In 1995, Jerry Norman and W. South Coblin published an article that came to be known in certain circles as “the manifesto” (“A new approach to Chinese historical linguistics”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 115/4, 576–84). The two North American linguists, experts in Chinese dialectology, argued convincingly against the prevailing twentieth-century model of Chinese language history and its associated methodology of historical dialectology. The model asserted that the numerous living varieties of speech in the Sinitic language family were, with trivial exception, descended directly from an attested medieval northern Chinese language known as “Middle Chinese”. The “rhyme books” (yùnshū 韻書) and “graded rhyme tables” (děngyùntú 等韻圖) of the period were presumed to encode phonological categories of that language, allowing its lexicon and sound system to be reconstructed with a high degree of accuracy. This meant that comparison of character pronunciations in modern dialects with their pronunciations in the reconstructed Middle Chinese framework could mechanically reveal the set of sound changes that had taken place in the evolution of each dialect. In combination with analysis of the accumulated layers of influence of northern Chinese pronunciation standards on southern dialects, this method could fully describe and explicate the historical development of Chinese. Norman and Coblin pointed out the historical inaccuracies and methodological pitfalls of this model. They called for a new approach that would centre the living, spoken varieties of Chinese, past and present. Freed from the constraints of an over-simplified and inaccurate model and from reliance on artificially constructed, character-based textual sources, this new approach could eventually yield a fuller and more satisfying account of the complex history of spoken Chinese. In the three decades since its publication, their call for a new approach has gradually been heeded by more and more scholars, in China and the West.

The volume under review, edited by one of Jerry Norman's students and including a chapter by Coblin, is an important contribution to this burgeoning endeavour. Growing out of a 2016 workshop on “The history of colloquial Chinese – written and spoken”, the 15 chapters gathered here are intended to “broaden perspectives on the history of colloquial Chinese” over the last 1,000 years (p. 1). Most of the chapters are brief and exploratory, rather than comprehensive in their conclusions. The issues addressed are “related to colloquial languages of China in their spoken forms, the relationship between those spoken form and written forms, colloquial literary languages, and the Chinese phonological tradition” (p. 2). The value of these studies lies as much in the ways they model methods and use of data as in the specific conclusions that they draw, and in this way they provide an inspirational roadmap for further research.

Particularly notable is the number of chapters that make use of written texts to gain a window into dialect history. Seven chapters are gathered together in the first part of the book under the heading “Chinese dialects in texts”. In contrast to the medieval phonological reference works that have diverted attention from the rich linguistic tapestries of individual language varieties, the texts analysed here preserve and reflect features of spoken language. Properly curated and analysed, these historical documents – from written representations of Cantonese opera lyrics, to early modern vernacular novels like Jīn Píng Méi (金瓶梅, The Plum in the Golden Vase), to descriptions of Chinese language use written by Spanish colonialists in seventeenth-century Manila – provide essential clues to the complex interplay of linguistic and cultural forces that have shaped the spoken languages. The two chapters in the book on Jīn Píng Méi (one by Huáng Lín and one by Zhāng Huìyīn) further illustrate how essential it is for literary scholars to have a firm grasp of Chinese dialects to understand fully the ludic elements of language use in the novel.

A further eight chapters are grouped under “Chinese dialects and their history”, and rely less (or not at all) on textual sources. In addition to the topics already mentioned, there are chapters that address traditional Taiwanese cantillation of Tang 唐 poetry, Wú 吳 folk songs in Féng Mènglóng's 馮夢龍 Shāngē 山歌, the history of Shanghai's 上海 “Old” and “New” dialects, the history of the dialect word yá 伢 “child”, the emergence of Chéngdū 成都 as the representative Western Mandarin dialect, the composition of Míng 明-era Guānhuà 官話, the use of dialect islands in historical reconstruction, and rù 入 tone development and loss. A few key themes emerge from the collection. One is that of interaction: the complex interplay and influence of different forms of speech and writing in contact. This collection makes clear how much more there is to this than the simple idea of northern Chinese layers accreting as literary superstrates on southern Chinese varieties. Another recurring theme is the importance of understanding migration patterns in order to generate and support hypotheses about the time and location of linguistic influences and changes. A third theme is the complex and indispensable role of Guānhuà, the educated Ming–Qing Mandarin koiné. Itself malleable, varied, and changeable, its influence on all written and spoken varieties of Chinese was inescapable.

Simmons’ lucid introduction to the volume summarizes some of the key conclusions that emerge from the chapters in a bulleted list (p. 10). This is especially helpful for the researcher who intends to read selectively rather than straight through the volume. He has also done a splendid job imposing uniformity of style and data presentation. Jerry Norman's Common Dialectal Chinese, rather than Middle Chinese, is used consistently as a point of comparison and Pīnyīn romanizations have tone marks throughout the book.

While the contributions in the volume vary somewhat in quality and significance, each one provides something of interest and value. In assessing the impact of this volume on future scholarship into the history of Chinese language and its cultural manifestations, the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.