Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/482

 470 CHINA (LANGUAGE AND LITEBATTJBE) practice is necessary to enable one to read them off with ease. In epistolary correspon- dence and other writings by the partially edu- cated, it is a very common practice to replace the proper character by another of the same sound without regard to the meaning, thus moving unconsciously a step in advance toward phonetic writing. As it is a point of etiquette to refrain from mentioning the private name of an emperor, it has become customary to avoid writing the characters; and when one occurs, it is replaced by another of the same meaning. Thus the T'ung-teen, a work of the Tang, speaking of the famous Buddhist travel- ler Fa-been, changes the last character heen, meaning brightness, for the synonymous char- acter mmg, because hten happened to be part of the private name of the emperor Chung- tsung. Sometimes the character is abridged by one or more strokes, as in the name of the Kin dynasty Tartars, who were formerly named Neu-chin ; but the private name of the emperor Hing-tsung of the Leaou dynasty con- taining the character Jj^ chin, the Chinese his- torians of the period omitted the two lower strokes, thus forming the character ]f[ ehlh, and they have retained the name of Neu-chih ever since. Sometimes the character is muti- lated without changing the sound, as in the case of 1| Ning, part of the private name of the emperor Taou-kwang, which is now com- monly written j|2 ning, with the same sound and meaning. In more formal documents it ,is replaced by ^, a homophonous synonyme. A curious illustration of the same practice is found in the K^ang-he dictionary. The charac- ter 3 heuen, which formed part of the name of the reigning monarch, having been the 96th radical in the Tsze wuy and Ching tsze fung dic- tionaries, was promoted to the 95th place in the new dictionary, being the first in the five-stroke class. In common use, as in the name of the idol Heuen-te, it is often replaced by Jfc yuen. The private name of Confucius was Kew, which in reading the Chinese avoid pronoun- cing, by saying mow (" such a character ") in- stead. In like manner it is considered a mark of filial piety to refrain from writing the name of a parent ; and some invariably omit one or two strokes when such characters occur. The Chinese write in vertical columns, following from right to left, and it is customary in the better class of works to raise the name of the dynasty a character above the other columns ; even should it occur anywhere in the middle of a column, that column is abruptly broken off, and the imperial character carried up to commence another, while the sense of the pas- sage is continuous, as if there were no break. The title or functions of the emperor are raised two characters above the other columns, and the titles of the imperial ancestors are raised three characters. In inscriptions and docu- ments, the mention of an emperor is frequent- ly preceded by a blank of two characters' length, as may be seen in the famous Nestorian inscription at Se-gan. The Taiping rebels, in their proclamations, were accustomed to ele- vate the title of the heir apparent one char- acter, the designation of Jesus Christ, and also the chief Hung Sew-tseuen, two characters, and that of God the Father three characters above the other columns. The prevalence of monosyllables in the written language has been referred to. Thus, for the word silver, instead of yin-tsze of the colloquial, yin alone is used ; for sun, instead of Vih-tow, the syllable Hh is used; instead of choo-jin for master, choo is used. For the verb ke-tlh, to remember, Ice is employed ; and hwan, to rejoice, takes the place of he-hwan of the colloquial. Another peculiarity of the written language is the capa- bility of some of the characters assuming the r6le of different parts of speech, according to the positions they occupy in a sentence. Thus the same character represents the verb Mh, to eat, and the noun sze, food ; another represents y6, music, and lo, to delight in ; e in the first tone signifies garments, while the same charac- ter pronounced in the third tone means to dress. In classical books we find a character undergoing an analogous change of meaning even without any alteration in the pronunciation ; as laou, meaning old and to treat one as due to age ; also yew, young and to treat one as due to youth. This peculiarity extends to other parts of speech also, as e, strange and to be astonished. All the cases of nouns may be indicated by position, and the oblique cases also by certain particles. The genitive is preceded by che, The dative is preceded by yu or hoo following a verb. The accusative is preceded by e, yu, or hoo. The vocative is followed by hoo. The ablative is preceded by yu, hoo, tsze, or tsung. The locative is preceded by yu, or followed by chung, nuy, keen, che-chung, che-nuy, or che- keen. The instrumental is preceded by e. Moods and tenses of verbs are generally indi- cated by the general construction of a sentence, though particles also are sometimes used. Past time is indicated by the prepositions tsang, chang, Tee, king, and e. Occasionally tseang is employed to mark the future. Pronouns are sparingly used, unless the sense or the rhythm actually requires them. The first person is often replaced by a term of humiliation, as yu, the stupid one ; while a term of exaltation is used to replace the second person. When the pronoun yu, I, has to be written or printed, it is often put in smaller type than the other characters, as a mark of humili- ty; just the reverse of our English practice. III. LITEBATTTKE. It has been said that the Chinese have the most extensive literature of any nation in the world ; and it is certain that in no other are the records so continuous and complete for a period ranging over 2,000 years. The very earliest fragments that have any claim to genuineness do not extend higher than the