1 Introduction1
On 2 October 1913, roughly two years after the Republic of China was founded, a long letter landed on the desk of the Netherlands Indies governor-general Idenburg. In it, a senior advisor to the colonial government on Chinese affairs, William J. Oudendijk, provided detailed recommendations to improve the education of its Chinese subjects. Government-facilitated opportunities had been disappointingly inadequate, he contended, so that many families opted to send their children to schools oriented to China rather than the Netherlands. This situation was inexcusable if the Chinese were to become full participants of the Dutch Empire. Having studied in Beijing, the seasoned diplomat was furthermore unimpressed with the level of Mandarin taught in the archipelago:
Not only is Mandarin currently in fashion as a working language, but, amidst the large variety of dialects spoken by the resident Chinese, the large difficulty of choosing one dialect is resolved if Mandarin is adopted. Let me immediately add that in most schools a very peculiar language passes for Mandarin, and that a great many teachers simply just speak their own provincial dialect, sometimes with a little touch of Mandarin.2
What did this peculiar type of would-be Mandarin look like, or, rather, sound like? What sources are available to reconstruct its early history in Indonesia? What can the story of Netherlands Indies Mandarin tell us about Chinese-Indonesian history more broadly?
Roughly speaking, the history of Mandarin in Indonesia exhibits two distinct periods. The first started at the turn of the twentieth century, when efforts to modernize Chinese education â both in China and among the Chinese-descended communities in Southeast Asia â led to the widespread adoption of Mandarin as the language of instruction at the expense of pre-existing varieties such as Hakka, Cantonese, Teochew, and especially the Zhangzhou variety of Hokkien. In the Netherlands Indies â as Indonesia was known under Dutch colonialism â the Chinese Meeting Hall or Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan
The present chapter deals with the first period â roughly the first half of the twentieth century â which to my knowledge has not yet received much linguistic attention. It investigates the way Chinese-Indonesians in the late-colonial period learned Mandarin, the specific type of Mandarin they were taught, and the material they used. By comparing several textbooks that relied on Malay/Indonesian as the language of instruction, I will examine, at once, the linguistic characteristics and the contents of the teaching material. Unlike âMalaysian Mandarinâ or âSingaporean Mandarinâ (Goh 2017), the Indonesian variety of Mandarin was never broadly adopted even amongst the Chinese themselves. Nevertheless, its linguistic features tell a compelling story of Chinese-Indonesian cultural and political contestations during a pivotal part of their history. The academic appeal of Mandarin in late-colonial Indonesia arguably lies in its heterogeneity, having been adopted more than three decades before language planners in China agreed on a unified pronunciation (cf. Sai 2016: 378â79). Some Mandarin teachers in the Indies used orthographic conventions derived from the Dutch language. Intellectually, however, they were relatively free from European structures of education. The contents of their teaching books, especially the example sentences, make it clear that colonialism was incompatible with the aspirations of this generation of pan-Chinese chauvinists. As I hope to demonstrate, many of the phrases in Mandarin teaching materials reveal insights into the language practices of their authors and intended readership, but also concrete formulations of their worldview.
But first, the concept âMandarinâ merits some clarification. The original European usage of this word corresponds to the Chinese term guÄnhuÃ
The impact of these developments on the history of Mandarin in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia remains poorly studied. Many Chinese- Indonesians were more literate in Malay, the archipelagoâs lingua franca, than in any Sinitic variety. In addition, many could speak and write regional Indonesian languages, such as Javanese and Sundanese. From the early twentieth century, however, the so-called Sino-Malay press regularly called attention to guóyÇ and báihuà â spelled as kuo-yü and pai hwa â and the perceived importance for Indies Chinese to learn them. The term zhèngyÄ«n â in the archipelago typically pronounced as tjeng im (literary Hokkien: chèng-im) or tjia im (colloquial Hokkien: chià n-im) â was used synonymously with Mandarin. Yet unlike mainland China, Indonesia lacked native-speaking reference points for this language. Job Moerman, an elementary teacher at Chinese schools, observed in 1929 that Mandarin was only used for reading (Moerman 1929: 43). The Chinese-Indonesian journalist Nio Joe Lan
Photo of a Mandarin course in Surabaya
From SIN PO WEKELIJKSCHE EDITIE 841 (1939), 5. The course was provided by the Revive China Society or HSING CHUNG HUI
2 Learning Chinese in Indonesia
Mandarin is Indonesiaâs only Sinitic language for which courses and textbooks were publicly advertised. In late-colonial times, they were often promoted in the verbiage of pan-Chinese solidarity, typically in Malay (Hoogervorst 2021: 42â50). If one truly supported Chinese nationalism and wished to transcend provincial loyalties, so the argument went, the adoption of a shared national language was the only viable option. Such sentiments could of course easily be exploited for commercial gain. The following advertisement, for instance, inexorably connects a personâs love for the Chinese nation to their willingness to purchase a long list of textbooks:
Do you �
Do you like the Chinese nation?
