Handwritten in the seventeenth century, the "Arte de la lengua chio chiu" is the oldest extant grammar of the Chinese vernacular known as Southern Min or Hokkien, and a spectacular source text for present-day linguistics. Its author, a Spanish Dominican missionary, worked among the Chinese settlers in Manila or “Sangleys”. The first part of "The Language of the Sangleys" is an in-depth analysis of the "Arte" in its historical, social and linguistic contexts. The second part offers an annotated transcript and translation of the "Arte", including facsimiles of the original manuscript, making this study eminently fit for classroom use. Combining sophisticated theory and method with meticulous philology, "The Language of the Sangleys" presents a fascinating, new chapter in the history of Chinese and general linguistics.

Readership:

-Linguists interested in missionary linguistics, history of linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, Chinese dialectology, historical phonology of Hokkien. - Sinologists interested in the history of Chinese language studies by Westerners, Chinese-Western cultural exchanges.