THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

All foreigners who have tried to learn Chinese say that Chinese is a very difficult language. But is Chinese a difficult language? Before, however, we answer this question, let us understand what we mean by the Chinese language. There are, as everybody knows, two languages_I do not mean dialects,_in China, the spoken and the written language. Now, by the way, does anybody know the reason why the Chinese insist upon having these two distinct, spoken and written languages? I will here give you the reason. In China, as it was at one time in Europe when Latin was the learned or written language, the people are properly divided into two distinct classes, the educated and the uneducated. The colloquial or spoken language is the language for the use of the uneducated, and the written language is the language for the use of the really educated. In this way half educated people do not exist in this country. That is the reason, I say, why the Chinese insist upon having two languages. Now think of the consequences of having half educated people in a country. Look at Europe and America to-day. In Europe and America since, from the disuse of Latin, the sharp distinction between the spoken and the written language has disappeared, there has arisen a class of half educated people who are allowed to use the same language as the really educated people, who talk of civilisation, liberty, neutrality, militarism and panslavinism without in the least understanding what these words really mean. People say that Prussian Militarism is a danger to civilisation. But to me it seems, the half educated man, the mob of half educated men in the world to-day, is the real danger to civilisation. But that is neither here nor there.

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