Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 448

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Account of the Manichaus at Chapi

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The alphabet of the Mantchons is susceptible of a neat reduction. and when developed brings to view many phenomena in natural acous- tics. The of the Mantchous has a more distinct trill or burr than is ever heard in either the Italian or the Spanish. The tongue is heard to quiver in the articulation. There are three or four letters with the sound of ch as heard in our word church, but I suspect that when the language is spoken in its purity these characters have each its appropriate sound. I questioned a Mantchou prisoner upon this point, but he did not help me, as he was not a literary man and had never seen the land of his forefathers. Many words in utterance get au ", for which the alphabet does not provide. This reminds us of the nunnation of the Arabic language, and is not far from what is sometimes met in the Chinese, when followed through its different dialects. At Ningpó, for example, many words end in a vowel not unlike our English a; in the next province they gain the suppressed sound of the nasal n; but in the Canton dialect they obtain the full wtterance of n without any let or hindrance as the breath passes through the nostrils. But on this instructive and highly interesting subject I trust I shall be better informed as we advance northward, where I hope to meet with Tartars fully competent to answer any question I may feel it necessary to put to them. The practice of printing books with two collateral columns, one in Chinese and the other in Mantchou, suggests a hint which the British and Foreign Bible Society may deem it right to improve on some future occasion. A gospel after the same plan, partly Chinese and partly Mantchou, would be well received by the Tartars, as apart from the excellence of the matter, they might thus have an opportunity of cultivating the language they cherish so dearly in their remembrance.

The decorations of the Mantchou rooms, so far as the picturesque is concerned, is altogether Chinese; the softer and soul-subduing scenes of courtship, the pomp and pageantry of court levies, and the dazzling displays of military prowess, figure in alternate succession upon the walls of the Chápú Mantchous. The gates and doors are adorned with the figures of Chinese heroes, and thus the Mantchou affects to adore the heroic ancestors of those men, whom his own courage first brought low and still keeps in a state of subjection. Court-worship is very common among them; scarcely a house in which a likeness of the emperor or a civil officer in full robes is not suspended in the most conspicuous part of the principal room. Before this a table* is set, in the language of Isaiah, and upon this table

Isaiah Ixy II