Documents written and compiled by Western missionaries and local literati in the mid to late 19th century record the standardized literary pronunciation of Chaozhou 潮州 dialect, known as zhengyin 正音. This paper draws upon these materials to investigate the scope of zhengyin's use and ways in which it was learned, while also utilizing the texts to ascertain zhengyin's sound system and linguistic properties. This research reveals that, influenced by the spread of Mandarin through traditional opera during the Ming dynasty and by zhengyin movements during the Qing, contact between Chaozhou dialect and the prestige dialect resulted in a new layer of literary pronunciation distinct from Fujian's local Minnan 閩南 dialect.