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 present of that object occasioned such a transport as to abstract 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 chainn main 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