Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35-2443

Title: Missionary Grammars and Dictionaries of Chinese
Subtitle: The contribution of seventeenth century Spanish Dominicans
Series Title: Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 131
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/
Book URL: https://benjamins.com/catalog/sihols.131

Author(s): Otto Zwartjes

Reviewer: Yuhong Wang

SUMMARY

Missionary Grammars and Dictionaries of Chinese by Otto Zwartjes focuses on the Dominicans’ contribution to Chinese grammar and dictionaries, notably their lexicographic tools, the writing of grammars, and the creation of a romanization system to describe Manila Hokkien, i.e., a dialect in Southern Min.

The whole book consists of 7 chapters, 7 appendixes, 1 list of indexes and 1 list of toponyms.

Chapter 1 is a brief introduction, identifying the aims of the book as being 1) to publish and analyze Francisco Varo’s Chinese work, the Arte, appended to a Chinese-Spanish dictionary known as Marsh 696 that once belonged to Golius, 2) to provide a brief historical overview of Dominicans missionary works, and 3) to delineate state-of-art research on missionary linguistics and Chinese languages, particularly that of Francisco Díaz.

Chapter 2 presents the facsimile edition, transliteration and English translation of Marsh 696, makes a descriptive analysis of Marsh 696, reconstructs the missing parts of Marsh 696, and makes a comparative analysis between Marsh 696 and earlier works, and a comparison between Marsh 696 and the Arte of Francisco Varo. The author argues that Varo’s grammar did not overlap with some other grammars in that period, and that it is greatly influenced by Francisco Díaz.

Chapter 3 discusses the Arte, including the influence of Antonio de Nebrija, different versions of the Arte, and the Reglas of Morales. Zwartjes (2024) delves into Nebrija’s influence, which has not been explored in previous studies. The key point is that Zwartjes does not agree that Varo’s grammar adheres to Nebrija’s model; for Varo’s grammar includes “a great part of material that has not been derived from any edition of Nebrija” (p. 132).

Chapter 4 is on lexicography, particularly Sino-Hispanic lexicography and Spanish-Chinese lexicography, showing that Díaz’s dictionary exhibits distinctive features akin to glossaries, and encyclopedia-like explanations (Otto 2024:313). It is very meaningful to see so many pages or folios.

Chapter 5 is on the teaching programs of the Dominicans, stating that missionaries were often trained in small classes. It also highlights the impressive number of grammars, dictionaries and translated texts designed for autodidacts, showing that Dominicans also aimed at studying both classical and colloquial Chinese, which is diametrically opposite from the misconception that Jesuits focused on learning and reading classical texts whereas Dominicans focused on spoken varieties. It is also stated in this chapter that Chinese was also learned and taught by Spanish missionaries in Formosa and Philippines and even in Mexico for a short time, in addition to China.

Chapter 6 discusses the reception of Díaz’s work in pre-modern Europe, by illustrating Díaz’s potential influence on other lexicographic works produced in China by westerners and then the dissemination of his work in Europe.

Chapter 7 is the conclusion, presenting positive news about future studies.

EVALUATION

The first sentence of this monograph is of great importance: “Westerners began their studies on the Chinese language concurrently in both China and the Philippines.” (p. 1).

It is easy to understand that westerners began their studies on Chinese language in China, for there has been considerable literature on Jesuits’ missionary work in China, particularly on that of the pioneer members of the China mission, Matteo Ricco (1552-1610), Michele Ruggieri (1543-1607), and Niklaas Trigault (1577-1628). The discussion also discusses the well-known Rites of Controversy lasting for over a century and notes that the Jesuits are famous “for their close cooperation with elite literati” (Henning Klöter:306). That is also why it is Jesuits who have initiated translating Chinese Confucian works into their language.

However, this does not mean that Jesuits are the only ones who studied the Chinese language, even though that is a long-standing impression. Otto Zwartjes’s monograph uncovers another thread of Chinese missionary linguistics, that of the Dominicans in the Philippines. And Zwartjes’s monograph is important in four respects.

First, it presents a precious manuscript, which has been unknown for quite a long time. It is probably why the Dominicans’ work, among many other unknown and unpublished materials, remained unstudied. Zwartjes (2024) presents different versions of the ancient and invaluable Marsh 696, including the facsimile edition, transliteration and English translation. The history is presented through the description of real pages, such as “The manuscript Marsh 696 commences with several folios with empty columns and ridges.” (p.13) As Zwartjes (p. 314) has stated, “they are of invaluable importance for the history of linguistics, dictionaries, the history of Chinese, Early Manila Hokkien…”.

