Page:An Anglo-Chinese vocabulary of the Ningpo dialect.djvu/13

 LIST OF SYLLABLES

IN THE

NINGPO DIALECT

From the following list it will be seen that a large number of the sounds have no character to represent them. From this arises the difficulty using the Chinese character in the preparation of books in the local dialect, and the consequent necessity of employing some other method. The Roman system is now largely used for this purpose, and thousands of books have been printed in this character, and are in daily use by the people.

Those syllables which cannot properly be represented by Chinese characters, may be subdivided into two classes:—

I. Those which have absolutely no character in the language to express them, as dza, fǣ, gǣn, ve.

II. Those syllables, which may be represented by a character, but their pronunciation has become corrupted, as kao for kyiao, kǣn for kyin, wǣn, for ngwǣn.