To the Editor of the "NontH-Cuana Datty News."
Sim—It your correspondent S.D.'s request is for enlightenment fon the sound of kx in Roma:
Chinese, a reply like the follo might be given: strait. avantaxeux vavticuler pour Particuliire 'Ata lana Na" Nord." Conte consonne' chi provence. comme tech de. teh Stietand" "nage" Slama Fupprochien, Mane devVautre_ ale proneness res tat forme en relevant dos de In longue mie politician: "party followers, that have waxed rich and profitable con the devastated ground of a ruin ed empire and a fallen monarchy, They are the profiteers, the mushrooms that have sprung up on a fetid and blood-stained soil. Not the people.
Talking of a government by the people and for the people, the less said of it the better. It is w mere child's prattle; a farce that has not 'a shadow of truth. The country has been ruled by a military despc and be who has a military force behind him commands all respect, all power, all influence, and all fortune The country is divided into little independent kingdoms, each planning for its own aggrandisement, by what mean methods feasible, ' The Tuchun robs money from the people, the Civil Governor in assisting him takes his share, the magistrates and officials join in the chorus; and altogether set up a state of pandemonium never known in this country's past history.
Peking is so weak, The Presi-dont, being put up on the high pedestal by the province that is strongest in power, naturally to act graciously, and support that province to. the detriment of the Test. Should one power wane and get disposed, another one pri up and overthrows the President, and puts up another one in hi stead. So there will be alway: fighting between factions, and struggle between antagonistic powers; the President being -n: thing more than a battledore in their game of shuttlecock.
What China wants is a power strong enough to set up a stable and permanent government, deprive all the Tuchuns of rheic military force, and let the provinces be governed by civil governors as of old, keeping to themselves just a sufficient band of soldiers to mai tain local peace and order, and have the rest enlisted into a national army to back up the central government. Then a mandate from Pe-King would mean something more than a "scrap. of paper," to be ignor~ ed ridiculously when a Tuchan thinks fit.
Once the-Governmiént in Peking is fant metres A a voyelle suivante te prodat, 'étes de in lan sue se vent leméresnent Sbalssées sur les moluires infergures. Ea" Congonne he "ne ae~ troupe. qus Seva ow a An, oder. tier, Notes nur I tion a Eangua Mondarine de Pekin, ps 7
No wonder 8. D. finds no analogy for this sound in all the languages hho knows. In fact sinologues have for a long time disagreed as to a suitable representation of this sound, and it is only in recent years that hho of Wade seems to have triumphed over the rest. The digraph, therefore, should be taken as a simple sound, and us such should be learnt, nota gestion of Moh' happier or Nor is "h" before etymological reason.
He ly a development from an older h. In the Chinese dialects of the south-cast, where many of the sounds are preserved, As is always replaceable by h. Hsien, for instance, is still bien, The French and Hier transcribers write K'anghi, for Kanghsi, it being understood that before ""i" and "A" h is to have the value in question. (A parallel is found in "k" before "i" and as in Peking, Kiangsu, where, pecially in northern Mandarin, it! takes on a value quite different from gs what its appearance seems to in-cate). "H" is therefore a link between the past and the present; and for those who learn dialects first, a' very convenient scheme of converting dialectic "h" into Mandarin is provided.
Personally I should prefer the symbol he as being more scientific. But a symbol is a symbol—some more happily concocted, perhaps, than others; and-once it is accepted, {there is no material gain in changing The "atrocity," however, lies in one's own prejudice, born of sheer unfamiliarity with the nature of; the problem in hand. And this can be said, not only of Chinese sounds, but of all superficial criticisms of things and institutions in China.
Tam, ete, Department of Linguistics, University of Amoy.
Sept. 22, 19245
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.