, as soon as he knew what they represented, and began to read them. But when the ideas attempted to be written far exceeded in number the symbols, or, what is more likely, the invention of the limners, recourse was had to the combination of the symbols already understood to express the new idea. This was done in several modes, as noticed above, but the syllabic system needs further explanation, from the extent to which it has been carried. The character 蝻 _nan_, to denote the young of the locust, has been adduced. The same principle would be applied in _reading_ every new character, of which the phonetic primitive merely was recognized, although its meaning might not be known. Probably all the characters in the fifth class were sounded in strict accordance with their phonetic primitives when constructed, but usage has changed some of their sounds, and many characters belonging to other classes, apparently containing the same primitive, are sounded quite differently; this tends to mislead those who infer the sound from the primitive. This mode of constructing and naming the characters also explains the reason why there are so few sounds compared with the number of characters; the phonetic primitive perpetuated its name in all its progeny.

~MODES OF INCORPORATING NEW WORDS.~

More than seven-eighths of the characters have been formed from less than two thousand symbols, and it is difficult to imagine how it could have been used so long and widely without some such method to relieve the memory of the burden of retaining thousands of arbitrary marks. But, until the names and meanings of the original symbols are learned, neither the sound nor sense of the compound characters will be more apparent to a Chinese than they are to any one else; until those are known, their combinations cannot be understood, nor even then the meaning wholly deduced; each character must be learned by itself, just as words in other languages. The sounds given the original symbols doubtless began to vary early after coming into use. Intercommunication between different parts of the country was not so frequent as to prevent local dialects from arising; but however strong the tendency of the spoken monosyllables to coalesce into polysyllables, the intractable symbols kept them apart. It is surprising, too, what a tendency the mind has to trust to the eye rather than to the ear, in getting and retaining the sense of a book; it is shown in many ways, and arises from habit more than any real difficulty in catching the idea _vivâ voce_. If the characters could have coalesced, their names would soon have run together, and been modified as they are in other languages. The classics, dictionaries, and unlimited uses of a written language, maintained the same meaning; but as their sounds must be learned traditionally, endless variations and patois arose. Moreover, as new circumstances and increasing knowledge give rise to new words in all countries, so in China, new scenes and expressions arise requiring to be incorporated into the written language. Originally they were unwritten though well understood sounds; and when first written must be explained, as is the case with foreign words like _tabu_, _ukase_, _vizier_, etc., _ad infin._, when introduced into English. Different writers might, however, employ different primitives to express the sound, not aware that it had already been written, and hence would arise synonyms; they might use dissimilar radicals, and this as well would increase the modes of writing the sound. But the inconvenience of thus multiplying characters would be soon perceived in the obscurity of the sentence, for if the new character was not in the dictionary, its sound and composition were not enough to explain the meaning. When the language had attained a certain copiousness, the mode of education and the style of literary works compelled scholars to employ such characters only as were sanctioned by good use, or else run the risk of not being understood.

The unwritten sounds, however, could not wait for this slow mode of adoption, but the risk of being misunderstood by using characters phonetically led to descriptive terms, conveying the idea and not the sound. Where alphabetic languages adopt a technic for a new thing, the Chinese make a new phrase. This is illustrated by the terms _Hung-mao jin_, or ‘Red Bristled men,’ for Englishmen; _Hwa-kí_, or ‘Flowery Flag,’ for Americans; _Sí-yang_, or ‘Western Ocean,’ for Portuguese, etc., used at Canton, instead of the proper names of those countries. Cause and effect act reciprocally upon each other in this instance; the effect of using unsanctioned characters to express unwritten sounds, is to render a composition obscure, while the restriction to a set of characters compels their meaning to be sufficiently comprehensive to include all occasions. Local, unwritten phrases, and unauthorized characters, are so common, however, owing to the partial communication between distant parts of so great a country and mass of people, that it is evident, if this bond of union were removed by the substitution of an alphabetical language, the Chinese would soon be split into many small nations. However desirable, therefore, might be the introduction of a written language less difficult of acquisition, and more flexible, there are some reasons for wishing it to be delayed until more intelligence is diffused and juster principles of government obtain. When the people themselves feel the need of it, they will contrive some better medium for the promotion of knowledge.