Do you want to know about the Chinese civilization?
Do you want to become a friend of the Chinese nation?
Do you plan to go to China?
Do you understand the Mandarin Chinese language?
Do you enjoy learning the Chinese script?
Do you want to learn the Mandarin Chinese language?
Do you want to interact with the civilized Chinese nation?4
Other institutions provided opportunities to learn Mandarin for free. Another advertisement, published in 1924 in the Sino-Malay newspaper Tjin Po
Learn the Chinese script for free. Seeing as the Chinese schools have failed to become places to prevent the loss of the Chinese language and script among the Indies-born Chinese, starting from 8 April, Keng Po in Batavia will teach five Chinese characters in the Mandarin dialect in each issue, totalling 1000 characters according to Tjiam Dji Koâs system. [â¦] Support the goal to make Chinese the language of social interaction in the Indies.5
The best-rated Chinese schools in the Netherlands Indies managed to offer their entire curriculum in Mandarin, without relying on other languages (Sai 2016: 384). Exclusively Chinese teaching materials were not romanized, although some had phonetic markings known as Zhùyīn Fúhà o
The first commercially available book known to me from which Indies-born Chinese could hone their Mandarin skills was a 140-page wordlist of Malay, Dutch, Japanese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, and Cantonese titled East Asia, first published in 1910 by John F. Knoetsen.6 Not much is known about the bookâs compiler, who must have been born around 1873 and worked as a telegraphist and non-military clerk (burgerschrijver) in Palembang, a city in Sumatra. Some of the photographs Knoetsen took of Palembang life at the beginning of the twentieth century are kept at the Leiden University Library.7 Netherlands Indies newspapers report that he took a one-year furlough to China in October 1905, where he must have nurtured his Mandarin proficiency. In 1906, the self-taught polyglot briefly taught English at the Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan school in Batavia (Nio 1940: 93â94), which made him a contemporary at that institute of the famous Singaporean educational reformist Lim Boon Keng
Unlike the other books discussed in this chapter, East Asia contains only words and no example sentences. Its publication by Tjiong Koen Bie and the laudatory forewords of Chinese dignitaries â the Qing representative Ong Hong Siang
Since I have started to publish my little âHandbookâ, I have noticed that not only local-born Chinese, but also various Europeans are aficionados of those âHandbooksâ, even though they are chiefly written in Malay; and I have also realized that it is very useful for Dutch traders, travellers, missionaries, and police servants in the Netherlands Indies to learn to speak Japanese or one of the Chinese languages.
That is why I have decided to completely revise the second edition, in such a way that a full-blooded Dutchman, who does not know a single word of Malay, would be able to find with great ease a Dutch word translated into Japanese or Chinese.9
Also in 1912, a Chinese-English-Malay phrasebook titled The Chinese, English and Malay Classified Conversations was published by Chun Lim &Co
In China, the Mandarin language is chiefly used either in the Northern or Southern China; but most of the Chinese, in the Southern island or in the Malay Archipelago, frequently use the Malay language, or some other languages such as Cantonese or Hokianese [sic!], and by continuing these languages so frequently and being so accustomed to them, that they have entirely forgotten one principal language â the language chiefly spoken amongst the Chinese, inhabitants of China and that is the Mandarin language
CHU ET AL. 1912: i
A third important publication appeared in 1920 under the title Combining Chinese and Malay or Hoa Woe Ho Pie
Most examples in Chunâs Hoa Woe Ho Pie are specific to the experiences of the Indies Chinese. Its conversations generally take place in Batavia and specifically in the neighbourhood Pasar Baroe âNew Bazaarâ, which feature in the book as respectively Pa ta wei
I have indeed deliberately written this book for the needs of all you Sirs, who only understand, or know, the shape of Chinese characters, but do not understand what they mean; in this book all of their meanings will become clear; I have divided all that is written in Hoa Woe Ho Pie into four separate books.12
A hand-written advertisement of Hoa Woe Ho Pie
Leiden University Library Sinol. 153236. No known copyright holders
Of these four volumes, only the first has been preserved.13 The example sentences of Part One consist of various topics for everyday dialogues. The second volume reportedly focuses on interactions with important people, business talk, and domestic affairs. The third volume delves into Chinese characters with deeper meanings and their use in conversations, whereas the fourth volume deals with written correspondence. While the book was published by Chun Lim &Co in Batavia, it was printed in China:
This book is of great necessity to obtain for you students in the Netherlands Indies, and for you Sirs who would like to know languages and should also know your own language.
If any Malay letter is misspelled, I offer my sincere apologies, as this book has been printed by typesetters in Shanghai, none of whom can speak Malay.14
The fourth book examined in detail here is Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe âMandarin without a Teacherâ, published in 1934 by a certain Mrs. The (Fig. 7.3).15 Born in 1916, the author worked as a private Chinese teacher in Surabaya from the mid-1930s. Her Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe, however, was intended for self-study. It was published by the Surabaya-based accountancy firm New China
Cover of Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe
Leiden University Library. No known copyright holders
In post-independence Indonesia, Mrs. The worked with her husband at the Lian Huo
In the first part of Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe, Mrs. The explains that Chinese, like Malay, has less morphology than European languages and is therefore easier to learn. For this book, she developed her own method to learn Mandarin, which required the student to learn the pronunciation of individual characters before having to study their usage in combinations, peruse example sentences, and carry out exercises. To indicate how Chinese characters should be pronounced, Mrs. The used a Dutch-influenced Indies-style romanization alongside ZhùyÄ«n Fúhà o transcriptions. In the second part of Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe, conversely, the entire source text â rather than just the individual characters at the beginning of each chapter â was given in romanized form underneath the Chinese characters. Part Two is remarkably more ideological in nature; it discusses trips to China and the embarrassment of ethnic Chinese who cannot understand âtheir own languageâ. Several example sentences also mention Toean Cheng or ChÄng hsiën shÄng
The above publications are by no means Indonesiaâs only educational texts on Mandarin. Next to the aforementioned exclusively Chinese materials, several small Mandarin-Malay dictionaries appeared from the 1910s onwards. One example is the Chinese-Malay Dictionary or Han Woe Tzi Tian
In November 1945, Yoe Wan Fei published another Mandarin self-study book titled Limâs Mandarin without a Teacher,20 once again encouraging Indonesiaâs Chinese community to learn the language and script of their ârealâ country. Among its targeted readership, as the introduction makes clear, were people who had learned some Mandarin at the Chinese elementary school â an institution designated with the curious Hokkien-Mandarin compound tjoe-têng siao-hsüeh (chiÅ«n-tnÌg
3 Mandarin, but Which Kind?
From the mid-nineteenth century, Malay newspapers in the Netherlands Indies used a Dutch-influenced Indies-style romanization, rather than the Arabic-derived script in which native Malay speakers wrote their language. While far from consistently applied, these conventions were in broad use, especially in Javaâs cities. A similar system emerged almost organically for Mandarin when the need to transcribe it first arose. Some of its most salient characteristics are outlined in Table 7.1:
The Indies-style transcription of Mandarin
In the above system, the â¨hâ© was used to mark aspirated consonants, e.g. khoeng
Another source of complication was the inability of most Chinese- Indonesians â in the good company of numerous speakers in China and Southeast Asia â to pronounce retroflex consonants. Dental, palatal, and retroflex consonants are often merged in the Mandarin of Java-born Chinese (Oetomo 1987: 81). This merger seems to have existed in late-colonial times too, judging from the identical way these sounds were transcribed. In early Malay textbooks, the voiceless alveolar sibilant affricate /tÍ¡s/ â¨zâ©, the voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate /tÍ¡É/ â¨jâ©, and the voiceless retroflex sibilant affricate /ÊÍ¡Ê/ â¨zhâ© were all routinely transcribed as â¨tjâ©, although the former was also sometimes transcribed as â¨tzâ©, â¨tsâ©, or â¨tjzâ©. Likewise, the aspirated voiceless alveolar affricate /tÍ¡sh/ â¨câ©, the aspirated voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate /tÍ¡Éh/ â¨qâ©, and the aspirated voiceless retroflex sibilant affricate /ÊÍ¡Êh/ â¨châ© were all transcribed as â¨tjhâ©. The Dutch romanization was furthermore unable to accurately reflect the Mandarin sibilants, as was already pointed out by the aforementioned Nio Joe Lan in the 1930s (Nio 1933: 412). The orthographic â¨sâ© was used for the voiceless alveolar dental sibilant /s/, the voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant /É/, and the voiceless retroflex sibilant /Ê/, corresponding respectively to â¨sâ©, â¨xâ©, and â¨shâ© in modern Mandarin. However, /É/ was also occasionally transcribed as â¨hsâ©, and /Ê/ as â¨schâ©, â¨shâ©, or â¨szâ©.
The fact that the first volume of Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe gives ZhùyÄ«n Fúhà o transcriptions alongside Indies-style romanizations affords some further insights into the way Mandarin was pronounced. Syllables ending in â¨
With diacritics already serving other purposes, the Indies-style romanization was unable to mark tones. Only the first volume of Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe contains information about tones. We can see the same four tones as in modern Mandarin; the fifth âcheckedâ tone of some earlier standardizations is absent.24 As the tones were given for each syllable individually, the book contains no indication of a neutral tone, as attested in modern Mandarin from mainland China (but not Taiwan). Even the particles le
As has been said previously, this book does not use tone-indicating letters as this would increase the burden on its user â this is done in most books, adding to the confusion of the learner â because to teach pronunciation requires continuous familiarization with speech in order to quickly soften the tongue, alongside attention to easy, difficult, long, and short conversations, so that the listener will be able to understand them quickly; this is the most important thing, but in this book I will try to do a bit of both. You students may consider for yourselves what works best, and please let me know your thoughts, so that the third print can be adjusted to what most people want.25
Another complication was the aforementioned coexistence of a northern and a southern variety of Mandarin, known under different names. In Knoetsenâs East Asia, they were introduced as Kiangsoe
Kiangsoe æ±è and Pitjili åç´é¸ correspondences
Data from Knoetsen (1912: iv)
In the second volume of Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe, it is clarified that the Mandarin of northern China â Pe-fang kuo-yü
North Chinese and Nanyang correspondences according to Mrs. The
Data from (Shen-Tjia 1940: ii)
In the first volume of Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe, too, we already find a predominance of northern Mandarin features. The rhotacization of syllable finals, for example, was (and is) more common in the Mandarin of Beijing than of Nanjing.27 We indeed encounter the forms naârl
The substitution of southern for northern Mandarin, however, was a gradual process. Yoe Wan Fei advised as late as 1945 that Mandarin â¨ouâ© /ou̯/ had to be pronounced as in Sundanese: â¨euâ© /ɤ/. This older pronunciation resembles that of southern Mandarin (Coblin 2000: 301, 327) and can also be seen in the other textbooks, e.g. theuw
Archaic pronunciations in Indonesian Mandarin
The textbooks also contain some currently non-standard (yet still widespread) vocabulary, e.g. li pai
4 Sino-Malay: A Hybrid Target Language
The textbooks afford similar linguistic observations on the history of Malay. Earlier scholarship has underlined the importance of âthe hybridized Malay-Hokkien vernacularâ to the study of Mandarin in Indonesia (Sai 2016: 375; Hoogervorst 2021: 42â50). All the textbooks examined here are indeed written in a type of colloquial Malay saturated with Hokkien loanwords, which âbehavedâ similarly to Baba Malay (Aye, this volume) on a typological level. Yet because both the Malay and the Hokkien dialects differed from those in Malaya, the vernacular that is analysed below should be regarded as a distinct variety. Before delving into its Hokkien elements, it is important to first investigate the Malay itself as used by the Chinese in Javaâs late-colonial cities. As the primary lingua franca of maritime Southeast Asia, Malay was learned by Chinese visitors and settlers from at least early-modern times. The Netherlands Indies government likewise adopted Malay for administrative purposes, but used a standardization that was quite remote from what was actually spoken by the colonyâs urban middle-classes. The Mandarin textbooks investigated here all exhibit the Malay used in Java. Even Knoetsen, who must have learned his Malay in Sumatra, used words specific to Java. Table 7.5 below lists some common lexical items found in the Sino-Malay textbooks, along with their equivalents in the âstandardâ Malay promoted by the colonial government. The grammar of Javaâs urban Malay has been examined by previous scholars (Oetomo 1991; Mahdi 2016).
