CHINA. 



273 



, vented, is not known. This alphabet has a close con- 

 > nection with their imitative character, and is considered 

 as extremely simple and effective. It consists of 36 

 characters, whose names furnish so many initial conso- 

 nant sounds ; and of twelve other selected characters, 

 whose names furnish as many final sounds. Sjmc of the 

 initial consonants, however, are so much alike, that 

 scarcely more than 24 of them can be considered as ad- 

 mitting of a separate pronunciation. They'are distribu- 

 ted into nine classes ; and their power is expressed in the 

 following Table, as far as it can be effected by English 

 letters. 



This alphabet, according to the conjecture of Mr 

 Marshman, may be conceived to have been formed in 

 the following manner. Suppose the two characters of 

 sun and moon, named je and yue, united into one to ex- 

 press brilliancy ; and this new compound to have been 

 at random named ming, a sound without any meaning 

 or reference to the sounds of the component characters. 

 In order to express this sound to another person in wri- 

 ting, as the conventional term for this character, it 

 might be natural to look among the characters already 

 named, especially the elementary symbols, for one or 

 more, whose sounds approached nearest to that of ming. 

 Among these the character moo, wood, would be found 

 to have the same incipient sound as ming; and the cha- 

 racter ching, blue, the same final sound. Thus might 

 these two characters placed together, convey to another 

 person in writing, an idea of the word niing, by uniting 

 the initial of the one with the final sound of the other; 

 and then they might continue to form part of the new 

 alphabet, the one always indicating the sound of m ini- 

 tial, and the other that of ing final. The twelve vowel 

 sounds with two nasal in addition, are a, e, i, o, ou, u, 

 an, ,ing, en, eng, in, ing, onn. oung ; and in the Imperial 

 Dictionary, the whole alphabet is explained by twelve 

 tables. The characters, representing initial sounds, are 

 ranged along the head of the pag>, while those which 

 denote the final sounds, form a column along the mar- 

 gin ; and, at the angle, formed by lines drawn from the 

 characters in these two columns, is placed a well known 

 character, which expresses the sound produced by the 

 union of the two, the initial and final sounds. This 

 may be better understood from the following example : 



Here it is evident, that the initial sound of P-ona uni- 

 d to the final of K-an produces Pan ; that the initial of 

 g, with the same final of K-an, makes Phan : that 



VI. PART I. 



the same initials of P-oog and Ph-ong, with the final of Language 

 K-ou, make Pou and Phou, &c. s """' 



In this manner, by the combination of the 36 initial con- Number sV 

 sonants, and the 12 final sounds, are produced and repre- syllabic 

 sented 432 simple monosyllabic sounds, which, in fact, * (mn< * s< 

 form the amount of syllables in the oral language of 

 China. But, as these few syllabic sounds would occa- 

 sion great ambiguity when distributed among 35,000 dif- 

 ferent characters, the sounds of the final syllables have 

 been so variously modified, as to increase the original 

 number of syllabic sounds to 846 ; and these again, by 

 means of certain accents and intonations of the voice, are 

 augmented to 2178. 



These accents bear some resemblance to those of the Acceuts. 

 Greeks, and are chiefly, four; Ping, which signifies f yen 

 and moderate, is the common or grave accent ; Slang, 

 which signifies ascending, is the acute accent ; Shee, 

 which signifies protracted, is the long sound or syllable ; 

 and Ya, which signifies to stop short, is the short sound 

 or syllable. In order to mark these accents in writing, 

 the Chinese assign to each of them a particular angle in 

 those characters, which change their meaning according te 

 their accents ; the inferior left angle to the accent ping; 

 the superior left angle to the accent siang ; the inferior 

 right angle to the accent s/iee ; the superior right angle 

 to the accent Yu ; and these angles are marked in the 

 school books with an O, frequently of a red colour, te 

 point them out more readily to the notice of the learner. 

 Still, with all the aid which can be derived from these 

 accents and flexions of the voice, the spoken language is 

 full of ambiguities, which, though frequently removed 

 by the general meaning of the discourse, are sometimes 

 perplexing even to the natives. Thus, by dividing 

 35,000 characters by 2178 syllabic sounds, the number 

 of characters or words, which have precisely the same 

 lound or pronunciation, will be 16 in each class of sounds ; 

 and, by dividing by 84G, the number of those which have 

 nearly the same sound, will be 41 in each class. In the 

 case of these words, which have the same sound, a se- 

 cond syllable is sometimes added to make the distinction 

 more clear. Thus the syllable/oo, a name given to several 

 characters of different meanings, denotes a father ; and 

 when used in this sense, the word chin, kindred, is gene- 

 rally added, asjoo chin, father. Nothing also is more 

 common, than for the hearer to interrupt the person who 

 speaks, in order to ask an explanation of any ambigu- 

 ous expression ; and this explanation he endeavours to 

 give by adding some synonymous or analogous term. But, 

 with all these resources, a Chinese is frequently unable to 

 make himself understood by his speech ; and to explain 

 his meaning, describes in the air with his finger or fan, the 

 figure of the character, whose sound he wishes to utter. 

 All this ambiguity is grt-atly increased by the obscure 

 manner, in which the Chinese designedly express them- 

 selves ; affecting to say much in a few words, and omit- 

 ting, for the sake ol elegance, the explanatory phrases. 



The Chinese dictionaries are arranged, either accord- Dictiona- 

 ing to claves, or accents. The dictionaries of the former rles 

 description have the 214 claves, or elementary symbols, 

 (though sometimes a greater number is used) drawn in a 

 fair and distinct form, along the top of the page, com- 

 mencmg with the more simple, which contai.i the small. 

 est number of lines or points, and proceeding to the more 

 complicated, in which may be found, at the utmost 

 seventeen lines. On the margin of the page, are mark- 

 ed the numerals 1, 2, 3, &c. which signify, that the root 

 or element at the top will be f, und in that page com- 

 bined with cue, two, three, &c. lines, or points. The 

 2 M 



