| Tones | Sú-cheú | Sháng-hái | Ning-pó | ||
| Upper Series | First, | 上平 | u, q, f, | u, q, f, | u, q, f, |
| Second, | 上上 | u, e, | u, e, | u, s, r, | |
| Third, | 上去 | u, s, r, | u, q, r, | u, e, | |
| Fourth, | 上入 | u, sh, | u, sh, | u, sh, | |
| Lower Series | First, | 下平 | l, q, r, | l, e, | l, s, c, q, f, |
| Second, | 下上 | l, q, f, | l, s, r, | l, s, r, | |
| Third, | 下去 | l, s, r, | l, q, r, | l, s, r, or e, | |
| Fourth, | 下入 | l, sh, | l, sh, | l, sh, | |
| Tones | Amoy and Cháng-cheú | |
| Upper, | first, | u, e, |
| do. | second, | u, q, f, |
| do. | third, | l, f, |
| do. | fouth. | u, sh, f, |
| Lower, | first, | l, q, r, |
| do. | second, | u, q, f, |
| do. | third, | l, e, |
| do. | fouth. | u, sh, f, |
[ [1] u, upper. l, lower. r, rising. f, falling. q, quick. s, slow. e, even. c, circumflex. sh, short.
12. Nán-king is here placed among those that belong to the 北音 or Northern Mandarin division. A native author[1] says, that this city and two others 淮陽 Hwái yáng and 徐海 Sü hái use the northern pronunciation.
The large Dictionaries are uniform in the adoption of the pronunciation in our (ii.) division, as their basis of spelling. They usually speak of only four tones, distinguishing the upper from the lower by the initial letter. This is also the universal practice among the educated class vivâ voce. They do not speak of 帝 ti‘ emperor and 地 di‘ earth, as different in tone, the one the upper third tone, the other the lower, but as different in the alphabetical form tí, dí.
The division into eight tones is preferable for a foreign reader, because (1) there is a difference in elevation of voice, 帝 tí‘ being at an interval of a fourth in the musical scale more or less, higher than 地 dí‘. (2) Although the third and fourth tones, upper and lower, are deflected at Sháng-hái in a similar way, so that they may be regarded as the same tones, this is not the case with the first and second, which differ decidedly in character.
The fourth tone in the 北音 Póh yun, class (i.) is in the Northern provinces, long in quantity. The words included under it are distributed among the other tones, and must be learnt separately, in order that they may be correctly pronounced; e.g. of words written chúh, some such as 竹, 竺, 燭 are at K’ai-fóng-fú in the upper first tone, while 軸, 祝, 昨 are in the lower first tone.[2]
[ [1] Vide 李氐音鑑. The author was a native of Peking.
[ [2] The analogy between the Chinese tones and the Greek accents probably led the Catholic Missionaries to call the former accentus. The distinction between accent and quantity which existed in Greek, has been found also in Sanscrit in the Vedas. (Vide Bopp’s Sanscrit Grammar, section 80.) In both, there were three accents, acute, grave and circumflex. The grave is described as the negation of the acute and to be understood where that mark is not written. The acute was a rising in tone; while the circumflex is said to have raised and depressed the tone on the same syllable. (Vide Valpy’s, Greek Grammar.) Taking accent and quantity together, we obtain four distinctions of sound, which is the nominal number of tones in Chinese. The fundamental difference in the structure of polysyllabic and monosyllabic languages prevents the analogy from being carried far; the tones in one case being fixed to syllables, and in the other to words. But when it is remembered that those two branches of the great Indo-European stem are among the most ancient of languages, not much later in origin than the Chinese itself, and one of them its geographical neighbour, the fact of these delicate differences of sound existing till now in that language, becomes interesting as throwing light on some of the most precious remains of the literature of the past. Grammarians would not speak with such hesitation, as they do, when describing these peculiar intonations of the civilized races of the old world, if they had heard and could discriminate the Chinese tones. Late speculations on the change in language-forming power that has taken place in modern times, have referred to the gradual diminution of inflexions in new languages, and to other circumstances, as instances of it. From these has been argued the decay of a certain faculty once possessed by the human race. The limited use of accents fixed to words in newly-formed languages, may be viewed as another illustration of it. Clearly-marked alphabetical differences, as now preferred to those nicer distinctions of sounds, which perhaps were familiar alike to the most cultivated branches of the Great Arian family, and to the ancient and modern Chinese. It may be added that the use of many of the Hebrew accents is but imperfectly known in modern times.