While many Chinese-Indonesian families had lost fluency in Zhangzhou Hokkien or never spoke it to begin with, their colloquial Malay was permeated with âheritage wordsâ from that language. These words were almost exclusively written in Indies-style romanization. For reasons of recognizability, however, I also give the corresponding Chinese characters and their modern transcriptions throughout this section. In addition to Hokkien loanwords that were widespread even among non-Chinese speakers of Malay â such as goea
Even more importantly, Hokkien vocabulary was systematically relied upon to translate Mandarin words for which no Java Malay equivalents could be found. The Classified Conversations, for example, translates miên pao
Common Hokkien translations of Mandarin words
Most Mandarin words for the names of family members, too, lacked precise Malay equivalents. Fortunately, many Chinese-Indonesian families still used the corresponding Hokkien terms, even when their dominant language had shifted to Malay (Fig. 7.4). For the designation of maternal cousins and their children, for example, the Mandarin element piaw
An explanation of kinship terms in Hoa Woe Ho Pie
Chun Foo Chun, HOA WOE HO PIE (Batavia: Chun Lim &Co, 1920). No known copyright holders
Table 7.7 lists additional Mandarin kinship terms and their Hokkien/Sino- Malay translations, based on lists given in two of the textbooks (Chun 1920: 104â14; Shen-Tjia 1934: 245):
Mandarin kinship terms and their Sino-Malay glosses
We see the same phenomenon in Li Joek Koeyâs 1931 Mandarin-Malay- Dutch-English dictionary, in which several âMalayâ glosses of Mandarin entries are likewise Hokkien-derived (Table 7.8). In addition, a small number of glosses come from other Sinitic varieties, e.g. pipah âloquatâ, lobak âdaikonâ, sumok âsappanwoodâ, and tzifa âpersimmon flowerâ, respectively from Mandarin pÃpá
Mandarin dictionary entries and their Sino-Malay glosses
Data taken from Li (1931)
In some textbooks, the Malay glosses reveal grammatical influence from the Chinese source text on account of their atypical idiom. The sentence Tjé lie ti tjië tao hÄn kan tjing
5 Phrasing Chineseness
Having investigated the linguistic peculiarities of both the Mandarin source language and the Sino-Malay target language, we now take a closer look at the contents of the textbooks. Language manuals and phrasebooks generally provide miscellaneous examples of the way power hierarchies and other social information are linguistically encoded. A plethora of European-authored Malay phrasebooks, for example, entered the markets of the Netherlands Indies and British Malaya from the late-nineteenth century, promising the prospective colonial servant, soldier, or tourist efficient ways to communicate with the ânative populationâ. This topic deserves a separate study and could fruitfully be connected to present-day Singaporean guidebooks on talking to (Indonesian and other) domestic workers. Malay phrasebooks intended for Chinese readers, too, have been discussed in more detail elsewhere (Hoogervorst 2021). In what follows, I will limit myself to the contents of Mandarin textbooks in Malay.
