BabelStone Twitter Archive : 2023

Monday, 23 January 2023 at 16:48

They were found between 2019 and 2022 at the Guāngyuánlǐ site (光源里遺址) in Beijing, ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 23 January 2023 at 16:51

... which has been tentatively identified as part of the Dàjué Temple (大覺寺) which was established in the Central Capital (Zhōngdū 中都) during the Dàdìng 大定 era (1161–1189). Reconstructed plan of Zhōngdū by Xú Píngfāng 徐苹芳:

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 23 January 2023 at 17:02

The four fragments on the left are engraved with Chinese text (博施濟衆謂之, 津而飲馬神[光], 取五, 幾) which derives from a Jin dynasty court document entitled 部擬御服如來儀省改奏便服 which is recorded in 《大金集禮》卷三

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 23 January 2023 at 19:07

But it is the small fragment on the right which is of real interest. Although the image is not very clear, it seems to be engraved with five characters in the Jurchen script (女真文).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 23 January 2023 at 19:16

I give my tentative reading for this Jurchen fragment in my first blog post for more than two years babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2023/01/c…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 31 January 2023 at 23:57

Jurchen people cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-FC-002…

February

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 1 February 2023 at 14:46

This little piggy is not a 小猪猪 (look carefully!) iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 1 February 2023 at 14:53

This Shaaanxi dialect word meaning 釘 'nail' is written 金入木 which is rather clever (and not yet encoded) iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 February 2023 at 17:48

Some of the Han dynasty wooden slips recently unearthed from the Hébósuǒ site (河泊所遗址) at the south-west corner of Diānchí Lake in Yunnan (left slip reads 滇池以亭行, and the middle slip has the date 4th year of the Shǐyuán 始元 era [83 BCE]) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20230…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 February 2023 at 15:17

Pottery fragment inscribed 柏人 from the recently-concluded excavations at the site of the Warring States period Bairen city (柏人城) in Hebei province kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20221…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 February 2023 at 15:47

Nice selection of porcelain tableware and ceramic pillows discovered during excavations of a Song/Jin/Yuan site next to the Cao Cao Mausoleum in Henan (thought to be perhaps where the families looking after the mausoleum lived) kgzg.cn/a/398593.html…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 11 February 2023 at 12:15

Stone inscribed with the Yǒnglè Emperor's command to Celestial Master Zhāng Yǔqīng 張宇清 to perform the 金籙報恩延禧普度羅天大醮 Daoist ritual, unearthed during excavations at the site of the Five Dragons Palace 五龍宮 in the Wǔdāng Mountains 武當山 kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20230…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 12 February 2023 at 15:10

I've only just noticed that the picture of this Jurchen man occurs at the end of the grammar appendix to Jīn Qǐzōng's 金啓孮 Dictionary of Jurchen 女真文辞典 (1984).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 February 2023 at 15:58

The Yongning Temple stele (永寧寺碑) of 1413 is the latest dated monument inscribed with Jurchen text. It is now held at the V. K. Arseniev Museum of Far East History in Vladivostok. Photo of stele (on the right) by A. L. Ivliev in "Тырские стелы XV века" (2011) plate 76.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 February 2023 at 18:01

In 1412 the Yongle Emperor commanded the eunuch Ishiha to pacify the Nurgan Jurchens living in the region of the lower Amur River, and the next year he led a fleet of 25 ships to Telin 特林 (modern Tyr in Russia) where he built a Buddhist temple overlooking the Amur river.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 February 2023 at 18:29

The stele was erected on the 1st day of the 9th month of the 11th year of the Yongle era (1413), with inscriptions in Chinese, Mongolian and Jurchen commemorating the founding of the Yongning temple 永寧寺. Can you recognise these 3 scripts and some Tibetan in this 1856 drawing?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 February 2023 at 18:48

The front of the stele is engraved with a long text in Chinese

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 February 2023 at 18:51

Abbreviated versions of the text are engraved on the back of the stele in Mongolian (on the left) and Jurchen (on the right)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 February 2023 at 19:23

Photos by A. M. Pozdneev (1851–1920) of the Jurchen inscription. The clearest images of the inscription, but still not easy to read.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 February 2023 at 19:52

Start of the transcription of the Jurchen text by Jīn Guāngpíng 金光平 and Jīn Qǐzōng 金啟孮 in 《女真語言文字研究》 (1980) pp. 355–376

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 February 2023 at 20:07

The Buddhist mantra oṁ maṇi pad me hūṁ is inscribed down the side of the stele in Tibetan (ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པད་མེ་ཧཱུཾ), Chinese (唵嘛呢叭𡄣吽), Mongolian (ᠣᠣᠮ ᠮᠠ᠋ ᠨᠢ ᠪᠠᠳ ᠮᠢ ᠬᠤᠩ), and Jurchen. Photo from Jin & Jin 1980.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 February 2023 at 18:31

京 kgzg.cn/a/398603.html

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 18 February 2023 at 12:49

Archaeologists claim to have discovered the remains of a 2,400 year old flushing toilet system during excavations at the site of the ancient city of Yuèyáng 櫟陽, capital of the Qín 秦 state during the 4th century BCE. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20230…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 20 February 2023 at 20:31

