Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/87

Rh In the year 1276 appeared a work generally cited by its short title "Ch'ie-yun-chĭ-nan" (切韻指南), a Guide to the correct spelling and pronunciation of characters in classical literature. This was composed by Liu Chien (劉鑑) al. Shi-ming (士明), native of An-hsi, in Kansuh. It was founded on the "Wu-yin-chi-yun" of Han Tao-chao, and was regarded by its author as in a manner a supplement to that work. The book is first a series of tables showing the position of certain characters under the Sanskrit initials, the finals of the "Wu-yin-chi-yun," the four tones, and the physical organs concerned in pronunciation. To the tables is appended a small work of later date in thirteen sections. This shows the practical application of the tables, and the author gave it the modest name Jade-key Expedients, "Yü-yao-shi-mên-fa" (玉鑰匙門法), always quoted simply as the "Jade-key." To this part succeed various notes on distinctions in the sounds of characters. The most useful of these is the one on the characters which in classical literature are used in two tones with a separate meaning for each tone. Thus wang in the even tone is a king, and in the third (ch'ü) tone is "to be king of a kingdom." Such characters the author denominates "moving and quiescent" (動靜), marking the former use of the word by a red circle. He also distinguishes between aspirated and non-aspirated sounds, calling the former hu (呼), as sending out breath, and the latter chi (吸), as not sending it out.

To the latter half of this (the thirteenth) century belongs by composition a treatise of no little merit, the "Liu-shu-ku" (六書故), Accounts of written characters in their six classes. The author was Tai T'ung (戴侗) al. Chung-ta (仲達), of Yung-chia in the Wên-chow Prefecture of Chekiang. After obtaining the Metropolitan Degree he was appointed to an office in the Imperial Academy, and thence transferred as Archivist to T'ai-chow in his native province. Then the Mongols prevailed and Tai T'ung, unwilling to serve them, pleaded ill health and went home into seclusion. Here he occupied himself with the composition of the