Egyptian Oedipus, Volume 3

THEATER OF HIEROGLYPHS: CHAPTER II.

...driven by the pressing prayers of several people, I am compelled to fulfill this task.

The Chinese language is most difficult.

Since, therefore, the Chinese language is equivocal Meaning many words sound the same but have different meanings. in a surprising manner, and a single word often signifies ten, or even twenty different things, distinguished only by the delivery of a different accent, it is rendered difficult beyond what can be expressed; it cannot be learned by foreigners except with the greatest labor, intense study, and with a thousand deliberations.

The language of the Chinese Mandarins.

The Mandarin language is common to the whole Kingdom, and its principal use is in the Courts and the Royal Palace, which are located in Peking <note original: "Paquini">Beijing and Nanjing <note original: "Nanchini">Nanjing; it is the same throughout the whole Kingdom, just as Castilian is in Spain and Tuscan is in Italy.

The Chinese character is the same as that of the Japanese and other adjacent Nations.

The characters are common to the entire Kingdom of China, as well as to Japan, Korea, Cochinchina The southern region of modern-day Vietnam., and Tonkin The northern region of modern-day Vietnam.; yet the spoken language is very different. Hence the peoples of Japan, Cochinchina, Korea, and Tonkin certainly understand books and letters written in this kind of character, yet they cannot speak to one another, nor understand one another when speaking; this is no different than how the figures of numbers used everywhere across Europe are understood by everyone, even though the words by which they are pronounced are very different. For the characters are signs of concepts of things common to all.

The Chinese character signifies different things according to the various changes of accent.

From this it follows that it is one thing to know the Chinese characters, and another to speak the Chinese language; for a foreigner endowed with a good memory and diligent study could arrive at the highest erudition through the reading of Chinese books, even if he could neither speak nor understand the spoken language.

Accents discovered by Europeans for pronouncing Chinese characters.

However, because the spoken language is entirely necessary for the Apostolic Men Missionaries, specifically Jesuits like Kircher's sources. laboring in the cause of God, they have discovered marks—similar to musical notes such as ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la The traditional "solfège" syllables used in music; "ut" was later changed to "do."—to track the rise and fall of Chinese accents observed in pronunciation, by which they might be helped in overcoming the difficulty of the language. These marks, written above the Chinese words transcribed in the European manner, are expressed in the following way: ^, -, `, ', ˇ.

The first mark of the five Chinese accents, ^, corresponds to the musical ut, and the sound or pronunciation is called chŏ pîm Level tone (Píng). in Chinese, as if you were to say: the first voice coming forth evenly. The second mark, -, corresponds to the musical re, and the sound is called pîm xīm in Chinese, as if you were to say: a clear, even voice. The third mark, `, corresponds to the musical mi, and the sound is called xăm xǐm in Chinese, that is: a high voice. The fourth mark, ', corresponds to the musical fa, called kiú xǐm in Chinese, that is: the high voice of one departing. The fifth mark, ˇ, corresponds to the musical sol, called gè xǐm in Chinese, that is: the hurried voice of one entering.

Thus, for example, a single word, ya, written with European letters and marked with the five accents above, must be pronounced with different voices and tones, just as it is written by the Chinese with different characters. So that the same spoken word might convey different meanings to the ears of the listeners, the speech, delivered bit by bit, resembles the timing of music—an ordered harmony arising from monosyllabic words (for there are no polysyllables among the Chinese). We have expressed the forms of the five vowels or accents placed above here as you see:

With the help of these marks, foreigners learn the language; yet with how much labor and with how many deliberations, it is easier to imagine than to depict with a pen. However, the Chinese...