Page:Chinese spoken language.djvu/11

Rh 13. T, as in tame, till. 14. T’, t followed by h, each letter retaining its own proper sound.

The preceding are the consonant sounds found in the Fuh Chau initials, but it will be seen that there are, in reality, only ten elementary consonants, viz.: Ch, H, K, L, M, N, Ng, P, S, T.

The spiritus asper, (’,) which is equivalent to h, being used to avoid confounding ph with the sound of f, and th with th in thin or then, and to show that it is never silent in any combination.

II. – VOWELS. There are nine distinct vowel sounds, viz.: 1. a, as in far, father. 2. e, as in they, prey, but when followed by ng its sound is nearly as short as in met. 3. è, like the flat sound in there, or like a in care. 4. ë, pronounced nearly like e in her, or i in bird, but more open, and spoken deeper in the throat. 5. i, as in machine, but frequently like i in pin, if the word ends with a consonant. 6. o, as in note, report. 7. ò, like o in for, cord, lord. 8. u, like oo in school; but if the word ends with h or ng, the sound is like that of u in bull. The distinction, if any, between the sound of u in these two forms of Chinese words is unimportant in practice, and too slight to be noted by any diacritical marks. At the beginning of words, when followed by another vowel, it has the force of w in English words. 9. ü has the French sound of ü, as in Püne. This is a sound between those of e and oo. When two vowels come together in the same word, each vowel retains its own sound. There are no silent letters employed in this system.

NOTE – This system of orthography is substantially that known as the system of Sir William Jones, used for Romanizing the language of India, the Pacific Islands, and the languages of the North American Indians. Some have desired to embrace the sounds, used in all the dialects of China, in one system, distinguishing them by separate letters, or by diacritical marks, so that each letter shall have a uniform sound in every dialect for which it is used. Such strict uniformity would require the use of several diacritical marks so letters where they are not needed, when, as in the plan here adopted, slight modifications are allowed in each dialect. The sounds of the letters, as here given, is nearly identical with the system used in writing the languages spoken at the Sandwich Islands.

III. – TONES. Figures raised above the line, at the end of words, are used to distinguish the tones.