Tangut family name character 𗣵 mbêi¹ (I think, although the article says 白 which would be 𗥻 phê¹) engraved on the base of a ceramic piece from the Western Xia kilns site at Suyukou (苏峪口瓷窑遗址) in the Helan Mountains stdaily.com/index/kejixinw…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 February 2023 at 17:31

Painted clay statues unearthed from Xianying Palace 显应宫 at the Ming dynasty (1475+) Qingping Fort site in Shaanxi (陕西靖边清平堡遗址) bjnews.com.cn/detail/1677038…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 February 2023 at 17:46

The statues show two different styles: typical Ming dynasty style (like the one below) and Mongolian style, reflecting the mixture of Han and Mongolian populations in this border fort.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 February 2023 at 17:49

This one is rather impressive xixinews.com/shenghuo/20230…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 February 2023 at 17:57

And this is how we know that the place where the statues were found was called Xianying Palace 顯應宮

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 15:52

The Tiānyīgé 天一閣 library in Níngbō holds two of the original three volumes (71 out of 108 folios) of the only surviving example of a woodblock printed edition of the Jurchen section of the Sino-Foreign Vocabularies 華夷譯語 produced during the Ming dynasty.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 16:16

The Tiānyīgé library holds nine volumes of the Ming dynasty woodblock printed edition of the Sino-Foreign Vocabularies 華夷譯語: Siamese 暹羅 1 vol., Qocho 髙昌 2 vols., 百夷 Xishuangbanna Dai 2 vols., Jurchen 女直 2 vols., and Tibetan 西番 2 vols. gj.tianyige.com.cn/SearchPage?tit…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 16:23

These volumes were originally part of the Bàojīng Lóu 抱經樓 collection of Lú Zhǐ 盧址 (1725–1794), but his library was dispersed in 1916, and the books were subsequently acquired by Zhū Dǐngxù 朱鼎煦 (1886–1967) as part of his Biéyòu Zhāi 别宥齋 collection.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 16:27

Zhū's huge book collection was protected from damage during the Cultural Revolution, and in 1979 his family donated the collection to the Tiānyīgé Library. I visited the library in 2017, on a day trip from Hohhot, but unfortunately it was shut for the National Day holiday week.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 16:46

Three manuscript versions of the Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary are also known to survive, the most complete (comprising 871 vocabulary items) being the one obtained by Friedrich Hirth (1845–1927) in 1887, and now held at the Berlin State Library resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB000103AF000…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 18:23

The Berlin manuscript copy of the Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary was the basis for Wilhelm Grube's 1896 "Die Sprache und Schrift der Jučen" (my copy shown)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 21:45

The manuscript copy of the Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary held at the Tōyō Bunko 東洋文庫 in Tokyo consists only of 158 entries under the heading 'New Additions' (新增), but includes 46 entries not found in the Berlin copy.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 21:53

And the National Library of China in Beijing holds a manuscript copy comprising just fifty entries from the New Additions section, all of which are also found in the Berlin and Tōyō Bunko copies yingbishufa.eshufa.com/ZHUANTI/gudaiw…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 22:12

The Berlin and Tōyō Bunko copies also include a number of bilingual documents purportedly submitted to the Ming court (but the Jurchen text is a literal and ungrammatical translation from the Chinese), with dates ranging between Yongle 12 (1414) through to Jiajing 5 (1526)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 22:43

None of the surviving Jurchen vocabularies are dated, but as the Department of Jurchen (女直館) was one of the original eight departments of the Siyuguan 四夷館 established in 1407, the original composition of the Sino-Jurchen vocabulary should date to the Yongle era (1403–1425).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 February 2023 at 22:46

However, the Berlin and Tiānyīgé copies of 華夷譯語 both include a section for Siamese, and as the Department of Siamese (暹羅館) was only established in Wanli 7 (1579), it is assumed that the extant versions must have been produced during the late Ming, between 1579 and 1644.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 28 February 2023 at 12:30

Article in English on the Western Xia era Suyukou kilns in Ningxia chinadaily.com.cn/a/202302/27/WS…

March

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 7 March 2023 at 14:14

"金玉滿堂、長命富貴、子孫昌盛、爵祿封侯" written on the inside wall of a Ming dynasty husband-and-wife tomb in Li County, Hunan (infrared photograph) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20230…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 10:38

Four brick tombs with painted murals dating to the Jin dynasty (circa 1161-1232) were excavated at Nántóu village 南頭村 near Yuánpíng city in Shanxi in June-July 2022 mp.weixin.qq.com/s/-FUAUuL1utAz…

The occupant of this tomb (M1) was evidently an aficionado of the game of wéiqí 圍棋.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 10:48

Details of murals in Tomb M1 showing a pair of musicians playing flutes (笛 dí on left and 簫 xiāo on right), and a female attendant holding a staff

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 10:49

The murals in Tomb M3 are quite different in style, but equally impressive

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 10:59

And Tomb M4 has this wonderful calligraphic inscription ... which I will leave as an exercise for those better versed in cursive calligraphy than I am

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 17:46

More pictures of the Jin dynasty tomb murals from m.xinzhou.tv/index.php?c=sh…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 17:48

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 17:50

Close up view of the mural of showing the wéiqí board

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 17:52

The calligraphic inscriptions in Tomb M4

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 18:00

Only Tomb M1 has a ceiling painted with stars, the sun, and the moon (there is a three-legged crow in the image of the sun, but it is difficult to see a hare in the moon in the image below)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 18:03

