Chapter 25 chapter 25

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE All foreigners who have tried to learn Chinese say that Chinese is a very difficult language. But is Chinese a difficult language? Before, however, we answer this question, let us understand what we mean by the Chinese language. , two languages_I do not mean dialects,_in China, the spoken and the written language. Now, by the way, does anybody know the reason why the Chinese insist upon having these two distinct, spoken and written languages? I will here give you the reason. In China, as it was at one time in Europe when Latin was the learned or written language, the people are properly divided into two distinct classes, the educated and the uneducated. The colloquial or spoken language is the language for the use of the uneducated, and the written language is the language for the use of the really educated. In this way half educated people do not exist in this country. That is the reason, I say, why the Chinese insist upon having two languages. Now think o f the consequences of having half educated people in a country. Look at Europe and America to-day. In Europe and America since, from the disuse of Latin, the sharp distinction between the spoken and the written language has disappeared, there has arisen a class of half educated people who are allowed to use the same language as the really educated people, who talk of civilization, liberty, neutrality, militarism and panslavinism without in the least understanding what these words really mean. to civilization. But to me it seems, the half educated man, the mob of half educated men in the world to-day, is the real danger to civilization. But that is neither here nor there.

Now to come to the question: is Chinese a difficult language? My answer is, yes and no. Let us first take the spoken language. The Chinese spoken language, I say, is not only not difficult, but as compared with the half dozen languages ​​that I know, _the easiest language in the world except, _Malay. Spoken Chinese is easy because it is an extremely simple language. It is a language without case, without tense, without regular and irregular verbs; in fact without grammar, or any rule whatever. But people have said to me that Chinese is difficult even because of its simplicity; even because it has no rule or grammar. That, however, cannot be true. Malay like Chinese, is also a simple language without grammar or rules; and yet Europeans who learn it, do not find it difficult. Thus in itself and for the Chinese colloquial or spoken Chinese at least is not a difficult language. But for educated Europeans and especially for half educated Europeans who come to China, even colloquial or spoke Chinese is a very difficult language: and why? Because spoken or colloquial Chinese is, as I said, the language of uneducated men, of thoroughly uneducated men;

in fact the language of a child. Now as a proof of this, we all know how easily European children learn colloquial or spoken Chinese, while learned philogues and sinologues insist in saying that Chinese is so difficult. Chinese, colloquial Chinese, I say again is the language of a child. My first advice therefore to my foreign friends who want to lean Chinese is "Be ye like little children, you will then not only enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but you will also be able to learn Chinese. " We now come to the written or book language, written Chinese. But here before I go further, let me say there are also different kinds of written Chinese. The Missionaries class these under two categories and call them easy wen li and difficult wen li. But that, in my opinion, is not a satisfactory classification. The proper classification, I think, should be, plain dress written Chinese; official uniform

Chinese; and full court dress Chinese. If you like to use Latin, call them: litera communis or litera officinalis (common or business Chinese) ; litera classica minor (lesser classical Chinese) ; and litera classica major (higher classical Chinese). Now many foreigners have called themselves or have been called Chinese scholars. Writing an article on Chinese scholarship, some thirty years ago for the NC Daily News, _ah me! those old Shanghai days, Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illissa,_I then : "Among Europeans in China, the publication of a few dialogues in some provincial patois or the collection of a hundred Chinese proverbs at once entitles a man to call himself a Chinese scholar.""There is, " I said, "of course no harm in a name, and with the extraterritoriality clause in the treaty, an Englishman in China may with impunity call himself Confucius, if so it pleases him. " Now what I want to say here is this: how many foreigners who call themselves Chinese scholars, Have any idea of ​​what an asset of civilization is stored up in that portion of Chinese literature which I have called the Classica majora, the literature in full court dress Chinese? I say an asset of civilization, because I believe that this Classica majora in the Chinese literature is something which can, as Matthew Arnold says of Homer s poetry, "refine the raw natural man: they can transmute him." In fact, I believe this Classica major in Chinese literature will be able to transform one day even the raw natural men who are now fighting in Europe as patriots, but with the fighting instincts of wild animals; transform them into peaceful, gentle and civil persons. Now the object of civilization, as Ruskin says, is to make humanity into civil persons who will do away with harshness, violence, brutality and fighting.