Page:A Grammar of the Chinese Colloquial Language commonly called the Mandarin Dialect (IA dli.granth.92779).pdf/14

2 vowel a, and hap-hazard without the initial ha. These consonants rare as they are in western languages, occur extensively in those of southern and eastern Asia, and after some practice are as easily distinguishable to the foreign ear, as they are to the native.

The consonant ng, whether initial or final, is pronounced as in the word king. It should have a single letter as its symbol, but the Roman alphabet does not furnish one. It does not occur as an initial in the English language.

The aspirate h has a strong harsh enunciation, approaching before the vowels i, ü, to s, and in many dialects coalescing with that consonant. This letter will also be used at the end of words, as by many previous writers, to denote that they take a short in tonation.

J is the French j, and might be written zh. It is sometimes in English written z as in azure, also si as in confusion.

Sh, properly a single consonant like ng, is written with two letters for want of a better symbol.

Ts and ch, with their aspirated forms, are the only compound initials, or initials consisting of more than one consonant, four in Chinese words. Ch formed of t and sh, is written ch instead of tsh for brevity. The aspirate in these compound consonants occurs after t, not after s, for if t be omitted, the aspirate can be pronounced. Ts is pronounced as z in the German language and as ts in Whitsuntide. L ike ng and j, it does not occur as an initial in English, and hence, as in the case of those consonants, some effort is usually required by speakers of English, to attain the pronunciation.

In addition to the twenty two consonants occurring in the mandarin dialect, eight more will be necessary to express provincial sounds. They are g, d, b, v, h, z, dz, dj. They form a series of soft consonants, whose place is next to the aspirated letters k‘, t‘, etc. of the first paragraph.

The symbol h is used for a weak aspirate, which in some dialects accompanies the common harsh aspirate of mandarin pronuncia­tion.

Dj is allied to ch, as g to k, dz to ts, etc. It is the English j as in jewel. Dj and dz though really compounds of d, z and j are for convenience treated as single consonants, according to native usage.