~“CLAM-SHELL WORDS” AND TONES.~

The monosyllabic sound of the primitive once imparted to the ideophonous compound, explains the existence of so many characters having the same sound. When these various characters were presented to the eye of the scholar, no trouble was felt in recognizing their sense and sound, but confusion was experienced in speaking. This has been obviated in two ways. One is by repeating a word, or joining two of similar meanings but of different sounds, to convey a single idea; or else by adding a classifying word to express its nature. Both these modes do in fact form a real dissyllable, and it would appear so in an alphabetical language. The first sort of these _hien-hioh sz’_, or ‘clam-shell words,’ as they are called, are not unfrequent in books, far more common in conversation and render the spoken more diffuse than the written language--more so, perhaps, than is the case in other tongues. Similar combinations of three, four, and more characters occur, especially where a foreign article or term is translated, but the genius of the language is against the use of polysyllables. Such combinations in English as _household_, _house-warming_, _housewife_, _house-room_, _houseleeks_, _hot-house_, _wood-house_, _household-stuff_, etc., illustrate these dissyllables in Chinese; but they are not so easily understood. Such terms as _understand_, _courtship_, _withdraw_, _upright_, etc., present better analogies to the Chinese compounds. In some the real meaning is totally unlike either of the terms, as _tungkia_ (lit. ‘east house’), for master; _tungsí_ (lit. ‘east west’), for thing; _kungchu_ (lit. ‘lord ruler’), for princess, etc. The classifiers partake of the nature of adjectives, and serve not only to sort different words, but the same word when used in different senses. They correspond to such words in English as _herd_, _fleet_, _troop_, etc. To say a fleet of cows, a troop of ships, or a herd of soldiers, would be ridiculous only in English, but a similar misapplication would confuse the sense in Chinese.

The other way of avoiding the confusion of homophonous monosyllables, which, notwithstanding the “clam-shell words,” and the extensive use of classifiers, are still liable to misapprehension, is by accurately marking its right _shing_ or tone, but as nothing analogous to them is found in European languages, it is rather difficult to describe them. At Canton there are eight arranged in an upper and lower series of four each; at Peking there are only four, at Nanking five, and at Swatow seven. The Chinese printers sometimes mark the _shing_ on certain ambiguous characters, by a semicircle put on one corner; but this is rarely done, as every one who can read is supposed to know how to speak, and consequently to be familiar with the right tone. These four tones are called _ping_, _shang_, _kü_, and _jih_, meaning, respectively, the _even_, _ascending_, _departing_, and _entering_ tone. They are applied to every word, and have nothing to do either with accent or emphasis; in asking or answering, entreating or refusing, railing or flattering, soothing or recriminating, they remain ever the same. The unlettered natives, even children and females, who know almost nothing of the distinctions into four, five, seven, or eight _shing_, observe them closely in their speech, and detect a mispronunciation as soon as the learned man. A single illustration of them will suffice. The _even_ tone is the natural expression of the voice, and native writers consider it the most important. In the sentence,

“When I asked him, ‘Will you let me see it?’ he said, ‘No, I’ll do no
such thing,’”

the different cadence of the question and reply illustrate the upper and lower even tone. The _ascending_ tone is heard in exclamatory words as _ah! indeed!_ It is a little like the crescendo in music, while the _departing_ tone corresponds in the same degree to the diminuendo. The drawling tone of repressed discontent, grumbling and eking out a reply, is not unlike the departing tone. The entering tone is nearly eliminated in the northern provinces, but gives a marked feature to speech in the southern; it is an abrupt ending, in the same modulation that the even tone is, but as if broken off; a man about to say _lock_, and taken with a hiccup in the middle so that he leaves off the last two letters, or the final consonant, pronounces the _juh shing_. A few characters have two tones, which give them different meanings; the _ping shing_ often denotes the substantive, and the _kü shing_, the verb, but there is no regularity in this respect.

The tones are observed by natives of all ranks, speaking all patois and dialects, and on all occasions. They present a serious difficulty to the adult foreigner of preaching or speaking acceptably to the natives, for although by a proper use of classifiers, observance of idioms, and multiplication of synonyms, he may be understood, his speech will be rude and his words distasteful, if he does not learn the tones accurately. In Amoy and Fuhchau, he will also run a risk of being misunderstood. If the reader, in perusing the following sentence, will accent the italicized syllables, he will have an imperfect illustration of the confusion a wrong intonation produces: “The pre_sent_ of that ob_ject_ occasioned such a trans_port_ as to _ab_stract my mind from all around.” In Chinese, however, it is not _accent_ upon one of two syllables which must be learned, but the integral tone of a single sound, as much as in the musical octave.

