Page:The China Review, Or, Notes and Queries on the Far East, Volume 22 1RZBAQAAMAAJ.pdf/88

 The China Review.

The Höng Shán or Macao Dialect.

Though Macao has had early continuous and almost constant intercourse with Europeans for the long period of nearly three centuries and a half,&mdash;the Portuguese first took up their residence there in A.D. 1557, &mdash;yet the dialect of the Höng Shán district, in which it is situated, has not received, as far as the writer is aware, any special study. Led away by the will o' the wisp of having a uniform pronunciation,&mdash;a uniform pronunciation which prevails nowhere&mdash;our standard dictionaries of Cantonese have classed some words under sounds which are Höng Shán pronunciations, such for instance as the sound sü, part of the words which should come under súí or söü being placed under it. Dr. Williams in the Introduction to his Tonic Dictionary, pp. XVII, XX, and XXI, gives in a general way a few instances where the Höng Shán differs from the standard Cantonese, and in the Introduction to 'the Chinese Chrestomathy' in the Canton dialect, p. X, there are eleven lines calling attention to some of the variations of the language as heard in Macao; but with this slight exception, noting a few differences in pronunciation, nothing seems ever to have been written specially dealing with the speech of the Höng Shán people.

As far as can be ascertained, only one book has ever been written in the dialect of the Höng Shán district; and that was a small pamphlet of seven pages thus described in 'Memorials of Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese giving a list of their publications':&mdash; This was prepared by Rev. J.I. [sic] J. Roberts of the Southern Baptist Convention, the signature of the author in Chinese being Háú. It would be most interesting to have a look at this little book, the only one that has ever been written in this dialect.

It is almost needless to say that the Chinese never appear to have thought of writing anything on it.