Description

This work was compiled by Jesuit missionary Nicolas Trigault (1577–1628), edited by Han Yun of Jinjiang, and published by Wang Zheng of Jingyang, Shaanxi (1571−1644). It contains characters, phonetics, and definitions, and uses roman letters to transliterate Chinese characters, serving as an aid to the eyes and ears of Westerners who wished to learn Chinese. It is a vocabulary of Chinese characters with romanization that occupied an important place in the history of phonology. The author acknowledged that he followed an earlier work by Matteo Ricci (1552–1610 ...