Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/84

70 and poets used the sounds current in their several districts at the time, and that words of different tones in the "Shi" were interchanged and rhymed together. In order to restore the original rhymes of the ancient odes and ballads, and the correct pronunciations of words generally, he thought a provincial dialect such as that of the Soochow region at his time should be taken as guide and standard. The characters given in the "Yun-pu" are arranged under the finals in the order of the Sanskrit initials, and some say Wu Yü was the first to adopt this order. He has been severely censured for his teachings about the use of forced rhymes, for needless changes in texts, and for wrong bracketing of finals. But there is considerable difference of opinion on these subjects among later writers, some approving and some condemning Wu's facts and theories. He is recognized, however, as having been the first to distinguish in a methodical manner between the old and the modern pronunciations of characters. The former he called the "Ku-yin" (古音) and the latter the "Chin-yin" (今音). To support and establish his doctrines Wu marshalled a great array of illustrations and examples. He had the distinction of being adopted by Chu Foo-tzŭ as guide to the sounds of rhyming characters in the latter's editions of the "Shi-ching" and "Li-sao," though Chu did not always accept Wu's violent changes of text, as, for example, that which he proposed for the well-known passage in the last poem of the "Shi-ching." To Wu Yü succeeded Chêng Hsiang (鄭庠) of less fame but more desert, according to late critics. He was the author of the "Ku-yin-pien" (古音辨) in which he reduced the "Ku-yun" or old rhyming finals to six classes. Chêng Hsiang's teachings on the differences between the old and the modern sounds of characters are said to be free from most of the errors which are found in the writings of Wu Yü. They have, however, mistakes of their own, and they have never had much success, being, indeed, little known.