Leong Fee's speech at Penang Chung Hwa School (15 May 1904)

[Mark Yong]

I just bought a copy of Tan Kim Hong's "The Chinese in Penang - A Pictorial History" (檳榔嶼華人史圖錄, 陳劍虹著). On Page 182 is a page from the Penang Sin Poe (檳城新報) dated 16 May 1904 that records the speech given by Vice-Consul Leong Fee (梁碧如副領事) on the opening day of the Chung Hwa School 中華學校 the day before. The entire speech as shown on the newspaper excerpt is written in Classical Chinese. I am just wondering what language Leong Fee actually used when he was delivering the speech.

I am guessing that it cannot have been Classical Chinese, so what dialect did he use - was it Hokkien? Since it was prior to the May 19 Movement, I am guessing that was done in one of the major dialects of Penang - most likely Hokkien - and given that Hokkien did not have a written standard, the speech would have had to be transcribed by the journalists into Classical Chinese as the written standard of the day. The spanner in the works for this proposition is that Leong was a Hakka.

And if he really did use Classical Chinese(!), what dialect's pronunciation was he using?

[Ah-bin]

It was quite common to transcribe things into CC from their original speech. Everyone did it, even from Mandarin, because written representation of any spoken language was considered too vulgar for a good writer.

[jefferyseow]

Wasn't Leong Fee Hakka?