The Classified Conversations, which served to prepare Indies-born Chinese for a trip to China, contains many example sentences that take place in trams, trains, and boats. The phrasebook clearly aimed to portray the newly established ROC as a modern society. No better illustration can be given than the following selected sentences, given in the context of a Western-style dance party (Chu et al. 1912: 64â65):
Chunâs Hoa Woe Ho Pie, with its focus on the Netherlands Indies, contains various example sentences in a classroom setting (Chun 1920: 134â37). These are clearly inspired by contemporaneous schoolbooks from China. A school teacherâs explanation of the aphorism Sze noeng koeng sang tjiay ih tang ping
In the second volume of Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe, we find a very similar exchange, shaming Indies-born Chinese who cannot speak Mandarin (Shen-Tjia 1940: 9, 15â16). A selection of sentences is given below:
Whereas the first volume of Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe contained very few example sentences of a distinct ideological nature, the second volume insisted at various sections that Indies-born Chinese should learn about China and preferably spend time there. Like the Classified Conversations almost three decades earlier, the bookâs conversations took place in the cities, trains, and boats of China. Both books featured conversations on seasickness and ways to handle it, for example. On the topic of dancing, however, Mrs. The proved more conservative than her predecessors. While the latter treated the topic with the awe of novelty, the following conversation in Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe reveals that its author had little positive to say about the encroachment of Western dancing on the Chinese culture (Shen-Tjia 1940: 237):
6 Concluding Remarks
The enduring popularity of Mandarin textbooks in Chinese-Indonesian circles negate Oudendijkâs observations made in 1913 that âthose who have settled here permanently will probably realize that the Mandarin dialect has little âmarket valueââ and that âwhile the written Chinese language can still be counted among the sciences that are useful for the (Chinese) subjects in the Netherlands Indies society, the spoken North Chinese (Mandarin) dialect cannot be considered for this at allâ.32 At the same time, the fact that few of these educational books â oft-reprinted and well-advertised as they were â can be found in more than one library testifies to a later disinterest in the material.33 This is unfortunate, as Chinese-Indonesian linguistic history can only be fully understood by taking into account all elements in the equation: Malay, Mandarin, Hokkien, Javanese, and even Dutch.
In this chapter, hence, I have tried to demonstrate that several insights of historical and linguistic relevance can be gleaned from the pages of Mandarin educational texts, as is the case with phrasebooks and textbooks more generally. As regards the romanization of Mandarin, we may safely conclude that no available system fully âworkedâ; rather than a consistently implemented system, what arose was a fluid set of conventions. Testimony to this fluidity is the fact that some authors adopted a different romanization over time, while others openly solicited their readersâ preferences in this arena. I have focused more on lexicon and textual contents than grammar, which is comparatively difficult to connect with broader social developments, yet the material will undoubtedly also be relevant to scholars interested in the syntactical development of Mandarin.
The latest primary source examined for this chapter dates from 1945. Mandarin-related materials from the 1950s presumably reveal quite different dynamics. Amidst the triumph of the Indonesian nation-state, books promoting loyalty to another country became politically sensitive. Nevertheless, both the PRC and the ROC â the latter now operating from Taiwan â continued to assert their influence on Chinese-Indonesians in subtle, officially approved ways (Suryadinata 1972; Sai 2006; Zhou 2019). This came with linguistic implications too. In 1955, the PRC adopted a standardization closer to the colloquial language of Beijing â known as Common Speech or PÇtÅnghuÃ
The Mandarin currently taught in Indonesia is chiefly PÇtÅnghuà , in simplified characters. It is avidly studied by Chinese-descended as well as âindigenousâ Indonesians. In addition, numerous Indonesian migrant workers have gained fluency â but rarely literacy â in Taiwanese Mandarin. This variety is also taught in a small number of schools. While knowledge of Mandarin is clearly on the rise in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, proficiency in Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese and Teochew is declining. Indeed, the ongoing Chinese Revival leaves little room for Sinitic varieties other than Mandarin (Sai 2010; Setijadi 2015; Stenberg 2015). As I have demonstrated, this project of homogenization was kick-started a century earlier. Whether it will lead to new episodes of shaming Chinese-Indonesians deemed not fluent enough remains an open question. If anything, doing so would undermine a fascinating history of plurilingualism and fluctuating proficiencies, in which linguistic practices were deeply intertwined with the political pressures of the day.
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Shen-Tjia, Ms. The Chung, Boekoe Beladjar Alphabet Kuo-Yin (Surabaya: New China, 1942).
Simmons, Richard Vanness, âWhence Came Mandarin? QÄ«ng GuÄnhuà , the BÄijÄ«ng Dialect, and the National Language Standard in Early Republican Chinaâ, Journal of the American Oriental Society 137/1 (2017): 63â88.
South Coblin, W., âA Diachronic Study Of MÃng GuÄnhuà Phonologyâ, Monumenta Serica 48/1 (2000): 267â335.
South Coblin, W., Modern Chinese phonology: From GuÄnhuà to Mandarin (Paris: EHESS, 2007).
Suryadinata, Leo, âIndonesian Chinese Education: Past and Presentâ, Indonesia 14 (1972): 49â71.
