BabelStone Twitter Archive : 2022

Tuesday, 4 January 2022 at 12:24

The edict relates to the proposed dissolution of the fiefdom after his death because of natural disasters and the subsequent deaths in quick succession of his two eldest sons (劉充國 & 劉奉親) : "數水旱、多災害國...大鴻臚初上子充𖿣國𖿣疾死，復上子奉𖿣親𖿣復疾死，是天絶之也。" 2/3

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 January 2022 at 12:33

The edict also provides the previously-unknown exact date of the death of Liú Hè, on the yǐsì 乙巳 cyclical day of the 9th lunar month (8th day of the 9th month of the 3rd year the Shénjué 神爵 era of Emperor Xuān = 6th October 59 BCE) [3rd fragment from the left: 九月乙巳死] 3/3

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 January 2022 at 23:36

Painting of the Jade Rabbit Pounding Medicine 玉兔搗藥 from one of three Ming dynasty (1368–1644) brick mural tombs recently discovered in Chángzhì city in Shānxī kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 00:15

Facing it, on the east wall of the tomb, is a matching painting of the three-legged crow in the red sun, but I have not yet found a photograph of it. The use of matching sun/crow and moon/rabbit motifs in tombs goes way back in time, to at least the Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 00:19

These examples are from the tomb of Mùróng Zhì 慕容智 (650–691) discovered Gānsù province in 2019 (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 01:12

These examples (sun in the centre, moon on the left) are painted on the ceiling of a Western Han tomb uncovered in Xī'ān in 1987. You can explore the murals in 3D at skypixel.com/photo360s/38f4…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 01:29

And in these painted bricks from a Western Han tomb discovered in Luòyáng in 2000, the moon is supported by Nǚwā 女媧, and the sun is supported by Fúxī 伏羲. In the moon both the hare and its companion toad can be clearly distinguished.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 13:41

Remarkable coloured bas-relief sculptures from the Northern Wei tomb of Lǚ Xù 吕續, dated 2nd year of the Tài'ān era (太安二年 = 456), recently discovered at Dàtóng in Shānxī news.cctv.com/2022/01/01/ART…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 13:54

According to the description, the central human-headed bird-bodied figures represent the deceased ascending to immortality (墓主人升仙圖), flanked by rat-headed and bull-headed bird-bodied attendants.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 13:58

Feathered immortals riding a green dragon and a white tiger are respectively carved on the east and west walls of the tomb sohu.com/a/510575772_12…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 14:03

On the external face of the south wall of the tomb are two fierce warriors guarding the tomb

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 14:10

View of the excavated tomb from above

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 14:22

Stone column engraved with the date and name of the deceased : "惟大代太安二年歲次丙申正月丁亥朔廿三日己酉□淩江將軍扶風太守槐里界雍州扶風郡槐里縣民呂續石屋一區"

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 6 January 2022 at 17:40

A set of 9 bronze bells (編鐘) and a set of 10 stone chimes (編磬) were recently excavated from an aristocratic tomb in a large early Warring States period (perhaps Wèi 魏 state, 403–225 BCE) graveyard at Sānménxiá in Hénán kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20211…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 6 January 2022 at 18:12

The famous set of 64 bronze bells on their original lacquered wooden frame from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng 曾侯乙, celebrated on a 1987 postage stamp (T.122) from my stamp collection (an incomplete set of 32 stone chimes was also unearthed from the tomb)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 8 January 2022 at 15:56

Excavations at the Shàojiāpéng 邵家棚 site in Ānyáng between Oct 2019 and Dec 2020 have unearthed a mixture of dwellings and tombs dating to the late Shāng dynasty (C11 BCE) belonging to the Ce 册 clan (previously only known from oracle bone inscriptions) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 8 January 2022 at 16:00

The site comprises 24 tombs and the foundations for 18 dwellings, as well as four pits containing six chariots with associated human and horse sacrifices.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 8 January 2022 at 16:07

Some of the sacrificed humans and horses in the chariot pits had strings of cowrie shells wound around their heads, and the horses also had a gold-plated bronze disc on their forehead.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 8 January 2022 at 16:14

The largest tomb had been robbed in antiquity, but the 17 other tombs excavated so far have produced over 20 bronze ritual vessels and other grave goods. Some of the bronze vessels are marked with the '册' clan emblem, indicating that the site was associated with the Ce clan.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 8 January 2022 at 16:28

Of particular interest is the bronze lid for a gōng 觥 vessel on the inside of which is preserved an inscription in 12 characters recording the gift of cowrie shells to make a bronze vessel.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 8 January 2022 at 16:44

I cannot find a transcription of the inscription on the internet, so this is my attempt at a reading:

己亥□㠱易(賜)□貝三朋用乍(作)彝

I am not certain about the 3rd character (至?) and 6th character (岳?), so any help appreciated.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 10 January 2022 at 12:50

A Jīn dynasty (1115–1234) mural tomb for a family of four was excavated at Yú County in Shānxī in March 2021 kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20211…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Monday, 10 January 2022 at 12:55

Murals include husband-and-wife-sitting, boy-riding-a-crane, deer-presenting-immortality-mushrooms, lion-playing-with-embroidered ball, door-keepers, and pet-dogs, as well as a celestial scene painted on the ceiling, but so far only a photo of the lion mural has been released.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 21 January 2022 at 15:06

建设中国特色中国风格中国气派的考古学

February

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 8 February 2022 at 21:03

Now, doesn't that look familiar! twitter.com/ImreGalambos/s…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 8 February 2022 at 21:05

A.C. Graham's "Poems of the Late T'ang", perhaps my first introduction to Tang poetry, my copy bought in the summer of 1978

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 10 February 2022 at 12:59

Lacquered sè 瑟 (zither-like musical instrument with about 25 strings) recently excavated from a high status Yuè state 越國 (mid Warring States period) tomb (國字山墓M1) in Jiangxi kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 10 February 2022 at 13:06

Other musical instruments found in the tomb include a 2.3 m long zhēng 筝 (left), a set of lacquered drums (right), and the stand for a set of bronze bells (the tomb had been robbed in antiquity which may explain why only the stand remains)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 10 February 2022 at 13:12

Altogether, more than 2,600 bronze, wood, jade, and pottery artefacts of all sorts were recovered from the tomb, including ritual bronzeware, musical instruments, weapons, chariot fittings, and items for daily use.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 10 February 2022 at 13:25

Two bronze dagger-axes are of particular importance as they have inscriptions in bird-and-insect script (鳥蟲書) which link the tomb occupant to the Yuè state royal family. One inscribed "者殹自乍用戟" must have belonged to King Yì of Yuè (越王翳, 411–376 BCE) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 10 February 2022 at 13:29

... and one inscribed "於戉台王旨殹之大子不(?)壽自乍元用矛" must have belonged to a son of King Yì named 不(?)壽.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 11 February 2022 at 15:45

It is very strange that no second stage simplified (二简) form of 彝 was ever defined, but that did not stop someone inventing a simplified form (⿱夕一 for 彑) in this 1979 mimeographed publication of 彝文的起源及其字形结构 held at Princeton University Library

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 13 February 2022 at 19:57

NFT collection of fuzzy polygonal Tangut characters selling for 0.1 eth ($288) to 0.3 eth ($865) each — speechless opensea.io/collection/anc…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 13 February 2022 at 21:51

Ming Dynasty Colour-printed Erotica — The Christer von der Burg Collection 馮氏藏明刻春宮善本圖冊 now available from Hanshan Tang Books as a three-volume limited edition set for £800 hanshan.com/pdf/Ming.pdf

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 14 February 2022 at 14:02

A late 1970s or early 1980s mimeographed pamphlet of xiēhòuyǔ 歇后语 (two-part sayings), a nice example of the sort of ephemeral self-produced items that were sold by street vendors in China at the time

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 14 February 2022 at 14:08

Only 6 pages long, the collection of xiēhòuyǔ 歇后语 is not remarkable in itself, but aficionados of Chinese orthographic history will appreciate the use of some second-stage simplified characters (二简字) (along with some unsimplified traditional form characters):

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 14 February 2022 at 14:11

吃粥加汤 ― 𰛓上加𰛓

关公𫩑前午大刀 ― 自不量力

小葱拌豆付 ― 一𰛓二白

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 14 February 2022 at 14:12

瞎子看电𢒈 ― 光听不見

韓伩用兵 ― 多々益善

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 14 February 2022 at 14:13

落雨天出太阳 ― 假𰕺〔𰑁〕

乌龟𰵕王八 ― 都不是好货

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 14 February 2022 at 14:17

And even one or two novel simplifications, such as ⿱介虫 for 蟹

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 14 February 2022 at 14:36

It's also interesting to note that 𡣞 is used instead of normal 娶 'to marry [a woman]' which I don't recall ever seeing before

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 16 February 2022 at 13:38

Incidentally, this is my 《歇后语词典》 (1984) which I bought at about the same time

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 16 February 2022 at 13:41

This is a sample entry from p. 490 for "做梦娶媳妇 ― 光想美事"

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 22 February 2022 at 11:29

Sometimes someone asks me to add a character to BabelStone Han, and I get carried away and add all (well most) of the missing characters with that component

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 23 February 2022 at 19:36

One of several dozen liùbó 六博 pattern floor tiles recently excavated from a late Han dynasty (or maybe post-Han) tomb at Láiwú District, Jǐnán, Shāndōng kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 23 February 2022 at 19:58

The report modestly claims that these liùbó pattern floor tiles are a relatively uncommon find in Shandong (山东地区较为少见). All I can say is that in thirty years of studying liùbó I have never before seen or read about any similar tiles.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 24 February 2022 at 11:59

I thought I had tweeted this before, but cannot find it, so here is the Dharani-Sutra of the Victorious Buddha-Crown in Tibetan, handwritten in 1753 by the Qianlong Emperor; recovered from Beijing's White Pagoda Temple during repairs in 1978.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 24 February 2022 at 12:13

More on the artefacts deposited in the pinnacle of the White Pagoda during repairs in the 18th year of the Qianlong era (1753) in this blog post of mine babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201… (Avalokiteśvara shrine and lid with inscription in Chinese in Qianlong's hand shown below)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 24 February 2022 at 12:27

