CHAPTER XVIII. 
SYLLABARY FOR THE TRANSCRIPTION OF CHINESE SOUNDS IN THE DIALECT 
OF PEKING MODIFIED FOR LITERARY PURPOSES. 

By Dr. Frirepricu Hirrs, 
Professor of Chinese, Columbia University, New York City. 

INTRODUCTION. 
The subjoined Syllabary is mutatis mutandts identical with the ‘‘’Tabelle 
fiir die Laute des Chinesischen im Mandarin-Dialecte,” submitted by me 
to the Far-Eastern Section of the XIII International Congress of Orien- 
talists held at Hamburg in September, 1902.* From this table I have 
reproduced all the essential parts; but under column I (spelling in Williams’ 
Dictionary) I have added one of the Chinese characters representing each 
group of sound; in column II (my own spelling) I have, in order to accommo- 
date readers of English, changed the German initials sch and tsch into 
sh and ch, and in column III I have added the corresponding sounds in 
Wade’s orthography of the Peking Dialect. 
My own spelling, as represented in column II, is merely a compromise 
between Williams’ and Wade’s Syllabaries, to which I have added a few 
changes to be explained hereafter. The idea is not my own, but I have 
followed the precedent set by Dr. E. Bretschneider, who in his well-known 
works (‘‘Botanicon Sinicum,’’ ‘‘Medizval Researches,’’ etc.) made free 
use of Wade’s system, while retaining the old Chinese standard initials 
k, ts, h, and s before z and w as appearing in Williams’ list of sounds against 
ch and hs in the Peking Dialect. 
To be consistent, the maker of a map of China favoring the Peking 
orthography would have to spell Chiang-hsit for Kiang-st, Nan-ching for 
Nan-king, or Fu-chien for Fu-kien, and to please such writers we ought 
to look upon the greater part of the existing maps and charts containing 
Chinese names and a host of valuable books on China as obsolete. Peking 
spelling is, of course, a comfort to those who speak or study the dialect, 
but it does not lend itself to literary purposes. Sir Thomas Wade, who 
invented the system now applied to the Peking vernacular, wished it him- 
self to be confined to that purpose and did not want it ‘“‘even to profess 

* Published in the Transactions of the Congress and reprinted in Prof. H. Cordier’s Report, ‘“‘ Les 
études chinoises,’’ 1899-1902, T’oung pao, 1903, pp. 38-45, aud Beitrdge zur Kenntniss des Ortents, vol. I, 
Miinchen, 1903. 
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