Foochow Romanized
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Foochow Romanized, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê (BUC for short; Chinese characters: 平話字), is a romanized orthography for the Fuzhou dialect adopted in the middle of 19th century by American missionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized several decades later. Unlike its counterpart Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Min Nan, Foochow Romanized is little known outside of Church circles, and even in its prime days, it was by no means universally understood by Christians.[1]
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[edit] History of Foochow Romanized
After Fuzhou became one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing at the end of First Opium War (from 1839 to 1842), many Western missionaries arrived in the city. In order to preach effectively these missionaries had to learn the Fuzhou dialect, and to facilitate this (and communication with their congregations) they invented a new writing system for it.
The first attempt in romanizing Fuzhou dialect was made by the American Methodist M. C. White, who borrowed a system of orthography known as the System of Sir William Jones. In this system, 14 initials were designed exactly according to their voicing and aspiration. P, T, K and CH stand for [p], [t], [k] and [ts]; while the Greek spiritus lenis "᾿" were affixed to the above initials to represent their aspirated counterparts. Besides the default five vowels of Latin alphabet, four diacritic-marked letters È, Ë, Ò and Ü were also introduced, representing [ɛ], [ø], [ɔ] and [y], respectively. This system is described at length in White's linguistic work The Chinese Language Spoken at Fuh Chau.
Subsequent missionaries further modified White's System in several ways. The most significant change was made in the scheme of plosive consonants, by which the spiritus lenis "᾿" of the aspirated initials was totally removed and the letters B, D and G were introduced to represent [p] [t] and [k]. In the aspect of vowels, È, Ë, Ò and Ü were replaced by A̤, E̤, O̤ and Ṳ; and since the diacritical marks were all shifted to underneath the vowels, tonal marks were thus invented.
[edit] Scheme
The sample characters are taken from the phonetics book Qī Lín Bāyīn (《戚林八音》, Foochow Romanized: Chék Lìng Báik-ĭng), a renowned phonology book about the Fuzhou dialect written in the Qing Dynasty. The pronunciations are recorded in standard IPA symbols.
[edit] Initials
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[edit] Rimes
[edit] Rimes without codas
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[edit] Rimes with coda [-ʔ]
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[edit] Rimes with codas [-ŋ] and [-k]
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[edit] Tones
| Name | Tonal value | BUC symbol | Example |
| Yīnpíng (陰平, BUC: Ĭng-bìng) | 55 | ˘ | 君 Gŭng |
| Shǎngshēng (上聲, BUC: Siōng-siăng) | 33 | - | 滾 Gūng |
| Yīnqù (陰去, BUC: Ĭng-ké̤ṳ) | 213 | ˊ | 貢 Góng |
| Yīnrù (陰入, BUC: Ĭng-ĭk) | 24 | ˊ | 谷 Gók |
| Yángpíng (陽平, BUC: Iòng-bìng) | 53 | ` | 群 Gùng |
| Yángqù (陽去, BUC: Iòng-ké̤ṳ) | 242 | ^ | 郡 Gông |
| Yángrù (陽入, BUC: Iòng-ĭk) | 5 | ˘ | 掘 Gŭk |
[edit] Sample text
See the Min Dong Wikipedia.
[edit] References
- ^ R. S. Maclay, C. C. Baldwin, Samuel H. Leger: Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, 1929
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Everything You Want To Know About Foochow Romanized (in Chinese)
- GÔ IÓK CṲ̆: The Old Testament, in Foochow Romanized.
- SĬNG IÓK CṲ̆: The New Testament, in Foochow Romanized.cdo:Bàng-uâ-cê
zh:平話字
