Bàng-uâ-cê
TheBook of Exodus in Bàng-uâ-cê, published by the British and Foreign Bible Society
Script type	Latin alphabet (modified)
Creator	Moses Clark White,Robert Samuel Maclay,Caleb Cook Baldwin,Robert Stewart
Period	late 19th century – ?
Languages	Fuzhou dialect of theEastern Min language
Related scripts
Child systems	Hinghwa Romanized,Kienning Colloquial Romanized
This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Bàng-uâ-cê (abbr.BUC;Chinese:平話字) orFuzhou romanization (福州話羅馬字), is aLatin alphabet for theFuzhou dialect ofEastern Min adopted in the middle of the 19th century by Western missionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized in the 1890s. Bàng-uâ-cê was mainly used inside of church circles, and was taught in some mission schools inFuzhou.^[1] However, unlike its counterpartPe̍h-ōe-jī forHokkien, even in its prime days Bàng-uâ-cê was by no means universally understood by Christians.^[2]

AfterFuzhou became one of the five Chinesetreaty ports opened by theTreaty of Nanjing at the end ofFirst Opium War (from 1839 to 1842), many Western missionaries arrived in the city. Faced with widespread illiteracy, they developed Latin alphabets for theFuzhou dialect.

The first attempt in romanizing the Fuzhou dialect was made by theAmerican MethodistM. C. White, who borrowed a system of orthography known as the System of Sir William Jones. In this system, 14initials were designed exactly according to theirvoicing andaspiration.⟨p⟩,⟨t⟩,⟨k⟩ and⟨ch⟩ stand for[p],[t],[k] and[ts]; while the Greekspiritus lenis⟨᾿⟩ were affixed to the above initials to represent their aspirated counterparts. Besides the default fivevowels ofLatin alphabet, fourdiacritic-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 workThe Chinese Language Spoken at Fuh Chau.

Subsequent missionaries, includingRobert S. Maclay fromAmerican Methodist Episcopal Mission,R. W. Stewart from theChurch of England andCharles Hartwell from theAmerican Board Mission, further modified White's system in several ways. The most significant change was made for theplosiveconsonants, where thespiritus lenis⟨᾿⟩ of the aspirated initials was removed and the letters⟨b⟩,⟨d⟩ and⟨g⟩ substituted for[p][t] and[k]. In the aspect ofvowels,⟨è⟩,⟨ë⟩,⟨ò⟩ and⟨ü⟩ were replaced by⟨a̤⟩,⟨e̤⟩,⟨o̤⟩ and⟨ṳ⟩. Since thediacritical marks were all shifted to underneath the vowels, this left room above the vowels which was occupied by the newly introducedtonal marks. Thus Bàng-uâ-cê avoids the potentially awkward diacritic stacking seen for instance in theVietnamese script, where tone and vowel quality marks both sit above the vowel.

The sample characters are taken from theQi Lin Bayin, a renowned phonology book about the Fuzhou dialect written in theQing Dynasty. The pronunciations are recorded in standardIPA symbols.

Note that Bàng-uâ-cê uses thebreve, not thecaron (ˇ), to indicate Yīnpíng and Yángrù tones of Fuzhou dialect.

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EnglishWikisource has original text related to this article:

Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect

Mindong edition ofWikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Everything You Want To Know About Bàng-uâ-cê (inFoochowese)
• Gô Iók Cŭ: The Old Testament, in Bàng-uâ-cê.(in Min Dong Chinese)
• Sĭng Iók Cŭ: The New Testament, in Bàng-uâ-cê.(in Min Dong Chinese)
• An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, byT. B. Adam, 1905
• Learning material of Foochow Romanized at theWayback Machine (archived 28 February 2012)

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• Romanization of Chinese
• Culture in Fujian
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• 19th-century establishments in China

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