Page:Chinese Local Dialects Reduced to Writing- An Outline of the System Adopted for Romanizing the Dialect of Amoy (IA jstor-592283).pdf/5

Rh expressions in the spoken dialect of Fuhchau. This alphabetic system is better adapted to the Fuhchau dialect than the English alphabet would be. It wears no foreign garb. It is already considerably used for other purposes. It exactly represents the sounds, which the English alphabet cannot do. Many of the characters of this alphabet are used in the same manner for other dialects; and at short distances from Fuhchau the pronunciation of these characters varies but slightly, much as the spoken language itself varies. Some of these alphabetic characters are used for similar purposes in the Nanking or court dialect, in which some advance towards an alphabetic system has been made since the time of, when the most learned men of the empire compiled the, and the still more voluminous.

If the alphabetic system now being gradually introduced for the pronunciation of characters in the court dialect, should be adopted for writing books on science, history and general literature, and also for translations of the Scriptures, children might be taught in Mission schools to read and speak that dialect. Great benefits might be expected to result. They could read and write with greater facility, and some progress would be made towards introducing a simple and uniform language for China. I know this would be attended with difficulties, but when we consider the course and progress of alphabetic writing in Corea and Japan, we are led to look forward to some such system as this, as the hope of China.

There is another mode of writing the colloquial language, used for some of the local dialects, as at Canton, Shanghai and Fuhchau, which, as it affords greater immediate facilities for circulating the Scriptures among the mass of the people, deserves our careful consideration. It is a combination of the logographic and phonetic, but for the sake of brevity I shall call it simply the phonetic system.

It is the style of epistolary writing in use among the common people, and adopted by merchants in keeping their accounts. Great quantities of books prepared in this style are sold in the streets of Fuhchau, and are extensively read by the laboring classes, who, as has been previously remarked, know little of the meaning of the written character.