Xiamen (Amoy, Southern Fujian or Min Nan) Dialect and English

Xiamen (Amoy)

Xiamen, also known to the West as Amoy, looks out to the Taiwan Strait; many of its old colonial buildings have been carefully restored and its clean, well–kept streets and lively waterfront make it rank as one of the most attractive cities in China.

Xiamen was China’s main port for exporting tea. The Portuguese arrived in the 16^th century and followed by the British in the 17^th century, and later by the French and the Dutch. Xiamen Port remained closed from the 1750s until August 1841 when a British naval force of 38 ships carrying canons and soldiers forced the port to open. Western powers and Japanese followed soon after to establish consulates and made the island of Gulangyu a foreign enclave. Nowadays，Xiamen port is one of the trunk line ports in the Asia-Pacific region, it ranks the 30^th among the world’s top 100.

Amoy in the 1890s

Amoy dialect is the local vernacular and highly similar to Taiwanese or Teochew. As a port used by Europeans for many centuries, Amoy dialect had a major influence on some Chinese translated into English or other European languages. For instance, the words “Amoy” , “tea”, “Ketchup”, ”kowtow”, “cumshaw” and “Japan” all come from the Amoy dialect. If you’re a fan of Kung Fu, the iconic Kung Fu star Bruce Lee’s favourite weapon is “nunchaku”, which also originated from Amoy.

A project named Greetings to the Universe in 55 Different Languages was launched almost two decades ago: one of the purposes was to send a message to extraterrestrials who might find spacecrafts travelling through interstellar space. In addition to pictures and music and sounds from earth, greetings in 55 languages were included. Amoy dialect was one of these. Click Here to hear the greeting in Amoy.

Red Brick House, founded in the 1900s. (Vernacular Dwelling of Min Nan or Southern Fujian)

Family Temple (Founded in the 15^th century and restored in 1990s)

Altar in the Family Temple

Protestant Church, Founded in the 1840s and one of the Old Villas (Founded in 1920s).

Interview with Greg Sinclair on GoKunming

Chris Horton from GoKunming interviewed me a couple of days ago about chinaONEcall, running a call centre in Kunming and the challenges facing the telephone interpreting industry. The story appeared today.