Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

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REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA.
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PrIvince!
CHAPTER VI.
The Languages of the Province.
96. Indubitably the most interesting and suggestive portion of Mr. Eales
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Report on the 1891 Census is that which he devotes
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to a consideration of the languages of Eastern Asia and
of the correct method of their classification. The
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special point that he has laid hold of and there emphasizes is the fact that the
feature of all others -which characterizes the tongues of China and Further India (the
Indo- Chinese language family) as a whole is their use of tones. So important does
he consider this distinction to be that he has elected to divide the languages of
this portion of the Continent, according as they use or do not use tones, under two
main heads, namely, (a) polytonic and (b) monotonic. To the monotonic class
he assigns the Aryan, Semitic and Dravidian families • to the polytonic the languages
of China and those of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula generally.
The question of tones is not one that appeals ordinarily to the modern philologist,
who has perforce to deal with all sorts and conditions of tongues that he has
never heard and is never likely to hear spoken, and it appears to me doubtful whether
the part played in language by tones will ever be given by theoretical scholars
the regard to which, in the estimation of those who have made a special study of
the so-called tonic languages on the spot, it is entitled. This may or may not be the
case ; the fact remains that tones are a radical characteristic of the languages with
which we have in Burma to deal, and that, by bringing the fact into special prominence
in his admirable language chapter, Mr. Eales has contributed materially
to a full and intelligent comprehension of the forms of speech found in the province.
There is a great work to be done stili in Burma in the way of classifying
the vernaculars, and the greater or less degree to which tones enter into their
composition will in some cases assist in determining the proper place to be assigned
to hybrid or doubtful forms.
Any attempt to accurately define "tone " for the purposes of the above classification
would entail the examination of a number of exceedingly complex questions,
and it may be well to premise at the outset that for those purposes the word
" tone " must be given its widest and most liberal .interpretation. If this is not
done, it may well be argued that many of the members of the " polytonic " class
are not " tonic " at all. So far as it is possible to define a tone in Chinese without
actual oral demonstration, this has been done by Sir Thomas Wade in the
opening chapter of his Tzu Erh Chi. Talking of the yin, or monosyllable, he
says
" Of this yin there are, however, subordinate divisions, the sheng, which we translate
tones, keys in which the voice is pitched and by which a variety of distinctions is effected,
so delicate as to be retained only after long and anxious watching by the foreign ear.
" The term ' tone ' has been so long accepted as the equivalent of the Chinese sheng
that it may be hardly worth while attempting to disturb the usage. It might be notwithstanding
rendered with greater propriety 'note' in a musical sense, although no musical
instrument to my knowledge is capable of exhibiting more than an approximation to the
sheng. Doctor Hager in his folio on the elementary characters of the Chinese language
(1801) has tried to give an idea of ;—
the sheng as musical notes."
In another place he writes
" I write the sheng of the syllable pa, accordingly as follows :—
pa' pa' pa* pa*
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The sounds of the syllables repeated in the above order form a S6rt of chime, which
can only be learned'by the ear."
97. Here the whole conception of tone is indicated in the expression " chime."
«p' What may almost be called a musical idea underlies
h" d" t s" tones
the whole. This musical or " pitch "tone, unmistakable
when once heard, comes at one end of the scale, at the other comes the
" stress
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tone, represented in many modern languages by the accent. The question
then arises, what is the dividing line between the two ? At what point does the
bitdh merge into the stress tone ? By what test is one to decide whether in a