Early Chinese Textbooks, thanks to C-POL and Archive.org

[roddy]

Thought this was worth a repost - originated on C-POL it seems, and was then forwarded to me, it's a list of early Chinese textbooks available on Archive.org. Should be good for curiosity value, and perhaps a few of us may like to actual sit down and study them. Audio, I fear, is not available. Except perhaps on wax cylinder:

First lessons in Chinese (1871) by Yates

http://www.archive.org/details/firstlessonsinch00yaterich

Chinese without a teacher (1872) by Giles

http://www.archive.org/details/chinesewithoutte00gilerich

Chinese made easy by Brouner

http://www.archive.org/details/chinesemadeeasy00brourich

Easy Lessons in Chinese, Or, Progressive Exercises to Facilitate the Study

of that Language ... (1842) by Samuel Wells Williams

http://www.archive.org/details/easylessonsinch00willgoog

A Mandarin primer (1911) by Baller

http://www.archive.org/details/mandarinprimer00balluoft

Chinese without a teacher, being a collection of easy and useful sentences

in the Mandarin dialect, with a vocabulary (1901) by Giles

http://www.archive.org/details/chinesewithoutte00gileuoft

Introduction to literary Chinese by Brandt

http://www.archive.org/details/introductiontoli00branuoft

A handbook of the Chinese language (1863) by James Summers

http://www.archive.org/details/handbookofchines00summiala

Chinese phonetic system and language : (English translation) (1922)

http://www.archive.org/details/chinesephonetics00lichrich

Colloquial Chinese by Whymant

http://www.archive.org/details/colloquialchines00whymiala

Two years' course of study in the Chinese language (1913) by Robert Bryan

http://www.archive.org/details/twoyearscourseof00bryarich

Brief introduction to the study of the Chinese language (1915) by Pettus

http://www.archive.org/details/briefintroductio00pettrich

Cantonese for beginners : learning Cantonese through self-taught

word-for-word method, with characters, pronunciation, tones and combinations

([19--]) by Jiang

http://www.archive.org/details/cantoneseforbegi01jianuoft

A Cantonese phonetic reader by Jones

http://www.archive.org/details/cantonesephoneti00joneuoft

How to speak Cantonese: fifty conversations in Cantonese colloquial; with

Chinese character, free and literal English translations, and romanised

spelling with tonic and diacritical marks, &c (1902) by Ball

http://www.archive.org/details/howtospeakcanton00ballrich

[creamyhorror]

There are a few guides/dictionaries to Hokkien ("the Amoy dialect") on Archive.org too - I'll try to post links later.

[roddy]

Old grammar translation texts are great fun even if you just read the English.

From the Bryan (1913) text:

Goat's horns are a foot long, and also all are crooked.

[HedgePig]

Alas, a day late Roddy. If only I had known about the goats yesterday, it would have saved me endless trouble at Renmenguanchang interchange.

However, I'm sure that I'll be able to use this soon: "You truly are a man who does not know fragrance and stinks, that is, a stupid knave."

More seriously, thanks, for the interesting link. And I do like how the Bryan book actually starts off with a lot of questions to ask the teacher, "How do you pronounce this character?", etc. Very sensible really.