During the last decade of the 19th century, Western missionaries from the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society arrived in Kienning Prefecture to evangelize. However they soon realized that the majority of the residents in the region did not comprehend Mandarin speech nor the Foochow dialect when Foochow Christians tried to preach to them, hence the missionaries studied an existing Chinese publication titled The Eight Tones of Kien-chou and in 1896 the missionaries devised a new Latinized alphabet system for the Kienning dialect, which emulated the Foochow Romanization system. Among the early translators were Miss L.J. Bryer and other ladies of the Zenana Mission with the help of native teachers, translated the New Testament into the Kienning Romanized Colloquial writing system by 1895. It was seen through the press by Miss B. Newcombe and published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in London in 1896. By 1898, the Englishmissionary couple Hugh S. Phillips and Minnie Phillips had translated and published a revised edition of the Gospel of Mark into the Kienning Colloquial Romanized alphabet. A revised edition of the Gospel of Matthew was completed and published in 1900 and by the following year, saw the printing of A Chinese–English Dictionary of the Kien-ning Dialect, which taught people how to read this particular romanization system. The Kienning Colloquial Romanized alphabet played a significant role in the spread of Christianity in Kienning Prefecture and was widely circulated within the local churches of that region. The missionary records showed that the local women were able to master the reading of the Kienning Romanized Bible after three months. Nevertheless, literacy in that writing system even amongst the local Christians did not reach 100 percent. After the Republic of China was formed, romanized writing systems of all the various Sinitic languages were met with suppression from the local authorities, and after the Chinese Communist Party came to power, the government began the campaign of promoting the use of Mandarin and forcibly suppressing all other "dialects". As a result, the Kienning Colloquial Romanized alphabet could not be used in public settings. Despite this, today the older generation of Kienning Christian congregations are still able to read and write in this writing system whilst some of the younger generation may have regrettably lost their literacy in their own language.
Spelling schemes
Due to differences between Northern Fujian dialects, the Kienning Romization can only accurately reflect the pronunciation of words from the Jian'ou dialect, and do not necessarily correspond perfectly with other dialects, nonetheless the Jian'ou dialect is used as the predominant standard when writing the Northern Min language and could be used to represent the other Northern Min dialects. For the past century, the Jian'ou has also undergone major changes and therefore there would certainly be some degree of variance between the Jian'ou dialect of the late 19th century and that which is spoken today.
Consonants
Vowels*
Tones
Some fonts can generate the tone 4 mark by placing twice.
Sample Text
This text comes from the dialect's "rhyme-book", i.e., the guide to its standard pronunciation, which has the title 《建州八音》, meaning the "Eight Tones for the Prefecture of Kṳing". The text gives the lyrics to a little ditty, similar to the alphabet song, to help people remember the book's ordering of rhymes: Sî nîng ně̤ng, mô ě̤ uâng. Lâi châing hṳ̂ing, ce̤̿ng giô̤ muôi. Ngû sia̿ ciáng pie̿ ngṳ̂, châ̤ iû mê chio̤̿ ko̤̿ng. Tông huăi huo̤̿ng dâ, ngô̤ iô̤ng pûing ṳ̂e. Nêng hua̿ing cha̿u, Nâng giâu gua̿.
The Chinese-character original of this reads as follows. 時年穠，梅兒黃。 犁田園，種茄蔴。 吳舍正㓟魚，臍油茅厝囥。 桐發放茶，峨陽蟠蛇。 人販柴，南橋過。
