Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/86

72 derived from the Sanskrit alphabet, arranged under the four tones and the physical organs employed in utterance. Thus the first classifier is Kin (chin 金) which comes under the K initial (kien 見), the p'ing tone, and is a Ya-yin or sound due to the molar teeth. Under each classifier the characters are arranged according to the number of strokes as in the Kanghsi dictionary, and the pronunciation and usually a few meanings are added.

In the year 1252 there appeared a work which soon became famous and exercised a great influence on the study of the language. This was the celebrated treatise of Liu Yuan (劉淵), a native of P'ing-shui (平水) in Ssŭchuan. The name which he gave to his treatise was in full "Jen-tzü Hsin-k'an Li Pu Yun-liao" (壬子新刊禮部韻略), that is, The "Li Pu Yun-liao" reprinted in 1252, the Jen-tzŭ year in the cycle. It seems that this book, to which Liu Yuan is indebted for the perpetuation of his name, was actually composed and published by a scholar named Wang Wên-yü (王文郁). This man also was a native of P'ing-shui, and his book bore the cyclic characters for 1229, the year in which it was published. Liu Yuan seems to have merely altered these characters to those for 1252 and then to have published the work as his own. The treatise itself is largely indebted to the labours of the two Mao noticed above, though the compiler criticises these severely. He is famous for reducing the 206 yun or rhyme-classifiers to 107, by omitting or putting together duplicates. By doing this he began, according to some, the confusion of the true sounds of characters. Liu also added 436 characters to the number given in the "Li Pu Yun-liao." His treatise cast its predecessors, and specially the "Kuang-yun," into the shade for a considerable period. Up to the present, indeed, the P'ing-shui system may be said to prevail, and it is in force and fashion now with some slight modifications. Old-fashioned scholars mourn over this and complain that Liu Yuan's system passes in the world as that of Shên Yo or as that of the "T'ang-yun."