ON THE AMOY COLLOaUIAL DIALECT. * 87 



1st 2nd Srd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 



P 



t 



9 



Ban Ban Ban Bat Ban Ban Ban Bat 



The tones are indicated in various ways by diiferent writers. The 

 most readily recoe;nized and most' readily printed mode is the employ- 

 ment of the several accents — the acute, the grave, the circumflex, the 

 long, and the staccato. By this method, the word " Ban " would be 

 thus written in the several tones : Ban, Ban, Ban, Bat ; Ban, Ban, Ba", 



Bat. In the cases of the first and fourth tones, no mark is used. 

 Where the word ends in a vowel, the abrupt ending of the " entering" 

 tones is indicated by affixing the letter " h ;" thus the word " Ba," 

 written in the several tones would be : Ba, Ba, Ba, Bah ; Ba, Ba, B», 



Bah. 



The significations of a monosyllable in its several tones bear no 

 relation whatever to each other. Thus the word " Ke " (pronounced 

 like " Kay " in English) has the seven following meanings in its seven 

 distinct tones : — 



1. Ke — a family. 1. 



2. Ke— false. 2. 



3. Ke — a plan 3. 



4. Keh — to divide. 4. 



5. Ke — the caugue. 5. 



7. Ke — low 7. 



8. Keh — to oppose. 8. 

 It thus appears that a monosyllable may, by these different tones, 



be transmuted into as many different and distinguishable words. lu 

 the written Chinese language there are eight tones, four upper and four 

 lower. In the Nankin, or Court Dialect, there are, however, really 

 only five different tones and modulations in use, the sixth tone being 

 the same to the ear as the second, the seventh as the third, the eighth 

 as the fourth. In the Canton and Fuh Chau dialects, there are eight 

 different tones. These tones are not the same in the different dialects. 

 Thus the Canton tones are different tones (musically considered) from 

 those of the Amoy and Fuh Chau dialects. The Fuh Chau tones are 

 several of them peculiar. The five tones of the Court dialect are all 

 to be found in the Amoy, but attached to different numbers. The 