Looking down into Tomb M2

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 18:07

Finally, if you want to learn more about these tombs you can view a 5 min. video here sohu.com/a/643589542_12…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 15:38

Following on from this Jin dynasty tomb mural from Nántóu Village in Shanxi which shows a wéiqí (go) board, let's look at a couple of other Liao and Jin dynasty tomb murals showing wéiqí in play

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 15:43

Firstly, this mural from a Jin dynasty tomb dated 1189 excavated in Gānquán County in Shaanxi (see 文物 2009.7) shows three women playing wéiqí

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 15:54

In this mural from the Liao dynasty tomb of Zhāng Wénzǎo 張文藻 (d.1093) at Xuānhuà in Hebei (see 文物 1996.9) there are three men playing wéiqí ... but the board looks to only be a 13×13 grid so maybe they are beginners!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 18:02

Not a tomb mural, but this detail from a Yuan dynasty (c. 1319–1324) mural at Lower Guangsheng Temple 廣勝寺 in Hóngdòng county, Shanxi is particularly interesting.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 18:04

Not a tomb mural, but this detail from a Yuan dynasty (c. 1319–1324) mural at Lower Guangsheng Temple 廣勝寺 in Hóngdòng county, Shanxi is particularly interesting.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 18:10

In this case the red and black stones are not randomly placed on the board but do seem to represent a real game at one particular moment in time. This is my attempt to reconstruct the game play as shown (circled red stone is the one being placed by the left player).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 20:09

More information on this Jin dynasty husband-and-wife tomb discovered in Yuánqǔ County, Shanxi in June 2019 kgzg.cn/a/398622.html

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 20:13

The tomb opening from the outside and looking up from the inside

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 20:20

What was originally thought to be an epitaph for the deceased, written in ink on a square brick, turns out to be a land deed for the tomb. Mostly illegible, but starts "大金國河東南路絳州垣曲縣王村……人名功曹…" and mentions the Míngchāng 明昌 era (1190–1196)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 17 March 2023 at 16:29

My pre-proposal document for encoding the Jurchen script in Unicode is now live unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5207…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 17 March 2023 at 21:26

The other Unicode-related documents I have been working on this year are yet more Tangut glyph corrections (hopefully the final batch) and a proposal to encode a blank Khitan small script character for representation of damaged text unicode.org/wg2/WG2-curdoc…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 17 March 2023 at 21:41

This year marks the 20th anniversary of my involvement in Unicode character encoding, with my [ultimately successful] proposal to encode the Phags-pa script submitted in September 2003 unicode.org/wg2/docs/n2622…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 17 March 2023 at 22:03

Having helped to get the Phags-pa, Tangut, and Small Khitan scripts encoded in Unicode, as well as several thousand CJK characters, my final and most difficult Unicode project after Jurchen is finalized will be Khitan Large script. I expect it will take another ten years or so.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 March 2023 at 18:45

Some personal seals found during excavations of the Dàsōngshān tombs 大松山墓群 at Guì'ān New District 贵安新区 in Guizhou province, including a couple of Yuan dynasty Phags-pa seals mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Y4OEKxeoSN9k…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 March 2023 at 18:56

The middle seal gives the Chinese family name Fāng 方 written as a Han character, followed by the Chinese word jì 記 'sign, mark' written in Phags-pa script as gi ꡂꡞ (image mirrored)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 March 2023 at 19:05

Yuan dynasty personal seals with a single Han character family name followed by Phags-pa gi ꡂꡞ (= jì 記) are very common, and Yuándài Yìnfēng 《元代印风》 (1999) p. 212 shows six examples of imprints from 'Fāng-gi' 方 ꡂꡞ seals.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 March 2023 at 20:04

The other Phags-pa seal (image rotated and mirrored) has an unusual shape, with a signature mark 花押 on the left side. The Phags-pa text on the right side reads šėuŋ ꡚꡦꡟꡃ but this is not a valid syllable for transcribing Chinese, so I'm not sure what it is intended to mean.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 23 March 2023 at 19:06

Old Uyghur word ärkägün (也里可温) 'Christian' written in ink on a brick (left column) and in decorative script on a wall inscription, from the Tang dynasty Christian monastery site at Qitai County in Xinjiang mp.weixin.qq.com/s/m3MnfCCzRx8h…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 30 March 2023 at 16:28

A jade cup 玉盞 with the Khitan inscription 𘱗 𘬝𘰭 𘰧𘱸 𘲺 𘯆𘱦 𘭅 𘲆𘱦 'on the birthday of the empress, the family khan gave her [this]', once in the collection of Emperor Qianlong, was acquired by John Calvin Ferguson (1866-1945). But does anyone know where it is now?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 March 2023 at 16:06

In 1760 Emperor Qianlong of the Great Qing became the first known person to attempt an analysis of the Khitan small script (as inscribed on the base of a jade cup in the imperial collection) ... and thereby inadvertently laid claim to the title of 'Father of Khitanology' ?!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 31 March 2023 at 16:10

Unfortunately, he did not recognise that the writing engraved on the base of the jade cup was Khitan, or even that it was a foreign language, and instead thought that it was a cryptic version of a Chinese poem which could be understood by deconstructing the mysterious characters:

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 31 March 2023 at 16:11

𘱗　　主有盈尺

𘬝　　百不得一

𘰭　　同人于公

𘰧　　若舟倚楫

𘱸𘲺　相與對酌飞大白

𘯆　　曲歌再闋

𘱦　　芲下分茵

𘭅　　人移半坐

𘲆　　口吞八溟

𘱦　　更番不覺週十巡

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 31 March 2023 at 16:14

The jade cup, now held at Nanjing University Museum, is discussed in this 2008 article by Xú Lín 徐琳 dpm.org.cn/jades/talk/209…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 31 March 2023 at 22:29

Qianlong was misled into assuming the inscription was cryptic Chinese due to the superficial similarity between Khitan and Han characters, but in fact the text 𘱗 𘬝𘰭 𘰧𘱸 𘲺 𘯆𘱦 𘭅 𘲆𘱦 means 'on the birthday of the empress, the family khan gave her [this]' (Kane 2009 p. 63)

April

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 3 April 2023 at 12:36

A stone axe (石鉞) incised with drawings of a tiger on both sides was unearthed during recent excavations at the Dinggeng (丁埂 site of the Neolithic Liangzhu (良渚 Culture near Yixing in Jiangsu province wxrb.com/doc/2023/04/03…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 3 April 2023 at 12:37

Drawing of the axe showing the design more clearly

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 3 April 2023 at 18:09

Other finds at the site include a selection of stone fishing net weights, arrow heads, etc.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 3 April 2023 at 18:34

Also found at this site, inside a later well dating to the Shang/Zhou period, is this pot for drawing water, with the cords wrapping the pot still in place

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 16 April 2023 at 12:39

My photo of Tibetans celebrating New Year (Losar) in Chamdo in 1985 has been on the main page of Chinese Wikipedia from time to time today (the DYK photos are rotated) zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 April 2023 at 10:24

Link to the photograph commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Losa…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:18

I finally succumbed to the temptation, and asked ChatGPT to teach me about cats who can read Tangut manuscripts ... apparently they can't

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:23

So who can read Tangut manuscripts? ... hmm, sounds almost plausible

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:27

I was intrigued by my "Catalogue of Tangut Manuscripts in the British Library" which I had forgotten I had written ... no, definitely my magnum opus for sure!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:30

But I'm more interested in cats who can read Tangut manuscripts, so time to get creative (the 2nd paragraph may be onto something)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:37

Eventually, after many unsuccessful prompts I get ChatGPT to write some, umm, 'Tangut' text for me (𘜒𗱏𗀐𘜐𘝁𗁃𗁕𗀕) [Narrator: The title could not be translated as "The Epic of the Red Dragon"]

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:41

ChatGPT wouldn't write a poem in Tangut for me when I asked it directly, but it is happy to provide a verse from a hypothetical poem in a hypothetical Tangut novel ... you can't deny that it rhymes! 𗁃𗁃𗁃𗁃

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:50

The Tangut novel is written by Mimi the cat ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:53

And finally we learn that cats really can read Tangut manuscripts!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:59

Thread inspired by this feline Tangutologist

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 April 2023 at 19:49

I'm just a little bit astonished that the Asian & African Collections folk at the British Library think that a manuscript written in beautifully clear and legible Mongolian script is some sort of mysterious and unidentifiable text written in Uyghur script

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 April 2023 at 20:12

Somewhat of a mystery are these bronze cogs and other bits and pieces which were discovered in a pit in the mausoleum of Emperor Wen of Han (d. 157 BCE) excavated at Jiangcun (陕西西安江村大墓) in 2021 kgzg.cn/a/398176.html

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 April 2023 at 20:17

They are roughly contemporaneous with the (vastly more complex) Antikythera mechanism, which gives an idea of what might have been possible, but there seems to be little research on them yet. This article does investigate and discount some theories news.youth.cn/jsxw/202112/t2

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 21 April 2023 at 10:44

Addressing some of the points made in the comments:

1. Old Uyghur, Mongolian, and Manchu scripts are closely related, and are confusable in the same way that Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic may all have looked the same to someone in Ming dynasty China

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 21 April 2023 at 10:54

2. The post specifies that it is an 18-19 century manuscript, and by that time the Old Uyghur script had not been widely used for centuries, so even if they meant "Old Uyghur script" when they wrote "Uyghur script", that would still have been wrong

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 21 April 2023 at 11:05

3. I'm sure that not so many years ago when there was still a Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books at the British Library there would have been someone there who would instantly recognise Mongolian script when they saw it ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 21 April 2023 at 11:10

... but now, with a reduced staff covering all of Africa and Asia as if that was a meaningful geographical, cultural, or historical division, I guess Mongolian has become a mysterious and exotic script that only twitter linguists could possibly recognise

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 21 April 2023 at 11:13

And of course it is not easy to retain or attract staff with the requisite linguistic expertise when you could earn more working in McDonalds than you could at the British Library (or most other UK heritage institutions)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 12:40

Today's addition to my library of early Tangut, Jurchen, and Khitan scholarship is the Actes du onzième congrès international des orientalistes, Paris 1897, deuxième section (langues et archéologie de l'extrême-orient) which includes ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 12:42

S. W. Bushell's seminal paper on the Jurchen script, "Inscriptions in the Juchen and allied scripts"

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 12:54

Bushell includes a drawing of a round ink mould with Jurchen text translating of the Chinese couplet "明王慎德、四夷咸賓" meaning "When a wise king is heedful of virtue, foreigners from all quarters come as guests"

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 12:58

The drawing was originally printed in the Ming dynasty (c. 1588) Fāngshì Mòpǔ 方氏墨譜 vol. 1 folio 32b (iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view…). The Jurchen text reads "gən-giɛn oŋ ətu-tʃï-jo dei; duin turilə çien andaxai", but the 11th, 13th and 14th characters show corrupted forms.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 13:05

The Jurchen text is evidently derived from Wáng Shìzhēn 王世貞 (1526-1590), Yǎnzhōu Shānrén Sìbùgǎo 弇州山人四部稿 v. 168 (iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view…) which gives an uncorrupted version of the Jurchen text, along with translations of the same Chinese text into eight other languages!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 13:25

(I'll leave it as an exercise to twitter linguists to identify all the languages shown)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 13:37

Bushell also gives a woodcut of a bronze fish tally (魚符) with Khitan small script inscription reading "𘰲 𘭕𘲀 𘬝𘮒 𘰷𘯡𘳕" = "Commander of the Heaven Cloud Army" (天雲軍詳穩) and "𘮜𘭱" = "Imperial" on the tail.

This was in Bushell's personal collection -- where is it now?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 15:41

Most importantly, Bushell's paper includes a plate showing a rubbing of the famous Jurchen stele recording the names of successful candidates in the imperial exams of 1224 (女真進士題名碑).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 15:45

This stele was originally erected at the site of the examination hall, at Yantai 宴台, outside the east gate of the capital city of Kaifeng, but was moved to the Confucian temple inside Kaifeng in 1829, and since 1962 it has resided at Kaifeng Museum. wwj.henan.gov.cn/2020/03-26/155…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 April 2023 at 15:50

As can be seen from the above photograph, the bottom part of the stele text has now been almost completely obliterated, and my photo of a rubbing of the stele hanging in the National Museum of China in Beijing shows just how much text has been lost compared with Bushell's rubbing

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 April 2023 at 20:01

Interesting discovery by "hqsjg" of an unencoded Tangut character in the Tangut translation of the Golden Light Sutra (𗵒𘉍𗭼𗩾𗠁𘟙𗖰𗚩). The annotation below indicates that it is a phonetic transcription character pronounced nja² (𘔚 njij¹ / 𘁂 ꞏja²)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 April 2023 at 20:11

The new Tangut character (nja²) corresponds to the character "若" (MC ȵia) in the dhāraṇī incantation "呬㘓若揭鞞" in the Chinese version of the sutra (《金光明最勝王經》卷第四)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 25 April 2023 at 13:23

As @pelican_timu pointed out to me, Tangut "𘍨𘃜{⿰𘧩𘤘}𘕜𘙇𗜘" (pronounced something like "hi ra nya ga-r be") corresponds closely to Sanskrit hiraṇyagarbhe whereas the Chinese version has 呬㘓若揭鞞 (Baxter: xij lan nyae gjet pje) which could not be the source for the Tangut

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 25 April 2023 at 13:35

In fact, the Tangut version of this dhāraṇī seems to have been translated directly from the Sanskrit, although the standard phonetic reconstructions of Tangut by Gong Hwang-cherng and Sofronov do not do a great job at showing this

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 25 April 2023 at 13:44

I really dislike Gong Hwang-cherng's Tangut reconstruction with its surfeit of j- and -j everwhere. Gong's reconstruction gives 'nja' for the new character transcribing 'ṇya' in hiraṇyagarbhe, which is good, but also 'nja' for 𘀍 transcribing 'na' in ratnagarbhe, which is not.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 26 April 2023 at 11:34

This is astonishingly bad, even for Cleverly. In some sort of reverse Tower of Babel scenario, everyone sat around a campfire one evening several thousand years ago, all speaking different languages, and together they created a single homogenous Chinese language and culture

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 26 April 2023 at 14:52

My informant, known only as hqsjg, noted another unencoded Tangut character in the same volume (a rather interesting example which I'll discuss on Friday), so this morning I went through all of 金光明最勝王經 (中國藏西夏文獻 3-4), and found one more unencoded character in vol. 6.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 26 April 2023 at 15:44

It actually occurs twice on the page. The gloss "𗡱𘁂" (sjij¹ / ꞏja²) under the first occurence gives the reading sja², and it indeed corresponds to 寫 (MC sia) in the Chinese version, although oddly this corresponds to [amakanama]ya and [darśanakāma]sya in the Sanskrit text.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 26 April 2023 at 15:52

Continuing with second of three unencoded Tangut characters in the Golden Light Sutra here

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 April 2023 at 16:08

Fish tallies comprised two matching halves which clicked together with "同" indented on one half and protruding on the other half. This piece in Liaoning Museum is the left side, and Bushell's piece is the right side, so perhaps they were the matching halves of the same tally?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 April 2023 at 20:10

Delighted to finally meet Tangut typographer @threecczhu at the Way of Type exhibition at Reading University this evening

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 April 2023 at 22:05

And a special thanks to @XunchangCheng for curating the exhibition, here demonstrating the use of a Chinese typewriter

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 April 2023 at 22:19

Close up view of the typewriter. Wow, just look at that "𰅰" character (2nd stage simplified form of 直) on the keys!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 April 2023 at 22:28

