I couldn’t resist going back to the Moka Garden Embroidery Mission documents. There’s just too much there to be limited to a couple posts.
In addition to the book of short stories, they also recorded a staple of missionary linguistics, the Lord’s Prayer. The following is from Inductive Lessons in Soochow Phonetics.
| ㄗ ノ ㄉ ㄠ ㄧ 卄 。 ㄚ ㄇ ㄣ 。 |
直 到 永 。 亞 們 。 |
ㄎ ノ ㄒ 卄 ト ㄧ ㄣ ㄨ オ ㄍ ㄨ ノ ㄉ ㄨ ㄐ 干 ㄅ ㄧ ㄣ ㄧ 卄 ㄧ ㄠ ム ㄤ ム ㄧ ㄚ ㄍ |
出 凶 惡 因 爲 國 度 權 柄 榮 耀 全 是 爺 个 |
ㄗ ㄚ ㄧ ノ ㄧ 万 ノ ㄧ ㄠ ㄌ ㄧ ㄣ 广 ㄧ ム 久 ㄥ ㄈ 乙 ㄧ ㄠ ㄐ 久 广 ㄧ |
債 一 樣 勿 要 領 伲 受 試 法 要 救 伲 |
ㄥ ㄨ ㄑ ウ ㄍ ㄗ ㄚ ム ㄧ ㄤ 广 ㄧ ㄇ ウ ㄊ ノ ㄅ ㄧ ノ 广 ㄣ ㄑ ウ 广 ㄧ ㄍ |
所 欠 个 債 像 伲 免 脱 别 人 欠 伲 个 |
ㄧ 卄 ㄍ 万 ㄢ ㄌ ㄧ ㄤ ㄐ 久 ㄧ ㄚ ㄐ ㄣ ㄗ ㄠ ㄅ ノ ㄌ 乙 广 ㄧ 。 ㄇ ウ ㄊ ノ 兀 ㄨ 广 ㄧ |
用 个 飯 糧 求 爺 今 朝 撥 拉 伲 。 免 脱 我 伲 |
ム ㄣ ㄍ 卄 ㄌ 乙 ㄉ ㄧ ㄌ 丄 ム ㄧ ㄤ ㄌ 乙 ㄗ ウ ㄌ 丄 ㄧ ノ ㄧ ㄤ 广 ㄧ ノ 广 ㄧ ノ |
成 功 拉 地 上 像 拉 天 上 一 樣 日 日 |
ㄧ ム ム ㄥ ㄣ ㄍ 广 干 ㄧ ㄚ ㄍ ㄍ ㄨ ノ ㄉ ㄨ ㄌ オ 广 干 ㄧ ㄚ ㄍ ㄗ ㄩ ㄧ |
字 是 聖 个 願 爺 个 國 度 來 願 爺 个 旨 意 |
兀 ㄨ 广 ㄧ ㄍ ㄧ ㄚ ㄌ 乙 ㄊ ウ ㄌ 丄 ㄍ 广 干 广 ㄣ ㄍ 卄 ㄐ ㄣ ㄧ ㄚ ㄍ ㄇ ㄧ |
我 伲 个 爺 拉 天 上 个 願 人 恭 敬 个 名 |
ㄗ ㄩ ㄅ ㄠ 万 ㄣ |
主 禱 文 |
Some of the zhuyin glyphs used to represent sounds in Suzhou dialect are not standard zhuyin. If I’ve read correctly, they were created in their final form by the missionaries themselves, based of course on other glyphs or characters. Since these aren’t standard and thus not covered by Unicode, I’ve had to do some borrowing. The following characters are used in the Moka Mission texts, here borrowed from Mandarin hanzi and Japanese katakana. Romanization is from the Moka publications.
卄 – oong ノ – eh ウ – ien 干 – oen [øn] 丄 – aung ト – auh
ム – z 广 – ny [ɲ] 乙 – ah 兀 – ng [ŋ] 万 – v ナ – o 久 – eh
As far as the hanzi in the prayer goes, you may have noticed it’s also not standard. The text is in traditional characters, as would be expected for 1920. However there are a fair number of occurrences of 个. Here it’s been re-appropriated standing in for 得 and 的, both being pronounced “ge” in most Wu dialects.
The text of the prayer transliterated using the Moka Mission’s system is as follows:
ngoo nyi k ya lah thien laung k nyoen nyin koong kyung ya k my iz z sung k nyoen ya k kweh too le nyoen ya k tsu y zung koong lah ti laung ziang lah tsien laung ih yang nyieh nyieh yoong k van lyang kyeu ya kyung tsau beh lah nyi. mien theh ngoo nyi soo chien k tsa zyang nyi mien theh bieh nyin chien nyi k tsa ih y veh yau ling nyi zeu s fah yau kyeu nyi kheh hyoong auh ing we kweh too kyoen bing yoong yau zang z ya k tseh tau yoong. a men.
Those familiar with early Romanisation of Chinese will be able to muck through it fairly effectively. To get an idea of more modern language since the Lord’s Prayer is hardly the typical conversation, the following is from the book of short stories published by the mission. It’s the first sentence of the first story.
| laopai | kyi-dan-kau z taung tien-sin chuh k meh-z. |
| modern | ci-de-kau zy daon thie-tsin chih keh me-zeh. |
| pinyin | jīdàngāo shì táng tiānjīn chī de měishí |
| hanzi | 鸡蛋糕是糖天津吃得美食”. |
The second is from the Wu Association online mini dictionary which uses another non-standard system of transcription but one which matches the Moka system well enough. The vowel in “taung” ought to match the one in the “daon” on the modern Suzhou dialect version, both corresponding to 糖.