It is unnecessary here to enter into any detailed description or enumeration of the words in the Chinese language. One remarkable feature is the frequency of the termination _ng_ preceded by all the vowels, which imparts a peculiar singing character to Chinese speech, as _Kwangtung_, _Yangtsz’ kiang_, etc. In a list of sounds in the court dialect, about one-sixth of the syllables have this termination, but a larger proportion of characters are found under those syllables, than the mere list indicates. In Morrison’s Dictionary the number of separate words in the court dialect is 411, but if the aspirated syllables be distinguished, there are 533. In the author’s _Syllabic Dictionary_ the number is 532; Wade reduces the Peking dialect to 397 syllables in one list, and increases it to 420 in another. In the Cantonese there are 707; in the dialect of Swatow, 674; at Amoy, about 900; at Fuhchau, 928; and 660 at Shanghai. All these lists distinguish between aspirated and unaspirated words, as _ting_ and _t’ing_, _pa_ and _p’a_, which to an English ear are nearly identical. The largest part of the sounds are common to the dialects, but the distinctions are such as to render it easy to detect each when spoken; the court dialect is the most mellifluous of the whole and easiest to acquire. All the consonants in English are found in one or another of the dialects, besides many not occurring in that language, as _bw_, _chw_, _gw_, _jw_, _lw_, _mw_, _nw_, etc. There are also several imperfect vowel sounds not known in any European language, as _hm_ or _’m_, _hn_ or _’n_, _^{ng}_ (a high nasal sound), _sz’_, _’rh_, _ch’_, etc. The phrase _’m ’ng tăk_ in the Canton dialect, meaning _cannot be pushed_, or _chain^n mai^n lang_, ‘a blind man,’ in the Amoy, cannot be so accurately expressed by these or any other letters that one can learn the sound from them. If it is difficult for us to express their sounds by Roman letters, it is still stranger for the Chinese to write English words. For instance, _baptize_ in the Canton dialect becomes _pa-pí-tai-sz’_; _flannel_ becomes _fat-lan-yin_; _stairs_ becomes _sz’-ta-sz’_; _impregnable_ becomes _ím-pí-luk-na-pu-lí_; etc. Such words as _Washington_, _midshipman_, _tongue_, etc., can be written nearer their true sound, but the indivisible Chinese monosyllables offer a serious obstacle in the way of introducing foreign words and knowledge into the language.

The preceding observations explain how the numerous local variations from the general language found in all parts of China have arisen. Difficult as the spoken language is for a foreigner to acquire, from the brevity of the words and nicety of their tones, the variety of the local pronunciations given to the same character adds not a little to the labor, especially if he be situated where he is likely to come in contact with persons from different places. Amid such a diversity of pronunciation, and where one sound is really as correct as another, it is not easy to define what should constitute a dialect, a patois, or a corruption. A dialect in other languages is usually described as a local variation in pronunciation, or the use of peculiar words and expressions, not affecting the idiom or grammar of the tongue; but in the Chinese, where the written character unites the mass of people in one language, a dialect has been usually regarded by those who have written on the subject, as extending to variations in the idiom, and not restricted to differences in pronunciation and local expressions. According to this definition, there are only four or five dialects (which would in fact be as many languages if they were not united by the written character), but an endless variety of patois or local pronunciations. The Chinese have published books to illustrate the court, Changchau or Amoy, the Canton and Fuhchau dialects. The differences in the idioms and pronunciation are such as to render persons speaking them mutually unintelligible, but do not affect the style of writing, whose idioms are founded upon the usage of the best writers, and remain unchanged.

~THE COURT, OR MANDARIN DIALECT.~

The court language, the _kwan hwa_, or mandarin dialect, is rather the proper language of the country--_the Chinese language_--than a dialect. It is studied and spoken by all educated men, and no one can make any pretence to learning or accomplishments who cannot converse in it in whatever part of the Empire he may be born. It is the common language throughout the northeastern provinces, especially Honan, Shantung, and Nganhwui, though presenting more or less variations even in them from the standard of the court and capital. This speech is characterized by its soft and mellifluous tones, the absence of all harsh, consonantal endings, and the prevalence of liquids and labials. In parts of the provinces where it is spoken, as the eastern portions of Chehkiang and Kiangsu, gutturals are common, and the initials softened or changed.

This tongue is the most ancient speech now spoken, for stanzas of poetry written twenty-five centuries ago, in the times previous to Confucius, are now read with the same rhymes as when penned. The expressions of the _kwan hwa_, although resembling the written language more than the other dialects, are still unlike it, being more diffuse, and containing many synonyms and particles not required to make the sense clear when it is addressed to the eye. The difference is such in this respect that two well-educated Chinese speaking in the terse style of books would hardly understand each other, and be obliged to use more words to convey their meaning when speaking than they would consider elegant or necessary in an essay. This is, to be sure, more or less the case in all languages, but from the small variety of sounds and their monosyllabic brevity, it is unavoidable in Chinese, though it must not be inferred that the language cannot be written so as to be understood when read off; it can be written as diffusely as it is spoken, but such a style is not considered very elegant. There are books written in the colloquial, however, from which it is not difficult to learn the style of conversation, and such books are among the best to put into the hands of a foreigner when beginning the study.

~DIALECTS OF CANTON AND AMOY.~

The local patois of a place is called _tu tan_, or _hiang tan_, _i.e._, local or village brogue, and there is an interpreter of it attached to almost every officer’s court for the purpose of translating the peculiar phrases of witnesses and others brought before him. The term _dialect_ cannot, strictly, in its previous definition, be applied to the _tu tan_, though it is usually so called; it is a patois or brogue. The Canton dialect is called by its citizens _pak wa_, ‘the plain speech,’ because it is more intelligible than the court dialect. It is comparatively easy of acquisition, and differs less from the _kwan hwa_, in its pronunciation and idioms, than that of Amoy and its vicinity; but the diversity is still enough to render it unintelligible to people from the north. A very few books have been written in it, but none which can afford assistance in learning it. A native scholar would consider his character for literary attainments almost degraded if he should write books in the provincial dialects, and forsake the style of the immortal classics. The principal feature in the pronunciation of the Canton dialect which distinguishes it from the general language, is the change of the abrupt vowel terminations, as _loh_, _kiah_, _pih_, into the well-defined consonants _k_, _p_, and _t_, as _lok_, _kap_, _pít_, a change that considerably facilitates the discrimination of the syllables. The idioms of the two cannot well be illustrated without the help of the written character, but the differences between the sounds of two or three sentences may be exhibited: The phrase, _I do not understand what he says_, is in the

Court dialect: _Wo min puh tung teh ta kiang shim mo._

Canton dialect: _Ngo ’m hiu kü kong măt yé._

_The rice contains sand in it._

Court dialect: _Na ko mí yu sha tsz’._

Canton dialect: _Ko tik mai yau sha tsoi noi._

None of the provincial patois differ so much from the _kwan hwa_, and afford so many peculiarities, as those spoken in the province of Fuhkien and eastern portions of Kwangtung. All of them are nasal, and, compared with those spoken elsewhere, harsh and rough. They have a large number of unwritten sounds, and so supply the lack; the same character often has one sound when read and another when spoken; all of them are in common use. This curious feature obliges the foreigner to learn two parallel languages when studying this dialect, so intimate and yet so distinct are the two. The difference between them will be more apparent by quoting a sentence: “He first performed that which was difficult, and afterward imitated what was easier.” The corresponding words of the colloquial are placed underneath the reading sounds.

_Sien k’í su chí sé lan, jí ho k’í
_Tai seng chó í é su é sé oh, jí tui au k’w^na í é

hau chí sé tek._
hau giem é sé tit tióh._

The changes from one into the other are exceedingly various both in sound and idiom. Thus, _bien chien_, ‘before one’s face,’ becomes _bin chan_ when spoken; while in the phrase _cheng jit_, ‘a former day,’ the same word _chien_ becomes _cheng_ and not _chan_; _bòé chu_, ‘pupil of the eye,’ becomes _ang a_; _sit hwan_, ‘to eat rice,’ becomes _chiah pui^n_. Their dialect, not less than their trafficking spirit, point out the Amoy people wherever they are met, and as they are usually found along the whole coast and in the Archipelago, and are not understood except by their provincial compatriots, they everywhere clan together and form separate communities. Dr. Medhurst published a dictionary of the Changchau dialect, in which the sounds of the characters are given as they are read. Dr. C. Douglas has gathered a great vocabulary of words and phrases used in the Amoy colloquial, in which he has attempted to reduce everything to the Romanized system of writing, and omitted all the characters.

The dialects of Fuhchau, Swatow, and Canton have been similarly investigated by Protestant missionaries. Messrs. Maclay and Baldwin have taken the former in hand, and their work leaves very little to be desired for the elucidation of that speech. Goddard’s vocabulary of the Swatow has no examples; and Williams’ _Tonic Dictionary_ of the Canton dialect gave no characters with the examples. This deficiency was made up in Lobscheid’s rearrangement of it under the radicals.

The extent to which the dialects are used has not been ascertained, nor the degree of modification each undergoes in those parts where it is spoken; for villagers within a few miles, although able to understand each other perfectly, still give different sounds to a few characters, and have a few local phrases, enough to distinguish their several inhabitants, while towns one or two hundred miles apart are still more unlike. For instance, the citizen of Canton always says _shui_ for water, and _tsz’_ for child, but the native of Macao says _sui_ and _chí_ for these two words; and if his life depended upon his uttering them as they are spoken in Canton, they would prove a shibboleth which he could not possibly enunciate. Strong peculiarities of speech also exist in the villages between Canton and Macao which are found in neither of those places. Yet whatever sound they give to a character it has the same tone, and a Chinese would be much less surprised to hear water called _♯chwui_, than he would to hear it called _♭shui_ in the lower even tone, instead of its proper ascending tone. The tones really approach vowels in their nature more than mere musical inflections; and it is by their nice discrimination, that the people are able to understand each other with less difficulty than we might suppose amidst such a jargon of vocables.

~PRONUNCIATION AND GRAMMAR.~

This accurate discrimination in the vowel sounds, and comparative indifference to consonants, which characterize the Chinese spoken languages, has arisen, no doubt, from the monosyllabic nature, and the constant though slight variations the names of characters undergo from the traditionary mode in which they must be learned. There being no integral sound in any character, each and all of them are, of course, equally correct, _per se_; but the various general and local dictionaries have each tended somewhat to fix the pronunciation, just as books and education have fixed the spelling of English words. Nor do the Chinese more than other people learn to pronounce their mother tongue from dictionaries, and the variations are consequently but partially restrained by them. It may truly be said, that no two Chinese speak all words alike, while yet, through means of the universally understood character, the greatest mass of human beings ever collected under one government are enabled to express themselves without difficulty, and carry on all the business and concerns of life.

The grammar of the Chinese language is unique, but those writers who say it has no grammar at all must have overlooked the prime signification of the word. There are in all languages words which denote things, and others which signify qualities; words which express actions done by one or many, already done, doing or to be done; actions absolute, conditional, or ordered. The circumstances of the doer and the subject of the action, make prepositions necessary, as well as other connecting words. Thus the principles of grammar exist in all intelligible speech, though each may require different rules. These rules the Chinese language possesses, and their right application, the proper collocation of words, and use of particles, which supply the place of inflection, constitute a difficult part in its acquisition. It has no etymology, properly speaking, for neither the characters nor their names undergo any change; whether used as verbs or nouns, adjectives or particles, they remain the same. The same word may be a noun, a verb, an adverb, or any part of speech, nor can its character be certainly known till it is placed in a sentence, when its meaning becomes definite. Its grammar, therefore, is confined chiefly to its syntax and prosody. This feature of the Chinese language is paralleled in English by such words as _light_, used as a noun, adjective, and verb; _like_, used as a verb, adjective, and adverb; _sheep_ and _deer_, used both in the singular and plural; _read_, used in the past, present, and future tenses; and in all cases without undergoing any change. But what is occasional and the exception in that tongue, becomes the rule in Chinese; nor is there any more confusion in the last than in the first.

A good summary of the principles of Chinese grammar is given by Rémusat, who says that generally,

“In every Chinese sentence, in which nothing is understood, the
elements of which it is composed are arranged in the following order:
the subject, the verb, the complement direct, and the complement
indirect.

“Modifying expressions precede those to which they belong: thus, the
adjective is placed before the substantive, subject, or complement;
the substantive governed before the verb that governs it; the adverb
before the verb, the proposition incidental, circumstantial, or
hypothetical, before the principal proposition, to which it attaches
itself by a conjunction expressed or understood.

“The relative position of words and phrases thus determined, supplies
the place often of every other mark intended to denote their mutual
dependence, their character whether adjective or adverbial, positive,
conditional, or circumstantial.

“If the subject be understood, it is because it is a personal
pronoun, or that it is expressed above, and that the same substantive
that is omitted is found in the preceding sentence, and in the same
quality of subject, and not in any other.

“If the verb be wanting, it is because it is the substantive verb, or
some other easily supplied, or one which has already found place in
the preceding sentences, with a subject or complement not the same.

“If several substantives follow each other, either they are in
construction with each other, or they form an enumeration, or they
are synonyms which explain and determine each other.

“If several verbs succeed each other, which are not synonyms and
are not employed as auxiliaries, the first ones should be taken as
adverbs or verbal nouns, the subjects of those which follow; or these
latter as verbal nouns, the complements of those which precede.”

~PARTS OF SPEECH.~

Chinese grammarians divide all words into _shih tsz’_ and _hü tsz’_, _i.e._, essential words and particles. The former are subdivided into _sz’ tsz’_ and _hwoh tsz’_, _i.e._, nouns and verbs; the latter into initials or introductory words, conjunctions, exclamations, finals, transitive particles, etc. They furnish examples under each, and assist the student, with model books, in which the principles of the language and all rhetorical terms are explained. The number and variety of grammatical and philological works prove that they have not neglected the elucidation and arrangement of their mother tongue. The rules above cited are applicable to the written language, and these treatises refer entirely to that; the changes in the phraseology of the colloquial do not affect its grammar, however, which is formed upon the same rules.

Although the characters are, when isolated, somewhat indefinite, there are many ways of limiting their meaning in sentences. Nouns are often made by suffixing formative particles, as _nu kí_, ‘angry spirit,’ merely means _anger_; _í kí_, ‘righteous spirit,’ is _rectitude_; _chin ’rh_, ‘needle child,’ is a needle, etc.; the suffix, in these cases, simply materializing the word. Gender is formed by distinctive particles, prefixed or suffixed by appropriate words for each gender, or by denoting one gender always by a dissyllabic compound; as _male_-being, for the masculine; horse-_sire_, or horse-_mother_, for stallion or dam; _hero_, _heroine_, _emperor_, _empress_, etc.; and lastly as _wang-hau_, _i.e._, king-_queen_, for _queen_, while _wang_ alone means _king_. Number is formed by prefixing a numeral, as _Yung_, _Tsin_, _two_ men; by suffixing a formative, _mun_, _tăng_, and others, as _jin-tăng_, man-_sort_, or men; _ta-mun_, he-_s_ or they; by repeating the word, as _jin-jin_, man-man or _men_; _chu-chu_, place-place, or places, _i.e._, everywhere; and lastly, by the scope of the passage. The nominative, accusative, and vocative cases are commonly known by their position; the genitive, dative, and ablative are formed by appropriate prepositions, expressed or understood. The vocative is common in light reading and historical studies.

