English; as an initial, its sound may be obtained by dropping the two first letters in pronouncing the word hanging. Its proper sound is often changed into y, or becomes altogether silent like the nasals in Sanskrit. It is then called an anhelation, and resembles the Greek spiritus lenis and the Arabic & aîn.

ny is like liquid n in Spanish, or like gn in the French word maligne. p has a soft sound approaching to that of b, as well as a somewhat harder sound, which is the same as p in English.

p'h is a strong aspirated sound of p; it must not be assimilated with the English ph, which is the same as f.

s and ss are nearly the same as in the English sit, hissing, &c.; they cannot be clearly distinguished.

sh is the same as in English, or as ch in French.

sz is a difficult sound to represent; it does not differ much from the sound of ss, by which the French have represented it; it is combined only with a peculiar vowel sound, which can be learned only from the living voice.

t has a soft sound, sometimes approaching to that of d.

t'h is an aspirated modification of the preceding sound.

ts and t's, the one soft and the other aspirated, are analogous to the Hebrew tsadhē.

tsz is formed by prefixing the sound of t to that of sz described above. w should perhaps be considered a vowel sound; it is analogous to w in English, being pronounced sometimes as in who, at other times as in war, won, &c.

y is a sound usually analogous to that of y in yard, yoke ; but it sometimes becomes quiescent, resembling the silent or anhelative nasal ng. 'r, urh, 'll, or eul, is a very peculiar sound, at once initial and final; it appears to be formed from an attempted enunciation of r, prevented by the imperfection of the vocal organs. The Chinese dictionaries find it impossible to represent the sounds, giving it the names je, ye, nye, and 'e; and so it is pronounced in different provincial dialects. In the national language, the sound seems to resemble that of the almost unenunciable Sanskrit letter Iri, which the learned of Bengal soften into a peculiar l.

Chinese writers, in endeavoring to follow out as far as possible the Sanskrit distinctions of sounds, have reckoned several other minute modifications, which are, however, hardly perceptible. Instead of increasing the number of the above initials, we may rather diminish them, by regarding the soft and aspirated letters, ch, chh, p, ph, &c., as essentially the same sounds, modified by the intervention of the spiritus asper. We do so accordingly in the table of the significant sounds of the Chinese language, which will be found below.

Distinctions are made in the finals, as they have been given above, by the use of four tones, which if they could be applied equally to every original sound would multiply the tonic modifications of the language fourfold. But this is not the case. Some sounds admit but three, and some not more than one or two different intonations.

The four tones are these:-1, p'ing shing, an even or monotone; 2, shang shing, or rising tone, uttered with force of voice; 3, k'eu shing, or departing tone, a prolonged falling tone; 4, juh shing, or entering tone, which is short and abrupt as if suddenly recalled while yet but half uttered. These four tones are marked by the Chinese on a hand, accompanied by the following explanation in rhyme, for the purpose of assisting the memory, thus:

平聲平道莫低昂
上聲高呼猛烈強
去聲分明裒遠道
入聲短促急收藏

Ping shīng, ping tàou mô tẽ ngàng;

Sháng shīng, kāou hõo mảng leě kieāng ;

Kieu shing, fūn mừng ngàe yuēn tào" ;

Juh shing, twán ts'uh keih show ts'āng.

The even tone-its even path is neither high nor low; The rising tone-it loudly calls, 'tis vehement, ardent, strong; The declining tone-is clear, distinct, its dull, low path is long; The entering tone-short, snatched, abrupt, is quickly treasured up. The first European sinologues, the Romish missionaries, in adopting marks to represent the Chinese tones, employed the grave accent to denote the shang shing, and the acute to point out the k'eu shing. Some modern writers have reversed this order, adopting the system which is common in European books. The following are the marks we shall employ whenever it is necessary to represent the four tones :—

Many opinions exist among the Chinese as to the precise number of tones belonging to their language. In their written language, however, only these four exist, or at least are employed to any considerable extent; we shall therefore defer any further consideration of this point until we come to speak of the oral language. Though a knowledge of these tones is requisite in speaking, yet in writing, the Chinese do not mark them, except where a variation of tone occasions a difference of meaning too slight to be ascertained by the connexion; and it is, therefore, thought unnecessary to introduce them, generally, into our orthography of the Chinese words.

In explaining the initial and final sounds of which Chinese words are compounded, it was necessary, in order to be perspicuous, to make considerable use of accents. But an examination of the orthography will show, that the powers of the vowels employed are pointed out by their location, except in a few instances. It is therefore needless to continue the use of accents, except over the final sounds ă, ăn, ăng, ě, Ŏ, where they are required as marks of distinction from a, an, ang, e, and o. Here a difference must be observed between the use of ă alone, and that of the ă in ăn and ăng. The first marks the juh shing, and is considered by the Chinese as only a tonic modification of an or ang. The other points out a particular sound, and has no effect on the length of the syllable, which is capable of receiving any of the tones; thus—hă‍n, hắn, hă`n, hih, more uniformly represented in French orthography by hen, hén, hèn, hè. The sound of the ă, ih, and e, is here nearly the same as that of o in money, or of the French e in de, que, &c.

The following table is mainly the same as that given in Morrison's Dictionary. In cases where an alteration of the orthography has appeared necessary, that of the Dictionary has been added in italic letters. Where alterations have appeared merely recommendable but not necessary, the orthography of the Dictionary has been retained in the first place, and the alteration added in Roman letters. All the abrupt sounds belonging to the juh shing are considered by the Chinese merely as tonic modifications of their sounds; but in English they require a different orthography; though inserted, therefore, they are distinguished by an *. The spiritus lenis prefixed to the vowel sounds, is intended to mark them as anhelative-having an inherent nasal or liquid sound, which is generally required by the present usage to remain silent. Thus, 'e is a sound formed sometimes from nge or nye, and sometimes from ye, sounds which it still occasionally retains, though good usage requires it to be pronounced simply as an English e.' Wei or 'ouei, and 'oo, are syllables which still more frequently retain the nasal sound of ng. The number of syllables in Morrison's Dictionary is 411: in the following table six more have been added, but they are not numbered.

TABLE

of the Chinese significant sounds, exclusive of the variations
formed by the modulation of tones and aspirates.

The want of an alphabetic system (which wherever it is possessed
has been found so convenient for arrangement) renders the classifi-
cation of the Chinese characters difficult. The first method of ar-
rangement adopted was suitable only for the use of those who already
knew the names of characters, and wished to discover their significa-
tions. The characters were all arranged according to the final
sounds, in the manner of a rhyming dictionary; but it was not
enough to form many classes according to the different essential
sounds; a further subdivision of the same sounds according to the
tones was thought necessary, thereby enhancing the difficulty of
finding a character without a previous knowledge of its sound. This
imperfect plan appears still to be preferred by those for whom it
would seem most inconvenient-the illiterate. The next plan,
though a little superior, was equally unfitted for those who were not
previously acquainted with the sounds of characters. It was adopt-
ed after the introduction into China of the Sanskrit arrangement of
sounds; and differed from the former system of finals in the addition
of a system of initials. Thus, instead of having to search through
the whole class of s-eën, in order to find keën, leën, or any other
word having the same final, as was before the case, dictionaries on
the new plan had a system and order of initials, so that a person
acquainted with their use could in a short time refer to the initial
column k-eä, l-ew, representing k, l, &c., and there find the word