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MÉLANGES. On the extended use of "Tho Peking system of ortography" for the Chinese language BY G. SCHLEGEL. Under this title, the late lamented W. F. MAYERS, one of the best sinologues England can boast of, broke a lance against the abuse of the Peking system of ortography which then already (in 1867) became threatening. Nearly 30 years have since elapsed and, we are sorry to say, this abuse has thriven like an obnoxious weed, and menaces to overwhelm and smother entirely the standard pronunciation expressed in the Imperial Dictionary of (or Chang-lasi, as the Pekinese nowadays pronounce) by means of fixed syllabic and tonic symbols. As a whole generation has passed by since our friend wrote this article, and as the younger generation of sinologues does not seem to study the works of their predecessors, and gets as infatuated, (since Peking has been opened) with the bad, half Manchurian, pronunciation, as the Peking Chinese themselves, we deem it of 500 the highest importance to reproduce this article as the best anti- dote against the abuse of the Peking Colloquial dialect for the transcription, not only of the Chinese characters, but also of Chinese proper names, known in Europe and in europeau books on China, only in their standard pronunciation. None of the elder Sinologues, Morrison, Medhurst, Bridgman, Mayers, Stanislas Julien, R6niusat, Gaubil, only to name some of the most renowned, who have been living either in Canton, Bata- via, Peking, Amoy or Europe, have used for the transcription of Chinese characters and names the local brogue of the place where they where living and studying; all of them have used the st,(tiida??d p-?°o??nnciat,io7zin their transcriptions, and we do not see why the present generation should adopt local brogue of Peking as the standard pronunciation for the whole Chinese language. It may be in vogue at the rotten and tattering court of the decrepit Manchu dynasty reeling upon its worm-eaten throne, but this is no reason for us, Europeans, to become tainted with such a bad habit. I, for myself, have been living for years in Amoy and Canton, and spoke, and still speak, fluently both dialects. In Amoy I had not only to learn the colloquial pronunciation but also the book-language differing widely from the former as is well known; and, besides, I had to learn the mandarin pronun- ciation of Chinese, to the standard sounds as established by the authors of the dictionary of Now what I and so many others of the elder siuologues have been able to accomplish, can just as well be done by the present generation of siuologues. Let them use the northern or Peking b),oqtie for official and familiar conversation, but let them continue to transscribe chinese characters in scientific w01'ks according to the standard pronunciation 501 (j-E F3 for I feel sure that if the late Sir Thomas Wade could have foreseen the mischief wrought by his Peking Syllabary through its indiscriminate abuse for transcribing the Chinese language, he would perhaps have liked to suppress his book. He himself says in his preface that his syllabary does not even profess to represent or to supplant the standard or established pronunciation (JE of the mandarin language. His disciples have discarded his distinctly stated restriction and apply the syllabary to all chinese characters to the greatest confusion of all other sinologues who have only learnt the southern pronun- ciation of them, and, especially, to an inextricable bewildering created in the minds of other european scholars, not sinologues, who are now not able to consult the works of sinologues in which chinese words are transcribed according to the Peking syllabary. How are they to understand that (Legge) is the same name as C7a?.va?ag-tsze(English transscription) or Tclwang-tsz (french trans- scription) viz. 2 In the Amoy-dialect this name is read Tsong-tsu, in Canton-dialect Now if all Sinologues were going to speak of this philosopher according to the pronunciation of his name in the local brogue of their respective dwellingplace in China, what horrible confusion would be created! As we have been apprised, -Mr. HERBERT A. GILES, the well- known sinologue and author of a large chinese and english dictionary, is completing a Chinese Biographical Dictionary, arranged alphabetically. Now if this alp7?.abetica.l arrangement is according to Wade's system (modern Peking pronunciation), his book will be nearly valueless for every sinologue not acquainted with the Peking-dialect, that is to say for all continental scholars, who still follow the old french transcription of the chinese characters and names. Consequently, the sale of the book will be very restricted upon the continent. 