i 



, [ -9 ] 



rate languages, one oral, to ferve for the common purpofes and 

 bufinefs of life, confifting -of about three hundred words ; the 

 other, which is referved for the ufe of the literati, for hiftory, 

 poetry and fcience, comprifes fixty thoufand or eighty thoufand * 

 different charaifters. As they have no alphabet, each dif- 

 tin(5l idea and each variation of a thought, inftead of being exr 

 preffed by the different arrangement of the fame letters, mufl 

 be denoted by a feparate charadler or an appropriate inflexion. 

 The labour of learning thefe is the labour of a life. Scarcely 

 any of their manderines pretend to underftand die whole of the 

 language, and a manderine who at fifty can boafl that he 

 knows half his charadlers is accounted in China a very learned 

 man. Their popular language has likewife a defecfl which we 

 fhould think muif be every day felt by all clafTes of people. 

 Each of its three hundred words, when pronounced in different 

 tones, expreflcs totally different things ; and the flighteft inflexion 

 of the voice entirely alters a man's meaning ; fo that thofe who 

 have the misfortune to have a bad ear mufl confequently, in 

 China, have a bad underftanding. The fyllable Ko has ten 

 different modes of pronunciation ; and B^?, according to its va- 

 rious accents, has fix feveral fenfes, which bear no affinity to 

 each other. The mofl expert orators in the nation often find 

 it impoifible to make themfelves underftood without feveral at- 

 tempts and repetitions to explain themfelves ; and fometimes 



they 



* Du HJde. 