Close up view of the individual type pieces

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 April 2023 at 22:32

The typists manual

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 April 2023 at 23:03

"List of Chinese characters formed by the combination of the divisible type of the Berlin font" (1862) showing a page of 女 characters in the font designed by Auguste Beyerhaus

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 27 April 2023 at 23:37

Discussing the intricacies of Tangut typography with @threecczhu at the Way of Type exhibition at Reading University tonight

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 28 April 2023 at 15:21

The third unencoded Tangut character in the Golden Light Sutra (金光明最勝王經) occurs in first of ten dhāraṇī given in vol. 4, where it is phonetically glossed as "𗑓𗜜", i.e. dji¹ / ꞏjo² = djo²

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 28 April 2023 at 16:11

It occurs in "𗖱{⿱𘡊⿰𘧤⿱𘡩𘤕}𘈪𘄿" (pronounced something like "u djo ta te") which corresponds to 調怛底 (MC dew tat tej) in the Chinese text, which is a good match except for the unexpected initial u-.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 28 April 2023 at 16:17

However neither the Tangut or Chinese matches the corresponding "cukuti" in the Sanskrit version. But I read somewhere that the Pali version has "daudāntē" where the Sanskrit version has "cukuti" so that may help explain the discrepancy.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 28 April 2023 at 16:28

From my perspective, the really exciting thing about this character is that it is not new to me. It also occurs (with one stroke missing) in the Homonyms where it is in a homophone group with 𗕧 dwu², 𗜻 dwu², and 𗷔 twu¹

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 28 April 2023 at 20:07

Continuing with the third unencoded Tangut character here

May

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 6 May 2023 at 11:14

Here's a simple question. What is the Jurchen word for 'six'? Here is the Jurchen character 'six' in the date "25th day of the 12th month of the 6th year of the Jingtai era (1455)". But how is the character pronounced?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 6 May 2023 at 11:31

Reconstructed Jurchen pronunciations are primarily based on the Chinese phonetic glosses given in the Berlin ms copy of the Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary. However, the reading for 'six' is given as '寧住' ningzhu which is clearly a mistake for the reading for 'sixty' (Manchu ninju).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 6 May 2023 at 11:47

Luckily, the Sino-Jurchen glossary without Jurchen characters (here the now destroyed Awanokuni Bunko ms) gives the gloss 寧谷 ninggu for 'six', which corresponds to Manchu ninggun (root ninggu), and so the accepted reconstruction for Jurchen 'six' is 'niŋgu'

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 6 May 2023 at 11:58

But this is not entirely satisfactory. The Awanokuni ms gives the gloss 納荅 nada for seven, whereas the Berlin ms gives 納丹 nadan, which more closely corresponds to Manchu nadan, and so throws some suspicion on the reading 寧谷 for 'six'.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 6 May 2023 at 12:17

Until recently the Berlin ms was thought to be the only copy of the Jurchen-script Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary with an entry for 'six', but in fact the woodblock edition at the Tianyige Library (not known to earlier Jurchenologists) also includes this entry

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 6 May 2023 at 12:28

And, lo and behold, it gives the phonetic gloss 寧共 ninggong for 'six', suggesting a reconstructed reading of niŋguŋ, which is closer to Manchu ninggun than the accepted reconstruction niŋgu.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 6 May 2023 at 16:36

My theory is that the differing readings represent a process of denasalization: niŋgun (Jin dynasty Jurchen) > niŋgũ (early Ming Jurchen, i.e. 寧共) > niŋgu (late Ming Jurchen, i.e. 寧谷) which is not the direct ancestor of literary Manchu ninggun (cf. starlingdb.org/cgi-bin/respon…)

June

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 10 June 2023 at 11:06

My proposal to encode 2 Tangut components and 29 Tangut ideographs unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5217…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 10 June 2023 at 11:06

And a proposal to encode 114 Tangut components used as radicals in the nine-volume Tangut dictionary 西夏文词典（世俗文献部分） compiled by Prof. Hán Xiǎománg 韓小忙 which was published in 2021 unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5218…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 11 June 2023 at 14:42

Tang dynasty fish tally (魚符) inscribed "中郎霫莫遂州長史合蠟" which was found in Mongolia in 2011 mp.weixin.qq.com/s/NT32VtY4xpwe…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 11 June 2023 at 14:42

The Liao dynasty used similar fish tallies to authenticate military orders, but with Khitan small script text instead of Chinese. S. W. Bushell (1844–1908) had an example in his collection (which he misidentified as Jin and Jurchen script)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 11 June 2023 at 14:54

Fish tallies consisted of two matching halves: one part issued to the commander in the field, and one part sent with a messenger to authenticate an order issued to the commander. A tally at Liaoning Museum appears to be the matching half of Bushell's tally

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 11 June 2023 at 15:02

The half owned by Bushell has the Khitan word 𘮜𘭱 'by imperial command' engraved on the tail, indicating that it was the part sent by the emperor with an order to the commander; the half in Liaoning has a blank tail, indicating that it was the part pre-issued to the commander.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 14 June 2023 at 16:37

Just for fun I decided to start collecting all the examples of Tangut huaya 花押 that I can find babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Huaya.h…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 17 June 2023 at 16:35

Fragment of a pre-printed grain contract in Tangut, with gaps filled in by hand. In the middle is the date 𘓺𘃸...𗤒 (天盛…年) "... year of the Tiansheng era" with the year 𗍫𗰗 'twenty' (i.e. 1168) filled in by hand in cursive characters idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 17 June 2023 at 16:35