Qianlong's Chinese handwriting is obviously far superior to his Tibetan handwriting, but I think that people are unduly harsh when they criticise the poor quality of his Tibetan calligraphy. I suspect that even our own dear President Xi's skill in Tibetan calligraphy falls short.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 24 February 2022 at 12:45

According to Wikipedia, among his many linguistic accomplishments, Qianlong could speak Tangut en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_… #HugeIfTrue

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 24 February 2022 at 12:53

(that was added by a notorious sockpuppet in December 2014; I fear it will not be there when you next check the article)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 14:38

To commemorate the death of the famous Chinese linguist Yuen Ren Chao 趙元任 (1892‑1982) on this day forty years ago, here is a short thread about his innovative Chinese translation of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky", first published in full in "Through the Looking Glass" in 1872.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 14:39

Chao's translation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published in 1922, and he had prepared a translation of Through the Looking Glass for publication in 1932 by the Commercial Press in Shanghai.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 14:43

However, this translation never made it into print because the proofs were destroyed when the Commercial Press was bombed during the January 28 incident. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 14:56

This is an item in the Rulan Chao Pian Collection at CUHK Library (repository.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/en/item/cuhk-2…) showing the first verse of Jabberwocky on p. 42 of a Chinese edition of Through the Looking Glass. The handwritten notes and corrections are presumably in Chao's own hand.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 15:01

The CUHK library description calls it a typewritten text of 1962, but I think it should be a proof from the lost 1932 edition, and therefore the earliest surviving version of Chao's translation. Unfortunately CUHK does not seem to have any more pages showing the rest of the poem.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 15:04

Chao emulates Carroll's use of invented vocabulary by devising novel Chinese characters. This first version of Jabberwocky shows eight characters invented by Chao, but at this stage we do not know how they should be read.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 15:12

During the 1950s and 1960s, after Chao had moved to America, he recreated and revised his translation of Through the Looking Glass. CUHK holds some drafts such as this hand-corrected mimeographed typewritten version using his Gwoyeu Romatzyh system of romanization for Mandarin.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 15:33

This complete version of Jabberwocky shows a greater number of novel characters, and importantly shows us how they should be pronounced.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 15:50

Some of the novel characters are typical semanto-phonetic compounds (⿰犭偷, ⿰豸若, and ⿰勾鳥), and some are fǎnqiē 反切 combinations (⿱不亞, ⿱宓豕 (宓 and 家), ⿰赤禾 and ⿰赤瓦). ⿱白灬 is a double semantic compound suggesting white and hot for brillig.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 16:02

⿱卧尨 as the final syllable for Jabberwock is an interesting case. 卧 wò is obviously a phonetic, and 尨 máng 'shaggy dog' should be the semantic, but here Chao probably intends 尨 to be a simplification for 龍 lóng 'dragon' (standard simplification 龙).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 16:05

Note that the readings given by Chao for some of the new characters have novel but phonetically plausible Mandarin syllables: mia (miā), berl (bér), rha (rā), bea (biǎ), chor (chó).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 16:06

In "Dimensions of Fidelity in Translation With Special Reference to Chinese" published in 1969 (Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies Vol. 29) Chao discusses his translation of Jabberwocky, and gives a hand-written version of the first verse.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 16:16

Here Chao represents a rhotacized final with a small simplified form of 儿, giving 格儿 instead of ⿱格兒, and 四儿 instead of ⿱四二 and 肆兒 seen in earlier versions, although happily he retains ⿱不兒.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 16:26

Side Note: Yuen Ren Chao's convention of using a small 儿 for 'er' rhotacization has been adopted in a number of publications, notably in the important Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese 现代汉语词典 (all editions up to the present day) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 16:30

.. I tried unsuccessfully to get the small 儿 accepted into the Unicode Standard, but this was rejected even though words such as 花{儿} huā'r 'flower' and 花儿 huā'ér (a type of folk song) need to be distinguished in plain text unicode.org/L2/L2016/16109…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 22:32

Chao's translation of Through the Looking Glass was completed by 1966, and finally published in 1969 for the benefit of Western students of Mandarin in Vol. II of his "Readings in Sayable Chinese", as parallel Gwoyeu Romatzyh ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 22:34

... and hànzì versions

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 22:57

I have to confess that I find this final published version a little disappointing. The quality of the printing is very poor compared with the lost 1932 edition, and some of Chao's novel characters have been replaced by bopomofo.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 23:08

And the translations of some of the nonce words have lost some of the flavour of the earlier versions of the translation:

誅布誅布鳥 is not as good as 誅怖誅怖鳥

般得子 is not as good as 𨃞德子

屯屯樹 is not as good as 𭪇𭪇樹

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 February 2022 at 23:48

Chao's translation of Through the Looking-Glass was eventually published in China by the Commercial Press (商务印书馆) in 1988 under the title 《阿丽思漫游镜中世界》, and reprinted in 2002 under Chao's original title 《走到镜子里》. Unfortunately I do not have a copy to share.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 26 February 2022 at 00:01

However, I have seen Chao's translation of Jabberwocky in simplified Chinese characters that is given in the Chinese translation of Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach" (《哥德尔、艾舍尔、巴赫》 published by the Commercial Press in 1996), which looks like this.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 26 February 2022 at 00:14

There are a number of differences between this version and Chao's 1969 version (in addition to the use of simplified characters):

The small-sized 儿 indicating erhua is written full-sized (bad).

The bopomofo words have been replaced by Chinese characters (good).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 26 February 2022 at 00:24

ㄍㄟˋ => 丐 gài (wrong syllable; Chao originally had 秃而給)

ㄅㄧ︀ㄚˇ => 比阿 (bland compared with the earlier ⿱不亞)

ㄅㄧ︀ㄡ => 北哦 (not great)

ㄔㄛˊ => 啜 (best you could expect given that cho is a non-standard syllable in Mandarin; Chao originally had ⿰赤禾)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 26 February 2022 at 00:36

ㄈㄧ︀ㄝˋ => 飞唉. This one is difficult. Chao originally wrote fieh (non-standard fiè in Mandarin), but hand-glossed it as 叫 jiào 'to call, cry out', so I am not sure what would be the best way to write it. But certainly 飞唉 does not capture the essence.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 26 February 2022 at 00:45

ㄈㄧ︀ㄥ => 飞恩 fēi'ēn for the last syllable of galumphing is also difficult. Chao originally glosses fing as 夫 + 匞 (?) but scribbles it out so the second character is illegible to me. Anyhow, 飞恩 is not great; something like ⿹飞行 (f[ēi]+[x]íng) would be better.

March

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 1 March 2022 at 11:59

Last week I saw a copy of Prof. Arakawa's "Tangut Version of the Lotus Sutra" for sale for only £6 (less than £10 with postage), so I just had to buy it. Arrived today, in pristine condition even though sold as an ex-library copy.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 1 March 2022 at 12:03

I already have a copy, kindly given to me by the author, but as it is my current bedtime reading, I can now have a copy upstairs and downstairs twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 3 March 2022 at 13:31

Good video about the excavations and the liubo pattern tiles flv0.bn.netease.com/75cd120500b063…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 4 March 2022 at 15:37

More ancient petroglyphs have been discovered at a site in the Helan Mountains in Ningxia kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 6 March 2022 at 15:01

I have transcribed and punctuated the complete text of the Tangut translation of the Diamond Sutra 𗵒𘗁𘄒𘎑𘏞𗓽𗕥𗸰𗖰𗚩 and made it available to all on Wikisource wikisource.org/wiki/%F0%97%B5…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 7 March 2022 at 13:13

This is quite a useful introduction to traditional Chinese bookbinding techniques, and worth reading while the IDP website is up (seems to be a rare occurence nowadays) twitter.com/idp_uk/status/…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 9 March 2022 at 10:41

Some background information on the lives and deaths of 越王者翳 and his sons kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 11 March 2022 at 13:44

I spent the long summer of '78 before university digging up Anglo-Saxon skeletons here twitter.com/DrJACameron/st…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 13 March 2022 at 09:53

CJK Ext. B was encoded in Unicode v. 3.1 twenty-one years ago (March 2021), and yet it seems many twitter uses are still afraid to use characters such as 𪚥 because they won't display on some/many/most mobile devices. twitter.com/edwardW2/statu…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 13 March 2022 at 09:58

Certainly, 𪚥 does not display on my (quite old) Android phone, but I don't use that for anything serious other than Pokémon Go.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 13 March 2022 at 19:31

I added the first Khitan small script text to Wikisource today, although you'll need to have an appropriate Unicode Khitan font installed to view it correctly wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 29 March 2022 at 20:58

David Helliwell discusses the cataloguing of works of popular Chinese literature held at the Bodleian Library serica.blog/2022/03/29/pop…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 30 March 2022 at 17:59

Some (really badly drawn) examples of Tangut writing in manga twitter.com/L858R/status/1…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 09:47

Lovely photo of Odda's dedication stone twitter.com/AnneLouiseAver…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 12:33

30 years ago, on the way to my wife's ancestral home, 3 hours walk from the main road

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 15:46

The ancestral (mud brick) house in a remote valley with a mixed Zhuang and Yao population. No electricity or running water, but spring water available from a nearby cave.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 15:48

View from the house

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 15:55

Me (and a couple of local kids) on top of the mountain seen in the previous tweet. Apparently we were the first to climb to the top in living memory.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 21:57

Obituary for Luc Kwanten (1944–2021). Born to a Jewish mother in 1944 Berlin, flew Super Starfighter jets for the Belgian Air Force in his youth, studied Tangut at Indiana and Chicago universities in his prime, and ran a literary agency in his later years publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/in…

April

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 1 April 2022 at 14:03

Some more photos of the local scenery (my parents-in-law in one of them). As no-one has asked, I guess it must be quite obvious where we are, although perhaps the exact location may be harder to pinpoint.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 April 2022 at 12:29

The main reason for our expedition becomes clear from these photographs

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 April 2022 at 12:38

My father-in-law (in the white shirt), who passed away several years ago, was the eldest of seven, and by rights he should have inherited the family house in the mountains, but fortunately that did not happen.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 00:11

I'm sorry, but no. This level of textual reconstruction is just wrong. twitter.com/abby_fecit/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 16:04

I was shocked and dismayed to see this discussion of the Tangut name for the Tangut state by Prof. Shǐ Jīnbō 史金波 on pp. 434–435 of his "Tangut Language and Manuscripts" (2020; trans. by @Hansong_Li from his 2003 《西夏文教程》) . Egregiously incorrect parts are marked in red.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 16:07

And this on p. 6 of the same book.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 16:11

And this on p. 8 of Shǐ Jīnbō's "The Economy of Western Xia" (2021; also translated by @Hansong_Li)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 16:18

The name of the Tangut state has been extensively studied by Ksenia Kepping and others, so it is hard comprehend how one of the foremost living experts on Tangut language, culture and history could have got it so wrong (as will be detailed further in this thread).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 16:20

In contrast, here is the essentially correct summary of the name of the Tangut state by @ImreGalambos on p. 11 of his "Translating Chinese Tradition and Teaching Tangut Culture" (2015)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 16:39

First of all, let's take a look at Prof. Shǐ Jīnbō's two specific examples of the textual occurence of the hybrid name 𗴂𗹭𘜶𗴲𗂧 "State of Great Xia White and High" ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 16:45

I. In the seal script inscription on a destroyed stele from the mausoleum of Emperor Rénzōng (r. 1139–1193). The inscription is not complete, but the first four characters clearly read 𗴂𗹭𗂧𘜶 "Great State White and High" with no Xià (𗴲/夏).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 16:54

II. In the Tangut text of the bilingual Liángzhōu Stele erected in 1094. Again, the first four characters of the title on the first column clearly read 𗴂𗹭𗂧𘜶 "Great State White and High" with no Xià (𗴲/夏).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 17:26

OK, so Shǐ Jīnbō's two specific claims for the textual occurence of the hybrid Tangut name 𗴂𗹭𘜶𗴲𗂧 "State of Great Xia White and High" fall flat on their face. But maybe we can find other examples to redeem him.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 17:52

In "The Name of the Tangut Empire" (1994), Ksenia Kepping discusses two of the Tangut names mentioned by Shǐ Jīnbō: 1) 𗴂𗹭𗂧𘜶 "The Great Kingdom of the White and Lofty", and 2) 𗴂𗹭𘜶𗴲𗂧 "The Great Xia Kingdom of the White and Lofty".

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 18:09

Kepping notes that the first (pure) Tangut name (𗴂𗹭𗂧𘜶) occurs in texts dating to the Western Xia period (pre-1227), but the second (hybrid) Tangut name (𗴂𗹭𘜶𗴲𗂧) only appears after the fall of the Western Xia (post-1227).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 18:28

Let us first note that the pure Tangut name (𗴂𗹭𗂧𘜶 "Great Kingdom of the White and Lofty") found on the stele for Emperor Rénzōng and on the Liángzhōu stele does indeed occur in printed texts from the Western Xia period, as seen in these examples.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 18:39

Now I hit a brick wall. Kepping does not give any textual examples of the Tangut hybrid name (𗴂𗹭𘜶𗴲𗂧 "The Great Xia Kingdom of the White and Lofty"), and I have been unable to find a single example in all the Tangut texts at my disposal.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 18:41

Kepping implies that Shǐ Jīnbō gives post-1227 examples in his 1988 "Brief History of Western Xia Buddhism" 西夏佛教史略, but I do not have access to this work. I'm not saying the hybrid name (𗴂𗹭𘜶𗴲𗂧) does not occur at all, but I am unable to provide any examples at present.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 19:24

Now let us return to the name which Shǐ Jīnbō implies is the primary Tangut name for the Tangut state, i.e. 𘜶𗴲𗂧 "Great Xia State", which does not follow natural Tangut syntax, but is a calque of the corresponding Chinese name 大夏國.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 19:43

Well, I don't have much luck with 𘜶𗴲𗂧 "Great Xia State" either. The only example of this Chinese-style Tangut name that I have been able to find is on an unprovenanced woodblock printed sheet from a Buddhist text which came up for auction in 2019 babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Auction…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 20:11

As an aside, the term 𗴲𗂧 "Summer country" (夏國) occurs in a Western Xia period Buddhist verse (IOM Tang. 27 folio 10), but it does not appear to refer to the Xia Kingdom.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 20:41

In summary, the primary and normal Tangut name for the Tangut state is 𗴂𗹭𗂧𘜶 "Great State White and High", and the terms 𘜶𗴲𗂧 "Great Xia State" and 𗴂𗹭𘜶𗴲𗂧 "State of Great Xia White and High" are at best marginal, and possibly non-existent during the Western Xia period.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 21:12

And here's another example of 𗴂𗹭𗂧𘜶 "Great Kingdom of the White and Lofty" in the date for a woodblock printed edition of an almanac for 1215 (𗴂𗹭𗂧𘜶𗪚𗏴𗏁𗤒𗼴𗘅𗩟 = 白高大國光定五年乙亥歲)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 10:47

As @vauzhao has pointed out, Shǐ Jīnbō (or at least his English translations), Imre Galambos, and Ksenia Kepping all read the character 𘜶 'big, great' as /tha/ in all three formulations of the Tangut name for the Tangut kingdom.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 11:10

However, my understanding is that 𘜶 'big, great' (Lǐ Fànwén 4457; Kychanov 3411; Sofronov 0971) should *always* be read li̭ẹ² (Sofronov) / ljịj² (Gong Hwang-cherng) / le² (Nishida) / 2leq3 (Miyake).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 11:16

The similar character 𘴈 (Lǐ Fànwén 4456; Kychanov 3410; Sofronov 0972), is read tha² (Sofronov and Gong) / thaɦ² (Nishida) / 2tha1 (Miyake), but only occurs in the single word 𘴈𗌋 tha² xa² 'wild goose' as a translation of Chinese 大雁 dà yàn 'wild goose'.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 11:26

The problem is that until a couple of years ago 𘜶 li̭ẹ² (LFW 4457) and 𘴈 tha² (LFW 4456) were not distinguished graphically in modern scholarship, and there was a tendency to treat li̭ẹ² and tha² as alternative native and borrowed readings of a single character meaning 'big'.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 11:43

In fact, 𘜶 li̭ẹ² (LFW 4457) and 𘴈 tha² (LFW 4456) are two graphically-distinguished characters, with subtly different right side components (only 4456 has the 'bird' component). See unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5031… for all the gory details, or babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Disunif… for a summary.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 12:00

The character for 'great' used in the names of the Tangut kingdom is 𘜶 (LFW 4457) with a 3-stroke right component (not the 5-stroke 'bird' component used in LFW 4456 𘴈), and so it should be read li̭ẹ² / ljịj² not tha².

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 22:11

My toes (stepping gingerly onto the vast expanse of 𗾟 tiles in front of the old Xixia Museum in Yínchuān)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 8 April 2022 at 12:38

Thanks to the help of @cosmicore I have now got hold of Shǐ Jīnbō's "Brief History of Western Xia Buddhism" 西夏佛教史略 (1988), and the hybrid name 𗴂𗹭𘜶𗴲𗂧 (=白高大夏國) does occur in the 1247 edition of the Golden Light Sutra.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 8 April 2022 at 12:59

At this point it has become obvious that what I originally intended as a brief twitter thread has got well out of hand. My inclination is to stop here, do some further research, and write up my findings in a paper ("The name of the Tangut kingdom revisited"?)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 April 2022 at 10:30

Lacquered sè 瑟 (zither-like musical instrument with about 25 strings) recently excavated from a Western Han tomb at Yancheng 鹽城 in Jiangsu kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 April 2022 at 10:32

Compare with this (cleaned-up) example from a Warring States tomb in Jiangxi reported earlier this year twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 April 2022 at 20:09

160 photographs by Joseph Needham taken during his Northwest journey in October 1943 at Jiāyùguān 嘉峪關, Qiānfódòng 千佛洞, and Dūnhuáng 敦煌 cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PH-NRI-00…

Three stupas on the eastern bank of the Dàquán river at Qiānfódòng 大泉河东岸舍利塔 1/6

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 April 2022 at 20:15

The grave and stupa of the Daoist monk Wáng Yuánlù 王圓籙 (1849–1931) who discovered the library cave at Qiānfódòng en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Yuan… 2/6

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 April 2022 at 20:18

View of the stupas and cave cliff from across the riverbed at Qiānfódòng 從大泉河東岸望窟區舍利塔、千相塔及窟區 3/6

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 April 2022 at 20:19

Ruined stupa in the oasis at Qiānfódòng 莫高窟前舍利塔(已毁) 4/6

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 April 2022 at 20:22

The Táng dynasty stupa at Chéngchéngwān in the Sānwēishān mountains near Qiānfódòng 三危山成城湾华塔 5/6

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 April 2022 at 20:33

Stupa below the Sānwēishān mountains near Qiānfódòng 三危山下舍利塔 with votive offerings in the form of clay tsha-tsha model stupas. Looks Western Xia to me. 6/6

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 April 2022 at 20:47

This is the most intriguing (and disturbing) of Joseph Needham's 1943 photographs of Qiānfódòng cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PH-NRI-00…

Decaying shoe, princess's foot and general's hand excavated at Qiānfódòng 莫高窟北區出土破爛鞋、公主腳、將軍手

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 April 2022 at 09:36

I have now added to my library a copy of Yuen Ren Chao's Sayable Chinese vol. II (1969) which comprises his translation of Through the Looking-Glass twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 22 April 2022 at 12:49

Two 1960's Soviet photographs of the same Tangut/Tibetan manuscript. According to the scale in the left photo it is 22cm high, but according to the scale in right photo it is only 15 cm high. Oh...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 22 April 2022 at 21:59

So, it seems that these and others in this set of photographs held at the British Library (badly reprinted in Documents from Khara-Khoto in the British Library 英藏黑水城文獻 vol. 5 (Shanghai, 2010) pp. 277–282) are not original photographs of the manuscripts, ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 22 April 2022 at 22:02

... but uncalibrated photographs of photographs that were specially made for Eric Grinstead when he visited the Leningrad branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies in 1964, ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 22 April 2022 at 22:02

... and so the scale shown on the photographs cannot be relied on to calculate the physical size of the manuscripts. However, ...

May

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 2 May 2022 at 21:43

Today I learned that Mongolian-Chinese linguist Choijinzhab (确精扎布), who I first met at Xiàmén in January 2005 when finalizing the encoding of the Phags-pa script, passed away on 29 April at the age of 91 (my photo taken in Hohhot in September 2017).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 2 May 2022 at 22:08

Prof. Choijinzhab was the primary architect of the encoding model for the Mongolian script in the Unicode Standard, and in 2017 Lisa Moore (VP of the Unicode Consortium) presented him with a copy of the Unicode Standard v. 10.0 at a meeting in Hohhot (@lianghai translating)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 2 May 2022 at 22:28

This is Prof. Choijinzhab's essential guide to the encoding of the Mongolian script (including Manchu), 蒙古文编码, which was published in August 2000, a year after Mongolian was accepted into Unicode v. 3.0. Choijinzhab kindly signed this copy for me.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 18 May 2022 at 10:04

Qianlong-period Chinese vase, kept in kitchen, could fetch £150k bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 18 May 2022 at 10:06

Extremely low estimate of £100,000 - £150,000, it actually just sold for £1.2m auctions.dreweatts.com/auctions/8176/…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 18 May 2022 at 22:20

Nice, but how about crediting the artist, Zhang Hongtu 張宏圖? twitter.com/brooklynmuseum…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 18 May 2022 at 22:23

Link to the piece brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 18 May 2022 at 22:29

That tweet from @brooklynmuseum makes me quite angry, especially the use of the passive voice to softly vanish away the artist who created the piece tinakenggallery.com/en/artists/37-…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 19 May 2022 at 11:30

Review of Shi Jinbo's Tangut Language and Manuscripts by @Leimingda91 in BSOAS doi.org/10.1017/S00419…

But where can I buy it for €25 ?!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Friday, 20 May 2022 at 08:58

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 23 May 2022 at 11:59

Where am I today?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 25 May 2022 at 15:13

《新編篇韻貫珠集》(大明正德丙子年[1516]九月重陽日重刊本)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 25 May 2022 at 15:23

90 out of the 112 doubled, tripled and quadrupled characters listed here are already encoded in the Unicode Standard, which leaves just the 22 marked in red.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 25 May 2022 at 15:38

These are the 90 encoded characters:

〇飍𡙎𡚌𦓈𤛭鱻

𩇔䨺馫𩡐㙓〇〇

譶𧮦𨰻鑫𣌠𥷹𥴒

〇𤿄龘𪚥𡘙𦜳𰀗

䯂兟磊𥗉曐曟〇

轟𥩌〇〇𪈼〇𧮥

瞐𣡕𤆁灥𣡽䲜䨻

〇〇𦧅𠔻㵘𩙡〇

𰢊𤤴〇〇𧲏𣡗〇

𨷮𢏝弜𠈌𣣓𠾅𩖏

驫𠓙惢䡛𰋟闁靐

𨏿𤳵𦓋𤰌〇𠐇刕

淼〇𡮐羴㴇𰄔𡬜

〇垚〇雥覞〇𠌕

〇𰦌燚𩉖飝〇𠬑

犇𨷾𡈲厵䪭〇𡬐

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 May 2022 at 12:08

⿲見見見 is a variant form of U+2789B 𧢛. It was submitted to CJK Ext. F as JMJ-058726 but unified to U+2789B appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg46…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 May 2022 at 12:20

⿰昜昜 is a corrupt form of U+232B7 𣊷 (both read as 從)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 May 2022 at 16:16

Today's acquisition for my Tangut library, Studies on the Tangut version of theVajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā by Arakawa Shintarō

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 May 2022 at 16:16

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 May 2022 at 17:00

The front cover gives the abbreviated Tangut title 𗵒𘗁𗖰𗚩 kẹi¹-ndźi̭a² lwə̣²-rại² (金剛經, Diamond Sutra). The full title of the sutra is 𗵒𘗁𘄒𘎑𘏞𗓽𗕥𗸰𗖰𗚩 kẹi¹-ndźi̭a² pa²-źi̭a² po¹-lo¹-mbɪ̭e²-ton¹ lwə̣²-rại² (金剛般若波羅蜜多經, Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 May 2022 at 17:21

Earlier this year I transcribed and punctuated one edition of the Tangut version of the Diamond Sutra for Wikisource twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 14:37

This Tangut Buddhist manuscript (National Tangut Catalogue No. G31·026) was discovered at the Hàimǔdòng 亥母洞 cave site near Wǔwēi in Gānsù in 1987.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 14:37

It is currently on display in an exhibition of Western Xia history and culture at Dalian Museum twitter.com/MuseumsChina/s…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 14:45

It is part of a collection of gāthā verses translated from a Tibetan source text (འཕགས་པ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་སྡུད་པ་ཚིགས་སུ་བཅད་པ།), and is entitled 𗼃𗠁𘟛𗳌𘋟𗫡𗣼𘉐𘏨𗰖𗖍 (modern Chinese translation: 聖勝慧彼岸到功德寶頌)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 14:48

The Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in Saint Petersburg holds parts of one manuscript and eight woodblock printed versions of this Tangut text under the catalogue number Tang. 66 (Nos. 371–379 in Kychanov's 1999 catalogue of Tangut Buddhist texts at IOM)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 21:06

The British Library also holds a number fragments from a woodblock printed edition of this text, some of which give a chapter title. For example, Or.12380/3001 gives the end title (unindented) for ch. 4:

𗰖𗖍𘂤𗣼𘉐𘎪𘄿𗥃𗡪

集頌中説功能品第四

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 21:08

Or.12380/3692 gives the title for ch. 6:

𗰖𗖍𘂤𗼕𘞙𘆏𗷖𘄿𗤁𗡪

集頌中福利回施品第六

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 21:09

Or.12380/2969 gives the end title for ch. 9:

𗰖𗖍𘂤𗁦𗡙𘄿𗢭𗡪

集頌中高贊品第九

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 21:12

Or.12380/2939 gives the rather long end title for ch. 20:

𗰖𗖍𘂤𗼄𘕤𘕿𗹠𗄎𗺋𗋒𘄿𗍫𗰗𗡪

集頌中方便善巧健根莖第二十品

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 21:14

And Or.12380/3060 gives the end title for ch. 29:

𗰖𗖍𘂤𘅪𗶻𘄿𗍫𗰗𗢭𗡪

集頌中怛施品第二十九

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 21:19

Finally, Or.12380/3086 gives the end title for ch. 11:

𗰖𗖍𘂤𗢞𘝦𘄿𗰗𘈩𗡪

集頌中魔行品第十一

The small fragment also shows the full title of the work:

𗼃𗠁𘟛𗳌𘋟𗫡𗣼𘉐𘏨𗰖𗖍𘘥　𗨁𘐳

聖勝慧彼岸到功德寶集頌曰　上册

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 May 2022 at 21:23

The more observant of you will have noticed that the Hàimǔdòng fragment also gives the end title for ch. 21:

𗰖𗖍𘂤𗢞𘝦𘄿𗍫𗰗𘈩𗡪

集頌中魔行品第二十一

The odd thing is that the title shown here for ch. 21 is identical to the title for ch. 11 shown in Or.12380/3086

June

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 at 08:41

Very nice, but full provenance for the piece is "le lieu de trouvaille se situerait dans la partie méridionale de la province du Xinjiang", i.e. looted art with no archaeological context twitter.com/ColorsAndStone…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 June 2022 at 22:41

Vatican Manuscripts digitized this week: A new Fond makes its debut ... with nine volumes of the Borg.cin collection ... eight from the collection of Antonio Montucci, which was sold to the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide upon his death in 1824. wiglaf.org/vatican/2022/w…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 6 June 2022 at 11:03

My BabelStone Han font hits 50,000 CJK unified ideographs with Version 14.0.9 released today babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 6 June 2022 at 13:59

That's 50,000 out of 92,865 CJK unified ideographs encoded in Unicode 14.0; and 4,192 more to come in September 2022 with the release of Unicode 15.0.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 11:09

The first ever study of Tibetan phonetic glosses for Tangut characters was published as A Brief Manual of the Si-hia Characters with Tibetan Transcriptions (西藏文字對照西夏文字抄覽) by the Russian linguist Nikolai Nevsky (1892–1937) in March 1926 when he was living in Japan.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 11:24

In the summer of 1925, when Nevsky was in China he had paid a visit to his old professor from the University of St Petersburg, A. I. Ivanov (1878–1937), who was senior interpreter at the Soviet embassy in Peking at that time.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 11:30

Ivanov had previously been engaged in sorting through and classifying the thousands of books and manuscripts in Chinese and Tangut that had been dicovered by Pyotr Kozlov (1863–1935) at the ruins of the fortress city of Kharakhoto during his expedition of 1908–1909 ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 11:41

... and so he showed Nevsky some of the Tangut material, including seven photographs of fragmentary Tangut manuscripts with phonetic glosses added in Tibetan, which Nevsky meticulously copied by hand for study when he returned to Japan.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 11:46

And only a few months later (by the of the year), Nevsky's brief manual, listing 334 Tangut characters with corresponding Tibetan phonetic glosses, was complete and ready for publication.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 11:55

The Kozlov collection of Tangut documents at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in Saint Petersburg includes 16 large and 4 small fragments of Tangut manuscripts with Tibetan phonetic glosses (and one leaf of a printed Tangut text with Tibetan manuscript glosses) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 12:01

So the question arises, which of these mss were used as the basis for Nevsky's brief manual? Nevsky specifies that he was shown 7 photographs of manuscripts, but were they 7 photographs covering all 20 items, or 7 photographs of individual fragments, and if so, which fragments?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 14:13

I don't know if any has ever tried to answer this question, but I did some analysis, and the answer is surprisingly conclusive: Nevsky's Brief Manual is entirely based on these seven fragments.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 14:51

Each of the large fragments has some Tangut characters which do not occur in any of the other fragments (listed below), but only the unique characters from seven particular fragments are included in Nevsky's Brief Manual (those highlighted in yellow).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 15:06

Then when we compare the individual Tibetan glosses given in Nevsky's Brief Manual, we find that they all belong to these particular seven fragments. So it seems fairly conclusive that the seven photos Nevsky was shown in Peking were photos of these seven fragments.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 11:19

