John Chalmers (1825–1899) was a Scottish Protestant missionary in late Qing Dynasty China and translator.[1] His work An English and Cantonese Pocket Dictionary (1859) popularized the term "Cantonese".[2] Before 1859, Cantonese was referred in English as "the Canton dialect".[3][2]
Chalmers served with the London Missionary Society. He wrote several works on the Chinese language, including, in 1866, the first translation into English of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (which he called the Tau Teh King).
John Chalmers | |
---|---|
Born | New Deer, Aberdeenshire, Scotland | 24 October 1825
Died | 22 November 1899 Incheon, South Korea | (aged 74)
Spouse |
Helen Morison
(m. 1852; died 1897) |
bought with him the Paraphrase on the Sacred Edict [廣訓衍]... This interpretation was written in the northern dialect, ... on the first and fifteenth of the each moon, they might proclaim the original text in the Canton dialect.