The other side is stamped 𘑐𘅞𗥦[𘏿] 'Supervisor of Measures' in red ink, with a rather unusual-looking huaya 花押, perhaps that of an official rather than a personal huaya babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Huaya.h…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 20 June 2023 at 23:07

Enhanced image of the 3.3 × 21.2 metre relief sculpture of auspicious animals and birds on the east side of the north bank of the recently excavated Zhouqiao 州橋 bridge in Kaifeng, dating to the Northern Song period (960–1127) mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Gvh20l96LAyI…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 20 June 2023 at 23:13

A section of the scuplture being cleaned

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 20 June 2023 at 23:15

Site of the excavation of the bridge

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 20 June 2023 at 23:17

And a reconstruction of what the bridge may have looked like during the Northern Song (sculptures not shown as the reconstruction was done before the sculptures were found)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 27 June 2023 at 12:12

Guy buys an inscribed fragment of a Western Zhou bronze vessel, then a few years later buys another fragment which joins together and completes the inscription: 康侯丰作寶尊 mp.weixin.qq.com/s/T6pqoUuz-q2k…

July

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 1 July 2023 at 13:26

Tangut of course

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 July 2023 at 10:35

Sutra of the Names of the Thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa 𗌮𗫻𗾈𗑱𗡞𗢳𗦻𗖰𗚩 = 現在賢劫千佛名經 nos. 736–755 hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/her…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 July 2023 at 10:39

𗢰𘓩 𗃬𗤋 𗢳 = 南無無畏佛

𗢰𘓩 𘜶𘟀 𗢳 = 南無大見佛

𗢰𘓩 𗏆𗙏 𗢳 = 南無梵音佛

𗢰𘓩 𗩴𗙏 𗢳 = 南無善音佛

𗢰𘓩 𘟛𗥞 𗢳 = 南無惠濟佛

𗢰𘓩 𗉣𘜄𗤋 𗢳 = 南無無等意佛

𗢰𘓩 𗵒𘗁𘒏 𗢳 = 南無金剛軍佛

𗢰𘓩 𘏞𘛛𗉣 𗢳 = 南無菩提意佛

𗢰𘓩 𘕰𘟙 𗢳 = 南無樹王佛

𗢰𘓩 𗦺𗁬𗙏 𗢳 = 南無槃陀音佛

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 July 2023 at 10:39

𗢰𘓩 𗼕𗣼𗪺 𗢳 = 南無福德力佛

𗢰𘓩 𗣼𗫁 𗢳 = 南無勢德佛

𗢰𘓩 𗼃𘟠 𗢳 = 南無聖愛佛

𗢰𘓩 𗫁𘝦 𗢳 = 南無勢行佛

𗢰𘓩 𘚰𗿠 𗢳 = 南無琥珀佛

𗢰𘓩 𘛻𗙏𗋑 𗢳 = 南無雷音雲佛

𗢰𘓩 𗩴𘟠𗨚 𗢳 = 南無善愛目佛

𗢰𘓩 𗩴𘄡 𗢳 = 南無善智佛

𗢰𘓩 𘓳𗣷 𗢳 = 南無具足佛

𗢰𘓩 𗣼𗉋 𗢳 = 南無德積佛

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 3 July 2023 at 00:51

BabelStone Han implementation of CJK Extension I revised (final?) repertoire — 47 removed and 66 added for 622 characters at 2EBF0..2EE5D

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 6 July 2023 at 08:55

Here's the revised proposal for CJK Ext. I unicode.org/L2/L2023/23114…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 6 July 2023 at 09:05

This document of mine about the correct glyph forms of U+17121 𗄡 and U+17C51 𗱑 shows just how weird the Tangut writing system is, and just how little we understand the principles behind Tangut character creation unicode.org/L2/L2023/23155…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 12 July 2023 at 11:48

Impressive font digitalization and resurrection project, using AI to extend the repertoire up to 37,070 CJK ideographs, including parts of Exts. G and H (shown below)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

twitter.com/CelPhineas/status/1678744984869040128

Wednesday, 12 July 2023 at 11:58

Download links:

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 July 2023 at 12:55

I asked Bing to draw some Tangut characters for me, but it just gave me random squiggles with no Tangut characteristics, and when I asked it what they meant it said it had no idea

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 18 July 2023 at 11:15

I've signed up for all the twitter alts, but I can't bring myself to post anything on any of them. Bluesky seems best, and even allows you to select what languages you use in a post (it preselected en and zh for me) ... but something seems to be missing between Tamil and Tatar 🤔

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 July 2023 at 15:07

30 years ago this month (exact date unknown) I successfully defended my PhD dissertation "Quest for the urtext: The textual archaeology of 'The Three Kingdoms'" at the Department of East Asian Studies at Princeton University proquest.com/openview/f8e39…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 July 2023 at 15:25

After completing my extended BA in Chinese at SOAS in 1988, I started my PhD studies at Princeton University in the fall of 1989, specializing in Ming-Qing vernacular literature under the supervision of Prof. Andrew Plaks (photo of 1990 me at Princeton University)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 July 2023 at 19:18

After two years in America I spent much of 1991 and 1992 doing textual comparison of rare editions of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義 held at various libraries in England, Spain, China, and Japan (with a detour to deepest Guangxi)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 18 July 2023 at 16:20

Three years after completing my PhD, in June 1996, the book that I wrote in Chinese on the editions of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義版本考 was published by the Shanghai Classics Publishing House 上海古籍出版社

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 18 July 2023 at 16:34

This was the swan song to my brief and unremarkable career in academia. After three wonderful years at Yale University we returned to England the following month.

