Page:Chinese Local Dialects Reduced to Writing- An Outline of the System Adopted for Romanizing the Dialect of Amoy (IA jstor-592283).pdf/6

Rh This phonetic system imitates the style of the spoken language, and employs well known characters simply as phonetics, when the characters having the proper signification are pronounced with sounds different from the words conveying the same ideas in the spoken language. On this system, characters are selected which have the proper signification, as well as the sounds used for the same ideas in the spoken language, when such characters are simple and well known. Well known characters in common use are, also, sometimes introduced when they do not have the sounds of the spoken words, if only complicated or rare characters can be found having the proper pronunciation. There are also some words in the spoken language for which there is no character of the same sound in the written language. This class of words is numerous at Amoy, while at Fuhchau the whole number of such words does not probably exceed thirty or forty.

This species of phonetic writing is very little used at Amoy, while it is very common at Shanghai, Fuhchau and Canton. Of course, as the dialects spoken in these several cities are different, the phonetic books in use at one place would be scarcely intelligible in another locality.

At Shanghai, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and the Book of Common Prayer have been prepared in this style, and extensively circulated with the happiest effects. How many other books have been prepared in the same style for use at Shanghai, I have not been informed.

The first effort of this kind among Protestant missionaries at Fuhchau, to produce books in the native style of writing for the colloquial, resulted in the publication of a Phonetic Colloquial Version of the Gospel of Matthew, in July, 1851. Since that time, a revision of this first colloquial version of Matthew has been undertaken, and several large editions of the Sermon on the Mount have been published and circulated. The Gospel of Mark has also been published in the colloquial, and other portions of Scripture are about to be issued.

Wherever these books are offered to the people, together with editions of the same books in the ordinary classical style, a considerable majority reject the classical version, as hard to be understood, and desire the books in the colloquial, because, they say, they can more readily read and understand them. Rh