and other writers, though professedly following the Nanking pronunciation, have been guided by the dictionaries, and the Peking dialect, where native of Nanking are faulty, as in this instance and in confounding the initial n with l.
In the Peking dialect, the words of the fourth tone-class are a distributed among the other four classes, with no rule but custom to determine into which they have wandered. The short vowel common to this class, are all lengthened so as to admit of the being pronounced with the long vowel tones. This is the same rule as at Nanking respecting aspirates in the fifth tone-class, by words transferred from the forth to that class, do not assume the aspirate, if it does not belong to them originally. The finals n, ng are kept distinct from each other after all vowels, and are the only consonants that can terminate a word. The initials h and k, when they stand before i or ü, change to s and ts (or ch).
The pronunciation of the neighbouring provinces is guided by similar laws. But words of the fourth tone-class, in changing the class, and lengthening their vowels, do so without uniformity. Among the dissimilarities of the northern dialects, this is the (illegible text). The irregular distribution of the short-tone words, among the other tones, is found to extend southwards to the Yang-tsï-kiang in I(illegible text)peh, but on the sea coast, not farther from the mouth of the Yellow River.
Through political and temporary arrangements, Peking as the capital is the standard of Kwan-hwa, but true philology must embrace in its researches the whole territory, where in its essential characteristics, the same spoken language prevails. Accordingly, a third mandarin system must here be introduced. The Nanking and Peking dialects are at least as wide apart, as that of Sï-c‘hwen is from either of them. In fact, the three are varieties of the same great dialect.
In western mandarin, taking C‘heng-tu-fu the capital of Sï-c‘hwen as the standard, there are four tone-classes; they are the first, second, third and fifth. Words originally in the fourth or short tone-class, are here found to be all in the fifth, without however assuming the aspirate after k, t, etc. properly belonging to that class, unless they had it originally.
The final ng, when it follows i, changes to n, so that sing‘, fa-