In his hand-written preface, written in impeccable English, Nevsky notes that Prof. Ivanov had told him that these fragments were found by Prof. Władysław Koturicz (aka V. L. Kotvich) in the bindings of a Tangut book from Kharakhoto ... which is probably only half true:

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 11:23

The Tangut-Tibetan manuscript fragments held at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (IOM) belong to two different manuscript texts (Inv. nos. 8362 and 8363)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 11:33

Inv. no. 8362 comprises odd pieces from a folded scroll of gāthā verses, with some pieces (Frags, 3 and 5A) cut up into unusual shapes, typical of binding waste. These I can certainly believe were found in the binding of a Tangut book (unfortunately we do not know which book).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 12:04

Incidentally, the gaps in the bottom left and top right of Frag. 5A shown above can be filled in with the four small odd-shaped fragments (see also twitter.com/taichungpui/st…)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 13:10

On the other hand, the 8363 fragments are all large rectangular pieces which preserve their full height, and do not look as if they were used as binding waste. There is one specific piece of evidence that indicates that the 8363 fragments must have been loose when found:

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 13:17

The eleven 8363 fragments held at the IOM were found by Kozlov inside a stupa 400m west of the city walls of Kharakhoto in 1908 (left). In May 1914 Aurel Stein visited the site, and recovered thousands of fragments from the debris littered around the remains of the stupa (right)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 13:26

Among the material recovered by Stein were four fragments of a Tangut manuscript with Tibetan glosses, which appear to be very similar to the 8363 fragments found by Kozlov idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 13:41

In fact, one of the fragments found by Stein (Or.12380/3909) joins up with IOM 8363/Fr. 10(15) (which itself joins to 8363/Fr. 11(16)) (notice the perfect join for 𘘚𘎪 འཛྷེ འཚེ at the bottom). /End

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 21:40

Some 1,100 tombs dating from late Shang dynasty to early Western Han (i.e. late 2nd millenium to late 1st millenium BCE) have been excavated at the Lǎolóngtóu 老龙头 site at Yányuán 盐源 county in southwest Sìchuān kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 21:47

Some fascinating finds have been made

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 21:49

Bronze staff head with three women carrying water pots on their back

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 21:51

One of a set of bronze bells (编钟)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 21:56

Bronze model of horses and a chariot (photo on the right shows it as found beneath a bronze tray and a bronze ladle)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 21:58

Bronze trees

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 25 June 2022 at 00:03

Just spotted U+31197 𱆗 (⿺鬼升) in the wild for the first time

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 29 June 2022 at 09:35

1929 cover for the 蘇俄小説專號 (Soviet-Russia) special edition of Wénxué Zhōubào 文學周報 (Literature Weekly) by Qián Jūntáo 錢君匋 using proto-simplified characters thetype.com/2022/06/23843/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 30 June 2022 at 14:56

Many thanks to @ChronHib for copies of his AELAW booklets on Ogam and Cisalpine Celtic. This marvellous series of ten booklets on ancient European languages and writings can be ordered at puz.unizar.es/busqueda?contr…

July

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 July 2022 at 13:39

Finds from a mid-Western Zhou aristocratic tomb of the Péng state 倗国 excavated at the Héngshuǐ 横水 cemetery site at Jiàng County in Shānxī have been published kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 July 2022 at 13:50

One of the items of most interest is a short sword with an inscription giving the name Viscount Ni of Chu 楚公逆, who is known as the donor of a set of eight bells excavated from the cemetery of the Marquis of Jin (晋侯墓地 M64) in 1993

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 July 2022 at 13:54

A bronze square-based guǐ 簋 vessel has an inscription on the inside ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 July 2022 at 13:59

The inscription reads:

通肇作厥聖

考伯寶尊彞

唯用永念厥

考襄子子孫寶

For some reason all the reports on the internet omit the character "襄" on the last line.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 July 2022 at 15:46

For the reading of the 2nd character on the last line as 襄, cf. the name "西宫襄" on the 夨人盤. Here I take 襄 to be the father's name.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 July 2022 at 16:12

The given reading of "通肇" for the first two characters seems suspect to me. @BoseGozpodi suggests 𧼝（趣）𩢉（驢） instead. twitter.com/BoseGozpodi/st…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 July 2022 at 16:28

For comparison, here is a typical form of 肇 on the 不𡢁簋蓋

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 7 July 2022 at 12:32

I just love that someone invented a Chinese name for the Chinchilla that is derived from 珍珠 'pearl' with the 'jade' radical changed to the 'dog' radical.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 7 July 2022 at 16:11

In today's post, Dark Earth by @RebeccaStott64 and Relics of the Western Xia 西夏遗迹 by renowned archaeologist Niú Dáshēng 牛达生

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 8 July 2022 at 18:17

First recorded in Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall (1602), "King Arthur's stone" now lies on the bank of the River Camel. Engraved LATINI IC IACIT FILIUS MAGARI and LATINI ᚂᚐᚈᚔᚅᚔ in #Og_h_am. My photo from August 2010. #InternationalDayOfOgham

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 8 July 2022 at 20:48

Close-up view of the stone. More images of this and other #Og_h_am stones of Cornwall on my blog babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 21 July 2022 at 19:28

Up for auction this Sunday 24 July auction.artron.net/paimai-art0109… twitter.com/woodsidesusan2…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 25 July 2022 at 22:33

A rather lovely painted pottery bird vessel excavated from a Warring States period tomb at Hándān in Héběi (河北邯鄲後百家北墓地出土戰國彩繪陶鳥尊) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 26 July 2022 at 20:04

The pair of sayings of Buddhist masters (1258 edition of 《泉石潤公禪師語錄》 and Sòng edition of 《大慧普覺禪師語錄》) together sold for RMB 9,200,000 (USD 1.36m)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 29 July 2022 at 09:10

Happy Birthday BabelMap! 🎉🎈🍾 First released on 29 July 2002, twenty years ago today! web.archive.org/web/2002080815…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 29 July 2022 at 09:21

BabelMap 20th anniversary edition has just been released babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 29 July 2022 at 09:22

Who would have thought that twenty years later BabelMap would still be under active development?! Certainly not me! twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 29 July 2022 at 09:34

Many improvements and enhancements in the new version of BabelMap. Most notably, BabelMap now supports polychromatic rendering of complex emoji sequences (e.g. 👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👩🏾👨‍👩‍👧‍👦), flag sequences (e.g. 🇺🇦), and flag tag sequences (e.g. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿) for COLR/CPAL fonts such as Segoe UI Emoji

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 29 July 2022 at 16:31

BabelMap now also fully supports Format 13 fonts such as Last Resort High-Efficiency github.com/unicode-org/la…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 29 July 2022 at 22:00

In 2002 , when BabelMap was first released, Unicode 3.2 comprised 95,156 named character in 107 blocks covering 45 scripts. Today, Unicode 14.0 comprises 144,697 named character in 317 blocks covering 159 scripts. What will Unicode be like in another twenty years?

August

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 4 August 2022 at 10:13

I never formally studied Tangut, but now ... oh, never mind twitter.com/ChronHib/statu…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 6 August 2022 at 20:28

Do not touch suspicious objects ... I should think not!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 7 August 2022 at 10:51

Fugelmere Road, on the edge of what is now prosaically called Fleet Pond in east Hampshire. The second most Anglo-Saxon street name in the area.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 7 August 2022 at 11:19

I had fondly imagined that the original Anglo-Saxon name for the large pond and marshy area had somehow survived through the centuries to eventually be fossilized in the name of a small untravelled road on the edge of civilization, ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 7 August 2022 at 11:29

... but the road name is almost certainly an antiquarian borrowing from this 976 charter recording the gift of the manor of Crundel (modern Crondall) to the Old Monastery at Winchester by King Edgar.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 8 August 2022 at 16:11

A new set of relief sculptures of stylized human faces has been excavated at the Neolithic Shímǎo 石峁 site in Shǎnxī. Two adjacent sculptures on a curved corner stone have been uncovered so far, but archaeologists expect there to be a set of three faces kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 8 August 2022 at 20:27

Turns out to be Robert Fayrfax's O Lux Beata Trinitas twitter.com/Wilus1969/stat…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 9 August 2022 at 15:20

This is one hypothesis using a carefully selected set of examples, but the origins of 万 may go back to oracle bone script where a glyph interpreted as 万 is used for the name of an official position or a type of sacrifice twitter.com/gyankotsu/stat…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 9 August 2022 at 15:22

Table of 万 glyphs through the ages from zi.tools/zi/%E4%B8%87

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 9 August 2022 at 15:56

It's also worth considering that the ethnic clan name 万俟 Mòqí which dates back to the 4th-5th centuries is spelled only with 万 not 萬

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 10 August 2022 at 09:50

Eleven floor bricks with engraved decorations and writing have been found in Eastern Han tombs excavated at a site northeast of Xī'ān sohu.com/a/575450771_12…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 12 August 2022 at 12:38

For Unihan and IRG geeks, BabelMap and BabelPad v. 15 (this time next month) now provide IRG source references for Han ideographs, and allows searching for a specific source reference

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 12 August 2022 at 12:41

BabelMap and BabelPad v. 15 also have a new utility that allows you to list all Han ideographs which meet certain criteria

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 14 August 2022 at 15:53

The date on this Tangut manuscript fragment (idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…) is really rather strange:

𘓺𗼴𗿼𗏁𗒹𗤒𗼑　𗾞

It translates into Chinese as "天乙酉五七年月　日" with the era name abbreviated ambiguously to 𘓺 'heaven', and the era year given as 5/7.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 14 August 2022 at 16:03

There were four "seedling bird" 𗼴𗿼 (i.e. 乙酉) years during the Western Xia:

天授禮法延祚八年 [1045]

𗣼𘝯𗏁𗤒 (貞觀五年) [1105]

𘓺𘃸𗰗𗒹𗤒 (天盛十七年) [1165]

𘀗𗪚𘕕𗤒 (乾定三年) [1225]

So the date is likely to be 1165, but why write 𗰗𗒹 (seventeen) as 𗏁𗒹 (five-seven) ?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 14 August 2022 at 17:08

To be clear, I have no idea why expected 'ten' (in 17) is written as 'five'. It does not seem to be a mistake anyone could easily make, so was it deliberate? And if so, why?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 14 August 2022 at 19:38

Nice CCTV report on ancient book conservation at the National Library of China, mostly showing the conservation of a very poorly-preserved Tangut book (but some random Ming book towards the end) tv.cctv.com/2022/08/14/VID…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 14 August 2022 at 19:48

The Tangut book shown is evidently from the 18 bundles of looted Tangut documents that the National Library of China purchased in May 2015 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 14 August 2022 at 22:14

Now improved to allow detailed queries of source relationships. The examples below show various intersections of Hong Kong and Macau characters in Ext. B

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Monday, 15 August 2022 at 10:48

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 15 August 2022 at 11:17

Question for Apple users. I've had a report that on macOS, CJK Ext. C through G characters in BabelStone Han do not display. Can anyone confirm this?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 15:09

There are so many interesting Tangut fragments in the British Library @idp_uk collection which are seemingly unexplored. This one caught my eye because of the unusual three-character structure in the middle, with at least six instances of 𗹦𗤓X (天妙X) idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 15:18

I have no idea what the text is. The Catalogue of the British Library Tangut collection (vol. 1 p. 125) just says "fragment" 殘片.

