Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/404

 374 THE COREAN LANGUAGE. It is necessary, however, to know only two or three sentences of Corean to at once explode the notion of its monosyllabic character. Indeed, Chinese itself is gradually losing its monosyllabic nature ; for a dissyllabic or polysyllabic language is now spoken over sixteen of its provinces, and over the three " East Provinces,'" of which Liaotung is the principal Though the pronunciation of these polysyllables of Mandarin varies in each province, the collocation of " syllables " and the accent are all but, if not wholly, identical over all And the tones, of essential importance where monosyllables prevail, are the less necessary in proportion to the distinct articulation and correct accent or '' rhythm " of these collocations. If the Corean language was, as probably all languages at one time were, monosyllabic, it lost this feature long ago ; d.nd it is now no more so than English : perhaps less so than pure Anglo- Saxon. And though the subject is to be treated superficially in this paper, as full an account will be given of this long-sealed knguage of a stiU-sealed people as wiU suffice to place the Corean language in its proper pigeon hole in the philological library, and a comparison with its chief neighbours may not prove ^unteresting to readers interested in language. The Alphabet, Coreans are tmwilling to acknowledge to strangers the existence of a written national language, always declaring that they write only Chinese ; and when it is known to exist> they are unwilling to teach it, and more unwilling to write words in it This is, of course, because of their jealousy of foreigners, and their fear that the latter are yearning to acquire their hilly lands. Besides, they do not regard the ability to read and write their own language as sufficient to entitle to the rank of an educated man. This term is applied only to those familiarly acquainted with Chinese ; and if the " Holy Wars " of the Manchus is trust- worthy evidence, Coreans excel the Chinese themselves in the dexterity with which they manipulate Chinese characters. Their