Second, it differentiates the contributions made by Dominicans from those made by Jesuits in Chinese language studies, discussing particularly the ones that have been completed only by Dominicans. Contrary to the postulation that Jesuits concentrated on Mandarin whereas Dominicans treated spoken varieties, Zwartjes (p. 279) emphasizes that Jesuits, Dominicans and Franciscans had to study Chinese culture by learning both Chinese registers, the official lingua franca, Mandarin, and the colloquial speech, despite the fact that Jesuits started their evangelization with Chinese literati but Dominicans preached among the poor populace. Even the initiator of the Rites of Controversy, Juan Bautista de Morales (1597-1664) learned Mandarin and Southern Min. However, the Dominicans in the Philippines concentrated on Hokkien in the Philippines, a dialect spoken by the Sangleys, or the Chinese-Hokkien speaking minority; this represents early work on the heritage language of early Chinese immigrants and their descendants. Moreover, Dominicans aimed at developing a new tool to meet the need to talk to the local populace with colloquial expressions.

Third, Zwartjes succeeds in establishing that Chinese missionary studies began at least half a century earlier. In contemporary Chinese scholarly circles, Francisco Varo has been regarded as the one who wrote the first book on Chinese grammar, the Arte, which was written in Spanish and completed in 1683, published in 1703 in Canton; an English version was published in 2000, and a Chinese version in 2003 (Yao 2001). However, Zwartjes postulates a hypothesis that Marsh 696 is one part of a comprehensive grammar, potentially analogous to Francisco Varo’s Arte. The manuscript of Marsh 696 juxtaposes the tonal features of Mandarin Chinese with those of the romanization of the Hokkien dialect, and “predates Francisco Varo’s Arte” (p.12).

Fourth, Zwartjes presents a Portuguese connection in dictionaries of that time. Zwartjes talks about a perplexing neglect, for there is a dearth of literature dealing with dictionaries targeting Spanish, even though there are a lot of studies on dictionaries translating from Spanish into indigenous languages. However, the monodirectional dictionaries targeting Spanish are more comprehensive than the counterparts sourcing from Spanish, and the former ones have more historiographical significance (p.6). Zwartjes finds that there is a clear Portuguese presence in the tradition of Spanish lexicography and that the dictionaries translating from Spanish to other languages followed the precedent set by Nebrija, a famous pioneer in Spain. Even in Marsh 696, a third of the entries are translated from Chinese to Portuguese, despite the dictionary being titled as a Chinese-Spanish dictionary.

Moreover, Jianjun Wang has concluded that the romanization and the characters grouped other than in radicals are two innovations of missionaries (Giorgio C. and Mariarosaria G. 2011). Zwartjes clearly shows the romanization and diacritics of different versions of Francisco Díaz’s dictionary, even though these have been overlooked in academic circles for a long time and have no autograph version.

Last but not least, readers might be impressed and touched by Zwartjes’ empathy for the missionaries, particularly the Dominicans, shown, for instance, in passages like this from his Foreword and acknowledgements: “I have been fascinated by how missionaries, often in various parts of world and under unimaginably difficult conditions, imprisonment, exile, hurricane, shipwrecks, wild animals, and diseases, were able to conduct remarkable studies of languages that were until then completely unknown in Europe.” It would be no exaggeration to say that the missionaries’ devoted their lives to their enterprise; and it is also fair to say Otto Zwartjes has contributed a lot in letting us know more about the missionaries and missionary Chinese linguistics. There are many texts written in languages other than English, but scholars should not ignore this excellent book on missionaries who were able to study alien languages in difficult conditions.

To all the missionaries in Chinese linguistics. To Otto Zwartjes.


REFERENCES

Otto Zwartjes, Ramon Arzapalo Marin and Thomas S. Smith-Stark (ed.) 2009. Missionary Linguistics Ⅳ: lexicography: selected papers from the fifth International Conference on Missionary Linguistics.

Otto Zwartjes. 2024. Missionary Grammars and Dictionaries of Chinese. John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Xiaoping Yao. 2001. The Oldest Extant Grammar Book on Chinese—An Introduction to Francisco Varo’s Arte. Studies of the Chinese Language.

Giorgio Casacchia and Mariarosaria Gianninoto. 2011. The History of Chinese in Europe. Shanghai: Xuelin Publishing Press.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Yuhong Wang gained her Ph.D degree in Central China Normal University. She is a professor in her university, and her research interests are Chinese grammar, missionary linguistics and Teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages.