Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/189

Rh By this, it will be seen, that the b, and d, are wholly wanting in the mandarin dialect; that the r has no vibratory sound; and that n and ng, are the only consonants among the finals; while all the rest have vowel terminations.

The orthography employed above, is that of Dr. Morrison's Dictionary, which is preferred, not as entirely unexceptionable, but as being generally known, and, at present, the only one which we possess, in the English language.

Were all these initials to be joined with the several finals, they would produce by their union nine hundred and forty-six monosyllables. They are not, however, varied to their utmost extent; and three hundred and two different monosyllables are all that the Chinese really extract from these combinations. In attempting to pronounce the names of foreigners, or the words of another language, they endeavour to express them by combining the monosyllables of their own tongue; and if these are not sufficient, they have no method of writing, and scarcely any of enunciating the given word. Thus they make sad havoc of the language of other nations, and missionaries, in aiming to write scripture names in the Chinese character, find considerable difficulty in expressing them sufficiently concise and clear.

But, it may be asked, how do the Chinese manage to make themselves intelligible to each other, with only three hundred monosyllables, and how can these be sufficient for all the purposes of oral language? To this it may be replied, that the Chinese have a method of increasing the number of their words by assigning to each a different tone, which, though scarcely discernible by an unpractised ear, are as readily