John Chalmers (missionary)

John Chalmers (1825–1899) was a Scottish Protestant missionary in late Qing Dynasty China and translator. His work An English and Cantonese Pocket Dictionary (1859) popularized the term "Cantonese". Before 1859, Cantonese was referred in English as "the Canton dialect".

Chalmers served with the London Missionary Society. He wrote several works on the Chinese language, including, in 1866, the first translation into English of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (which he called the Tau Teh King).