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 PREFACE.

AFTER the numerous and elaborate works on Chinese Philology already before the Public, the presentation of a new one would seem almost to need an apology, were it not that the object of the present Dictionary is not so much to elucidate the Chinese language generally, as that of one of its dialects, in particular. Previous efforts have been confined to the Mandarin or Court dialect, with the exception of a Canton Vocabulary published in 1828, and (so far as the Author's information extends) nothing has yet been done to elucidate the Hok-këèn or Emoey tongue.

The Mandarin tongue is partially understood throughout the whole Empire, by the better informed part of the inhabitants, and, in some central districts, it is said to be the current language of the people, but, in the southern provinces, the vulgar dialects differ more or less from the Court language, and in Hok-këèn, where the difference is most marked, the cultivation of the Mandarin tongue is less general. The author, having never visited China, has had little opportunity of conversing with the higher ranks of the Chinese, but from a constant intercourse with the middling and lower classes who emigrate to the Eastern Islands, his uniform experience for the last fourteen years has been, that not one man in five hundred knows any thing of the Mandarin tongue, or can carry on a conversation of more than ten words in it. In Hok-këèn, a doctor, a fortune-teller, a stage-player, or a police officer may sometimes be Rh