Adjectives precede nouns, by which position they are usually determined. Comparisons are made in many ways. _Hau_ is _good_, _kăng hau_ is _better_, and _chí hau_ is _best_; _shih făn hau hau_ is _very good_; _hau hau tih_ is _pretty good_, etc. The position of an adjective determines its comparison, as _chang yih chih_ means _longer by one cubit_; _yih chih chang_ is a _cubit long_. The comparison of ideas is made by placing the two sentences parallel to each other; for instance, “Entering the hills and seizing a tiger is easy, opening the mouth and getting men to lean to is difficult,” is the way of expressing the comparison, “It is easier to seize a tiger in the hills, than to obtain the good offices of men.” The proper use of antithesis and parallelism is considered one of the highest attainments in composition. The numerals are thirteen in number, with the addition of the character 零 _ling_ to denote a cipher. All amounts are written just as they are to be read, as _yih peh sz’ shih san_, 一百四十三 _i.e._, ‘one hundred four tens three.’ They are here introduced, with their pronunciation in three dialects.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 100 1,000 10,000
一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十 百 千 萬

Court _yih ’rh san sz’ wu luh tsih pah kiu shih peh tsien wan._
Dialect.
Canton _yat í sam sz’ ’ng luk tsat pat kau shap pak tsín man._
Dialect.
Fuhkien _it jí sam su ngou liok chit pat kiu sip pek chien ban._
Dialect.

The Chinese, like the ancient Greeks, enumerate only up to a myriad, expressing sums higher than that by stating how many myriads there are; the notation of 362,447,180 is three myriads, six thousand, two hundred and forty-four myriads, seven thousand, one hundred, and eighty. Pronouns are few in number, and their use is avoided whenever the sense is clear without them. The personal pronouns are three, _wo_, _ní_, and _ta_, but other pronouns can all be readily expressed by adjectives, by collocation, and by participial phrases. The classifiers sometimes partake of the nature of adjective pronouns, but usually are mere distributive or numerical adjectives.

Verbs, or “living characters,” constitute the most important part of speech in the estimation of Chinese grammarians, and the _shun tuh_, or easy flow of expression, in their use, is carefully studied. The dissyllabic compounds, called _clam-shell words_, are usually verbs, and are made in many ways; by uniting two similar words, as _kwei-kien_ (lit. peep-look), ‘to spy;’ by doubling the verb, as _kien-kien_, meaning to look earnestly; by prefixing a formative denoting action, as _ta shwui_ (lit. strike sleep), ‘to sleep;’ by suffixing a modifying word, as _grasp-halt_, to grasp firmly; _think-arise_, to cogitate, etc. No part of the study requires more attention than the right selection of these formatives in both nouns and verbs; perfection in the _shun tuh_ and use of antitheses is the result only of years of study.

The various accidents of voice, mood, tense, number, and person, can all be expressed by corresponding particles, but the genius of the language disfavors their frequent use. The passive voice is formed by prefixing particles indicative of agency before the active verb, as “The villain _received_ my sword’s _cutting_,” for “The villain was wounded by my sword.” The imperative, potential, and subjunctive moods are formed by particles or adjuncts, but the indicative and infinitive are not designated, nor are the number and person of verbs usually distinguished. The number of auxiliaries, particles, adjuncts, and suffixes of various kinds, employed to express what in other languages is denoted by inflections, is really very moderate; and a nice discrimination exhibited in their use indicates the finished scholar.[300]

~DEFECTS IN THE CHINESE LANGUAGE.~

The greatest defect in the Chinese language is the indistinct manner in which time is expressed; not that there is any want of terms to denote its varieties, but the terseness of expression admired by Chinese writers leads them to discard every unessential word, and especially those relating to time. This defect is more noticed by the foreigner than the native, who has no knowledge of the precision of time expressed by inflection in other languages. Adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections are not distinguished by native grammarians; the former are classed with adjectives, and the others are collectively called _hü tsz’_--‘empty words.’

No distinction is made between proper and common names, and as every word can be employed as a name it becomes a source of confusion to the translator; in some books a single line drawn on the side of characters denotes the names of persons, and a double line the names of places; important words are denoted by commencing a new line with them, raised one or two characters above the other columns, which answers to capitalizing them. In most books an entire absence of all marks of punctuation, and divisions into sentences and paragraphs, causes needless doubt in the mind of the reader. The great convenience experienced in European languages from the use of capital letters, marks of punctuation, separation into sentences and paragraphs, and the distinction of time, is more plainly seen when a translation is to be made from languages like the Chinese and Japanese, in which they are disregarded. A false taste prevents them from using them; they admire a page of plain characters so much that a student who should punctuate his essay would run a risk of being ridiculed.