Btw I still have spare copies which I am happy to give away to anyone I follow (just dm me) babelstone.co.uk/Publications/B…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 18 July 2023 at 16:51

This is my first laptop, from 1990, on which I wrote my PhD dissertation (Toshiba T1200XE with 40MB hard drive). I tried to power it up just now, but it just emanated a strong smell of burning so I think it is dead.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 18 July 2023 at 20:06

This is my second laptop, from 1994, which is still in working order (Toshiba Satellite T2115CS running Windows 3.1). By 1998 I was starting to investigate Khitan Small Script with my own bitmap font seen here.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 July 2023 at 14:13

Tangut proverb (𘋥𘝿 21b):

𘁏𘁅𘘤𗅁𗉝𗋚𘏊𗽓𗅁𘙇𘐏𗅠𗅋𘎘

𗉟𘁑𘘤𗅁𗲔𗋚𘏊𗔇𘂤𘙇𘐏𗺱𗅋𘏉

If you stuff a bull's skin with hay and place it in a marsh then the cows will not sniff it

If you stuff a cat's skin with cake and place it in a granary then the mice will not bore into it

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 14:32

Chart comparing frequency of characters by stroke count for CJK traditional, CJK simplified, Tangut, Khitan large script, and Jurchen (from an old 2009 blog post of mine …

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 14:39

Interesting how close the Tangut and CJK (simplified) contours are, even though everyone thinks of Tangut characters as being much more complex than Han characters.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 14:40

Normal Chinese text always has a large proportion of characters with few strokes (e.g. 一二三人女山火水大小中), whereas Tangut text is uniformly composed of characters with 12±6 strokes, with the result that it appears denser and more crowded than Chinese.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 19:03

These are the strokes counts for the top 25 most frequent Han and Tangut characters in the Diamond Sutra (not sure how to plot them in Excel)

Han avg = 7.76 (10.5 for the corpus)

Tangut avg = 12.04 (11.1 for the corpus)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 July 2023 at 20:44

Many thanks to @edwardW2 for noting that this illustrated Tangut text (fragments of which appeared at auctions in 2014, 2016, and 2019) corresponds to the Chinese Yoga Rite for feeding the Flaming Mouth Ghosts 瑜伽焰口

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 July 2023 at 20:53

This Tangut fragment matches this page in the Chinese text, where:

𗢰𘓩𗴒𗃬𗈜𗌮𗆐 = 南無離怖畏如來

𘀍𘉒𗩤𘕜𘈪𗍣𘁂𘈪𗏤𘕜𗫂𘁂 = 捺謨微葛怛得囉(二合)耶荅塔葛達耶 although Tangut has 𗍣 for Sanskrit bha instead of 得囉(二合)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 July 2023 at 21:03

This shows how the correspondence between the Tangut and Chinese versions

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 July 2023 at 22:21

And this is the correspondence between the remaining Tangut text on the fragment and the start of the next page in the Chinese version:

𗱕𗢳𘈷𘆄。𗓱𗴒𗃬𗈜𗌮𗆐𗗙𗦻𗿸𗓁。𗌭𗍳𘆄。𗏹𘗲𗴴。𘄂𘘂……

諸佛子等。若聞離怖畏如來名號。能令汝等。常得安樂。永離驚怖。清浄快樂。

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 10:33

One more matching image (from the 2014 auction)

𗙫𘕜𘕜𘀍。𘅄𗍣𘎧。𗍣𗱽𘃜𗰂。

唵葛葛納。三婆縛。斡資囉斛。

oṃ gagana sabhava vajra hoḥ

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 11:10

Just one more example, this time where the Tangut mudrā seems to be quite different to that shown in the Chinese text

𘕕𘏨𗖵𗨳𘔼　歸依三寶故

𗹙𗖵𗓱𗧯𗦇　如法堅固持

𘝵𗹏𘟀𗵘𗈜　自離邪見道

𘌽𘔼𗤶𗨳𘐔　是故志心禮

(Can you spot the apparent error in the Tangut text?)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 21 July 2023 at 18:12

My favourite number system is the set of 'ritual' Tangut numbers used for certain special purposes, which are written with two different sets of characters depending on usage en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangut_nu…

The killer feature is that 4 and 7 are pronounced identically!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 21 July 2023 at 18:48

As @ChronHib has pointed out elsewhere (where the sky is bluer), 'ritual' numbers 3-4-5 are suspiciously similar to the standard numbers 4-5-6 (also 2 and 3?), so maybe the 'ritual' numbers were somehow derived from the standard numbers (or dialectal forms) and shifted by one.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 21 July 2023 at 20:09

Recent scholarship classifies Tangut as a West Gyalrongic language, although the numbers in WG languages such as Horpa (en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:…) are not very close to the reconstructed Tangut numbers:

1 ʁriʁ

2 ʁnɛ

3 χsu

4 ɮde

5 mȵɛ

6 χtɕhəu

7 zȵɛ

8 rɟet

9 ŋɡo

10 zʁa

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone