Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/114

100 distinguishes between Cantonese and Mandarin but also between the latter and the Court dialect.

A later treatise than the above is a small one named "Chêng-yin-t‘ung-su-piao," published first in 1872. The author was P‘an Fêng-hsi (潘逢禧), of Anhui extraction but born at Foochow. He also aimed at ascertaining and diffusing the chêng-yin or Mandarin language, so that it might displace the local dialects and become the one language of all the Empire.

A review of the sketch here given of the cultivation of their language by Chinese scholars shows that generally they confined themselves to the sounds, meanings, composition, and history of their written characters. The sketch, however, is necessarily very imperfect, and a more thorough examination of the native literature would perhaps reveal many works bearing on other departments of Chinese philology. But it must be admitted that the investigation of the language is seldom pursued by native scholars as an independent study. It is always an "inferior science," and gains importance only as a help to the understanding of the orthodox canonical literature. From the "Shuo-wên" down to the latest dictionary, all etymological treatises have been composed with the expressed design of aiding in the settling of texts, clearing up the meaning, or ascertaining the sounds of characters in the old Confucian writings or in the works composed to teach, illustrate or continue those writings. One of the best of the late treatises on etymology is that by Wang Yin-chĭ (王引之) published in 1798. This is devoted to the particles found in the ancient orthodox classics, and in some degree it performs the part of a grammar. But there probably is not any native treatise, at least of authority, which can properly be called a grammar. The language, indeed, wants what we understand by that term. Or perhaps we should say of it what Sir Philip Sidney says of our own language in reply to those who object that it "wanteth grammar"—"Nay, truly, it hath that prayse,