It is not easy yet to decide on the best way to adapt the technical words in western science to the genius of this language. The vast terminology in natural history, with the still greater array of scientific names, need not be introduced into it, but can remain in their original Latin and Greek, where Chinese scientists can consult them. New compounds have already been proposed for gases, metals, earths, acids, and other elementary substances, in which the radical and primitive are chosen with reference to their meanings, the latter being more complicated than usual for this purpose. These will gradually get into use as the sciences are studied, and their number will not be troublesomely large.

There are several distinct styles of composition recognized. The _ku wăn_, or the terse antithetic style of the ancient classics, is considered as inimitable and unimprovable, and really possesses the qualities of energy, vivacity, and brevity in a superior degree; the _wăn chang_, or style of elevated composition, adopted in essays, histories, and grave works; and the _siao shwoh_, or colloquial style, used in stories.

If there are serious defects, this language also possesses some striking beauties. The expressive nature of the characters, after their component parts have become familiar, causes much of the meaning of a sentence to pass instantly before the eye, while the energy arising from the brevity attainable by the absence of all inflections and partial use of particles, add a vigor to the style that is hardly reached by any alphabetic language. Dr. Morrison observes that “Chinese fine writing darts upon the mind with a vivid flash, a force and a beauty, of which alphabetic language is incapable.” It is also better fitted than any other for becoming a universal medium of communication, and has actually become so to a much greater extent than any other; but the history of its diffusion, and the modifications it has undergone among the five nations who use it, though presenting a curious topic for philological inquiry, is one far too extensive to be discussed here. So general a use of one written language, however, affords some peculiar facilities for the diffusion of knowledge by means of books as introductory to the general elevation of the people using it, and their preparation for substituting an alphabetic language for so laborious and unwieldy a vehicle of thought, which it seems impossible to avoid as Christian civilization and knowledge extend.

It is often asked, is the Chinese language hard to learn? The preceding account of it shows that to become familiar with its numerous characters, to be able to speak the delicately marked tones of its short monosyllables, and to compose in it with perspicuity and elegance, is the labor of years of close application. To do so in Greek, Latin, English, or any settled tongue, is also a toilsome task, and excepting the barren labor of remembering so many different characters, it is not more so in Chinese than in others. But knowledge sufficient to talk intelligibly, to write perspicuously, and read with considerable ease, is not so herculean a task as some suppose, though this degree is not to be attained without much hard study. Moreover, dictionaries, manuals, and translations are now available which materially diminish the labor, and their number is constantly increasing.

~METHOD OF STUDYING CHINESE.~

The rules for studying it cannot be laid down so that they will answer equally well for all persons. Some readily catch the most delicate inflections of the voice, and imitate and remember the words they hear; such persons soon learn to speak, and can make themselves understood on common subjects with merely the help of a vocabulary. Others prefer to sit down with a teacher and learn to read, and for most persons this is the best way to begin. At first, the principal labor should be directed to the characters, reading them over with a teacher and learning their form. Commence with the two hundred and fourteen radicals, and commit them to memory, so that they can be repeated and written in their order; then learn the primitives, or at least become familiar with the names and meaning of all the common ones. The aid this preliminary study gives in remembering the formation of characters is worth all the time it takes. Students make a mistake if they begin with the Testament or a tract; they can learn more characters in the same period, and lay a better foundation for acquiring others, by commencing with the radicals and primitives. Meanwhile, they will also be learning sounds and becoming familiar with the tones, which should be carefully attended to as a particular study from the living voice.

When these characters are learned, short sentences or reading lessons selected from good _Chinese_ authors, with a translation attached, should be taken up and committed to memory. Phrases may also be learned at the same time, for use in conversation; an excellent way is to memorize one or two hundred common words, and then practise putting them together in sentences. The study of reading lessons and phrases, with practice in speaking and writing them, will prepare the way for commencing the study of the classics or other native authors. By the time the student has reached this point he needs no further directions; the path he wishes thenceforth to pursue can easily be marked out by himself. It is not amiss here to remark that many persons ardently desirous of fitting themselves soon for preaching or talking to the people, weary their minds and hinder their ultimate progress by too hard study at first upon the dry characters; others come to look upon the written language as less important so long as they can talk rapidly and well, but in the end find that in this, as in every other living tongue, there is no royal road which does not lead them through the grammar and literature.[301]

