The pronunciation of Sucheu and Hangcheu having these eight consonants, in addition to those above-mentioned, possesses a flexibility and variety, which do not belong to the mandarin dialect.
The vowels required for expressing the sounds of the Kwan-hwa, or mandarin pronunciation are— i, e, a, o, u, ï, and ü.
| Vowel symbols. |
English value. | Examples of use: | |
| i | i in marine. | 西 ,si, west. | |
| i | i in wing. | 星 ,sing, star. | |
| e | u in sun. | 分 ,fen, divide. | 能 ,neng, can. |
| e | e in there. | 舍 she‘, cottage. | 舌 shèh, tongue. |
| 天 ,t‘ien, heaven. | 雪 siuèh, snow. | ||
| a | a in father. | 往 ’wang, to go. | 怕 p‘a‘, fear. |
| o | o in lone. | 可 ’k‘o, can. | |
| u | u in prune. | 都 tu, all. | 懂 ’tung, understand. |
| ï | e in tassel or in ample. | 思 ,sï, think. | 姐 ,tsï, sister. |
| 耳 ’rï, ear. | 知 ,chï, know. | ||
| u | u in plut. (Fr.) | 須 ,sü, must. | 君 ,kiün, chief. |
| ei | ei in ein. (Ger.) | 為 wei‘, because of. | |
When a large number of vowels is needed, as in writing provincial sounds, accents will be introduced according to the well-known system of Sir William Jones. For the mode of using the accents adopted in the present work, see the fifth page. No great inconvenience occurs from dispensing with the accents in mandarin will be found on trial.
Some reasons for not adopting Dr. Morrison's spelling for the vowels will be now given.
First. It is better to spell a single vowel sound with one letter than with two, both for brevity and for accuracy. In writing ’ku, ancient, or c‘he, a carriage, koo and ,c‘hay, there is a sacrifice of analogy with other languages in the use of vowel symbols in favour of our own irregular orthography, and more than this, there is a loss of time inwriting through the increased length of the words.
Second. Dr. Morrison's spelling is not uniform. For example, ,chen, true; .men, door; ,keng, watch, which have the same vowel, are written by him chin, mun, kǎng. So also ’chï, paper, tsï‘,
