RAS-1966 — Page 164

RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 All AI Reviewed
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158

BOOK REVIEWS

varieties, to choose the Hong Kong - Canton dialect as standard and then be as thorough as possible in recording the speech phenomena of that area. To cover all the Cantonese dialects would be a gargantuan task; to cover Standard Cantonese would be a more reasonable goal and one would not be forced to exclude features on the grounds of diverse local usage.

The dialects and subdialects then call for dictionaries of their own. In addition to dialect dictionaries as possible depositories of the multitudinous local varieties, a compiler might consider the possibility of separate dictionaries for technical or specialized terms before eliminating basic language features on the grounds of space limitations. A check of even a few pages of the present dictionary would suggest religious and biblical terms or botanical and zoological names as likely categories for such separate treatment.

What is needed now is a pocket dictionary of romanized Cantonese, perhaps compiled as an abridgement of Rev. Cowles' dictionary, and printed on india paper to conserve space.

Cornell University

JOHN MCCOY

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2026-05-12 16:43:30 · NVIDIA / meta/llama-4-maverick-17b-128e-instruct
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158 BOOK REVIEWS varieties, to choose the Hong Kong - Canton dialect as standard and then be as thorough as possible in recording the speech phenomena of that area. To cover all the Cantonese dialects would be a gargantuan task; to cover Standard Cantonese would be a more reasonable goal and one would not be forced to exclude features on the grounds of diverse local usage. The dialects and subdialects then call for dictionaries of their own. In addition to dialect dictionaries as possible depositories of the multitudinous local varieties, a compiler might consider the possibility of separate dictionaries for technical or specialized terms before eliminating basic language features on the grounds of space limitations. A check of even a few pages of the present dictionary would suggest religious and biblical terms or botanical and zoological names as likely categories for such separate treatment. What is needed now is a pocket dictionary of romanized Cantonese, perhaps compiled as an abridgement of Rev. Cowles' dictionary, and printed on india paper to conserve space. Cornell University JOHN MCCOY
Baseline (Original)
158 BOOK REVIEWS varieties, to choose the Hong Kong - Canton dialect as standard and then be as thorough as possible in recording the speech phenomena of that area. To cover all the Cantonese dialects would be a gargantuan task; to cover Standard Cantonese would be a more reasonable goal and one would not be forced to exclude features on the grounds of diverse local usage. The dialects and subdialects then call for dictionaries of their own. In addition to dialect dictionaries as possible depositories of the multitudinous local varieties, a compiler might consider the possibility of separate dictionaries for technical or specialized terms before eliminating basic language features on the grounds of space limitations. A check of even a few pages of the present dictionary would suggest religious and biblical terms or botanical and zoological names as likely categories for such separate treatment. What is needed now is a pocket dictionary of romanized Cantonese, perhaps compiled as an abridgement of Rev. Cowles' dictionary, and printed on india paper to conserve space. Cornell University JOHN MCCOY
2026-05-12 16:43:30 · Baseline
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158

BOOK REVIEWS

varieties, to choose the Hong Kong - Canton dialect as standard and then be as thorough as possible in recording the speech phenomena of that area. To cover all the Cantonese dialects would be a gargantuan task; to cover Standard Cantonese would be a more reasonable goal and one would not be forced to exclude features on the grounds of diverse local usage.

The dialects and subdialects then call for dictionaries of their own. In addition to dialect dictionaries as possible depositories of the multitudinous local varieties, a compiler might consider the possibility of separate dictionaries for technical or specialized terms before eliminating basic language features on the grounds of space limitations. A check of even a few pages of the present dictionary would suggest religious and biblical terms or botanical and zoological names as likely categories for such separate treatment.

What is needed now is a pocket dictionary of romanized Cantonese, perhaps compiled as an abridgement of Rev. Cowles' dictionary, and printed on india paper to conserve space.

Cornell University

JOHN MCCOY

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