Carstairs Douglas was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary stationed primarily in Amoy who devoted decades to producing the Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy (1873), one of the most comprehensive and scholarly dictionaries of Southern Min ever compiled. Drawing on fieldwork across the Amoy-Taiwanese speech community, Douglas documented tens of thousands of entries with phonological detail and contextual examples. The dictionary became an indispensable reference for missionaries working in Taiwan, facilitating Bible translation into romanized Taiwanese script and development of a literate tradition in the spoken language. His linguistic legacy shaped the infrastructure of Taiwanese-language writing and scholarship for generations, and remains cited by linguists working on Min Nan today.

• Completed Amoy-English Dictionary in 1873, most comprehensive Min Nan linguistic reference

• Laid foundation for Taiwanese-script Bible translation and literary tradition