

THE CANADIAN JOURNAL. 



NEW SERIES 



No. LXII.— APEIL, 1866. 



ON THE AMOY COLLOQUIAL DIALECT. 



BY W. HENRY GUMMING, M.D. 



{Bead before the Canadian Institute, Z\st March, 1866.) 



This dialect is spoken in the city of Amoy and the surrounding 

 districts. Dr. Medhurst, in his Dictionary (printed at the Honorahle 

 East India Company's Press, Macao, 1832) calls it the Fuh Kien 

 Dialect. But as the province of Fuh Kien, though one of the 

 smallest, has at least five distinct dialects spoken within its borders, 

 and as the dialect under present consideration is not that spoken in 

 and around the provincial capital Fuh Chan Fu, it seems scarcely 

 entitled to the name. It has been also called the Chang Chau dialect 

 from the city of Chang Chau Fu, about twenty-five miles S.W. of 

 Amoy. This city, containing about four hundred thousand inhabi- 

 tants, is the capital of the district in which the dialect is spoken called 

 by Dr. Medhurst, the Fuh Kien dialect. This dialect difi'ers, in some 

 of its tones, as well as in very many words, from that spoken in Amoy. 

 As too, Amoy is not in the district of Chang Chau, but in that of 

 Tsiuen Chau, and as the Tsiuen Chau peculiarities are for the most 

 part found in the speech of the Amoy people, the name of this latter 

 district might more appropriately be given to this dialect. I have 

 preferred, however, to call it the Amoy dialect, as that is the place 

 best known to Europeans, it being the port of both those districts. 

 Vol. XI. F 



