Page:A Grammar of the Chinese Colloquial Language commonly called the Mandarin Dialect (IA dli.granth.92779).pdf/19

Rh and  hia p‘ing. But for reasons stated in the chapter on tones, they will for convenience be spoken of as 1st, 2nd, 5th, etc. in preference to retaining the native nomenclature.

In illustrating the colloquial language from dialects where the tone-classes are more numerous, full stops and double commas will be used. In such cases, there is always an arrangement in two series. For the upper series, commas will be employed, full stops for the lower, and double commas for other subdivisions. Thus ,sheng,  ’sheng,  sheng‘,  shïh⹁,  .sheng,  ‘shang,  shang,  hien‘‘,  shïh..

The native name of the pronunciation used at court, and in public offices is, or mandarin dialect. This dialect is in essential features, the common language of the people in the provinces north of the Yang-tsï-kiang, in Sï-c‘hwen, Yün-nan,, and in part of Hu-nan and Kwang-si. At least, there sufficient similarity in the sounds employed through this wide percent of country, embracing two-thirds of China, to warrant their being called by a common name.

It is usual for the people, while including the dialects of so wide a territory under the designation kwan hwa, to distinguish them from local names; e. g. Shantung kwan hwa, the mandarin spoken in Shantung; but it is still correct to recognize the dialects of the provinces mentioned as genuine mandarin, allowance being made for some admixture of hiang t‘an, or provincialisms.

The pronunciation of these regions readily separates into three stems; that of Nanking, of Peking with the northern provinces, and of the western provinces. In the first of these systems, the words are distributed into five classes, with a tone proper to each. The fourth of these is short. The fifth class does not admit the initials k, t, p, ch, ts without the aspirate. The final n becomes ng, after the vowels a, i. No consonant final exists except n and ng, which is also true of all mandarin dialects.

The confusion of the finals n and ng is not authorised by dictionaries, and should be marked as a defect to be avoided. Morrison