Pronunciation. The traditional method of indicating the pronunciation in Chinese dictionaries (for example in Kang Hsi’s famous dictionary which was long the standard or in the Sṳ̀ Nguòng 辭源 published by the Commercial Press which is commonly accepted by Chinese scholars today), is by the use of two characters, the first of which gives the sound of the initial and the second the sound of the final parts of the character in question. Another character of the same sound and tone is usually added as an extra help, and still another character with which it rhymes to assist the person writing poetry according to the Chinese rules. Thus the character 己 in the Sṳ̀ Nguòng has after it in parenthesis 基 矣 切 音 紀 紙 韻 which means gĭ and é put together making gī 紀 and belonging to the 紙 rhymes. Sometimes the combination of the two characters gives a different tone from the character given as of the same sound, as in the example given above, where the two characters spell gé while the one character is gī which in this case is correct. When the student understands that such dictionaries are used throughout China and that various local dialects as well as the Mandarin commonly use this as a guide for pronunciation, he will not be surprised to know that the dictionary pronunciation and the traditional Foochow pronunciation sometimes differ.
In order to standardize pronunciation for all China, the National Board of Education has formally adopted a national phonetic system known in Foochow as the guók-ĭng-ció-ĭng-cê-mō̤ 國音注音字母. This is a scientifically constructed alphabet of thirty-nine letters. One, two, or at most three of these symbols will represent the sound of any Chinese character. An official dictionary giving the pronunciation of all common characters is available, and this phonetic is used widely in Foochow schools in promoting and standardizing the national (Mandarin) pronunciation.
Foochow scholars have long used a small tonic dictionary call chék lìng báik ĭng 戚林八音 to supplement the larger dictionaries in giving the Foochow local pronunciation. This is the work of two men Chék and Lìng, and has passed through many editions. It was in general the standard of pronunciation used in the first edition of this dictionary. In it the commonly used characters are systematically arranged according to their sounds. Each simple word has three elements, an initial sound, called cê-tàu 字頭, a final sound called cê-mō̤ 字母 and a tone. With two exceptions all words in the Foochow dialect are made up of an initial combined with a final, inflected into one of the eight tones. These exceptions are ng which is used separately without a final, and ngiau which