The central row reads:

𗹦𗤓𗞔 = 天妙香

𗹦𗤓𗉃 = 天妙燈

𗹦𗤓𗩧(?) = 天妙霉(?)

𗹦𗤓𗫴 = 天妙果

𗹦𗤓𗠇 = 天妙食

𗹦𗤓𗩜 = 天妙醫

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 15:35

This list of 'heavenly marvellous' 天妙 things seems to relate it to 藥師琉璃光王七佛本願功德經念誦儀軌供養法 (tripitaka.cbeta.org/T19n0926_001) which mentions 天妙華, 天妙香, 天妙燈, 天妙水, 天妙食, 天妙樂, 天妙衣

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 15:48

As @edwardW2 has pointed out, this is probably a list of types of offerings to be made (twitter.com/edwardW2/statu…), but as I have not (yet) been able to find any other fragments of this text, it is difficult to be sure what the exact intent of the text is.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 16:22

@edwardW2 The legible parts of the bottom of the fragment include 𗠝𗓽[𘂦] = 阿羅漢 Arhat, 𘛻𗶮 'thunder jump' (?!), and 𗜘𘌬 'nearside send/give' (?); whereas the top right has a transliterated Sanskrit word 𗦮𗙴𘄽 (viraha?).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 19:32

One particularly interesting detail about this fragment is the occurence of the Tangut character marked in red. It is not entirely clear, but I identify it as 𗩧 me², which Lǐ Fànwén 李範文 and Hán Xiǎománg 韓小忙 take as a borrowing of Chinese 霉 méi 'mould, mildew', ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 20:07

... but this is one of the rarest of all Tangut characters, with only four attestations that I know of: Sea of Writing MS 文海寶韻, Homophones 同音 (A&B), and Synonyms 同義. And only three semantic data points, none directly suggesting 'mould', so the meaning is far from certain.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 20:23

Homophones A and B both gloss 𗩧 as 𗡎𘎡 'fragrance, smell, stench' (exact meaning not certain, as is the case for most Tangut words), but ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 20:52

... the manuscript gloss written on the reverse of one copy of Homophones gives 𗿦𗴺𗥚𗅋 lit. "female mother give birth not", which Hán Xiǎománg translates as 妇女未生 "female [who has] not yet given birth", but the negative particle 𗅋 always precedes the verb, ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 21:52

... so maybe this is an incomplete gloss, "female mother gives birth [but] not ...", referring to the afterbirth, which is called 𗡎𘚊 li̭e² ꞏi̭ə̣², using the same first character (𗡎 li̭e² 'fragrant') as in the Homophones gloss 𗡎𘎡 li̭e² no² 'fragrance, smell' for 𗩧.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 21:59

Synonyms provides our final clue to meaning of this character, where it is occurs in a group of characters related to bodily discharges (𗻲𗢌𗾋𘚊𗯂𗯌𗮟, 𗮚𘝼𗣪𗧈𗩧𗔗𘊃), including excrement, farts, urine, and afterbirth.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 22:05

So in conclusion, I do not believe 𗩧 means 'mould, mildew' 霉, but refers to some bodily discharge (afterbirth?) which is considered to be ritually impure, ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 22:08

... which finally brings us to the insightful observation by @max1231235564 that "if it connotes something like 'impurity' or 'dirtiness' then the order makes sense: incense/smoke, light/fire, disease/blood; then fruit/insight, food/eating, medicine/cure." twitter.com/max1231235564/…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 19 August 2022 at 14:56

The Tangut characters on this wooden sutra tag from Kharakhoto held at the British Library read 𗰗𗫸𗲄𗧤𘆄𗥃𗴮 (十住断結等四部) "Ten Stages of the Cutting of the Bonds [Sutra] etc., 4 works"

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 19 August 2022 at 15:25

As far as I know, there is no surviving Tangut version of the "Ten Stages of the Cutting of the Bonds Sutra" 《十住斷結經》 = T309 《最勝問菩薩十住除垢斷結經》 (apparently a forgery by Zhú Fóniàn 竺佛念), and this tag is the only evidence for a Tangut translation.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 19 August 2022 at 15:37

For some reason, this image of the tag is misplaced on the @idp_uk website with Or.12380/3878 (a Chinese text titled 《廣大發願頌》) idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 19 August 2022 at 20:54

@idp_uk It should of course be Or.12380/3881 idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo… which shows the other side of this wooden sutra tag, reading 𗱕 𘈩𗇗𗰗𗴋 (諸一捆十卷) meaning "'all' -- 10 volumes in 1 bundle"

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 20 August 2022 at 08:59

To understand what this tag means, we need to first understand how Buddhist texts were organized in monastic libraries in China. Texts were grouped into cases or bundles of usually 10 rolls (卷) each, each indexed by a unique character from the Thousand Character Text 千字文.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 20 August 2022 at 09:00

The key to this indexing system is given in Kāiyuán Shìjiàolù Lüèchū 開元釋教錄略出 "Abridged Kaiyuan Era Record of Buddhist Teachings" (T2155) which lists 1,080 texts in about 5,062 rolls, which are physically divided into 479 cases (zhì 帙) babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Kaiyuan…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 20 August 2022 at 09:01

On this Stein photo of Dunhuang mss, the index character hǎi 海 (千字文 #65) is visible on the bundle of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra 摩訶般若波羅蜜經 at the top right (Kāiyuán Shìjiàolù Lüèchū indeed records 薑, 海 and 鹹 as the index characters for the 30 rolls of this sutra).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 20 August 2022 at 09:14

Tangut Buddhist texts used a very similar indexing system, using the unique characters from an otherwise unattested Tangut text written in four-character lines, as I discuss in this blog post babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2015/07/o… (image shows index character 𗤳 below the title label)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 20 August 2022 at 09:19

So on the wooden tag, the Tangut character 𗱕 'all' is the index character for a bundle of 10 rolls, and these 10 rolls comprised the last four rolls of the Ten Stages of the Cutting of the Bonds Sutra (十住斷結經十四卷) and three other shorter texts in 6 rolls.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 20 August 2022 at 22:02

Feeding the capybaras today (spot the Tangut)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 26 August 2022 at 21:21

First ever example of a 天喜元寶 coin, found in February at the Burana site in Kyrgyzstan, in the vicinity of the Qara Khitai capital of Balasagun, identified as a Western Liao coin dating to the Tianxi 天禧 era (1178–1218) of the last Western Liao emperor zeno.ru/data3/tianxiyu…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 26 August 2022 at 22:19

My 𗟛𗫔𘀏 reminding me that this is the 10th anniversary of the publication of this collection of Tangut papers in celebration of the 80th birthday of Prof. E. I. Kychanov, in happier and more optimistic times

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 29 August 2022 at 11:32

A large bronze animal statue with a person standing on its head has been unearthed from Sānxīngduī 三星堆 pit #8. 1 metre long and tall, and weighing about 300kg, this is the largest bronze animal statue found at Sānxīngduī to date. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 29 August 2022 at 11:39

Prepared for being lifted news.haiwainet.cn/n/2022/0826/c3…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 29 August 2022 at 11:41

After lifting jfdaily.com/news/detail?id…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 29 August 2022 at 11:44

Useful infographic wenweipo.com/a/202208/26/AP…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 31 August 2022 at 17:53

Where were my toes today?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 31 August 2022 at 18:09

Four Táng dynasty tombs belonging to the Wú 吳 clan have been excavated at Zhǎngzǐ County 長子縣 in Shānxī. One tomb was for Wú Yóu 吳遊 (599–648) and his wife (tomb memorial left), and one was for Wú Bǎo 吳寶 (599–648) and his wife (tomb memorial right). kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…

September

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 1 September 2022 at 18:11

BabelStone Han v. 15 has now been released, with 3,115 additional Han characters, including 2,246 for CJK Ext. H in Unicode 15.0 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 14:09

Peter Boodberg's classic "The Chinese Script: An Essay on Nomenclature (The First Hecaton)" published in the Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology 29.1 (1957) provides a tongue-in-cheek graphematical analysis of Chinese characters www2.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/file/4172QIftZ…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 14:11

In the latest version of my BabelStone Han font (babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html) I have attempted to include all diplograms, triplograms, and tetraplograms in Unicode version 15.0. How many are there? Well ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 14:15

These are the vertically aligned diplograms:

二亖仌吕哥圭多岀戔昌棗炎爻畕㕛㚐㚣𠀘𠃙𠃧𠄞𠄟𠄠𠎳𠐇𠔁𠔑𠘻𠣧𠣨𡔯𡖈𡿭𢀡𢀵𢁝𢇕𢌽𢎙𢑑𣊧𣥕𣫯𣬅𤘧𤱓𥻫𦓔𦦚𧅞𧨟𩈲𩡌𩥋𩺰𫅓𫇆𫧇𫪊𫻸𬃷𬙩𬛳𬻀𬻈𬻘𬼆𭥗𭫝𮊂𰀒𰀪𰀸𰆀𰋟𰒲𱥂

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 14:20

Horizontally aligned diplograms, aka isograms:

