NOTE RESPECTING THE MAP,

AND THE

SYSTEM OF PRONUNCIATION

ADOPTED IN THIS WORK.

THE Map of the Empire has been drawn from the best authorities accessible. The coast is delineated from the recent surveys of the English naval officers, and the provinces from the old surveys of the Jesuits, corrected in their divisions from a large map of the empire published by the Chinese government, which measures nearly ninety square feet, and has been referred to in making the boundaries and divisions of Mongolia, Manchuria, and Ílí. The towns and principalities in Japan are placed according to Siebold's recent map; those of Annam according to Bp. Taberd's large map; while Moorcroft has been consulted for the divisions of Ladak, Klaproth for those in Tibet, and the maps of the Useful Knowledge Society for Russia, Songaria, Turkestan, &c. In writing the towns and rivers in the Eighteen Provinces, great care has been taken to compare every name with the Chinese map, so that no mistake should be made in confounding words nearly alike, and it is believed that few errors will be found in this part of it. No pains have been spared to make it as accurate as the extent of our topographical information concerning the vast regions it embraces enables it to be drawn, though much of our present delineation of those parts lying north of the Great Wall rests upon doubtful authority.

The system of pronunciation adopted in the map and book is nearly the same as that followed in the works published by the American mission in China. The powers of the letters are as follows:

1. a as in father, far; never like a in hat; e. g. chang, hang, to be sounded almost as if written chahng, hahng, not flat, like the English words sang, bang, &c.

2. ă as in American, but, summer, mother; e. g. păn, tăng, to be pronounced as pun, tongue.

3. e as in men, dead, said; as teh, shen, yen.

4. é as in they, neigh, pray; as ché, yé, pronounced chay,

yay.

5. i as in pin, finish; as sing, lin, Chihli.

6. í as in machine, believe, feel, me; as lí, Kishen, Kanghí. 7. o as in long, lawn; never like no, crow; as to, soh, po. 8. u as in rule, too, fool; as Turk, Belur, ku, sung; pronounced Toork, Beloor, koo, soong. This sound is

heard less full in fuh, tsun, and a few other words. 9. ü nearly as in l'une (French), or union, rheum; as hü, tsü. 10. ai as in aisle, high, or longer than i in pine; as Shanghai, Hainan. The combination ei is more slender than

ai, though the difference is slight; e. g. Kwei-chau. 11. au as in round, our, how; as Fuhchau, Shauchau, Taukwang. 12. éu as in the colloquial phrase say 'em ; e. g. chéung. This diphthong is heard in the Canton dialect.

13. ia as in yard; e. g. hia, kiang; not to be sounded as if written high-a, kigh-ang, but like heä, keäng.

14. iau is made by joining Nos. 5 and 11; hiau, Liautung. 15. ie as in sierra (Spanish), Rienzi; e. g. hien, kien.

16. iu as in pew, pure, lengthened to a diphthong; kiu, siun. 17. iue is made by adding a short e to the preceding; kiuen,

hiuen.

18. ui as in Louisiana, suicide; e. g. sui, chui.

The consonants are sounded generally as they are in the English alphabet. Ch as in church; hw as in when; j is soft, as s in pleasure; kw as in awkward; ng, as an initial, as in singing, leaving off the first two letters; sz' and tsz' are to be sounded full with one breathing, but none of the English vowels are heard in it; the sound stops at the z; Dr. Morrison wrote these sounds tsze and sze. Urh or 'rh, as in purr, omitting the p.

All these, except No. 12, are heard in the court dialect, according as that is sounded by the French missionaries, by Morrison, Medhurst, Gonçalves, and many others, and which has thereby become the most common mode of writing the names of places and persons in China. Though these authors have employed different letters, they have all intended to write the same

SYSTEM OF PRONUNCIATION.

xxi

sound; thus chan, shan, and ran, are only different ways of writing; and tsse, tsze, tsz', and tzu, of 'Z. Such is not the case, however, with such names as Macao, Hongkong, Amoy, Whampoa, and others along the coast, which are sounded according to the local patois, and not the court pronunciation, Ma-ngau, Hiangkiang, Hiamun, Hwangpu, &c. Many of the discrepancies seen in the works of travellers and writers are owing to some following the former, and some the latter. It would be desirable to follow the latter in all cases, and not call places, or people, in foreign books by their local pronunciation; but uniformity is almost unattainable in this matter. Even, too, in what is called the Court dialect, there is a great diversity among educated Chinese, owing to the traditional way all learn the sounds of the characters. In this work, and on the map, the sounds are written uniformly according to the pronunciation given in Morrison's Dictionary, but not according to his orthography. Almost every writer upon the Chinese language seems disposed to propose a new system, and the result is a great confusion in writing the same name; for instance, eull, olr, ul, ulh, lh, urh, 'rh, í, e, lur, nge, ngí, je, jí, are different ways of writing the sounds given to a single character. Amid these discrepancies, both among the Chinese themselves, and those who endeavor to catch their pronunciation, it is almost impossible to settle upon one mode of writing the names of places. That which offers the easiest pronunciation, and has become the best known, has been adopted in this work. It may, perhaps, be regarded as an unimportant matter, so long as the place is known, but to one living abroad, and unacquainted with the language, the discrepancy is a source of great confusion. He is unable to decide, for instance, whether Tung-ngan, Tungon hien, Tang-oune, and Tungao, refer to the same place or not.

In writing Chinese proper names, authors differ greatly as to the style of placing them; thus, Fuhchaufu, Fuh-chau-fu, Fuh Chau Fu, Fuh-Chau fu, &c., are all seen. Analogy affords little guide here, for New York, Philadelphia, and Cambridge, are severally unlike in the principle of writing them: the first being really formed of an adjective and a noun, yet not in this case united to the latter, as it is in Newport, Newtown, &c.; the second is like the generality of Chinese towns, and while it is now written as one word, it would be written as two if the name

were translated, Brotherly Love; the third Cambridge is never written Cam Bridge, and many of the Chinese names are like it in their origin. The same rules apply in writing Chinese names as in English, and in this work, the proper names of places have been written as one word, Suchau, Peking, Hongkong, with a hyphen inserted in some cases to avoid mispronunciation, as Hiau-í, Chau-ngan, &c. It is not supposed that the system of writing them here adopted will alter such names as are commonly written otherwise, but the principle on which they are constructed will be shown. The additions, fu, chau, ting, and hien, being classifying terms, should form a separate word, and not be incorporated into the name, as Ningpofu. It has not been possible to reduce the names of towns in other parts of the Empire, and in Japan, to the same system of pronunciation, though they have been written as nearly like it as they could be.