A Grammar of the Chinese Colloquial Language Commonly Called the Mandarin Dialect/Part 1/Chapter 2

by Joseph Edkins

CHAPTER II.
System of Mandarin Pronunciation.

The native name of the pronunciation used at court, and in public offices is kwan hwa, or mandarin dialect. This dialect is in (illegible text) essential features, the common language of the people in the provinces north of the Yang-tsï-kiang, in Sï-c‘hwen, Yün-nan, (illegible text), and in part of Hu-nan and Kwang-si. At least, there ⟨is⟩ sufficient similarity in the sounds employed through this wide percent of country, embracing two-thirds of China, to warrant their being called by a common name.

It is usual for the people, while including the dialects of so wide a territory under the designation kwan hwa, to distinguish them from local names; e. g. Shantung kwan hwa, the mandarin spoken in Shantung; but it is still correct to recognize the dialects of the provinces mentioned as genuine mandarin, allowance being made for some admixture of hiang t‘an, or provincialisms.

The pronunciation of these regions readily separates into three stems; that of Nanking, of Peking with the northern provinces, and of the western provinces. In the first of these systems, the words are distributed into five classes, with a tone proper to each. The fourth of these is short. The fifth class does not admit the initials k, t, p, ch, ts without the aspirate. The final n becomes ng, after the vowels a, i. No consonant final exists except n and ng, which is also true of all mandarin dialects.

The confusion of the finals n and ng is not authorised by dictionaries, and should be marked as a defect to be avoided. Morrison and other writers, though professedly following the Nanking pronunciation, have been guided by the dictionaries, and the Peking dialect, where native of Nanking are faulty, as in this instance and in confounding the initial n with l.

In the Peking dialect, the words of the fourth tone-class are a distributed among the other four classes, with no rule but custom to determine into which they have wandered. The short vowel common to this class, are all lengthened so as to admit of the being pronounced with the long vowel tones. This is the same rule as at Nanking respecting aspirates in the fifth tone-class, by words transferred from the forth to that class, do not assume the aspirate, if it does not belong to them originally. The finals n, ng are kept distinct from each other after all vowels, and are the only consonants that can terminate a word. The initials h and k, when they stand before i or ü, change to s and ts (or ch).

The pronunciation of the neighbouring provinces is guided by similar laws. But words of the fourth tone-class, in changing the class, and lengthening their vowels, do so without uniformity. Among the dissimilarities of the northern dialects, this is the (illegible text). The irregular distribution of the short-tone words, among the other tones, is found to extend southwards to the Yang-tsï-kiang in I(illegible text)peh, but on the sea coast, not farther from the mouth of the Yellow River.

Through political and temporary arrangements, Peking as the capital is the standard of Kwan-hwa, but true philology must embrace in its researches the whole territory, where in its essential characteristics, the same spoken language prevails. Accordingly, a third mandarin system must here be introduced. The Nanking and Peking dialects are at least as wide apart, as that of Sï-c‘hwen is from either of them. In fact, the three are varieties of the same great dialect.

In western mandarin, taking C‘heng-tu-fu the capital of Sï-c‘hwen as the standard, there are four tone-classes; they are the first, second, third and fifth. Words originally in the fourth or short tone-class, are here found to be all in the fifth, without however assuming the aspirate after k, t, etc. properly belonging to that class, unless they had it originally.

The final ng, when it follows i, changes to n, so that sing‘, family name for example, has the same pronunciation as sin‘, to believe. The same law exists for the initials h and k, as in northern mandarin. Before the vowels i, ü, they change to s and ts.

The same system seems to be spread throughout t a great part of the western provinces. It exists so far as respects the tone system, in Kwei-chen and parts of Kwan-si.

From this analysis of the preceding dialects, it appears that mandarin, so far as sound is concerned, may be defined as that system which has either five or four tones, has only n and ng, for consonant finals, and is wanting in the letters, g, d, b, z, v, among its initials.

Foreigners in writing Chinese sounds, have usually adopted the Nanking pronunciation as a standard, but where it varies from the orthography of the national dictionaries, as given in initials and finals, the latter has been followed. In the present work, all modes of pronunciation, of which information has been obtained, will be illustrated as far as appears suitable to the character of the book.

The Peking dialect must be studied by those who would speak the language of the imperial court, and the accredited kwan hwa of the empire. It has not been selected as the standard of spelling in the present instance, because it is too far removed from the analogies of the dialects in the southern half of the country. While many details respecting it will be found here, the form of the sounds hitherto adopted by foreigners will not be abandoned. The Peking dialect is more fashionable, but that of Nanking is more widely understood, and is better suited by its central situation to the scope of this work, which aims to collect and compare the characteristics of many dialects. The Peking sound of characters, (illegible text) are different from that of Nanking, will be usually inserted in parenthesis.