Joseph Edkins

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Tonic pronunciation also is found more fully developed in China than elsewhere, and a com­petent knowledge of it as there existing, will lead to a better understanding of the local accent found in provincial dialects of English and other modern languages, and of the syllabic accents of Greek and Sanscrit. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The following symbols will be employed for consonants: gutturals, k, k‘, ng; dentals, t, t‘, n; labials, p, p‘, m; aspirates, f, h; sibilants, s, sh, j, ts, t‘s, ch, c‘h; liquids, l, r; semivowels, w, y. ”