THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 32, 30 April 1927, Page 20 (Supplement)

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

WHEN my husband was appointed to our Legation at Peking. I went there, as so many have done before me, full of good resolutions to master the Chinese language as quickly as possible. It was not only with the praiseworthy intention of becoming an efficient mistress to the variegated assortment of “boys” and ‘coolies” who made up our establishment, writes Lady Susan Townley, who lived in China when her husband, Sir Walter Beaupre Townley, was Secretary of Legation and Councillor of Embassy at Peking, but also that I might have the fun of bargaining in their own lingo with the Chinese in the markets. To begin with, I have no hesitation in saying that the Chinese language is the most imperfect, clumsy and awkward system ever invented by the ingenuity of man for the purpose of intercourse between human beings. Not only is the spoken language quite different from the written one, but as there are in Chinese only 500 syllabic sounds to do duty for the thousands of words necessarily employed in daily intercourse, a dozen or more different meanings are attached to each word, which in every case is distinguishable from others of its kind, only by the tone in which it is uttered, by the

context or word of synonymous meaning joined to it. and by the numerative or classifying word employed in conjunction with it. Particular significance attaches also to its position in a sentence. The tones referred to above are. as I have said, essential in Chinese, for the purpose of conveying to a li&ter' which of several meanings it is intended to convey by the use of a particular word. for. according to the tone employed, the same word has several signfications. For instance, the word “Chu” may. according to the tone, either imperitiye, pleading, interrogative or complaining, in which it is uttered, mean a pearl, a pig, a bamboo, a candle, or the verb to pray, also the colour vermilion and a variety of other things. In the same way the word “Ma” may be taken to indicate a mother, a chair, or a horse, all three of which, at least according to our ideas, it is wise to differentiate between when calling for!

In the Pekingese dialect there are mercifully only four of these tones, but in some part of China there are as many as eight! The result is that, although a native of one province might write to a native of another a letter whir**

| ligible to him Ifor every word w writing, individually represented t i separate sign, which sign is th bj * al! over China 1. yet it would be . ! ! possible for him to commaM?"' ; orally with his neight our as j t ! lie for a German to communicate ? an Italian without previous stwi k his language. “ •

Such are a few of the pecuw of the spoken Chinese language t 5 i as I have said, defeated me Bowritten language is even worse . . supposed to have been invented h 15 Minister of the Emperor Hw. ‘ , (B.C. 2697). who “looking T 8 ” Heaven studied the constellation, , looking down to Earth observed i? ! footprints of birds.” after which he elaborated the written characnT Be that as it may, he prettv complicated life for generations , little Chinese boys who came him. and who have had painfull,? acquire a script which had no ab,? bet. and each word of which is j-TT 5 ' idually portrayed by a mysterious i? complicated system of signs. *“ C To add to the diflleultv of wri-i Chinese, the inventor omitted ali s a !t trifles as tenses or persons to ti. verb, declensions, genders or caw*? the nouns, and comparative adjw