Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/158

144 smile and laugh generally. These two characters are often interchanged, and the former is apparently only an older form of the latter. Then hai, with t‘i added, is used to denote a baby, from the expression tzŭ-shêng-hai-t‘i (子生咳㖷), "when the baby was born and could laugh and cry."

For "to weep" the common term is k‘u (哭), a word apparently of imitative origin. But there are many other terms to express or denote the various kinds and degrees of weeping; and it is interesting to observe that the same sounds may serve at one time to denote grief and at another time laughter. Thus the hsi-hsi (hi-hi) noticed as a term for laughter, is used also to express a grief too great for tears. Then there are several terms for the blubbering, crying, screaming, howling of babies. Such are huang-huang, i-i, wa-wa, ku-ku. Some of these, perhaps all, are more than mere imitative noises. Thus i-i, or i (婗 or 嫛) simply, is not only the puling of an infant, but also a puling infant, properly a female baby. So also wa-wa is the crying of an infant, and hsiao-wa-wa is a small child. With us it is only the wise children who know their parents, but among the Chinese all children are supposed to possess this remarkable faculty. And hence comes the common saying, Ku-ku-chih-tzŭ-ko-chih-ch‘i-ch‘in (呱呱之子各識其親),—every puling child knows itits [sic] parents. The term ku-hu-chih here expresses what we can only represent by youngest; it denotes a child in the first or crying stage of life. "To sob" is expressed by yin or gyin (喑); and ti-ti or t‘i-t‘i, already mentioned, is to shed tears drop by drop, lacrimas stillare. The t‘i-t‘i of the falling tears is compared to the falling of pearls from a broken necklace, reminding us of the words, "Ah, but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds." Then we have t‘i-k‘u, used of the wailing of an infant; and k‘u-k‘u-t‘i-t‘i or k‘u-t‘i used to express any sad and bitter weeping. Further, p‘u-su-su is the noise made by a gushing flood of tears; and ya-t‘i and ma-ma are to cry as babies, and then to cry and howl generally. A Chinaman of my acquaintance, who is more than forty years old, when suffering from rheumatism cries ma-ma, ma-ma with much weeping and groaning. As the man's