Those who come from certain parts of the vast hinterland speak Mandarin almost as a mother tongue, while those from the seaboard and certain adjacent parts of the interior have nearly as much difficulty in acquiring it, and quite as much difficulty in speaking it with a correct accent, as the average foreigner.

The importance of Mandarin, the “official language” as the Chinese call it, is beyond question.  It is the vehicle of oral communication between all Chinese officials, even in cases where they come from the same part of the country and speak the same patois, between officials and their servants, between judge and prisoner.  Thus, in every court of justice throughout the Empire the proceedings are carried on in Mandarin, although none of the parties to the case may understand a single word.  The prosecutor, on his knees, tells his story in his native dialect.  This story is rendered into Mandarin by an official interpreter for the benefit of the magistrate; the magistrate asks his questions or makes his remarks in Mandarin, and these are translated into the local dialect for the benefit of the litigants.  Even if the magistrate knows the dialect himself,—­as is often the case, although no magistrate may hold office in his own province,—­still it is not strictly permissible for him to make use of the local dialect for magisterial purposes.

It may be added that in all large centres, such as Canton, Foochow, and Amoy, there will be found, among the well-to-do tradesmen and merchants, many who can make themselves intelligible in something which approximates to the dialect of Peking, not to mention that two out of the above three cities are garrisoned by Manchu troops, who of course speak that dialect as their native tongue.

Such is Mandarin.  It may be compared to a limited extent with Urdu, the camp language of India.  It is obviously the form of colloquial which should be studied by all, except those who have special interests in special districts, in which case, of course, the patois of the locality comes to the front.

We will now suppose that the student has made up his mind to learn Mandarin.  The most natural thing for him, then, to do will be to look around him for a grammar.  He may have trouble in finding one.  Such works do actually exist, and they have been, for the most part, to quote a familiar trade-mark, “made in Germany.”  They are certainly not made by the Chinese, who do not possess, and never have possessed, in their language, an equivalent term for grammar.  The language is quite beyond reach of the application of such rules as have been successfully deduced from Latin and Greek.

The Chinese seem always to have spoken in monosyllables, and these monosyllables seem always to have been incapable of inflection, agglutination, or change of any kind.  They are in reality root-ideas, and are capable of adapting themselves to their surroundings, and of playing each one such varied parts as noun, verb (transitive, neuter, or even causal), adverb, and conjunction.