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Created page with " S. Wells Williams was the Chinese & Japanese interpreter and translator on Commodore Perry's voyages to Ryûkyû and Japan. Wi..."
S. Wells Williams was the Chinese & Japanese interpreter and translator on [[Commodore Matthew Perry|Commodore Perry's]] voyages to [[Ryukyu Kingdom|Ryûkyû]] and Japan.
Williams was a Protestant missionary based in China, and had been to Japan once previously, in [[1837]] aboard the ''[[Morrison]]''. He was hired by Perry's mission in China, along with [[Anon L.C. Portman]], a Dutch language interpreter. While his Chinese-language reading and writing abilities were valuable for reading and constructing official documents, it is said that his spoken Japanese was insufficient; in their respective diaries, Williams and [[Bernard Bettelheim]], a missionary the mission met in Ryûkyû, are harshly critical of one another's language abilities, manner, and approach.
At Uraga, the Americans were able to communicate well enough with Dutch-speaking Japanese, via the Dutch interpreter Portman, as well as in English at times, and Williams took a secondary role.
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==References==
*Mitani Hiroshi, David Noble (trans.), ''Escape from Impasse'', International House of Japan (2006), 119-120.
[[Category:Foreigners]]
[[Category:Bakumatsu]]