早喺1600年左右，在菲律賓印行的《基督教義》裏便，就已經可以睇到閩南話羅馬字嘅早期形態。1832年，第一本用白話字編寫嘅閩南話字典——Medhurst牧師所編嘅《福建方言字典》(見Medhurst 1832)——問世，呢本係一本讀音、白話音兼收嘅福建話字典。英法聯軍之役後，敗戰嘅清廷同戰勝國簽訂天津條約，條約中臺灣有四個港口（雞籠、淡水、安平同打狗）開港通商，英國嘅長老教會亦係噉樣開始入臺灣，並且用白話字傳教。從1860年起，白話字喺臺灣已經有接近150年嘅歷史喇。
As early as around 1600, in the Doctrine of Christ printed in the Philippines, the early form of Hokkien Romaji can already be seen. In 1832, the first Hokkien dictionary written in vernacular characters, the Hokkien Dialect Dictionary (see Medhurst 1832), was published, which was a Hokkien dictionary with both pronunciation and vernacular pronunciation. After the Anglo-French battle, the defeated Qing court and the victorious country signed the Treaty of Tianjin, in which four ports in Taiwan (chicken coop, tamsui, Anping and Dagou) were opened for trade, and the Presbyterian Church of United Kingdom also began to enter Taiwan and preach in the vernacular. Since 1860, vernacular characters have been in Taiwan for nearly 150 years.