A Grammar of Colloquial Chinese, as Exhibited in the Shanghai Dialect

by Joseph Edkins

Beyond the Pô-yáng lake westward, are also found the g, d, lb, initials on the banks of the 洞庭湖 Tóng t’ing hú, in Hú-nán. Boatmen from the district of 安化, on the south of that celebrated lake, may be readily conversed with by using the thick consonants in all words in the lower series of tones. Round these two lakes, the favourite resort of the Chinese muse, and from the natural beauty of which Lí Tái-puh drew the inspiration of his poetry, the same system of pronunciation with that of Háng-cheú and Sú-cheú, the most polished cities in China, is found to exist. This consideration with the extent of the territory thus delineated, may help to remove any strangeness in the assertion, that the native tables of sounds made in the Liáng dynasty, and copied into K’áng-Hí’s dictionary are not at all founded on the modern mandarin pronunciation, but on what is now a provincial system.

In the territory thus delineated, there is not the same uniformity in final that exists in initials. Of the three terminating consonants is the 入聲 k only is developed at Shánghái, and even this is wanting in all the large cities near, including those in the northern part of Cheh-kiáng. N is not as a final in the long tones, clearly separated from ng, and there is no representation of m.

On the other hand t and p, with their correlates n and m are found at Fú-cheú fú, 撫州府 in Kiáng-sí but k does not appear. At 南康府 Nán-káng fú, at the western extremity of the same province, p and m are distinctly represented, but there is no k or t, and ng is confounded with n. Kien and kan are distinguished at Shánghái, and in these more southerly cities. Kóng 公 is separated from 弓 kióng at Fú-cheú fú.

In dialects farther south, while the initials differ from those of the dictionaries, the consonantal terminations of the short tone are all clearly marked, and are in harmony with the ancient system. Thus we are led to the conclusion, that in regard to initials, the Kiáng-nan and Cheh-kiáng pronunciation agrees best with the written pronunciations as given in the native tables. But in reference to finals, Kiáng-sí and the southern provinces best represent them. Kiáng-sí appears to be the province that contains within its limits, the greatest number of the peculiarities in question.

In K’áng-hí’s second table, the distinction between the finals, m and n is neglected; e.g. 三 is spelt not sam but san. Further all words in the short tone are spelt with vowel finals; k, t, p, not being recognized, except as secondary forms retained out of respect to the old system. They are cut in small circles. No change is made in the tones or initials, except that words in 下平 are many of them placed in the aspirate column.

The spelling of many words in w with an initial v, and of others in y with ng or n, will be found explained in Part I. section IV. With respect to the two columns headed ch and tsh, which are the same to our ears, it may be observed, that at Sú-cheú words under the former heading are pronounced ch, and under the latter ts, indicating a natural separation between the two columns.

The resumé of this appendix, and of what was said on the Dictionary tables in the sections on the sounds at the commencement of the present work may be stated thus:—

1. The peculiarities of the tabulated initials, finals and tones are all explained, by bringing the different dialects of the three Kiáng provinces together; the aspirated f column being the only prominent anomaly that has not been illustrated.

2. The peculiarities of mandarin pronunciation, such as the interchange of some initial consonants, the prefixing of ng to many words in the upper tones (v. [page 51]), the coalescing of the upper and lower tones in all cases except that of the p’ing shung, the uniform occurrence of the aspirate after k, t, p, in the hiá‘ p’ing, and the loss of the short tone in the northern provinces, are all unnoticed in the old tables, while they are all recognized in modern works on sounds.

It may be remarked generally on the two systems that the tendency of words in mandarin is to coalesce in sound, while in the other system, the tendency is to more minute subdivision. The mandarin is the most widely spread, embracing two thirds of the 18 provinces.