The earlier missionaries in Canton devised a Romanized system of writing Chinese, based on the alphabet of Continental Europe. Many of the vowel sounds differed materially from the sounds conveyed by the same vowels in the English language, and as each of these vowels had to represent more than one sound, diacritical marks were used to distinguish them. This system is the one used in dictionaries, and is sometimes employed by interpreters who have acquired the Chinese language by their use. When names written in this system are transcribed into court records and other official documents, however, the diacritical marks are often omitted, and the non-use of such distinguishing signs brings about a change of pronunciation. When reading a Chinese name in an English record, the reader naturally gives the same phonetic value to the vowels in the Chinese name as he does to the vowels in the English.
Another cause of confusion is the fact that attorneys and others who have occasion to write Chinese names give widely different forms in English to the same Chinese sound, according to the way they themselves pronounce the language.
The Chinese generally give only their given names, preceded by the word "Ah," omitting the surname. The surname always comes first in Chinese, as for instance, "Chin Sin." Chin is the surname and Sin the given name. When asked his name, the Chinaman would probably say "Ah Sin." The full name should appear in all documents.
The importance of a uniform system of spelling is