从兓兟兢厸双吅喆囍夶奻孖屾巜幵幷弜弱斦昍朋林棘槑歰沝炏牪玆甡皕砳祘秝竝競竸絲羽聑臸艸虤覞誩豩賏赫辡鍂雔騳龖龳㐨㐩㒭㒹㚁㚘㚡㝇㣈㯤㯥㱛㲎㸞㹜㼌㽬㿟䀠䎜䖵䡛䣈䨇䪭䬕䲆𠀙𠀞𠁷𠂩𠃄𠃐𠄥𠅯𠑐𠑲𠒔𠓆𠓜𠘬𠚪𠠴𠣪𠥺𠦅𠦌𠦜𠧥𠨂𠨎𠨓𠨖𠭾𠮇𠳬𠳯𠼑𡅕𡆃𡋰𡓨

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 14:20

𡖇𡘋𡥷𡦂𡫥𡱉𢀌𢂉𢂏𢄬𢅜𢆶𢆾𢇃𢐅𢑨𢗰𢨯𢩙𢪒𢺸𣇱𣊣𣊷𣏟𣑼𣗥𣘐𣚨𣛕𣠬𣢐𣥖𣴏𤒍𤘆𤚅𤤴𤲶𥍤𥝉𥡝𥪼𥹫𦏇𦏲𦘨𦠹𦣦𦧚𦫹𧫘𧼂𨐼𨑀𨤶𨲍𨸙𨽼𩈳𩔊𩠬𩡐𩪆𩱇𪅝𪐐𪙹𪢴𪯢𪴨𫏬𫕻𫠭𫡅𫣛𫤪𫪉𫫘𫵮𬂧𬇊𬇎𬚍𬛭𬥰𬪪𬱛𬻼𬼅𬼠𬽡𭁤𭋘𭋷𭐪𭑈𭘸𭬀𭽡𮦂𰀇𰀕𰀦𰀩𰁒𰁽𰄔𰆋𰆬𰆼𰈟𰋣𰋴𰍢𰏒𰏦𰒶𰗈𰙤𰢱𰦖𰩫𱀝𱄿𱋁𱍂𱐔𱕭𲂻𤎸𱬠𧅟𦑓𡴬𡮟𤴐𦿑𡪀𱶟

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 14:23

Janiform diplograms are diplograms with mirrored components:

臦𣥠𦣩𨛜𨺅𫸪

Rotiform diplograms are diplograms with one component rotated 180°:

𢨋𣥒𰒥𲁓

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 14:28

Triplograms are commonly arranged in a triangle:

众刕劦厵厽叒品嚞垚壵姦孨惢掱晶森歮毳淼灥焱犇猋畾皛瞐矗磊羴聶舙芔蟲譶贔赑轟鑫雥靐飍飝馫驫骉鱻麤龘㐂㽓䆐䖃䨺𠁭𠁼𠄕𠌕𠐰𠑰𠒶𠓉𠓗𠓪𠓾𠚛𠦄𠨋𠨕𠫒𠾳𡈲𡖃𡘙𡙎𡙒𡚤𡬀𡬏𡬐𡬚𡬜𡮏𡳻𡴪𡴫𡷈𢀎𢅈𣁕𣁾𣝯𣠆𣡕𣡗𣣓𣦴𤔙𤕇𤰌𤳅𤾩𤿁𥃣𥍙𥩌𥫮𥴒𦋹𦏱𦓈𦜳𦥏𦧅 ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 14:32

... 𨆬𨑂𨷮𩉖𩖏𪈼𪟧𫁪𫡤𫡩𫦹𫦿𫧢𬀉𬂚𬍼𬏍𬻄𭃊𭅦𭌳𮄿𮚰𰀎𰀝𰆂𰌱𰏗𰦌𱃝𱈜𱊜𱛃𱤺𱬳

But occasionally as an inverted triangle:

𤬑𣓏𥼬𰋩𪉓

Horizontally aligned are called isotriplograms.

巛雦㴇𠬑𠱠𡕇𡥦𢏝𦧵𧔗𧢛𧭛𧲏𧾜𧾭𩧢𰢊𱅒𱏷𱐕

Vertically aligned are few in number:

彡𡭯𢩕𰀰

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 14:39

All the tetraplograms easily fit in a single tweet (many of them are also diplograms):

叕朤燚茻㗊㠭㵘㸚䨻䲜𠁠𠈌𠓙𠔻𠫬𡈶𡚌𣊭𣌠𣡍𣡽𣡾𣬅𤆁𤛭𤳳𤳵𥗉𥷹𦓋𧮦𨏿𨰻𨷾𩇔𩙡𪚥𭭴𰀱𰙉𰽔𱤏

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 14:50

Boodberg mentions pentaplograms, but I cannot find any, although there are a couple of hexaplograms and an octaplogram (which are all also diplograms):

𡿭𡦪𣡽

And there is a nonaplogram-木 inside 𧆘

And finally, an honourable mention to 𱁬 which is a ditriplogram.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 5 September 2022 at 15:17

Some of the diplograms, triplograms, tetraplograms, and embedded nonaplograms currently under consideration (WS2021) for inclusion in a future version of Unicode.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 6 September 2022 at 21:02

This British Library Tangut fragment (Or.12380/3598) is rather unusual, with large Sanskrit syllables written along the top. Offhand I can't think of anything similar, and I cannot find any related fragments in IDP. Appears to read ka mā and ha̐ to me, but happy to be corrected.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 6 September 2022 at 21:56

The Tangut text is fragmentary, and the paper crumpled, so it is difficult to read. The right fragment starts with 𗙫𗏵... (=oṃ ma ... 唵嘛...) on the 1st column, and the 6th column starts 𗙫𗶴𘆨𘃜 oṃ ha tir ... so we are certainly in Sanskrit dhāraṇī territory.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 6 September 2022 at 21:58

The 3rd column starts 𗰗𗏁𗡪𘇂 "No. 15 middle ? [part?]", followed by 𘀍𗕘𗏇 'the character nang', which presumably refers to the Sanskrit syllable nāṁ (cf. 𘈪𗏤𘕜𗫂𘀍𗕘 tathāgatānāṁ in the Tathāgatahṛdaya-dhāraṇi on the West wall of the 居庸關 Jūyōngguān arch inscription).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 6 September 2022 at 22:21

The 4th column starts 𗕘𗏇𗴂𗲠 "the character [-]ṁ is white and hollow" which is intriguing (especially as I can find no other example of 𗴂𗲠 'white and hollow' in the Tangut corpus), but what does it mean? Does this make sense to any Sanskritists out there?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 10 September 2022 at 15:19

Today's release of BabelPad v. 15 (supporting Unicode 15.0 which will be released on Tuesday) marks the 20th anniversary 🎂 of the first release of BabelPad in September 2002 babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 10 September 2022 at 15:27

BabelPad now supports polychromatic glyphs in COLR/CPAL format fonts for simple characters (e.g. simple emoji 🥮) and character sequences (e.g. emoji sequences 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦, flag sequences 🇺🇦, and tag sequences 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 10 September 2022 at 15:31

Of course, colour rendering can be turned off if desired

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 10 September 2022 at 15:44

This is what BabelPad v. 1 from 2002 looked like. On the surface, it is not vastly different from the latest version, but there is massive difference in functionality

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 10 September 2022 at 15:45

Full list of enhancements in BabelPad 15 here babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 10 September 2022 at 22:00

On a technical note, BabelPad is a simple C++ MFC program en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 10 September 2022 at 22:04

BabelPad and BabelMap share a common code base, comprising some 311 .h files, 187 .cpp files, 15.rc files; with a total of 188 classes and 94 dialog boxes; and some 85,000 lines of entirely hand-crafted actual code in the cpp files.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 17 September 2022 at 11:27

New Scottish Ogham inscription has landed, and it looks like a humdinger! twitter.com/murrayJamescoo…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 17 September 2022 at 12:23

The location is really intersting. It's the first Ogham inscribed stone discovered in the Stirling area, lying half way between the west coast examples and a cluster around Perth in the east. google.com/maps/d/viewer?…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 17 September 2022 at 22:23

Oh, Ext. J maybe? twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 22 September 2022 at 12:54

This Tangut grain contract (Or. 12380/2529 A+B) is interesting for a number of reasons, but one feature that struck me was the incompletely-written character 𗝏 ndụ² (a dry measure = Chinese 斗), which should be an aborted mistake for 𗚻 śi̭e² (= Chinese 升, 1/10th of a 斗).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 22 September 2022 at 13:01

He evidently intended to write 𗰗𗝏𗏁𗚻 "ten dou and five sheng", but started to write the character 𗝏 (斗) instead of 𗚻 (升), then d'oh! realises his mistake, but doesn't cross out the mistake, just continues with the correct character below.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 22 September 2022 at 15:12

Oops, I misread the last character on the preceding line as 𗰗 'ten', when it is actually the name character 𗰔, so the text here should be 𗝏𗏁𗚻 "[one] dou and five sheng" (i.e. 1½ dou), which makes more sense.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 22 September 2022 at 15:17

The symbol on the top left, below the Tangut character 𗻧 śi̭ei¹ 'barley', is perhaps a counting symbol for '15', representing the "one dou 𗝏 and five sheng 𗚻" [of barley] mentioned in the text of the contract.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 22 September 2022 at 15:42

On this contract (Or. 12380/2035 B) a similar symbol with two vertical stems and five branches is written twice (the left example has the character 𘜔 ngə̣ɯ² 'number, amount' written above it), apparently corresponding to the words 𗍫𗰗𗏁 "twenty-five" in the text below.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 28 September 2022 at 13:45

This plaque commemorating the infamous Welsh antiquarian Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams, 1747–1826) was erected at the site of his bookshop in Cowbridge (Y Bont-faen) on the centenary of his death. Photo taken for me by @april_nishi at the weekend.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 28 September 2022 at 13:57

@april_nishi The runiform letters at the bottom of the plaque are the Coelbren y Beirdd or Bardic alphabet that Iolo represented as having been used in various ancient manuscripts that he had discovered. The text here is the Bardic motto "[Y] gwir yn erbyn y byd" (Truth against the world).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 28 September 2022 at 14:10

