ON THE AMOY COLLOQUIAL DIALECT. 95 



expressing the sounds of letters. In all Chinese writing or printing 

 in the Roman character, tonal marks are indispensable. If the tones 

 are not clearly indicated, the failure is complete. The adrocates of 

 the adoption of Sir William Jones' system recommended the Chinese 

 mode of indicating the tones, a plan used in several works printed at 

 Canton and Macao. The first tone-mark is a semicircle placed at the 

 lower left-hand corner of a word ; the second, at the uppev left-hand 

 corner; the third, at the upper right-hand corner, and the fourth at 

 the lower right-hand angle, The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth, were 

 indicated by the semicircle and a horizontal line, and corresponded in 

 their positions with the first, second, third and fourth respectively. 

 But this plan is burdensome to writer, printer, and reader. A far 

 simpler plan and of ready employment is that of Medhurst, the father 

 of the Fuh Kien Mission. The first tone is unmarked ; the second 

 has the acute accent ; the third has the grave ; the fifth, the circum- 

 flex ; the seventh, the long [-J accent. The sixth tone is the same as 

 the second, and needs no other mark ; the fourth and eighth tones are 

 distinguished from all the others by ending in h, p, k, or t ; the eighth 

 tone is distinguished from the fourth by a " staccato " mark. 



The aspirated vowels are marked, not by a rough breathing, but by 

 prefixing the letter "h." The consonant aspirates (ch, k, p and t) 

 are indicated in the same way by the use of "h." The aspirated 

 letters are written "chh, kh, ph, th." 



The nasal sounds are indicated by a small "n" placed above the 

 vowel. 



The sound " awe" is expressed by a dot within the circle of the 

 letter "O." 



It is hoped that this short and very imperfect sketct of one of the 

 spoken languages of China, will be of interest to some of the readers 

 of the Journal of the Canadian Institute. The want of the proper 

 type has greatly diminished the number of illustrations. 



