An English-Chinese dictionary of the Foochow dialect
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION
This little volume professes merely to be an expansion of Part VII. of Dr. C. C. Baldwin's excellent manual of the Foochow dialect. It is published in the belief that, with all its imperfections, it will supply a want and be serviceable to students of the dialect.
The Orthography of Dr. Baldwin's manual is adopted with but two points of exception: viz.
- The accentuated vowels ă & é of the manual are simple a & e in this dictionary; a & e following vowels are naturally pronounced short, and the imposition of special accent marks seems unnecessary.
- In this dictionary the letter h is substituted for the aspirate mark ʻ of the manual. The aspirated consonants chʻ, kʻ, pʻ, & tʻ of the manual are written chh, kh, ph, & th. This system is adopted in the Romanized dictionaries of the Amoy dialect, and recommends itself as aiding memory more effectively in distinguishing the aspirate initials. Slight confusion may at first be caused by the aspirated consonants ph & th. Phang is pronounced p-hang never as fang. The aspirated consonant ph is well illustrated in the Irishman's emphatic rendering of the name Pat. Thing is hing preceeded by the t sound and is never pronounced as in English.
For explanation of all other points of orthography, and for the significance of the tone marks, reference must be made to Dr. Baldwin's manual.
Compiled by a mere tyro in the dialect with the aid of a student from the Anglo-Chinese College, whose knowledge of English is still growing, this little volume will doubtless abound in imperfections and errors. If it but wake up some old Master to put his learning into the practical form of a first class English-Foochow dictionary, it will have served its mission. To Mrs. Lloyd and the Rev. L. Lloyd I am indebted for much assistance as well as for kindly undertaking a revision of the text.
T. B. Adam.
Foochow, September 2nd, 1891.
ANNOUNCEMENT
At the urgent request of many missionaries and others who use the Foochow dialect, and with the consent of Dr. T. B. Adam, the system of Romanization formerly used in this dictionary (see "Preface to First Edition") has been changed to correspond with the system now in use in the Maclay and Baldwin Alphabetic Dictionary and the Foochow Handbook.
The hope expressed by Dr. Adam in his preface that some one more competent would "put his learning into the form of a first class English-Foochow dictionary" has not been realized and it has been necessary to issue this edition as a mere reprint with the system of Romanization changed.
Our thanks are due to the author for this privilege and for the great service the first edition has been to the public.
The Publishers.
Foochow, January 30, 1905.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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