The Universal Mandarin Colloqual: A Great Task Finished This spring of 1922, writes the Rev. Chaunesy Goodrich, p.p., Peking, in the Quarterly Record of the National Bible Society of Scotland, in Peking and Shanghai there were some notable gatherings of persons coming from almost everywhere, and speaking many languages, yet in all these meetings, using but two tongues, the one our own almost, worldwide English, the other the Un-versal Mandarin Colloquial; the latter scarcely yet a quarter of a century old. Whence came this new tongue, suddenly emerging into the light?
Slightly more than three decades agone (1890) there was a memorable conference in Shanghai, and. the one living question filling many hearts was: Is it possible, out of all the conglomerate of Mandarin, filling most of this Continental land to construct a new language, which might rightly be called The Universal Mandarin Colloquial of China?
Some" of us had made long journeys in many directions, and everywhere, with our own peculiar Mandarin, preaching the Good Tidings. And our hearts were crying out, Oh, if we might give China the Book from Heaven in one language, which should go to well-nigh the whole of this great Republic with its healing life-giving message! Would it be too great a venture of faith?
It was this venture which we made at that Convention. A Mandarin-speaking committee of five, each with his own pundit and speaking his own dialect, was chosen, while each pair was separated from all the rest by a considerable distance that we might represent the difference in Janguage among us.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.