chapter 25
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THE ESE LANGUAGEAll fners who have tried to learn ese say that ese is a very difficult language. But is ese a difficult language? Before, however, we ahis questio us uand what we mean by the ese language. There are, as everybody knows, two languages_I do not mean dialects,_in a, the spoken and the written language. Now, by the way, does anybody know the reason why the ese insist upon having these two distinct, spoken and written languages? I will here give you the reason. In a, as it was at oime 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 ９９lib?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 in this try. That is the reason, I say, why the ese insist upon having two languages. Now think of the sequences of having half educated people in a try. Look at Europe and America to-day. In Europe and America since, from the disuse of Latin, the sharp distin 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, rality, militarism and panslavinism without in the least uanding what these words really mean. People say that Prussian Militarism is a dao civilisation. But to me it seems, the half educated man, the mob of half educated men in the world to-day, <bdo></bdo>is the real dao civilisation. But that is her here nor there.
Now to e to the question: is ese a difficult language? My answer is, yes and no. Let us first take the spoken language. The ese spoken language, I say, is not only not difficult, but as pared with the half dozen languages that I know, _the easiest language in the world except, _Malay. Spoken ese is easy because it is aremely simple language. It is a language without case, without tense, withular and irregular verbs; in fact without grammar, or any rule whatever. But people have said to me that ese is difficult even because of its simplicity; even because it has no rule rammar. That, however, ot be true. Malay like ese, is also a simple language without grammar or rules; a Europeans who learn it, do not find it difficult. Thus in itself and for the ese colloquial or spoken ese at least is not a difficult language. But for educated Europeans and especially for half educated Europeans who e to a, even colloquial or spoken ese is a very difficult language: and why? Because spoken or colloquial ese is, as I said, the language of uneducated men, of thhly uneducated men;
in fact the language of a child. Now as a proof of this, we all know how easily European children learn colloquial or spoken ese, while learned philogues and sinologues insist in saying that ese is so difficult. ese, colloquial ese, I say again is the language of a child. My first advice therefore to my fn friends who want to leam ese is "Be ye like little children, you will then not oer into the Kingdom of Heaven, but you will also be able to learn ese."
We now e to the written or book language, written ese. But here before I go further, let me say there are also different kinds of written ese. The Missionaries class these uwo categories and call them easy wen li and difficult wen li. But that, in my opinion, is not a satisfactory classification. The proper classification, I think, should be, plain dress written ese; official uniform
ese; and full court dress ese. If you like to use Latin, call them: litera unis or litera offialis (on or business ese) ; litera classica minor (lesser classical ese) ; and litera classica major (higher classical ese).
Now many fners have called themselves or have been called ese scholars. Writing an article on ese scholarship, some thirty years ago for the N. C. Daily News, _ah me! those old Shanghai days, Tempora mutantur,bbr></abbr> mutamur in illis,_I then said:
"Among Europeans in a, the publication of a few dialogues in some provincial patois or the colle of a hundred ese proverbs at oles a man to call himself a ese scholar. ""There is, " I said, "of course no harm in a name, and with the extraterritoriality clause ireaty, an Englishman in a may with impunity call himself fucius, if so it pleases him. " Now what I want to say here is this: how many fners who call themselves ese scholars, have any idea of what an asset of civilisation is stored up in that portion of ese literature which I have called the Classica majora, the literature in full court dress ese? I say an asset of civilisation, because I believe that this Classica majora in the ese literature is something which , as Matthew Arnold says of Homer s poetry, "refihe raw natural ma<cite>.</cite>n: they transmute him. " In fact, I believe this Classica majora in ese literature will be able to transform one day even the raw natural men who are now fighting in Europe as patriots, but with the fighting instincts of wild animals; transform them into peaceful, gentle and civil persons. Now the object of civilisation, as Ruskin says, is to make mankind into civil persons who will do away with coarseness, violence, brutality and fighting.
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