Abstract
It is a typical Sunday morning at Gulangyu’s Trinity Church. Choir members on the stage and those in attendance sing in unison “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” one of the most familiar and beloved hymns of the Amoy Hymnal .
Psalm 96:1
This chapter was translated by Chris White, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany.
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Notes
- 1.
Despite the fact that Mandarin and the Minnan “language” are mutually unintelligible, scholarly and popular discussions within China use the term “dialect ” (fangyan) to refer to the Minnan language, so this term is employed throughout the chapter.
- 2.
Some later missionary authors translated this title as “Sacred Odes to Nourish the Mind.”
- 3.
The thirteen songs from Young’s first Minnan hymnal are found in the Amoy Hymnal under the following hymn numbers: 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 12, 61, 90, 96, 132, 133, 134, 298.
- 4.
Hsieh (2009: 36) claims Shenshi Hexuan was written in “colloquial style,” but from the accompanying page from the hymnal presented by Hsieh, the hymns seem to be written in a literary style. Regardless, this hymnal was not written to be sung in the Minnan dialect , though it was printed in Xiamen.
- 5.
The nine songs from Burns’ Xiaqiang Shenshi are found in today’s Amoy Hymnal: 15, 29, 34, 41, 97, 141, 247, 259, 267.
- 6.
Other hymnals from Minnan that were historically influential in Taiwanese churches include Ki-Tok-To Si Koa or Jidutu Shige, Mengxuetang Shige and Haitong Shige.
- 7.
Currently there are two common ways to write musical notation still used in Xiamen churches today. One is the five-lined staff, called wuxianpu, similar to musical notation in the west. Another form is called the “easy staff,” or jianpu , which uses numbers (1–7) to represent notes. This chapter will refer to this style as “numbered notation .” The jianpu was based on the tonic sol-fa method of writing music, which used the first letter of each word in the “do-re-mi” scale to represent a note. The jianpu, however, uses numbers instead of letters to represent these notes. The tonic sol-fa was also used in some Minnan hymnals, most notably in the 1934 version of the Amoy Hymnal, but it has not been used in any Minnan hymnal since the establishment of the PRC .
- 8.
The Zanmeishi Xinbian was the first national hymnal compiled after the Cultural Revolution . It was published in 1983 by the national lianghui and includes 400 hymns and 42 short songs. This hymnal has been the most widely used hymnal in China since the establishment of the PRC .
- 9.
The English title of this hymn is the same for hymn #434 of the Amoy Hymnal, which is a translation of a popular English hymn penned in 1914 by Rufus McDaniel.
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Appendix: List of Major Minnan Hymnals Over the Years
Appendix: List of Major Minnan Hymnals Over the Years
Hymnal | Date | Compiler | No. of songs | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Yangxin shenshi xinbian 养心神诗新编 | 1852 or 1854 | William Young | 13 | Character |
Yangxin shenshi xinbian 养心神诗新编 | 1857 | Alexander Stronach | 58 | Character |
Iong Sim Sin Si | 1859 | John Van Nest Talmage | 25 | Romanized |
Zhangquan shenshi 漳泉神诗 | 1862 | Carstairs Douglas | Unknown | Character |
Xiaqiang shenshi 厦腔神诗 | 1862 | William Burns | 20 | Character |
Yangxin shenshi 养心神诗 | 1872 | Carstairs Douglas | 59 | Character and Romanized versions |
Yangxin shenshi 养心神诗 | 1910 | Minnan Synod and Provincial Union | 151 | Many versions |
Amoy Hymnal 闽南基督教圣诗 | 1934 | Minnan Synod Hymn Committee | 300 | Many versions |
The Amoy Hymnbook with Supplement闽南圣诗增订本 | 1994 | Chen Chunhua and Ye Zhiming | 500 | Character, Romanized, staff notation, numbered notation |
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Cheng, Y. (2019). “Sing to the Lord a New Song”: The Development and Influence of Minnan Hymns. In: White, C. (eds) Protestantism in Xiamen. Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89471-3_7
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