A 'Formosan' in London : The mysterious George Psalmanazar
- Alex Van Egmond
- Jan 9, 2025
- 12 min read
In the summer of 1703, a man with blond hair and a European appearance appeared in London, claiming to be a resident of the island of Formosa (nowadays Taiwan).
Such a description would set off alarm bells for any modern reader, equipped with the internet and some global knowledge, but in the early 18th century, this mysterious figure managed to deceive the English public for years.
The life of George Psalmanazar (1679–1763), who was likely a Frenchman, is shrouded in mystery.
He captivated his audience with his vivid imagination and false information. His stories became popular across Europe, drawing the attention of scholars and the general public alike.
Text: Alex van Egmond
(Un)likely
George Psalmanazar was likely born in 1679, a birth year derived from his in 1752 recorded will. His birth probably took place in southwestern France, though the exact location remains unknown.
His French background was suggested by Pastor Villette, who knew Psalmanazar for over twenty years and testified that he spoke French very fluently, albeit with a provincial accent. These details highlight the difficulty of determining Psalmanazar's true identity.
His life can be divided into two distinct periods: the first encompasses his youth, his appearance in London as a Formosan, and the sensation this caused, while the second spans nearly fifty years after his claims, during which Psalmanazar withdrew from public life.
What is known about Psalmanazar's youth was recorded by himself in Memoirs of **. Commonly Known by the Name of George Psalmanazar, published posthumously in 1764.
According to his own account, Psalmanazar came from a poor family and received education from Jesuit and Dominican teachers, who taught him Latin, philosophy, theology, and general knowledge.
He had an above-average memory, which would serve him well in his later endeavors. As a young man, he joined the army of the Duke of Mecklenburg and enlisted under the name Salmanazar, taken from the Book of Kings 17:3 in the Bible.
Later, he added a 'p' to his name to avoid confusion. The army was deployed to Sluis (in Zeelandic Flanders) to fight on behalf of the Dutch Republic against Spanish troops in what would come to be known as the War of the Spanish Succession.
As a soldier, Psalmanazar already stood out for his strange behavior. For instance, he rejected Christianity, which prompted the regiment’s commander, Brigadier Lauder, to launch an investigation.
This brigadier and the investigation, which took place in early 1703, can be historically verified, as can the events that followed.
In the summer of 1703, Psalmanazar traveled to London, where he gained fame with his fantastic tales. He adopted the persona of a Formosan converted to Christianity, and in 1704, he published a book titled An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, in which he detailed his fictional background and experiences.
Although some people were skeptical of his stories, Psalmanazar managed to deceive many. In 1705, he was sent to study at Oxford under the patronage of the Bishop of London.
In 1707, Dialogue between a Japonese and a Formosan and Enquiry into the Objections against George Psalmanaazaar of Formosa were published, allegedly written by a group of devout supporters. However, his popularity declined, and it became clear to the public that his claims were fraudulent.
He spent the rest of his life drifting from one job to another. At various points, he worked as a military clerk, painted fans, and became a hack writer compiling and translating works.
Remarkably, Psalmanazar developed a genuine interest in theological studies and underwent a (true) conversion to Christianity in 1728. This led him to study Hebrew, in which he became sufficiently proficient to gain recognition as an authority. He contributed to the historical work An Universal History from the Earliest Account of Time to the Present (7 volumes, 1736–1750).
In 1747, he co-authored Complete System of Geography, in which his Formosan background was referred to as a masquerade. This is the only known admission of his deception, but the statement is written in the third person and is unsigned.
Psalmanazar died in 1763, leaving no direct confession and with many questions about his true identity unanswered.
Misleading
While serving in the Mecklenburg army, Psalmanazar encountered William Innes, a chaplain attached to the Scottish regiment. Innes himself turned out to be a notorious fraudster, which likely explains why he quickly recognized Psalmanazar’s deceit.
In Sluis, Psalmanazar claimed to be a Japanese heathen who had been abducted from his homeland by a Jesuit priest. He carried a notebook containing a fabricated alphabet and self-composed poems.
Innes asked Psalmanazar to translate a Latin text into his supposed native language. After taking the paper away, he then asked him to translate the same text a second time.
Not surprisingly, the two texts differed from each other, but instead of exposing Psalmanazar, Innes urged him to be more cautious in the future.
Soon, Innes began exploiting the young Psalmanazar for his own schemes. He baptized him and gave him the name George. Subsequently, he wrote an enthusiastic letter to the Bishop of London, praising Psalmanazar as a converted native of Formosa.
The Japanese identity thus transformed into a Formosan one, as this Asian island was more obscure. The bishop warmly welcomed the two fraudsters, seeing a converted 'savage' as excellent propaganda for the Anglican Church.
Once in London, Psalmanazar’s appearance became a true sensation. He was invited as a curiosity to dinners hosted by the wealthy and influential elite. At these occasions, Psalmanazar babbled in his invented language and ate raw meat, claiming it was a Formosan custom.
He also translated the catechism and the Lord’s Prayer into Formosan, both works that Innes eagerly presented to the Bishop of London. In Psalmanazar’s first work, An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa (1704), the final chapter delves into the Formosan language.
Psalmanazar approached this task with remarkable diligence, presenting more than just a fabricated language. He went into great detail, even outlining Formosan grammar with explanations of verbs, phonetics, word formation, and more.
'The language of Formosa corresponds to the Japanese language, except in the pronunciation of the letters', he wrote.
One of Psalmanazar's claims was that Formosa belonged to Japan, which is why he frequently referred to Japan. At the time, Japan had been closed off to foreigners for half a century, so information was scarce.
Noteworthy is the Formosan alphabet he included, complete with phonetic pronunciation and Formosan characters. In the second edition of An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, he added more details to the chapter about the Formosan language.
Linguist Thomas Reisner studied Psalmanazar's fabricated language in the twentieth century and concluded that he went beyond being a mere swindler.
Psalmanazar's Formosan language was systematically constructed and rational in its rules. For instance, he created word derivations: nada, nadachion, and nadayi to indicate day, daily, and today, respectively.
Additionally, the word for Father was korian, and the Lord's Prayer was koriakia. In other words, Psalmanazar must have spent a long time thinking about the construction of the Formosan language, probably even before he served in the Mecklenburg army.
He greatly benefited from his Latin background, which he used, for example, to structure verb tenses. Like Latin, he distinguished six tenses.
Unmasking
The most important scientific institution of that time, the Royal Society, did not fail to notice Psalmanazar's appearance in London. From the preserved minutes of this institution, we know that Psalmanazar attended several of the members' meetings between 1703 and 1704.
One by one, these were prominent scientists who were certainly able to verify or debunk his story. Psalmanazar was repeatedly questioned about his Formosan identity.
At one of the meetings, Jesuit Father Jean de Fontaney, who had been at the Chinese court in Beijing, was a guest. He disproved Psalmanazar's argument that Formosa belonged to Japan and pressed him on the Chinese pronunciations and dialects spoken on the island.
On another occasion, astronomer Edmund Halley, the namesake of the famous comet, questioned Psalmanazar about the length of twilight and sunlight on Formosa.
A simple test on which he failed. By the summer of 1705, it was clear to the Royal Society that they were dealing with a fraudster, but the Bishop of London was never notified.
Probably, animosity between the Jesuits and the Anglican Church played a role in this. In any case, Psalmanazar was in Oxford that year to study at the bishop's expense, who, of course, hoped that Psalmanazar would one day return as a missionary to convert his countrymen.
When Psalmanazar was back in London, it turned out that his co-conspirator Innes had left for a new adventure in Portugal. From that point on, it became more difficult for Psalmanazar to continue his deception.
He begged here and there from the few remaining supporters who still believed in his fantastical stories, but gradually the interest in the supposed Formosan faded away.
It is already astonishing enough that Psalmanazar was able to deceive his audience for so long, especially with his blonde hair and European appearance.
However, the concept of racial distinction did not yet exist and would only gain traction with the theories of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon and anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in the second half of the eighteenth century.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, George Psalmanazar fit the stereotypical expectations that Europeans had of a native Formosan, that is, an antipode—the opposite in customs and practices of a European.
Psalmanazar could pass for a Formosan simply by dressing differently, behaving differently, and eating differently. The fascination in Europe for the exotic did the rest, and moreover, as a 'savage', he posed no threat.
Psalmanazar pieced out his masquerade in a clever way, as he learned quickly and continuously adjusted his lie. In successive editions of An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, he constantly refuted arguments from his opponents, but he also added, though available at the time, the sparse information about Formosa,
The choice of Formosa as his homeland, likely suggested by Innes, was therefore perfect. The primary source of information about the inhabitants came from George Candidius, a missionary who had stayed for ten years from 1627 on the VOC-occupied part of Formosa.
In 1645 and 1646, his account was published in two parts, Discours ende cort verhael van 't eylant Formosa. Originally in Dutch, parts of the account made their way into English translations, and by 1704, the entire text was available in English.
Psalmanazar incorporated some of the facts from this account into his second edition, but in reality, that was not necessary to support his lie. Candidius and other Westerners had not ventured far into the island.
It is noteworthy that three-quarters of Formosa remained unexplored, and this would remain the case until well into the nineteenth century. Psalmanazar could always use this fact to strengthen his deception.
A Persistent Alphabet
Psalmanazar's deception proved difficult to expose, on one hand due to religious tensions and the unfamiliarity with Formosa.
On the other hand, his An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa was simply indistinguishable to eighteenth-century readers from other travel accounts that were published. Many of these reports also contained fantastic elements.
For example, Candidius firmly described the practice of Formosan women having their children aborted by local priestesses until the age of thirty, and sometimes even until the age of thirty-six. This, of course, was a dreadful act that went against God and commandment.
It is important to note that while abortion was indeed widespread among the Siraya (the indigenous people the VOC dealt with on Formosa), Candidius likely exaggerated the practice to emphasize their superstition and backwardness.
Ironically, Psalmanazar's masquerade generated more attention for the unknown Formosa, particularly for the local languages on the island.
The Lord's Prayer, translated into the Formosan alphabet of Psalmanazar, appeared, for example, in various compilations, such as Oratio dominica in diversas (1715) by John Chamberlayne.
The work contained a collection of the Lord's Prayer in over 150 languages. Among them was the Lord's Prayer in Siraya, recorded by missionary Robertus Junius, the successor of Candidius. Interestingly, Psalmanazar's version was still included, although it was already questioned by various sources.
Psalmanazar's Formosan alphabet thus began to take on a life of its own, as it reappeared in a more extensive form in the German compilation Orientalisch-und Occidentalischer Sprachmeister (1748) by Benjamin Schulze.
Over two hundred translations of the Lord's Prayer were included, among them Psalmanazar's version, as well as his false description of the grammar and alphabet. This latter part turned out to be Psalmanazar's most persistent lie, one that would cause confusion for centuries after his death in 1763.
For a long time, the accounts of Dutch missionaries from the seventeenth century were the only sources on the known Siraya and Favorlang languages on Formosa. Only in the nineteenth century did more information become available, gathered locally by amateur linguists.
The diversity of Formosan languages became clear at that point, but even as late as 1887, the French orientalist Terrien de Lacouperie wrote that three scripts were used on Formosa: Chinese, Roman, and a Formosan alphabet.
It was not until the early twentieth century that Japanese researchers Naoyoski Ogawa and Erin Asai definitively debunked the myth of Psalmanazar's Formosan alphabet: the indigenous population of Taiwan never had a written tradition.
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In addition to many unanswered questions surrounding Psalmanazar's identity, the question of why he created his masquerade and maintained it for so long remains unresolved. Unlike his co-conspirator William Innes, who would later become infamous, Psalmanazar was not motivated by money or women.
In my opinion, Psalmanazar was a fantasist, but one with great linguistic talent. He could have become a great writer in his time, like Jonathan Swift and Samuel Johnson, but his masquerade ultimately stood in his way.
However it may be, George Psalmanazar remains an intriguing example of the power of imagination and people's tendency to be deceived by remarkable, yet false, stories.
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An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa
In 1704, Psalmanazar's most important work was published, which he wrote in just two months. Given the popularity he had generated in London, his publisher urged him to hurry.
The work contains beautiful maps, illustrations, and detailed descriptions that supported his lies, but it also begins with an extremely long explanation of why he converted to Christianity.
He likely added this to please his patron, the Bishop of London, as the work was also dedicated to the bishop. Psalmanazar wrote the manuscript in Latin, and it was translated into English from there, as he was not proficient enough in the English language.
The first edition was therefore published in English and sold very quickly, so a second edition appeared in 1705. In the same year, the French translation was published by bookseller Roger D'estienne in Amsterdam, and the Dutch translation by bookseller Pieter Vander Veer in Rotterdam.
Beschryvinge van het eyland Formosa in Asia, en der regering, wetten zeden, en godsdiemst der inwoonders was, however, received moderately by the press. De Boekzaal of July-August, one of the first Dutch literary critique journals, immediately questioned the authenticity of Psalmanazar's account.
In the next issue, a correction was included. The editor assured his readers of the authenticity, claiming that he had heard from several reliable sources that 'Psalmanazar's story was absolutely true and not fiction'.
It was of little consequence, as the Dutch translation only had one edition. The English and French editions sold better and were reprinted repeatedly. Interestingly, the Dutch translation begins with a preface in which the Jesuits are criticized, whereas this is absent from the French and English versions.
Religious sentiments likely played a role here as well, since Vander Veer published theological works by liberal preachers in the early eighteenth century and was therefore not favorable toward Catholicism.
De Chinese Princess
Psalmanazar was not the only impostor who gained attention in Europe. In the early 1690s, a young lady appeared in Paris claiming to be a Chinese princess. She was likely of French descent and, like Psalmanazar, behaved as an 'antipode' in her customs and clothing style.
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