502 We refer, regarding the transcription of Chinese proper names, to the excellent plea written by our lamented friend, the late Terrien de Lacouperie, published in 1893 under the title of: "On Hiuen-tsang instead Of Yican-elaeva7?g, and the necessity of avoiding the pekinese sounds in the quotations of an- cient proper names in Chinese", published in the "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland". We now reproduce the arguments adduced in 1867 by the late W. F. Mayers and published in the (now extinct) "Notes and Queries on China and Japan", Vol. I, pp. 10-12. "The transliteration or phonography of Chinese sounds (that is to say, their expression by means of alphabetical spelling) is both the first elementary task of the foreign beginner at the language and a subject also of constant study with the most distinguished sinologues of the day. The variety of the dialects, no less than the differences of opinion between individuals, as a matter of ear and of taste, has hitherto prevented and will probably always forbid the establishment of any uuiform and strictly scientific system for the spelling of Chinese sounds in general, though it is happily undeniable that great progress in the direction of uniformity and accuracy has been achieved withiri the last few years. The earlier writers ou Chinese subjects - Morrison, Marshman, Davis, Staunton and others - were content to represent the sounds of characters or of proper names by syllables arbitrarily constructed according to English orthoepy, regardless of the confusion in vowel-sounds, the multiplication of unnecessary letters, or the indeterminate character of the resulting symbol. 2'hirty years ago, however, the learned editors of the Chinese Repository were the first to suggest a reform in the system of spelling, rendered necessary by the more extended reference to Chinese matters in public works and journals, and the 503 principle originated by Sir William Jones with regard to the Indian languages, according to which the simple but comprehensive Italian vowel-sounds were adopted in exchange for the cumbrous sounds of the English alphabet, was introduced with certain necessary modifications. Following upon the innovations of Dr. S. W. Williams, the Rev. Jos. Edkins, in his excellent work on the Mandarin language (Shanghae 1857), proposed an improved system, which approximates perhaps most closely of all to genuine accuracy and ease of appli- cation ; and in 1859 Mr. Wade commenced his series of contributions to the study of Chinese with his work entitled the Hsin Citing Lu, which embraced also a syllabary of the dialect spoken by natives of Peking - publications to which the present writer has been, among many others, deeply indebted for assistance in his early studies of the language, and which embody the system to be refer- red to in the present comments. "During the eight years that have elapsed since this publication took place, Peking has been thrown open and the study of Chinese has been actively prosecuted by official interpreters at the capital. Their translations and writings appear frequently in the public prints, and the spelling they adopt for Chinese sounds, especially proper names, must to a large extent influence the popular acception of such names. The present inquiry is directed to an examination of this system and of the propriety of its general use. In the first place, it must be asked - what is the Mandarin language? The reply to this can be no other than - the language spoken throughout the Northern and Western Provinces of China, with various more or less important differences of dialect. The two principal dialectic divisions recognized the Chinese are the m ff and 4L fin, or, respectively, the Nanking and Peking pronunciations. The ancient establishment of the Court at Nanking caused the dialect of Kiangnan or the "Southern Mandarin" to be 504 considered most fashionable and correct; whilst, since the removal of the capital to Peking, the Northern Mandarin has tended gra- dually, and of late it is said more rapidly, to supplant the southern dialect. This Northern Mandarin has further, at Peking itself, be- come largely altered both in words and pronunciation, by the Mauchow element which constitutes the Court and garrison. But it must be constantly borne in mind that both these branches are merely dialects of an established tongue, with a pronunciation definitely fixed. The Nan-yin and Pei-yi?i may vary in course of time or owing to force of circumstances, but the C7?M?-?M or standard pronunciation has its abiding rules, expressed in the Imperial Dictionary and similar works by means of fixed syllabic and tonic symbols. It must be obvious that when we wish to reduce a language to writing, recourse must be had, where possible, to recognized rules of arrangement, and to those of the most universal application. The dictionaries supply us with these; the dialects diverge from them. It does not, however, follow that the student of a dialect should employ the divergent sounds of a local form of speech to represent characters which really belong to the general language.
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