Chinese and Sumerian

8 INITIAL AND FINAL SOUNDS, ETC.

sin by the Japanese and sim by the Koreans. Further, the Cantonese says sém (stim or sim), the Hakka sim, the Pekingese hsin (with an approach to sh). Bearing in mind what has been said of the free interchange of the labial letters, we see that the Chinese word is ultimately the same as the Sumerian SHAB (=SHAM), heart. But the A7e-Au, the harsher Sumerian dialect, pronounced the term SHAG, or (especially when linked with other subordinate words) SHAG-GA. In the latter case, at all events, the G seems to have been nasalized in utterance, thus SHANGA ; so that we have here a prototype of the Wenchow sang, Ningpo sing, Yangchow hsing, heart.

Other Sumerian instances of N=M are ALAN, ALAM, likeness, image; MU.TAN, NITA.DAM, husband; GIN, GIM, DEN, DIM, DAM, TUMA, like; SUN, SUM, to give.

In the word féng, bam, wind, Chinese has preserved the labial initial in the standard speech, in contrast with the Sumerian IM (GIM, GAM). In # wang, to go, it has in like manner preserved the softer initial sound. Wang, C. H. F. wong, A. vang, presents a trace of the other sound initial g, in Wenchow ytioa (y=older g); and wong implies a guttural counterpart kwong, from gong, answering to the Sumerian GIN (from GUN ?), to go, which is the Chinese hing, ging, to walk, just as hwang, J. kwo, and wang, A. vong, answer to Sumerian GUN, MUN (p. 5 seg.). The labialized or M-form of GIN, to go, has not yet been identified in Sumerian; but MAL (=MAN), the Zme-sal of GA(L), to go (ala@ku, C. T. xii. 27), is nearly akin to it and to the Chinese wang.

According to Edkins (Chena’s Place in Philology, p. 78), the old Chinese final letters were ng, n, m, k, t, p, and the vowels; sounds retained to this day in the Canton and Amoy dialects. The initials were g, d, b, ng, n, m, |, z, dz, zh, and the vowels. From g, d, b, z, dz, zh, were gradually developed the younger initial sounds k‘, t’, p, ts, and k, t, p, s, ts, sh. ‘Thesonants g, d, b, z, are the old letters; the surds k, t, p, s, are more recent; f and h seem to be the newest of all’ (2d. p. 82). Further on he observes (p. 83) that ‘final letters will drop off, through laziness in enunciation, through imitation of the defects of others, and from the circumstance that, when stress is laid by the speaker on some one element of sound, the other elements will suffer’. The feeling for euphony may also have something to do with it.

Sumerian presents a general agreement with these phenomena. We find there, as final sounds, g, d, b, n, m, ng, and the vowels ; ¢.g. GIN, walk, DIM, like, DAG, stone, GUN, tribute, DIB, take, GIN and MEN, pronoun ist pers., GA and DA, milk, GUG, GU, speak, MUD, blood, GUB, stand, SHAB, heart, ME, liquid, BAD, open, SIM, call, BI, that, LI, in, into. The sound ng is perhaps heard in KINGI, land, country, which may be really a compound of KIN, earth, land, and Gl (perhaps NGI), a synonym of KI (see C.T. xii. 38); in MUNGA, MUNGAR, property, goods (Br. 1292 sg.), which need not be regarded as forged on the basis of the Semitic makkuru; in SANGU, priest, which so curiously resembles the Chinese