The Kienning Colloquial Romanized Alphabet (建寧府土腔羅馬字, ) is a romanization system adopted by Western missionaries to compile the
Kienning dialect (modern day
Jian'ou City) of the
Northern Min language in the
Fujian Province
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its cap ...
of
China.
History
During the last decade of the 19th century, Western missionaries from the
Church of England Zenana Missionary Society The Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (CEZMS; founded 1880), also known as the Church of England Zenana Mission, was a British Anglican missionary society established to spread Christianity in India. It would later expand its Christian mi ...
arrived in
Kienning Prefecture (which also comprises the present day
Nanping City) to evangelize. However they soon realized that the majority of the residents in the region did not comprehend
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
speech nor the
Foochow dialect when Foochow Christians tried to preach to them, hence the missionaries studied an existing Chinese publication titled ''The Eight Tones of Kien-chou'' () and in 1896 the missionaries devised a new Latinized alphabet system for the Kienning dialect, which emulated the
Foochow Romanization system. Among the early translators were
Miss L.J. Bryer and other ladies of the Zenana Mission with the help of native teachers, translated the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...
into the Kienning Romanized Colloquial writing system by 1895. It was seen through the press by Miss B. Newcombe and published by the
British and Foreign Bible Society in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
in 1896.
By 1898, the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
couple
Hugh S. Phillips and Minnie Phillips had translated and published a revised edition of the
Gospel of Mark into the Kienning Colloquial Romanized alphabet. A revised edition of the
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and form ...
was completed and published in 1900 and by the following year, saw the printing of ''A Chinese–English Dictionary of the Kien-ning Dialect'', which taught people how to read this particular romanization system.
The Kienning Colloquial Romanized alphabet played a significant role in the spread of Christianity in Kienning Prefecture and was widely circulated within the local churches of that region. The missionary records showed that the local women were able to master the reading of the Kienning Romanized Bible after three months.
Nevertheless, literacy in that writing system even amongst the local Christians did not reach 100 percent.
After the
Republic of China was formed, romanized writing systems of all the various Sinitic languages were met with suppression from the local authorities, and after the Chinese Communist Party came to power, the government began the campaign of promoting the use of
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
and forcibly suppressing all other "dialects". As a result, the Kienning Colloquial Romanized alphabet could not be used in public settings. Despite this, today the older generation of Kienning Christian congregations are still able to read and write in this writing system whilst some of the younger generation may have regrettably lost their literacy in their own language.
Spelling schemes
Due to differences between Northern Fujian dialects, the Kienning Romization can only accurately reflect the pronunciation of words from the Jian'ou dialect, and do not necessarily correspond perfectly with other dialects, nonetheless the Jian'ou dialect is used as the predominant standard when writing the Northern Min language and could be used to represent the other Northern Min dialects. For the past century, the Jian'ou has also undergone major changes and therefore there would certainly be some degree of variance
between the Jian'ou dialect of the late 19th century and that which is spoken today.
Consonants
Vowels*
Tones
Some fonts can generate the tone 4 mark by placing twice.
Sample Text
This text comes from the dialect's "rhyme-book", i.e., the guide to its standard pronunciation, which has the title , meaning the "Eight Tones for the Prefecture of Kṳing". The text gives the lyrics to a little ditty, similar to the
alphabet song
The alphabet song is any of various songs used to teach children an alphabet. Alphabet songs typically recite the names of all letters of the alphabet of a given language in order.
The ABC (Verse 1)
"The ABC Song", otherwise referred to as ...
, to help people remember the book's ordering of rhymes:
Sî nîng ně̤ng, mô ě̤ uâng.
Lâi châing hṳ̂ing, ce̤̿ng giô̤ muôi.
Ngû sia̿ ciáng pie̿ ngṳ̂, châ̤ iû mê chio̤̿ ko̤̿ng.
Tông huăi huo̤̿ng dâ, ngô̤ iô̤ng pûing ṳ̂e.
Nêng hua̿ing cha̿u, Nâng giâu gua̿.
The Chinese-character original of this reads as follows.
Notes
Postscript:
*Because of the difference between the dialects of Minbei dialect, the expression of the Roman alphabet of Jianning can only reflect the pronunciation of Jianyao at the time, and it does not necessarily correspond to other dialects. However, using the dialect of Jianning Romanization also makes other dialects. Nowadays, over the past 100 years, the voice of Jian'ou dialect has also changed a lot (for example, adding "elong" ieing () rhyme, "囥" ong rhyme () is incorporated into "Tong" o̤ng Rhyme ()), so the Roman word of its expression is different from the actual pronunciation of today's Jianye.
References
External links
The Kienning Colloquial Romanized New Testament
{{Incubator, code= mnp, lang= Northern Min language
Northern Min
Culture in Fujian
Romanization of Chinese
Latin-script orthographies