~PIGEON-ENGLISH.~

This sketch of the Chinese language would be incomplete without a notice of the singular jargon which has grown up between the natives and foreigners along the coast, called _pigeon-English_. It has been so long in use as the medium of traffic and household talk that it now bids fair to become an unwritten patois, of which neither the Chinese nor the English will own the parentage. The term _pigeon_, a corruption from _business_, shows, in its transformation, some of the influences which our words must undergo as they pass through the Chinese characters. The foreigners who first settled at Canton had no time nor facilities for learning the dialect, and the traders with whom they bargained soon picked up more foreign words than the former did native. The shopmen ere long formed vocabularies of foreign words obtained from their customers, and wrote the sounds as nearly as possible; these were committed to memory and formed into sentences according to the idioms of their own language, and disregarding all our inflections, in which they had no instruction. Thus the two parties gradually came to understand each other enough for all practical ends; the foreigners were rather pleased to talk “broken China,” as it was not inaptly called, and habit soon made it natural to a new-comer to talk it to the natives, and it obviated all necessity for studying Chinese. The body of the jargon is English, the few Chinese, Portuguese, and Malay words therein imparting a raciness which, with the novelty of the expressions, has of late attracted much attention to this new language. Though apparently without any rules, the natives are very liable to misapprehend what is said to them by their masters or customers, because these rules are not followed, and constant difficulty arises from mutual misunderstanding of this sort. The widening study of Chinese is not likely to do away with this droll lingo at the trade ports, and several attempts have been made to render English pieces into it. On the other hand, in California and elsewhere, the Chinese generally succeed in learning the languages of their adopted countries better than in talking _pigeon-English_, or the similar mongrel vernacular spoken at Macao by the native-born Chinese.

A knowledge of the Chinese language is a passport to the confidence of the people, and when foreigners generally learn it the natives will begin to divest themselves of their prejudices and contempt. As an inducement to study, the scholar and the philanthropist have the prospect of benefiting and informing through it vast numbers of their fellow-men, of imparting to them what will elevate their minds, purify their hearts, instruct their understandings, and strengthen their desire for more knowledge; they have an opportunity of doing much to counteract the tremendous evils of the opium trade by teaching the Chinese the only sure grounds on which they can be restrained, and at the same time of making them acquainted with the discoveries in science, medicine, and arts among western nations.

FOOTNOTES:

[290] Professor H. A. Sayce, of Oxford, in reference to a suggested possible connection between the Chinese and primitive Accadian population of Chaldea, says in a letter to the London _Times_: “I would mention one fact which may certainly be considered to favor it. The cuneiform characters of Babylonia and Assyria are, as is well known, degenerated hieroglyphics, like the modern Chinese characters. The original hieroglyphics were invented by the Accadians before they descended into Babylonia from the mountains of Elam, and I have long been convinced that they were originally written in vertical columns. In no other way can I explain the fact that most of the pictures to which the cuneiform characters can be traced back stand upon their sides. There is evidence to show that the inventors of the hieroglyphics used papyrus, or some similar vegetable substance, for writing purposes before the alluvial plain of Babylonia furnished them with clay, and the use of such a writing material will easily account for the vertical direction in which the characters were made to run.”

[291] Biot has a brief note upon the methods employed by native scholars for studying pronunciation. _Essai sur l’instruction en Chine_, p. 597.

[292] _Easy Lessons in Chinese_, pp. 3-29; _Chinese Repository_, Vol. III., pp. 1-37.

[293] One may gain some idea of this difficulty by referring to the geographical names contained in the Russo-Chinese Treaty, quoted on page 215.

[294] The writer has an edition of the _Thousand Character Classic_, containing each couplet of eight words in a different form of character, making one hundred and twenty-five styles of type--too grotesque to be imitated, and probably never actually in use.

[295] See page 193. In order that the Manchu portion of this famous poem might not appear inferior to the Chinese, the Emperor ordered thirty-two varieties of Manchu characters to be _invented_ and published in like manner with the others. Rémusat, _Mélanges_, Tome II., p. 59. Père Amiot, _Éloge de la Ville de Moukden. Trad. en françois._ Paris, 1770.

[296] _Chinese Chrestomathy_, Chap. I., Secs. 5 and 6, where the rules for writing Chinese are given in full with numerous examples; _Easy Lessons in Chinese_, p. 59; _Chinese Repository_, Vol. III., p. 37.

[297] _Journal Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, Vol. III. (Sept., 1834), p. 477. S. Julien in the _Revue de l’Orient et de l’Algerie_, XX., p. 74, 1856.

[298] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. III., pp. 246-252, 528; Vol. XIV., p. 124; _Missionary Recorder_, January, 1875.

[299] _Chinese as They Are_, Chap. XXXIV.

[300] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. VIII., p. 347.

[301] Many aids in learning the general language and all the leading dialects have been prepared in English, French, German, and Portuguese, but several of the early ones, as Morrison, Gonçalves, Medhurst, and Bridgman, are already out of print. The names of all of these may be found most easily in the first volume of M. Cordier’s exhaustive _Dictionnaire Bibliographique des ouvrages relatifs à l’Empire chinois_, pp. 725-804. Paris, 1881.