Excerpt from The Sacred Edict: With a Translation of the Colloquial Rendering Notes and Vocabulary
The Student of Chinese whose aim is to acquire a good knowledge of colloquial, is speedily confronted by two difficulties. On the one hand, few teachers will talk to their pupils as they talk to their fellow-countrymen; while on the other, there is a great scarcity of suitable books, such as works of travel, history, adventure, etc., written in everyday language. The consequence is, that in many cases the beginner falls into a style of language, which though intelligible is not by any means "a well of Chinese undefiled."
Novels and moral treatises written from a Buddhist standpoint do indeed abound, but the former are, as a rule, loaded with all manner of indecency both of thought and expression, and the latter soon become very tedious reading. And even in books, to whose subject matter no one can take exception, a page or two of colloquial is commonly followed by several pages written in the Uen-li, i.e., literary style.
In the Sacred Edict the Student will find a thesaurus of everyday words, phrases, and idioms; and he who has it at his tongue's end and knows how to use it, may safely count upon being "well understanded of the common people."
In its original form, the Sacred Edict consisted merely in the sixteen Maxims of the Emperor K'ang-hsi, each containing seven words, and written in the highest literary style. These were issued as a Hortatory Edict in 1670, and were hung up in prominent positions in the law courts of the Empire.
In 1724 Iong-cheng (K'ang-hsi s son and successor) republished the Edict in an enlarged form, superadding a series of ample expositions of his father's texts, written in a simple literary style.
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