Excerpt from An Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect A brief list of Additions is placed at the end of the dictionary proper, and in it are given some additional uses of characters, and a few Romanized words and phrases which do not appear in the hodr of the work. A table of Corrections is given at the close of the volume, in which the more important errors occurring in the dictionary have been noted: the errors not corrected in the table are thought to be of an unimportant character, and their appropriate correction is readily suggested by the connection in which they occur. In the Index of Characters, where brackets have been used, it will be noticed that fre quently the same character is repeated once or twice. In these instances the character has different tones which affect its meaning. The figures indicate where each form is found. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Covering the political, social and historical background of each language, Dictionary of Languages offers a unique insight into human culture and communication. Every language with official status is included, as well as all those that have a written literature and 175 'minor' languages with special historical or anthropological interest. We see how, with the rapidly increasing uniformity of our culture as media's influence spreads, more languages have become extinct or are under threat of extinction. The text is highlighted by maps and charts of scripts, while proverbs, anecdotes and quotations reveal the features that make a language unique.