Tip Top Toe, Gadis jang dibawa lari (Batavia: Sin Po, 1923).
Tshen, Eric H., Oey Tjiang Hoay and Lim Bok Sioe, Han Woe Tzi Tian: Kitab Lograt Tiong Hoa-Melajoe (Batavia: Kho Tjeng Bie, 1915).
van der Wal, S.L., Het Onderwijsbeleid in Nederlands-Indië 1900â1940: Een Bronnenpublikatie (Groningen: J.B. Wolters, 1963).
Wang, Anyi, âThe Fate of Language (Parts 1 and 2)â, Xingzhou ribao, xingyun ban [Sin Chew daily starcloud supplement] (13 July and 7 December 1993).
Wangkar, Max, âSuratkabar Jawa Pos adalah Dahlan Iskan: Bagaimana dalam 20 tahun satu koran kecil jadi dominan di Indonesiaâ, Pantau 2/13 (2001): 12â25.
Weng, Jeffrey, âWhat Is Mandarin? The Social Project of Language Standardization in Early Republican Chinaâ, The Journal of Asian Studies 77/3 (2018): 611â633.
Yoe Wan Fei, Limâs Boekoe Peladjaran Kuo-Yü Zonder Goeroe (Jakarta: Limâs Boekhandel, 1945).
Zhou Taomo, Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia, and the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019).
Throughout this chapter, I will cite the Chinese data in their original transcription. To identify their contemporary pronunciations, I use PÄ«nyÄ«n for Mandarin and PeÌh-Åe-jÄ« for Hokkien.
[â¦] het Mandarijnsch is thans als voertaal niet alleen in de mode, doch bij de groote verscheidenheid der door de hier gevestigde Chineezen gesproken dialecten wordt de groote moeilijkheid der keuze van een dialect doorgehakt zoo men Mandarijnsch neemt. Laat ik hier terstond bijvoegen, dat in de meeste scholen een heel raar taaltje voor Mandarijnsch moet doorgaan, en dat zeer vele onderwijzers maar heel eenvoudig hun eigen provinciaal dialect spreken, soms met een Mandarijnsch tintje er aan (van der Wal 1963: 263).
So named because it contained regional and non-standard features and was thus âneither purely blue nor purely greenâ (Simmons 2017: 63â64, fn. 1).
Apatah � | Apatah Toean soeka sama bangsa Tionghoa? | Apatah Toean ingin kenal kasopanan Tionghoa? | Apatah Toean maoe djadi sobatnja bangsa Tionghoa? | Apatah Toean aken pergi ka Tiongkok? | Apatah Toean mengarti bahasa Tionghoa Tjeng-Im? | Apatah Toean soeka berladjar hoeroef Tionghoa? | Apatah Toean maoe berladjar bahasa Tionghoa Tjeng-Im? | Apatah Toean ingin bergaoel dengan bangsa T.H. jang sopan? (Tip 1923).
Bladjar hoeroef Tionghoa dengen prodeo. Meliat Haktong telah loepoet mendjadi tempat aken tjega terhilangnja hoeroef dan bahasa Tionghoa antara pranakan-pranakan di Hindia, maka moelaï dari tanggal 8 april KENG PO di Batavia setiap terbitnja ada mengadjar lima hoeroef Tionghoa dalem dialect Tjeng Im sampe 1000 hoeroef systeem Tjiam Dji Ko. [â¦] Toendjanglah ini maksoed boeat bikin pergaoelan di ini Hindia mendjadi Tionghoa.
I have not been able to find the first edition. Copies of the third edition, published in 1912, can be found at the universities of Leiden and Cornell.
KITLV 4784, KITLV 180707, KITLV 181505.
I have not been able to find any copies of this publication.
Sedert dat ik begonnen ben met myn âHandboekjeâ uit te geven, heb ik bemerkt dat niet alleen hiergeborene Chineezen maar ook verscheidene Europeanen liefhebbers zyn van die âHandboekjesâ, niettegenstaande de hoofdtaal daarvan Maleisch is; en ook heb ik ingezien, dat het leeren spreken van Japansch of een der Chineesche talen daarin aanwezig zeer nuttig is voor Hollandsche handelaren, reizigers, zendelingen en politie-ambtenaren in Ned: Indië. | Daarom heb ik besloten de tweede uitgave geheel te wyzigen, en wel zoodanig, dat een volbloed Nederlander, die nog geen enkel Maleisch woord kent, zeer gemakkelyk een Hollandsch woord in het Japansch of Chinees vertaald, zou kunnen vinden. (Knoetsen 1912: ii).
Malay: Boekoe Omong-Omongan Njang Teratoer Darie Bahasa Tjina, Inggris dan Malayoe. The only copy of this publication known to me is kept at the Museum of Chinese- Indonesian Literature (Museum Pustaka Peranakan Tionghoa) in Tangerang, Indonesia.
This publication has recently been digitized by Cornell University.
Saia sengadja mengarang ini boekoe memangnja boeat keparloean pada L.W. Sian seng, jang tjoema mengarti, atawa kenal, sadja roepanja hoeroep tjina, tetapi tida tahoe menartinja, di dalam ini boekoe bisa menarangkan sekalian maksoednja, soerat jang ada tertoelis di dalam ini Hoa Woe Ho Pie, semoea saja pitjah 4 kepeng boekoe (Chun 1920: ii).
The only copy known to me is kept at the Leiden University Library.
Ini boekoe ada besar kaperloean boeat di mempoenjain oleh liatwi Hakseng2 di hindia, balanda [sic!] ini dan boeat liatwi sian seng jang ada hati kapingin tahoe bahasa dan bahasa sendiri poen perloe djoega. | Kaloe salah swatoe hoeroep melajoe ada tersalah, saia banjak minta maaf sebab ini boekoe di tjitak di Sianghay leter zetter semoa tida tahoe omong melajoe (Chun 1920: iv).
Chinese:
Malay: Boekoe beladjar alphabet Kuo-Yin, Chinese:
From 1948, Chinese Daily News was known as Hua Chiao Sin Wen or Hwa Chiau Hsin Wen
Chinese:
Chinese:
Chinese:
The Philippine Hokkien data in Chia (this volume) are similar in this regard.
[â¦] haroes diboenjiken satengah soeara, dengen lida ditekoek ka atas.
Dutch Sinologists, conversely, had their own way of transcribing northern Mandarin, in addition to having to know the French, English, and German systems (cf. Kuiper 2017: 100). Unlike Mrs. Theâs system, the Dutch Sinologists used diacritic markers to indicate tones.
This tone is known in Chinese linguistics as the âentering toneâ (
Seperti soedah dibilang tadi ini boekoe tida memake hoeroep pemantes swara memang djoega djadi lebeh membratkan kapada jang memake, begitoelah boekoe2 jang kebanjakakkan hingga menambah bingoengnja jang adjar, sebab adjar omong perloe sadja saban waktoe di biasaken beromong2 djadi lidah lekas lembek dan perhatikan djoega omongan jang enteng atawa brat pandjang atawa pendek, djadi bisa lekas mengarti orang jang mendengar, itoe jang paling perloe, tetapi di boekoe ini saia tjoba djoega tjampoer sedikit. Liatwi siangseng boleh timbang sendiri jang mana dikira baek harap di kabari sedikit pada saia, soepaia tjapan jang katiga bisa tjoetjoek menoeroet kemaoean orang banjak (Chun 1920: 101).
Beiping was the name of Beijing from 1928 to 1949.
This phonological process is known in Chinese linguistics as érhuÃ
The present-day equivalents are xÄ«ngqÃ
Cf. shìchÇng
Copies from the Netherlands Indies can be found at the Leiden University Library (Sinol. 153236). For more context, see Hou (2017).
Here and below, the translations into English are mine.
[â¦] zullen zij die hier voor goed gevestigd zijn wel inzien dat het Mandarijnsche dialect weinig âmarktwaardeâ heeft (van der Wal 1963: 258); [â¦] kan men de geschreven Chineesche taal nog rekenen tot die wetenschappen die voor onze (Chineesche) onderdanen in de Nederlandsch-Indische samenleving nuttig zijn, het gesproken Noord Chineesche (Mandarijnsche) dialect kan daarvoor heelemaal niet in aanmerking gebracht worden (ibid. 263).
This is especially the case for textbooks written in Malay. The situation for textbooks in Chinese, a collection of which is kept at the Wang Gungwu Library in Singapore, is considerably more favourable.