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.
[CHAPTER XI.]
CLASSICAL LITERATURE OF THE CHINESE.
The literature contained in the language now briefly described is very ample and discursive, but wanting in accuracy and unenlivened by much variety or humor. The books of the Chinese have formed and confirmed their national taste, which consequently exhibits a tedious uniformity. The unbounded admiration felt for the classics and their immaculate authors, fostered by the examinations, has further tended to this result, and caused these writings to become still more famous from the unequalled influence they have exerted. It may be very readily seen, then, with what especial interest the student of Chinese sociology turns to an investigation of their letters, the immense accumulation of forty centuries. Were its amount and prominence the only features of their literature, these would suffice to make necessary some study thereof; but in addition, continued research may reveal some further qualities of “eloquence and poetry, enriched by the beauty of a picturesque language, preserving to imagination all its colors,” which will substantiate the hearty expressions used by Rémusat when first he entered upon a critical examination of its treasures.
In taking a survey of this literature, the Sz’ Ku Tsiuen Shu Tsung-muh, or ‘Catalogue of all Books in the Four Libraries,’ will be the best guide, since it embraces the whole range of letters, and affords a complete and succinct synopsis of the contents of the best books in the language. It is comprised in one hundred and twelve octavo volumes, and is of itself a valuable work, especially to the foreigner. The books are arranged into four divisions, viz., Classical, Historical, and Professional writings, and Belles-lettres. This Catalogue contains about 3,440 separate titles, comprising upward of 78,000 books; besides these, 6,764 other works, numbering 93,242 books, have been described in other catalogues of the imperial collections. These lists comprise the bulk of Chinese literature, except novels, Buddhist translations, and recent publications.
The works in the first division are ranged under nine sections; one is devoted to each of the five Classics (with a subsidiary section upon these as a whole), one to the memoir on Filial Duty, one to the Four Books, one to musical works, and the ninth to treatises on education, dictionaries, etc.
THE YIH KING, OR BOOK OF CHANGES.