The addition from Ramusio shows further
that he was aware of the unity of the written character throughout China,
but gives no indication of knowledge of its peculiar principles, nor of
the extent of difference in the spoken dialects. Even different districts
of Fo-kien, according to Martini, use dialects so different that they
understand each other with difficulty (108).
[Mendoza already said: "It is an admirable thing to consider how that in
that kingdome they doo speake manie languages, the one differing from the
other: yet generallie in writing they doo understand one the other, and in
speaking not." (Parke's Transl. p. 93.)]
Professor Kidd, speaking of his instructors in the Mandarin and Fo-kien
dialects respectively, says: "The teachers in both cases read the same
books, composed in the same style, and attached precisely the same ideas
to the written symbols, but could not understand each other in
conversation." Moreover, besides these sounds attaching to the Chinese
characters when read in the dialect of Fo-kien, thus discrepant from the
sounds used in reading the same characters in the Mandarin dialect, yet
another class of sounds is used to express the same ideas in the Fo-kien
dialect when it is used colloquially and without reference to written
symbols! (Kidd's China, etc., pp. 21-23.)
The term Fokien dialect in the preceding passage is ambiguous, as will
be seen from the following remarks, which have been derived from the
Preface and Appendices to the Rev. Dr. Douglas's Dictionary of the Spoken
Language of Amoy,[6] and which throw a distinct light on the subject of
this note: -
"The vernacular or spoken language of Amoy is not a mere colloquial
dialect or patois, it is a distinct language - one of the many and
widely differing spoken languages which divide among them the soil of
China. For these spoken languages are not dialects of one language, but
cognate languages, bearing to each other a relation similar to that
between Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac, or between English, Dutch, German, and
Danish. The so-called 'written language' is indeed uniform throughout
the whole country, but that is rather a notation than a language. And
this written language, as read aloud from books, is not spoken in any
place whatever, under any form of pronunciation. The most learned men
never employ it as a means of ordinary oral communication even among
themselves. It is, in fact, a dead language, related to the various
spoken languages of China, somewhat as Latin is to the languages of
Southern Europe.
"Again: Dialects, properly speaking, of the Amoy vernacular language are
found (e.g.) in the neighbouring districts of Changchew, Chinchew, and
Tungan, and the language with its subordinate dialects is believed to be
spoken by 8 or 10 millions of people. Of the other languages of China the
most nearly related to the Amoy is the vernacular of Chau-chau-fu, often
called 'the Swatow dialect,' from the only treaty-port in that region.
