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Rh tone or tones; and 仄聲 cha4 siang, oblique or harsh tone or tones; (for these terms may be taken either as singular or plural.) These being the only distinctions, in regard to tone, which it is necessary to observe in poetical composition, it is not improbable that there were only two tones in use when the ancient classics were written, or at least in the early ages, when the poetic standards were fixed.

The universal study of the ancient classics, and the observance of the ancient standards of poetical composition, secure a pretty general uniformity in the division of the characters into ping5, or smooth toned, and cha4, or harsh toned characters, though the subordinate divisions in these two classes of tones are by no means uniform in the different dialects.

The Nanking, or court dialect, has five tones, viz.: tow ping5, or smooth tones, and three cha4, or harsh tones; though it is stated that there was originally but one smooth, or even tone.

The names which now distinguish the ping5 tones, viz.: 上平聲 siong7 ping5 siang, primary smooth tone; and 下平聲 ha7 ping5 siang, secondary smooth tone, are thought, by Chinese writers, to have arisen from having the characters arranged under the ping5 tone, placed in two volumes; the first volume (as is customary with any work) marked 上 siong7, or first, and the latter volume marked 下 ha7, or last. Theses distinctions, which originally related to the volumes of the book, having been afterward referred to a distinction of two ping5 tones. This view is still further supported by the fact that, while characters referred to the smooth tones in the court dialect, are also referred to what are called smooth tones in the several local dialects, yet many characters referred to what is called a primary smooth tone in one dialect, are placed in the secondary smooth tone in another dialect, and vice versa.

The cha4 tones, of which there are three in the court dialect, called 上聲 siong2 siang, high tone; 去聲 k’ëü3 siang, diminishing tone; and 入聲 ih8 siang, entering, or abrupt tone, as they are now found in the dictionaries of the general language, or court dialect, are each again sub-divided, in many of the local dialects, (as the even tone has been in all dialects,) into primary high, diminishing, and abrupt, and secondary high, diminishing, and abrupt tones.

When all the tones now enumerated are arranged together, the 上聲 siong7 siang, primary tones, are always arranged before the 下聲 ha7 siang, or secondary tones, as follows, viz.: