Elements of Chinese Grammar: With a Preliminary Dissertation on the Characters, and the Colloquial Medium of the Chinese, and an Appendix Containing the Tahyoh of Confucius with a Translation

Chinese, in its various forms, is spoken today by over a billion people, making it the most spoken language in the world. A member of the Sino-Tibetan family, it is a tone language with an analytic structure. First published in 1814, this grammar of colloquial Chinese was compiled by the Christian missionary Joshua Marshman (1768–1837), who was inspired to do so after preparing a Chinese translation of the Bible. It begins with a preliminary essay outlining the characters of Chinese, its to...