Transactions of the second session held at London, in September, 1874 / edited by R.K. Douglas.

  • International Congress of Orientalists
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Transactions of the second session held at London, in September, 1874 / edited by R.K. Douglas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    73/514 (page 63)
    elucidate the local dialects, have submitted interesting papers, which will now he read ; after which M. de Eosny, the distinguished Presi- dent of the last Congress, desires to offer some observations. In connexion with this branch I may call attention to the diction- ary of the Chinese dialect of Amoy, by the Rev. Carstairs Douglas [1873], which possesses this remarkable quality, that the Chinese signs are represented by Roman characters, an ingenious expeiiment, carrying out in some degree the suggestions thrown out in the President’s Address for the adoption of an alphabet suited to all languages. I may also notice the Rev. Dr. Legge’s translation of the Chinese classics, comprising seven works, and filling eight volumes, five of which have appeared, as of the greatest value to every one engaged with the literature of the Celestial Empire. Dr. Legge is still continuing his valuable labours. Of the T’hai languages I can say little, and of the Malayan still less. Leyden’s essay on the Indo-Chinese languages, in the tenth volume of the Asiatic Researches, gives an excellent compendium of their affinities, as applicable now as at the time it was written. The Journal of the Eastern Archipelago, commenced in 1847, will he found a storehouse of information, to which I can confidently refer any one desirous of becoming better acquainted with them. The work was edited by Mr. J. R. Logan, he himself being a principal contributor, particularly in the departments of philology and ethno- logy, in which he did not confine himself to the topographical limits indicated by the title of the serial, but extended his investigations to the languages of India as well. After carrying the Journal through eleven volumes, it closed abruptly with the issue of the first part of the twelfth, in 1859. In the fifth volume will be found a notice of the T’hai Grammar of Bishop PaRegoix, Yicar Apostolic in Siam (1850). I will now call on Professor Hunfalvy to read his paper.