There is not a large corpus of material written using Coelbren y Beirdd, but examples of Welsh written in Coelbren y Beirdd letters can occasionally be seen. The top of the title page of this 1830 book that I bought at the Yale Co-op gives "Brutus yn y rhigod" (Brutus pilloried).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 28 September 2022 at 14:47

In memory of Iolo Morganwg I have now released a computer font for Coelbren y Beirdd babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Coelbren…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 29 September 2022 at 12:30

Nicely centred on the Helan Mountains and the lost kingdom of the Tanguts twitter.com/BLAsia_Africa/…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 29 September 2022 at 15:11

After nearly 40 years, the UK government has now stopped funding @BSI_UK to provide financial support for UK experts, convenors and chairs attending international standardization meetings. I can't complain, as tax cuts for the super rich are undoubtedly a more important priority.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 29 September 2022 at 15:28

@BSI_UK In the year 2017/2018 this funding was £881k (bsigroup.com/globalassets/l…) which is a paltry sum for the government, but without it I would not have been able to attend the week-long meeting of SC2 and WG2 in Hohhot that year, where Mongolian encoding issues were high on the agenda

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 29 September 2022 at 15:56

@BSI_UK In all I have benefitted eight times from BSI funding to attend SC2/WG2 meetings around the world, and by doing so I have helped get scripts such as Old Turkic, Nüshu, Tangut, and Khitan Small Script encoded (i.e. add to Unicode).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 29 September 2022 at 16:05

Unfortunately this work cannot be done remotely by Zoom, and it is essential to have face-to-face interaction with experts and the user community, such as these Shuishu and Naxi Dongba experts, and this Muya monk holding an Ersu astrological manuscript at the Hohhot 2017 meeting.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 29 September 2022 at 16:20

東莞人謂肥曰(曲) ... can anyone confirm or deny this? twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 14:29

A few of my photos from the Kings & Scribes exhibition at Winchester Cathedral. This wooden bust of Charles I, with a matching one of his father, were placed in the tower vault in 1635, but they were removed in 1828 because they resembled "bagpiping Highlanders wearing bonnets".

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 14:46

Remnants of 15th-century stone sculptures of kings, saints, prophets and bishops (once brightly painted) which originally filled the niches of the Great Screen behind the high altar.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 14:49

The sculptures were all pulled down in the 1550s, and many cut up and reused as building blocks. The niches remained empty for nearly 350 years, until replacements (seen here) were made in the late 19th century.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 14:56

15th-century stone sculptures of God the Father wearing a jewelled papal crown, and a serenely beautiful Madonna and Child, both believed to have been carved by the same artist

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 15:07

15th-century painted oak mortuary chest with a scroll on one side reading "HIC REX EGBERT PAVSAT CVM REGE KYNVLPHO" = "Here rests King Egbert (Ecgberht of Wessex, r. 802–839) with King Kenulph (Cynewulf of Wessex, r. 757–786).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 15:10

15th-century painted oak mortuary chest with a scroll on one side reading "ISTIC:KYNGILSI:SIMUL:OSSA:IACENT:ET:ADULPHI" = "In this very place lie together the bones of Kynegils (Cynegils of Wessex, r. circa 611–642) and Adulphus (Æthelwulf of Wessex, r. 839–858)".

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 15:21

These chests held the bones of the kings and royal family of the House of Wessex, which were first gathered together and placed in lead coffers by Henry of Blois in the 1150s. They were enclosed in six new chests resting high up on the side screens of the presbytery in the 1530s.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 15:26

Recent analysis of the contents of the six chests has revealed that the mixed up bones belong to 23 individuals, including one mature female who is believed to be Emma of Normandy bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 15:31

High quality late 13th-century Chertsey tiles depicting a bishop beneath a canopy, which would originally have been placed prominently by the high altar or St Swithun's shrine.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 15:39

12th-century inscribed stones from the Norman apse wall on which the royal mortuary chests were originally placed. Translation given as "Queen Emma lies here, may God have mercy on her soul, and he who prays a Paternoster and Ave Maria for her soul will have six days' pardon".

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 15:42

Fragment of a late 9th-century wall painting showing an angel from a heavenly choir, excavated from the site of Winchester New Minster.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 September 2022 at 15:45

Finally, the Sigmund Stone, depicting Sigmund who killed the wolf which had eaten his nine brothers; part of a narrative frieze relating the mythical origins of the English and Danish royal families which decorated the grave of King Cnut in Winchester Old Minster.

October

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 October 2022 at 23:14

The 4th image shows part of an almost complete copy of a movable type edition of the Tangut translation of 《大方廣佛華嚴經普賢行願品》 (pages 21–22 of 64) held at Gansu Museum ... twitter.com/CurtExplores/s…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

tripitaka.cbeta.org/T10n0293_040

Sunday, 2 October 2022 at 23:25

...𘛽𗢸𗉣𘈽，𘀀𘈐𗅋𘟣。

...身語意業，無有疲厭。

𗅉𘐡，𗩴𗾖𘈷！𗣼𘉐𗶻𘚻𘘣𗫂，𗹙𗐯、𘉏𗲠𗐯𗋃...

復次，善男子！言隨喜功德者，所有盡法界、虛空界...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 October 2022 at 23:37

I assume that this was part of the huge hoard of Yuan dynasty Tangut Buddhist texts discovered in Língwǔ 靈武 in 1917, and that the Chinese translations next to some of the Tangut text (pages 9–12 shown here) were added in the 20th century, although I'm not quite sure by whom.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 3 October 2022 at 23:26

Really excited to hear that the UK government plans to replace the Unicode Standard with a new British character encoding standard with none of those pesky accents needed for French or funny letters needed for German (also no Oxford comma)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 9 October 2022 at 09:49

Bronze charm found near Kyzylorda in Kazakhstan, with images of the twelve zodiac animals on one side, and the Khitan Large Script words for Rat (left), Rabbit (top), Horse (right), and Rooster (bottom) on the other side zeno.ru/data3/Belyaev%…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 9 October 2022 at 09:59

In 2021, another copy of this type of charm was discovered 600km away at the Shelji medieval city site in Kyrgyzstan, but the details of the inscription are not clear on this piece zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 9 October 2022 at 10:07

The Khitan Large Script words seen on the charm

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 9 October 2022 at 10:49

The History of the Liao records that the Khitan word for 'rabbit' is pronounced 陶里 táolǐ (Mongolian taulai), and the number 'five' is pronounced 討 tǎo (Mongolian tabun), which explains why the first element of the KLS word for rabbit is the Han/KLS character 五 'five'.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 12 October 2022 at 13:10

Two guardian beasts (鎮墓獸) from the tomb of Murong Zhi 慕容智 (650–691), 3rd son of the last khan of the Tuyuhun kingdom. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20221…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 12 October 2022 at 13:12

The tomb of Murong Zhi 慕容智 was discovered in Gansu in September 2019, and I think the beast on the right can be seen in the second picture here twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20221…

Friday, 21 October 2022 at 14:32

Yet another example of a tomb with date-imprinted bricks from the same area of southern Húnán (Dàshì town 大市鎮 near Lěiyáng 耒阳), this one dating to the Eastern Jìn (317–420):

Jiànyuán 1 建元元年八月十日 [343] (M7)

Yǒnghé 3 永和九年七月一日 [353] (M7)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 21 October 2022 at 15:10

The date text in the above photo is mirrored vertically; whereas the photo in a brief report from July (kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20220…) shows the text unmirrored (I'm not entirely sure if the first photo has been mirrored or the date was originally imprinted in reverse).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 23 October 2022 at 18:17

20 years ago, in October 2002 a coin collector bought some old coins at a market in Wǔwēi 武威 Gansu, one of which was later identified as a unique Chinese-Tangut chess piece with 🩨 'Mandarin' on one side, and Tangut 𘙶 (as an abbreviation for 𘙶𗹑 'general'?) on the other side.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 October 2022 at 10:27

Photo of the piece in the hand to give an idea of its size (2.5 cm in diameter, 4 mm thick) yywzw.com/n1124c82.aspx

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 October 2022 at 10:51

In 2008 Sūn Shòulíng 孫壽齡 created a set of 32 reconstructed Tangut chess pieces based on the single discovered piece (suntw.net/14388.html), but as no surviving Tangut sources give the names of chess pieces, his reconstructed Tangut names for the pieces are just guesswork...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 October 2022 at 11:02

We don't actually know the Tangut word for 'cannon' or 'trebuchet' so Sūn Shòulíng called the Tangut piece corresponding to the cannon 🩥 in Chinese Chess the 'thunderbolt' 𗠆 which is a nice piece of lateral thinking, but certainly not correct.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 26 October 2022 at 16:29

Today's release of my BabelStone Han font (babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html) reaches 64,535 glyphs, so there is only room for 1,000 more before the font implodes

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 October 2022 at 12:34

50 years after the discovery of the Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 tombs in 1972, researchers studying fragments of silk clothing from Tomb M3 have discovered some eighty Chinese characters woven into the cloth to form the auspicious phrases 安樂如意 and 長壽無極 kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20221…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 October 2022 at 12:41

This piece shows the middle four characters of the phrase 安樂如意長壽無極 "peace and bliss as you wish, long life in the endless realm"

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 October 2022 at 12:43

Closeups of the characters 樂 and 如

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 October 2022 at 12:58

Auspicious phrases woven into silk have been discovered elsewhere, notably from the Han tombs at Niya in Xinjiang, where the exact same phrase 安樂如意長壽無極 "peace and bliss as you wish, long life in the endless realm" was woven into a silk pillow books.google.co.uk/books?id=h2QsD…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 October 2022 at 13:06

I can't find a picture of the pillow from Niya with the same text, but this is another brocade pillow from Niya with the phrase 延年益壽大宜子孫 "extended years add to longevity, greatly benefit sons and grandchildren" woven into it ts.cn/xwzx/whxw/2022…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 October 2022 at 13:14

The newly-identified fragments of text woven into silk from Mǎwángduī are significantly earlier than the examples from Niya, and are claimed to be the earliest known examples of Chinese text woven into fabric.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 October 2022 at 17:23

I tried to get to Dunhuang from Golmud in Qinghai in Spring 1985, but failed. I found a truck driver going there, but every day he got drunk and postponed the trip until the next day; after three days the local police decided that I had outstayed my welcome, and sent me on my way twitter.com/nheller/status…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone