2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 May 2009 at 12:38
Part 1 of a series of posts about the lost game of Liubo @ www.➞.ws/六博
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 May 2009 at 11:23
ISO/IEC 10646:2003 FPDAM 7 @ http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc2/open/02n4077.zip (including Mandaic, Batak and Brahmi)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 May 2009 at 11:24
ISO/IEC 10646:2003 PDAM 8 @ http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc2/open/02n4078.zip (including Bamum+, Emoji, Alchemical Symbols and CJK-D)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 May 2009 at 11:25
Committee draft of the new edition of ISO/IEC 10646 (consolidating Amds.1-8) @ http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc2/open/02n4079.zip (103 MB)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 July 2009 at 09:43
Liubo Part 2 @ www.➡.ws/六博2
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 August 2009 at 13:54
Liubo Part 3 @ www.➡.ws/六博3
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 August 2009 at 20:48
I guess you've all seen my caron post already but here it is anyway http://bit.ly/XDDIs
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 28 August 2009 at 00:40
How complex is Tangut ? http://bit.ly/17moep
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 November 2009 at 23:46
Looks forward to Unicode 6.0
http://bit.ly/3JWJRi
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 November 2009 at 01:19
discusses a newly discovered Ogham stone fragment from Cornwall http://bit.ly/4kCz4g
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 December 2009 at 02:06
realeased a new and improved version of BabelPad that supports Unicode 5.2 http://bit.ly/4VBy0V
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 26 December 2009 at 15:16
wrote a Christmas blog post http://babelstone.blogspot.com/2009/12/staffordshire-hoard-anglo-saxon.html
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 January 2010 at 23:55
released a set of six Unicode Anglo-Saxon Runic fonts http://babelfonts.blogspot.com/2010/01/babelstone-anglo-saxon-runic-fonts.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 7 March 2010 at 16:38
looks at the ogham stones of Wales https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2010/03/ogham-stones-of-wales.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 April 2010 at 00:46
revised and expanded his article on the inscribed gold strip from the Staffordshire Hoard http://tinyurl.com/y7cb987
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 April 2010 at 23:34
Introduction to the Tangut script Part 2 https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2010/04/untangling-web-of-characters.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 July 2010 at 23:18
first public release of my BabelStone Han font at http://babelfonts.blogspot.com/2010/07/babelstone-han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 4 July 2010 at 01:25
released beta builds of BabelMap and BabelPad supporting Unicode 6.0 (out in September) at https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Software/Beta.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 4 July 2010 at 23:40
spent the day updating my Anglo-Saxon runic fonts to give better coverage of bind runes and mirror runes http://tinyurl.com/2el3xc8
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 July 2010 at 00:08
My picture of the Royal Gold Cup is on the front page of Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page !
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 July 2010 at 23:22
a horde of hoards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hoards_in_Britain (work in progress)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 24 July 2010 at 01:14
Mao badges escape onto Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chairman_Mao_badge
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 August 2010 at 16:17
has been working on an article about a famous ancient Chinese painting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admonitions_Scroll
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 9 October 2010 at 08:23
55.4k views for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosby_Garrett_Helmet yesterday (http://stats.grok.se/en/201010/Crosby_Garrett_Helmet)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 October 2010 at 22:55
Unicode 6.0 has been released today http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 October 2010 at 09:22
More than 2 weeks and we still don't know who bought the Crosby Garrett helmet (or who found it even)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 October 2010 at 12:29
BabelPad and BabelMap supporting Unicode 6.0 released today https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2010/10/babelpad-and-babelmap-version-6000.html
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 3 January 2011 at 00:36
Part 4 of the history of the lost game of Liubo -- https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2011/01/lost-game-of-liubo-part-4-game-boards.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 15 February 2011 at 00:27
BabelStone Irk Bitig (http://babelfonts.blogspot.com/2011/02/babelstone-irk-bitig.html) -- an Old Turkic font for the "Book of Omens"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 March 2011 at 23:45
Just installed SP1 and to my delight discovered that Windows 7 no longer sucks
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 April 2011 at 20:34
Unicode 6.0 -- one character at a time https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2011/04/unicode-60-one-character-at-time.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 May 2011 at 00:19
Proposal to encode the Marchen script http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n4032.pdf
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 May 2011 at 11:20
New version of BabelStone Han font http://babelfonts.blogspot.com/2010/07/babelstone-han.html -- but still a long long way to go
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 8 May 2011 at 23:37
BabelMap goes online at href="https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelmap.html -- #javascript version of my #unicode character map application
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 20 May 2011 at 20:10
我居然成了个山寨大王 http://bbs.themex.net/showthread.php?t=16873477
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 May 2011 at 08:26
Wikipedia finally outs Ryan Giggs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Giggs (at least for the time being)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 May 2011 at 00:30
UK position on the UTC's attempt to introduce a new encoding model for simplified Chinese http://std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n4075.pdf
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 May 2011 at 23:16
Tangut encoding proposal take 4: http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n4033.pdf -- 3rd time lucky I hope
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 May 2011 at 23:17
List of proposed 6,080 characters: http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n4033A.pdf (4MB)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 May 2011 at 23:18
Multicolumn chart: href="http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n4033B.pdf (22MB)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 May 2011 at 23:25
Documents related to the encoding of Tangut: https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/TangutDocuments.html -- four proposals in four years
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 June 2011 at 22:30
https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/TangutData.html #Tangut Character Database -- very much work in progress
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 June 2011 at 12:49
My rules of "long s" post babelstone.blogspot.com/2006/06/rules-… has just been published in TUGboat tug.org/TUGboat/Conten…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 June 2011 at 22:09
What's new in #Unicode 6.1 ? babelstone.blogspot.com/2011/06/whats-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 June 2011 at 23:08
Random #Unicode character babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/unicod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 June 2011 at 22:28
Fantastic effort by wikipedians to photograph almost all the objects in #AHOW en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 21 June 2011 at 23:21
Electronic index to to the #Tangut characters in 文海研究 -- babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/WHYJ_In…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 22 June 2011 at 00:00
does not think that registration of non-variants in the IVD is is useful to the wider #unicode community unicode.org/ivd/pri/pri183/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 June 2011 at 01:37
U+272F0 𧋰 -- still the most troublesome ideograph in #unicode ? babelstone.blogspot.com/2007/12/cjk-b-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 June 2011 at 01:45
invites people to see if they can tell the difference between 喩󠄀 and 喩󠄁 (U+55A9 + VS17 vs U+55A9 + VS18) unicode.org/ivd/data/2007-… #unicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 30 June 2011 at 22:31
Taking a look at the #ogham stones of the Isle of Man babelstone.blogspot.com/2011/06/ogham-… #iom
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 July 2011 at 20:57
Started my first new Wikipedia article since March en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furness_H… #furness #viking #hoard
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 July 2011 at 08:02
Tried out the #wikilove button for the first time en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk… -- thanking @Johnbod for improving a bunch of articles that I started
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 July 2011 at 22:53
Penwith #Ogham Stone update babelstone.blogspot.com/2009/11/penwit… -- frustrating lack of interest in finding the missing fragments! #archaeology
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 July 2011 at 20:33
Kane's list of small #Khitan characters babelstone.co.uk/Khitan/Kane200… -- something very unsatisfactory about this list in my opinion
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 July 2011 at 20:38
Another IVD registration unicode.org/ivd/pri/pri187/ -- am I the only one who thinks there's something wrong here? ... oh, yes, appears I am
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 July 2011 at 01:10
Can an 850 year old mirror found recently in Inner Mongolia throw any light on the extinct #Khitan language? babelstone.blogspot.com/2011/07/mirror…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 July 2011 at 21:39
MarcMiyake discusses the a-b-sence of -b- in #Khitan where it's expected on the b-asis of #Mongolian: amritas.com/110716.htm#071…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 July 2011 at 20:16
Added four more images to my 72 Views of the Tower of Babel babelstone.blogspot.com/2007/01/72-vie…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 August 2011 at 22:57
My use of Ngram Viewer to plot the transition from long s to short s is featured on the Google Research Blog googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/08/cultur…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 14 August 2011 at 23:03
1548 edition of #三國演義 back online after a server upgrade babelstone.co.uk/sanguoyanyi/Ye…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 15 August 2011 at 23:46
Just received my copy of "An Beybel Sans" (Holy Bible in Cornish) published by @Evertype -- excellent! evertype.com/books/beybel.h…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 August 2011 at 23:01
The story of how we got our alphabets -- Adventures of a Palaeontologist (!) bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-… ... surely some mistake
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 August 2011 at 08:20
Photos I took at the National Museum of China recently commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Babe…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 August 2011 at 00:11
Multilingual Buddhist inscriptions at the Cloud Platform commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Babe… #Sanskrit #Tibetan #Phagspa #Uyghur #Tangut #Chinese
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 29 August 2011 at 20:54
Is the supposed #Tangut Ritual Language a myth? babelstone.blogspot.com/2011/08/myth-o…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 30 August 2011 at 23:31
Mongolian and Manchu resources back online babelstone.co.uk/Mongolian/Reso…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 September 2011 at 20:00
Updated #Tangut Character Database to include mappings and glyphs for Nishida's 1966 dictionary babelstone.co.uk/tangut/TangutD…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 September 2011 at 01:38
IDP Paleography Resource idp.bl.uk/education/pale… #tibetan #chinese #palaeography
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2011 at 10:06
enwp.org/Jin_Guangping enwp.org/Jin_Qizong enwp.org/Aisin-Gioro_Ul… -- 3 generations of scholars of #jurchen #khitan and #manchu
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2011 at 17:56
Jin dynasty mural dated 1189 of go players babelstone.blogspot.com/2009/04/pictor… #weiqi
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 17 September 2011 at 00:26
64 objects you'll never see outside China en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 18 September 2011 at 01:32
Someone blew up a pagoda in 1990 and in the ruins were found Buddhist relics and #Tangut books en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baisigou_…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 19 September 2011 at 08:28
Took me the best part of Sunday, from 10:30 in the morning until 2:23 at night, to write about a #Tangut tantric text en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auspiciou…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 20 September 2011 at 22:37
Wikipedia needs fewer editors not more -- fewer editors who can spend less time clearing up crap
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 September 2011 at 00:42
#BabelMap online now has user-configured colours and remembers your preferences babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 September 2011 at 21:34
#Unicode 6.1 Beta slide show babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/unicod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 September 2011 at 21:35
BabelMap Online for #Unicode 6.1 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 24 September 2011 at 20:45
Rhinoceroses in ancient China en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinocero…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 1 October 2011 at 22:39
Om mani padme hum in 6 scripts en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stele_of_… and 4 scripts en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yongning_…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 October 2011 at 15:09
Rod Liddle peddles shit on Radio 4 -- no, the Red Kite is not and never has been known as the "shite-hawk" -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shite-hawk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 October 2011 at 20:33
Bredon Hill Hoard on Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bredon_Hi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 21 October 2011 at 20:39
Shite-hawk stirring it up on the main page for DYK (in case anyone hadn't noticed) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shite-hawk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 22 October 2011 at 16:50
Takes a look at a fragment of a Khitan manuscript -- Oh, how the gods mock us! babelstone.blogspot.com/2011/10/khitan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 October 2011 at 21:49
Phags-pa fragments from a dead city babelstone.blogspot.com/2011/10/fragme…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 October 2011 at 21:59
Diligently carved in Tangut -- but what is it? babelstone.blogspot.com/2011/10/dilige…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 October 2011 at 23:23
10th century coins and other artefacts found in a stone tortoise box from a pagoda on Hainan Island primaltrek.com/blog/2011/10/2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 November 2011 at 01:18
Bredon Hill Hoard on "Did You Know?" now en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bredon_Hi… #dyk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 November 2011 at 22:58
Traditional Tibetan calligraphy using a birch board and a bamboo pen inkessential.blogspot.com/2011/11/bamboo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 November 2011 at 01:13
"I, Buyan Qaya" -- 14th century Uyghur - Phags-pa graffiti babelstone.blogspot.com/2011/11/phags-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 November 2011 at 11:22
2nd anniversary of the finding of the Penwith ogham stone babelstone.blogspot.com/2009/11/penwit… -- a highly significant but unexpectedly neglected discovery
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 November 2011 at 01:32
Astonishing story of the discovery and "excavation" of the dead city of Khara-khoto by Kozlov in 1908 babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Kychano…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 November 2011 at 21:01
China's biggest coin (57.8 cm & 41.5 kg) -- 1522-1567 commemorative coin found in Yunnan in 1997 primaltrek.com/blog/2011/11/0…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 12 November 2011 at 01:41
Taking a look at Phags-pa Uyghur seals on Old Uyghur and Mongolian documents babelstone.blogspot.com/2011/11/phags-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 November 2011 at 00:50
Shapecatcher.com: #Unicode Character Recognition via @Shapecatcher
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 November 2011 at 00:52
My 2006 report to Microsoft on their #Mongolian Baiti font babelstone.co.uk/Mongolian/Mong… -- very disappointing that so very little has been fixed yet
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 15 November 2011 at 01:34
Chinese villagers find coins spanning 2000 years in river bed primaltrek.com/blog/2011/11/1… via @primaltrek
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 22 November 2011 at 23:41
Scale of looting and destruction of China's cultural heritage continues to shock, but not surprise …ngolschinaandthesilkroad.blogspot.com/2011/11/cultur… via @MongolsSilkRoad
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 22 November 2011 at 23:56
This story is shocking for an entirely different reason chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/nationa… if the NPM opened up its collection then who would "steal" it ?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 28 November 2011 at 23:24
Criminals target a Liao dynasty pagoda …ngolschinaandthesilkroad.blogspot.com/2011/11/diggin… reminds me of the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baisigou_… which was blown up in search of treasure
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 December 2011 at 01:08
created a test page for Tangut manuscripts with Tibetan phonetic glosses babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/TangutT…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 December 2011 at 21:36
Silverdale hoard on Wikipedia -- nice work Prioryman! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverdal…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 21 December 2011 at 22:15
#BritishLibrary MS Harley 2332 -- a medieval manuscript Christmas puzzle britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanus…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 December 2011 at 20:27
Tangut transcribed in Tibetan -- babelstone.blogspot.com/2011/12/tangut…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 23 December 2011 at 17:42
Lavanify must be the worst #wikipedia featured article I've ever seen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavanify
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 December 2011 at 01:21
My "rules for long s" takes the January 1st spot in the "365 top stories on Hacker News 2011" -- rrrewind.com/assets/yearly/…
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 January 2012 at 13:56
Happy New Year #Tangut style from @MarcMiyake amritas.com/120107.htm#010…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 January 2012 at 19:24
released BabelStone Han v.1.09 babelfonts.blogspot.com/2010/07/babels… only 700 new Han thingies this time -- need to do 3,210 more before end of year
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 March 2012 at 23:37
New version of Ideographic Variation Database published - 50% increase from 18,842 to 27,724 IVS sequences unicode.org/ivd/data/2012-… #crap
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 17 March 2012 at 01:46
beatiful pics of the Trumpington bed burial and pectoral cross flickr.com/photos/cambrid… -- shame about the licence :(
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 April 2012 at 23:58
New Publication: Old Tibetan Texts in the Stein Collection Or.8210 wp.me/p52Hj-l5 via @samjvs
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 15 May 2012 at 23:11
What's new in Unicode 6.2 ? U+20BA TURKISH LIRA SIGN .. yep, that's all, scheduled for release circa September 2012 (in lieu of a blog post)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 May 2012 at 23:57
What's new in Unicode 6.2 ? (the full story) babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/whats-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 26 May 2012 at 11:02
I was 4 months late with BabelMap/Pad for Unicode 6.1, but I'm 4 months early with BabelMap/Pad for Unicode 6.2 babelstone.co.uk/Software/Beta6…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 June 2012 at 20:50
My daughter was shocked to be greeted by porn when visiting today's FA en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth… -- vandalism on several unprotected templates
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 June 2012 at 00:14
Just released BabelStone Han version 1.10 -- plus 2,224 Han characters babelfonts.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/babels…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 June 2012 at 21:09
British Library -- Endangered Archives: Interactive Map eap.bl.uk/database/map.a…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 June 2012 at 21:10
Preservation and digitisation of Yi archives in public and private collections in Yunnan, China eap.bl.uk/database/overv…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 June 2012 at 21:11
Preservation of the last hieroglyphic manuscripts in China: Shui archives in Libo, Guizhou eap.bl.uk/database/overv…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 June 2012 at 21:12
Digitisation of Yi archives in south dialect in Yunnan, China eap.bl.uk/database/overv…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 June 2012 at 21:13
Salvage and preservation of dongjing archives in Yunnan, China: transcript, score, ritual and performance eap.bl.uk/database/overv…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 June 2012 at 21:18
Digital images of a Dongjing music score -- but really not "written in guqin notation" bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 20 June 2012 at 18:56
The citadel of Altan-khoto, where, according to legend, was once situated the cavalry guard detachment of Khara-khoto maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 June 2012 at 17:55
Happy 80th birthday Prof. Kychanov! orientalstudies.ru/rus/index.php?… #tangutology
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 June 2012 at 17:58
"Tanguts in Central Asia: a collection of articles marking the 80th anniversary of Prof. E. I. Kychanov" orientalstudies.ru/rus/index.php?… #tangutology
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 June 2012 at 18:04
... including a sketch of Pre-Tangut by @MarcMiyake and notes on Tangut flute notation by myself
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 22 July 2012 at 19:11
WIkipedia article on #secrettreasures has pics of 46 of 50 objects thx to @findsorguk (just not #1!) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britain%2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 22 July 2012 at 21:05
Wikipedia #secrettreasures article now has pics of all 50 objects thanks to enlightened licensing policy of @findsorguk en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britain%2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 July 2012 at 23:18
Pax tibi, Marce, Evangelista meus finds.org.uk/database/artef… #secrettreasures
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 July 2012 at 23:44
... found 5 miles from where I live -- how come I never find anything interesting when I walk the Pilgrims' Way?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 July 2012 at 23:52
The bronze booklet with the amazing story itv.com/treasure/extra… (odd that it has been on the PAS database since November 2000)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 July 2012 at 22:37
Just received my copy of "Tanguts in Central Asia" babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Images/… with my article on Tangut flute notation babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Images/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 July 2012 at 22:54
The ms that is the subject of my paper babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Images/… and a summary of what it means babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Images/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 29 July 2012 at 00:20
Stuart Schram, biographer of Chairman Mao, has died en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_R.…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 29 July 2012 at 20:50
BL Papyrus 1185 - a list of athletes in the 75th-78th Olympiads (480-468 BC) and the 81st-83rd Olympiads (456-448 BC) britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanus…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 August 2012 at 11:38
MarcMiyake and BabelStone have been trying to figure out what the name of the third legendary chief of the Khitan was amritas.com/120804.htm#080…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 August 2012 at 21:13
Naming and shaming GLAMs with excessively restrictive photography policies : National Museum Wales museumwales.ac.uk/en/1422/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 26 August 2012 at 16:20
Pictures of a village of yurts and stone towers that is being constructed in the Bourne Wood for the Thor 2 movie commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 September 2012 at 18:20
Tables of Tangut cursive script components babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Cursive…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 September 2012 at 18:29
12th century 5.74 metre Buddhist scroll written in cursive Tangut script babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Baisigo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 3 September 2012 at 21:24
Fascinating interview with Chinese Tangutologist Shi Jinbo cssn.cn/news/436410.htm
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 September 2012 at 00:47
Updated Ogham Stones of Cornwall and Devon babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/ogham-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 September 2012 at 18:17
A few more pics of Thor 2 set at Bourne Wood -- filming starts on Monday flickr.com/photos/babelst…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 September 2012 at 00:30
Coins of the Qara Khitay zeno.ru/showgallery.ph…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 12 September 2012 at 22:40
Extracts from a Tangut-Cornish vocabulary compiled by the Franciscan monk John de Cornubia in the mid 13th century ➡.ws/tcv
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 22 September 2012 at 17:15
Burnt out yurt and damaged stone tower after completion of filming of Thor 2 at Bourne Woods commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bour…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 23 September 2012 at 08:35
Enjoy the 10th anniversary of Marc Miyake's linguistic blog "Amaravati: Abode of Amritas" amritas.com/120922.htm#092…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 September 2012 at 22:20
BabelMap Online now upgraded for Unicode 6.2 (released today) babelstone.co.uk/unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 September 2012 at 22:21
Unicode Slide Show now upgraded for Unicode 6.2 (released today) babelstone.co.uk/unicode/unicod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 27 September 2012 at 08:33
Marc Miyake pays tribute to Japan's greatest Tangutologist, 西田龍雄 Nishida Tatsuo, who passed away yesterday amritas.com/120929.htm#092…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 September 2012 at 22:04
Pages from Eric Grinstead's 1971 compilation of the Tangut Tripitaka babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Tripita…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 October 2012 at 19:57
再提一位不是“老头子”的外国学人-英国汉学家和语言学家Andrew Christopher West（中文名“魏安”） -- 《东方早报》 2012.09.09 dfdaily.com/html/1170/2012…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 October 2012 at 23:31
My 4th proposal to encode Tangut in 4 years (I'm not filled with confidence this time round) std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 October 2012 at 23:34
My 2nd proposal to encode Tangut radicals and components in 5 years std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 October 2012 at 23:35
Code charts for proposed Tangut characters and radicals std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 October 2012 at 23:37
Five years of not getting Tangut encoded babelstone.co.uk/tangut/TangutD…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 15 October 2012 at 22:35
Code chart for the 5,768 characters proposed for CJK-E -- std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 October 2012 at 00:16
After a 10-month break I return to blogging with a post examining Liao dynasty seals with Khitan inscriptions -- babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/khitan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 October 2012 at 18:02
Medieval Elephants on Parade from @blmedieval britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanus…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 October 2012 at 18:07
Bizarre and sometimes rude marginal drawings on the Gorleston Psalter via @blmedieval britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanus…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 October 2012 at 22:30
Just released BabelMap version 6.2.0.3 supporting Unicode 6.2 (nearly a month late -- sorry!) babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 October 2012 at 22:30
Just released BabelPad version 6.2.0.3 supporting Unicode 6.2 (nearly a month late -- sorry!) babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 November 2012 at 19:15
Wikipedia Editathon at British Library last week -- great meeting everyone there idpuk.blogspot.nl/2012/10/wikipe…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 December 2012 at 01:05
IDS sequences for 5,768 CJK-E characters proposed in N4358 babelstone.co.uk/CJK/CJK_E_IDS.… (warning code points are not yet stable, and will change)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 December 2012 at 01:07
Sequential listing of all characters in Nevsky's manuscript Tangut dictionary (1960) babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/NevskyL…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 December 2012 at 01:08
Index of characters in Nevsky's manuscript Tangut dictionary by Li Fanwen 2008 number babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/NevskyM…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 18 December 2012 at 10:52
One to twenty in Jurchen, Khitan and Lute babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/one-to…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 18 December 2012 at 17:00
OED apologises for publishing "bloodbath" as today's word of the day public.oed.com/the-oed-today/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 December 2012 at 09:28
Was the ancient Chinese elephant a species of Palaeoloxodon? bbc.co.uk/nature/20678793 (I'm not convinced)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 December 2012 at 16:56
What Unicode character is this ? babelstone.co.uk/unicode/whatis… (new javascript tool that converts Unicode characters to their character names)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 December 2012 at 10:48
Alfabeto Goblin - una guida tascabile smial-bolgeri.blogspot.com
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 December 2012 at 15:26
An Introduction to Tangut Pronunciation by Marc Miyake amritas.com/121229.htm#122…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 27 December 2012 at 02:23
One to Ten in Tangut and Flute babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/one-to…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 30 December 2012 at 22:41
Excellent pamphlet on Mes Aynak excavations nationalmuseum.af/images/stories… h/t @HelenWangLondon
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 31 December 2012 at 02:30
2nd century BC silk maps from Mawangdui babelstone.co.uk/China/Mawangdu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 31 December 2012 at 20:29
Star chart carved in 1247 on a stone stele at the Confucian Temple in Suzhou babelstone.co.uk/China/StarChar… (I might need to get a new scanner)
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 January 2013 at 22:32
3 Tons of Coins Excavated from Ruins of Han Dynasty Mint in Inner Mongolia primaltrek.com/blog/2013/01/0…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 January 2013 at 00:46
For the new year I cast a critical eye over the Chinese market in Khitan antiquities babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/fake-k…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 7 January 2013 at 20:00
Excavation of a royal Buddhist monastery at the Liao dynasty Upper Capital in Inner Mongolia kaogu.cn/en/detail.asp?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 7 January 2013 at 20:23
辽上京考古重大发现——皇城西山坡确认佛教寺院遗址 kaogu.net.cn/cn/detail.asp?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 8 January 2013 at 00:10
What's new in Unicode 6.3? Not much -- babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/whats-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 January 2013 at 21:09
Serica -- great blog on old Chinese books by Bodleian Curator of Chinese Collections, David Helliwell oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 January 2013 at 21:14
Crawford's 19th century "system of phonetic symbols for writing the dialects of China" with examples from the Bodleian oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/new…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 January 2013 at 21:35
Possibly the 1st Chinese book in the Bodleian--a Jianyang edition of the 4 Books dated 1604 in Thos. Bodley's own hand oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/our…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 January 2013 at 22:14
Tibetan shorthand contractions babelstone.co.uk/Tibetan/Contra… -- reuploaded to my website after being missing for several years
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 January 2013 at 22:44
Another sympton of the broken copyright laws we are shackled by: all Chinese Communist posters deleted on Commons commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:D…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 12 January 2013 at 22:28
The Manchu Hymn and Epic Poetry by Brian Tawney manchustudiesgroup.org/2013/01/03/the…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 15 January 2013 at 18:46
1st 120 years of the Archaeological Journal (1844-1963) available for free download from the ADS archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 16 January 2013 at 23:23
Report on the Dunhuang Wikipedia editathon at the British Library last October en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 January 2013 at 21:54
Earliest Protestant missionary tract in Chinese and first Chinese edition of the Gospels at the Bodleian oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/the…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 29 January 2013 at 22:34
Sir Thomas Bodley (1545–1613), scholar, diplomat, and founder of the Bodleian Library -- today's ODNB life of the day oxforddnb.com/public/lotw/1.…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 January 2013 at 21:31
The rules for long s, revised and expanded babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2006/06/rules-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 January 2013 at 21:34
David Helliwell discusses a 19th century woodblock of the Lord's Prayer and 10 Commandments in Chinese at the Bodleian oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/woo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 8 February 2013 at 23:21
Giving voices to the subjects of Wikipedia articles -- genius idea from @pigsonthewing commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 10 February 2013 at 03:48
Just released "BabelStone Han" version 1.11, with 1,533 additional Han characters babelfonts.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/babels…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 February 2013 at 01:05
100 precious seals of the Qing dynasty babelstone.co.uk/Manchu/Qingdai…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 15 February 2013 at 22:21
A day of Tangut studies: a celebration of language and culture in China's Xixia Dynasty -- 25 April at SOAS soas.ac.uk/lci/events/25a…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 February 2013 at 20:30
ᡝᠨᡝᠩᡤᡳ ᠶᠠ ᠴᡳ ᡳᠨᡝᠩᡤᡳ ᠣᡥᠣ ? babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Manch…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 February 2013 at 23:42
Today's Date in Manchu .. converts any date from 1901 to 2100 to Chinese calendar and writes it out in Manchu babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Manch…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 March 2013 at 20:10
Today's Date in Tangut -- babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Tangu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 3 March 2013 at 00:50
Today's Date in Old Mandarin (written in the Phags-pa script) -- babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/OldMa…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 March 2013 at 23:01
Today's Date in Jurchen -- babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Jurch… ... any suggestions for tomorrow's date?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 March 2013 at 22:15
Today's Date in Khitan (Khitan Large Script) -- babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Khita…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 March 2013 at 15:49
Today's Date in Middle Mongolian (Phags-pa script) babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Middl… (should be Mongolian calendar but is Chinese calendar at present).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 March 2013 at 01:14
Today's Date in Khitan Small Script babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Khita… (last in the current series, explanatory blog post to follow)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 March 2013 at 00:59
Today's Date in Old Mandarin, Middle Mongolian, Manchu, Jurchen, Khitan, Khitan and Tangut -- babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/todays…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 March 2013 at 21:50
ᛏᚪᛏᛒᛖᚱᚻᛏᛖᛋ ᛚᚢᚾᛞᛖᚾᚹᛁᚳ pre-construct.com/Publications/L… -- free download from PCA #archaeology
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 27 March 2013 at 21:59
72 Views of the Blackwater River babelstone.co.uk/Blackwater/ind…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 9 April 2013 at 00:30
Started writing a list of #Tangut books en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_T… ... still a long way to go
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 9 April 2013 at 00:31
Started work on a map of #Tangut geography with place names in Tangut script (click on the blue tags) maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 April 2013 at 01:53
A fragment of Tangut geography babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/a-frag…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 April 2013 at 11:49
A fragment of Tangut geography -- now with an appended "Index of Tangut Place Names" babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/a-frag…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 April 2013 at 18:08
Photos from a spring evening walk around Moor Park in Farnham when I was feeling rather stressed last Tuesday flickr.com/photos/babelst…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 April 2013 at 18:12
Photos from a Tibetan sky burial outside Lhasa in March 1985 flickr.com/photos/babelst…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 28 April 2013 at 11:17
Jurchen geography babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/jurche…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 May 2013 at 21:51
Khitan geography (Part 1) babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/khitan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 May 2013 at 16:37
I've expressed an interest in developing a Tangut Manuscript Character Recognition tool for the #bl_labs competition labs.bl.uk/Competition+20…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 May 2013 at 23:21
Phonetic reconstructions for 189 Khitan Large Script characters from Liu Fengzhu and Wang Yunlong 2004 babelstone.co.uk/khitan/LiuWang…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 May 2013 at 01:56
Khitan geography (Part 2) babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/khitan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 26 May 2013 at 23:10
Marc Miyake sighs sorrowfully looking at a desolate sky : В ПАМЯТЬ О КЫЧАНОВЕ ЕВГЕНИИ ИВАНОВИЧЕ (1932-2013) amritas.com/130525.htm
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 16 June 2013 at 19:49
On the set of "Robin Hood" (2010) at the Bourne Wood in August 2009 flickr.com/photos/babelst…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 June 2013 at 13:52
BabelStone fonts now all on one page babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 21 August 2013 at 20:51
Diary of a Rambling Antiquarian - babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 August 2013 at 23:44
The rambling antiquarian hunts for ogham stones in Cornwall babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/huntin…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 29 August 2013 at 00:46
The rambling antiquarian hunts for ogham stones in Devon babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/huntin…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 31 August 2013 at 00:43
The Rambling Antiquarian visits the Cloud Platform in Beijing babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/cloud-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 31 August 2013 at 16:03
The Rambling Antiquarian encounters a Khitan memorial tablet at the Liao and Jin City Wall Museum in Beijing babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/liao-a…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 September 2013 at 23:16
A Tale of Two Follies (part 2) babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/wilder…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 7 September 2013 at 00:38
The Rambling Antiquarian visits St Laurence Tidmarsh is support of this year's #WikiLovesMonuments competition babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/tidmar… #wmuk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 September 2013 at 18:49
Documents for the Encoding of Tangut babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/TangutD… -- background to the Tangut meeting in Beijing (which I will be attending).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 September 2013 at 18:57
Construction of Rapunzel's Tower for "Into the Woods" (2014 film) at Waverley Abbey commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:… -- filming starts next Monday.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 September 2013 at 19:58
Another picture of Rapunzel's Tower under construction for the movie "Into the Woods" flickr.com/photos/babelst…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 September 2013 at 21:50
BabelMap online now updated for #Unicode6_3 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 September 2013 at 22:39
A new version of BabelMap supporting #Unicode6_3 has now been released babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 September 2013 at 22:48
A new version of BabelPad supporting tabular columns and sorting (using UCA or CLDR collation algorithms) will be released in 2 or 3 days.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 October 2013 at 16:20
New version of BabelPad supporting #Unicode6_3 has now been released babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/babelp…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 19:36
"if a boy finds eagle droppings, the omen is good; if an old ox is eaten by ants, it’s bad" (newyorker.com/online/blogs/e…) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irk_Bitig
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 15 October 2013 at 22:51
西夏研究国际学术研讨会在英国伦敦大学亚非学院成功举行 xixia.nxu.edu.cn/pageInfo?id=898 #Tangut #soas
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 20 October 2013 at 14:50
What's new in Unicode 7.0 ? babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/whats-… -- looking forward to 2,833 new characters in the next version of #Unicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 21 October 2013 at 21:05
Why is a man in a business suit levitating in Unicode 7.0 ? I have just updated my blog post to answer that question babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/whats-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 21 October 2013 at 21:10
Also answering the other big twitter question -- why did Unicode see fit to encode a pile of poo ? babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/whats-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 October 2013 at 19:30
The #Tolkien Estate torpedoes the encoding of Tolkien's fictional scripts Tengwar and Cirth in #Unicode ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 October 2013 at 19:34
... too late to stop the encoding of three Tolkien extensions to the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc which will be in Unicode 7.0 std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 October 2013 at 19:32
'Tomb raiders' a very real threat to China's archaeological treasures news.asiaone.com/news/asia/tomb… -- read and weep
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 29 October 2013 at 17:35
"Brutal and Beautiful" -- #SOAS library last in this slideshow of the best English post-war buildings -- bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 3 November 2013 at 13:43
#SOAS given £20M soas.ac.uk/news/newsitem8… including £5M to endow the David L. Snellgrove Chair in Tibetan and Buddhist art ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 3 November 2013 at 13:45
... now a chair in #Tangut studies really would be something -- £5m anyone?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 November 2013 at 23:39
Who am I? Not this guy in a business suit baike.com/gwiki/%E9%AD%8…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 November 2013 at 23:43
50,000 views of my #Unicode 7.0 blog post babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/whats-… over last 2 weeks, nearly 10% of my total blog views over last 8 years
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 November 2013 at 00:36
#Unicode has characters for whales 🐳 and snails 🐌 but no sharks or snarks ... yet.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 10 November 2013 at 23:20
Most BabelStone fonts are now licensed under the SIL OpenFont license babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/index.ht…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 10 November 2013 at 23:25
New version of "BabelStone Phags-pa Book" and "BabelStone Phags-pa Tibetan" fonts that work under Windows 7+ released babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Phags-pa…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 November 2013 at 00:59
Internet Explorer 11: Two Steps Forward and Two Steps Back babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2013/11/i…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 November 2013 at 17:53
Internet Explorer 11: Two Steps Forward and Two Steps Back babelstone.blogspot.com/2013/11/intern… (correct link)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 November 2013 at 18:05
Li Fanwen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Fanwen wins the Prix Stanislas Julien for his 2008 Tangut-Chinese Dictionary aibl.fr/prix-et-fondat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 November 2013 at 19:23
李范文教授因为编辑《夏漢字典》而获得2013年国际儒莲奖 aibl.fr/prix-et-fondat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 November 2013 at 21:27
Viking runestone with Latin runic inscription found on medieval scholar’s farmland at Orphir in Orkney orkneyjar.com/archaeology/20…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 November 2013 at 21:34
More pictures of the rune stone theorcadianphotos.co.uk/?q=runes -- inscription ≈ ᛌᛁᚿᛌᛁᛚᛁᛌᛆᚿᛐᛁᚠᛁᛐᛌᛁᛐᚮᚱ (??) for "[qui e]s in caelis, sanctificetur"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 November 2013 at 23:26
On Christmas Night CD, sung by the choirs of St Thomas-on-The Bourne thebourne.org.uk/index.php/shop… (free audio samples thebourne.org.uk/index.php/shop…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 November 2013 at 21:41
"BabelStone Han PUA" font contains 945 unencoded CJK characters including 255 not in latest version of BabelStone Han babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 4 December 2013 at 17:54
News on the street is that #Unicode7 Man in Business Suit Levitating should have been named Rude Boy Exclamation Mark slowpokecomics.com/2009/04/rude-b…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 14 December 2013 at 21:51
“华夷译语”与西夏字符国际学术研讨会综述 cass.cn/kydt/xshy/2013…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 22 December 2013 at 19:21
The Rambling Antiquarian visits three pagodas in Beijing babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/three-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 December 2013 at 00:26
DYK that 2 dharani pillars erected in Baoding in 1502 are inscribed with latest known examples of the Tangut script? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangut_dh…
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 January 2014 at 20:00
A chronology of Khitan inscriptions babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/chrono…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 January 2014 at 18:03
Version of the "Promotion Chart" 陞官圖 (De Ludo Promotionis Mandarinorum) in Thomas Hyde's 1694 "De Ludis Orientalibus" babelstone.co.uk/Ludus/DeLudisO…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 January 2014 at 22:43
The rambling antiquarian goes to the Ancient Lotus Pond in Baoding in search of Tangut dharani pillars babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/ancien…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 January 2014 at 00:05
"Proposal to encode the Tangut script" take five std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D… (697 pages) and std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D… (code charts)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 26 January 2014 at 14:02
When I was in China last month I didn't buy any books, but I didn't need to as I got these Tangut & Yi books for free
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 26 January 2014 at 14:18
Lives and careers of four generations of a Tangut family in Baoding during the Yuan dynasty babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/ancien… (rough translation by me)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 26 January 2014 at 19:57
9 years ago today I went in search of Phags-pa inscribed Christian tombstones in Quanzhou (Marco Polo's Zayton) babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2005/01/quanzh…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 1 February 2014 at 02:19
"BabelStone Han" font version 1.12 released (952 additional CJK chars and 288 additional PUA chars) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 February 2014 at 20:41
"Why dedicate your life to deciphering 4,000-year-old tax returns?" -- Gandhari, Sogdian and Tangut manuscripts idp.bl.uk/downloads/SunT…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 February 2014 at 01:03
Early Pleistocene footprints at Happisburgh now on #Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happisbur…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 13 February 2014 at 18:39
#Wikipedia Happisburgh footprints article viewed over 160,000 times in five days stats.grok.se/en/201402/Happ…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 March 2014 at 19:11
Slinging swords and casting corns - a brief foray into experimental archaeology wp.me/p1y9xe-O4 from @SurreyMedieval
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 28 March 2014 at 22:24
Some fonts already supporting forthcoming Unicode 7.0 babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/whats-… h/t @FakeUnicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 March 2014 at 14:43
BabelStone Moon Runes font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/MoonRune… updated for Unicode 7.0 (plus 3 Tolkien runes and 5 Franks Casket runes)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 March 2014 at 15:36
Thror's map with BabelStone Moon Runes -- magic spells work under Firefox but not IE or Chrome babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/ThrorsMa…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 April 2014 at 21:38
My prototype Unicode flags font with Regional Indicator Symbol sequences mapped to colorized flag glyphs
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 April 2014 at 18:50
BabelStone Anglo-Saxon runic fonts updated to Unicode 7.0 (+ 3 Tolkien runes and 5 Franks Casket cryptogrammic runes) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/AngloSax…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 April 2014 at 23:07
Transcription of the right panel of the Franks Casket using five new Unicode 7.0 runic letters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/FranksCa…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 April 2014 at 11:11
Excavations at the Liao Upper Capital at modern Bairin Left Banner in Inner Mongolia kaogu.cn/html/en/News/N…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 19 April 2014 at 12:54
Excellent blog posts by Marc Miyake on aspects of Khitan large script amritas.com/140419.htm#041… and Khitan small script amritas.com/140419.htm#041…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 at 18:10
"Accounts of Khitan Life and Language" babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/accoun… -- did you know that Khitan emperors were reborn every twelve years?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 at 18:11
Glossary of Khitan words in Chinese transcription babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/accoun…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 at 21:40
Khitans and golf -- new appendix to "Accounts of Khitan Life and Language" babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/accoun…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 May 2014 at 20:18
Ogham practice piece on a slate slab from a monastic school on the isle of Inchmarnock pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/arch…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 19 May 2014 at 22:51
One to ten in cursive Tangut characters babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Cursive… (and you thought Chinese cursive characters were hard enough)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 June 2014 at 22:54
BabelMap online for Unicode 7.0 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 June 2014 at 22:55
BabelMap Online en français (beta)babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 June 2014 at 22:57
Unicode 7.0 Slide Show -- 112,956 characters in 249 blocks covering 123 scripts in 188 minutes babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/unicod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 June 2014 at 23:10
BabelMap version 7.0.0.0 supporting #Unicode7 has now been released babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 June 2014 at 23:18
BabelMap 7.0.0.0 supports IDS version 2014-05-16, includes 3.5K additional Cantonese readings, and supports ctrl+clicking on a character
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 June 2014 at 23:20
BabelPad for #unicode7 is planned for release by the end of this month.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 June 2014 at 23:49
Charting the inexorable rise of Unicode from 7,000 characters in 1991 to 113,000 today babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2005/11/how-ma…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 June 2014 at 17:41
Gradation in Chinese and Tangut by Marc Miyake amritas.com/140621.htm#062…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 June 2014 at 20:00
Man explains how he carved SKRAYLINGÆ in runes on the Narragansett Runestone as a 13 year old boy in 1964 stonewings.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/a-p…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 22 June 2014 at 16:04
"The Avengers: Age Of Ultron" (code name "After Party") filming at the Bourne Wood from June 16 to July 19 (nothing much to see yet)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 July 2014 at 23:13
My Liangshan Yi (Nuosu) Transliteration Converter now available online as a javascript tool babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/yi.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 July 2014 at 23:03
New javascript tool converts text to bold, italic, sans-serif, fraktur, double-struck, monospace Unicode characters babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/text.h…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 July 2014 at 23:12
𝕁𝕒𝕫𝕫 𝕦𝕡 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕥𝕨𝕖𝕖𝕥𝕤 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕌𝕟𝕚𝕔𝕠𝕕𝕖 𝕋𝕖𝕩𝕥 𝕊𝕥𝕪𝕝𝕖𝕣 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/text.h…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 July 2014 at 09:05
Unicode Text Styler now improved to allow application of style only to selected text.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 July 2014 at 15:06
Confusing statement that "planned date of publication is October 15, 2014" unicode.org/versions/Unico… when Unicode 7.0 was released on 16 June
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 July 2014 at 15:16
My tweets "translated from Slovak by Bing" -- yet another reason why I never use Bing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 7 July 2014 at 23:25
The unauthorised history of four Unicode characters (࿕࿖࿗࿘) that will probably render as little square boxes for you babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2006/02/when-i…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 8 July 2014 at 20:24
Swastikas in the Marchen and Nüshu scripts babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2006/02/when-i…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 9 July 2014 at 18:22
Copies of my 1996 book 《三國演義版本考》 are still available for purchase directly from me babelstone.co.uk/Publications/B…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 July 2014 at 20:48
ISO/IEC 10646:2014 has passed its final ISO ballot and will be published shortly std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/d… (=> next version of Unicode in 2015)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 July 2014 at 21:00
7,565 new characters in ISO/IEC 10646:2014 including Old Hungarian and CJK-E will be in Unicode next year std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 July 2014 at 21:52
Unicode 7.0 page has now been amended to clarify that it was released June 16 unicode.org/versions/Unico… -- thanks @unicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 July 2014 at 22:00
David Helliwell on the recent Proscholium Exhibition at the Bodleian about the Chinese Imperial Examination System oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/pro…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 13 July 2014 at 15:47
How to enter and use Emoji on Windows 8.1 hanselman.com/blog/HowToEnte… -- use BabelMap says @shanselman
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 16 July 2014 at 20:02
New symbol for the Georgian national currency
en.trend.az/regions/scauca… (coming to Unicode soon).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 17 July 2014 at 17:14
89 Noto Sans fonts at the click of a button google.com/get/noto/#/ including Mongolian, Phags-pa, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Linear B, Old Turkic
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 17 July 2014 at 21:51
BabelMap v.7.0.0.1 -- minor update that better copes with font families such as Source Sans Han with multiple weights but different names
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 July 2014 at 22:05
PhD studentship sorting and cataloguing the British Library Tangut Manuscripts? bl.uk/aboutus/higher… -- if only I was 30 years younger!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 20 July 2014 at 08:14
Mysteries of medieval graffiti in England's churches bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 July 2014 at 17:32
A leaf from a medieval manuscript in an unknown script, in red, blue, and black ink, possibly liturgical in nature bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 24 July 2014 at 17:57
A stellar set of manicules by Cade Cran losttype.com/blog/2014/07/2… Unicode has 👌🖖🖔🖕 etc., but what about gun hand, flat hands and Chinese "six"?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 24 July 2014 at 21:01
T.I. Yusupova, "P.K. Kozlov's Mongolia and Sichuan Expedition (1907-1909): the Discovery of Khara-Khoto" orientalstudies.ru/rus/images/pdf…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 24 July 2014 at 21:02
E.I. Kychanov, "The Tangut Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts: History and Study" orientalstudies.ru/rus/images/pdf…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 July 2014 at 17:33
"Sic inter schachos Alphinus inutilis extat, Inter aves bubo" oed.com/view/Entry/4901 -- can someone explain why the eagle owl is so useless?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 July 2014 at 18:15
Model Answers for the Chinese Imperial exams, acquired by Thomas Bodley in the early 17th century, by David Helliwell oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com/2014/07/29/mod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 July 2014 at 18:19
David Helliwell's list of Chinese books in European collections in the 17th century bodley.ox.ac.uk/users/djh/17th…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:34
#BabelPad 7.0.0.0 finally released babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel… -- supports #Unicode 7.0, and has the following new features ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:38
#babelpad Converts Webdings/Wingdings symbol font characters to corresponding Unicode characters, e.g. Webdings "m" ⇒ U+1F574 🕴
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:38
#babelpad Converts between plain characters and math alphanumeric styled characters, e.g. BabelPad ⇒ 𝕭𝖆𝖇𝖊𝖑𝕻𝖆𝖉 ⇒ 𝓑𝓪𝓫𝓮𝓵𝓟𝓪𝓭 ⇒ BabelPad
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:39
#babelpad Converts between Perl escape sequences and Unicode characters, e.g. ☕ ⇒ \\x{2615} ⇒ ☕
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:41
#babelpad Improved line breaking behaviour, based on (but not conforming to) UAX #14: Unicode Line Breaking Algorithm unicode.org/reports/tr14/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:41
#babelpad Option to customize normalization for Hebrew (see sbl-site.org/Fonts/SBLHebre… for explanation of issues)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:42
#babelpad Option to customize normalization for Tibetan (see thlib.org/tools/scripts/… for explanation of issues)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:42
#babelpad Ctrl+backspace after a precomposed character removes its last combining mark, e.g. ṓ ⇒ ō ⇒ o, 각 ⇒ 가 ⇒ ᄀ
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:43
#babelpad Shift+backspace after an extended grapheme cluster deletes the entire grapheme cluster, e.g. ṓ (3 chars), རྒྱུ (4 chars)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 20:43
#babelpad Shift+delete in front of an extended grapheme cluster deletes the entire grapheme cluster, e.g. 각 (3 chars), 🇬🇧 (2 chars)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 3 August 2014 at 09:07
Newly discovered Pictish symbol stone at Dandaleith aberdeenshire.gov.uk/smrpub/moray/d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 August 2014 at 12:53
Variation selectors lead a way towards racially diverse #unicode #emoji 👉 unicode.org/L2/L2014/14173…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 August 2014 at 13:07
Potential #emoji additions unicode.org/L2/L2014/14174… (including taco and hot dog by popular demand)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 August 2014 at 20:14
Icon set for The State Alcohol and Tobacco Company of Iceland (ÁTVR) behance.net/gallery/157628…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 20 August 2014 at 11:51
US Copyright Office "will not register works produced by animals [e.g.] A photograph taken by a monkey" copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/… #monkeyselfie
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 August 2014 at 19:19
Thinking of quitting Twitter in futile protest at searches for "babelstone" now returning "Showing results for babelstore"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 August 2014 at 20:46
Survey of Free and Commercial 3rd Party Chinese Fonts pinyinjoe.com/pinyin/pinyin_… (BabelStone Han will never cover all CJK characters ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 August 2014 at 20:47
... but is only 277 characters away from complete coverage of the main CJK block and the next release)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 August 2014 at 22:16
96 Google Noto fonts google.com/get/noto/#/ gives 57% Unicode 7.0 coverage (64,431 out of 113,021 characters) ... and 91.5% non-CJK coverage
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 August 2014 at 22:33
Oops, "Noto Sans Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform" font name is too long for Windows' self-imposed 32 byte font name buffer
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 August 2014 at 22:13
BabelMap version 7.0.0.3 released -- now supports pref. font family/subfamily; new Fonts Overview tool (groups.google.com/d/msg/babelsto… for details)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 August 2014 at 22:19
BabelPad version 7.0.0.1 released -- major changes, with bug fixes, enhancements and new features (see groups.google.com/d/msg/babelsto… for details)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 August 2014 at 22:24
Enumerating fonts by preferred family and subfamily in latest versions of #BabelMap and #BabelPad
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 August 2014 at 22:27
New Fonts Overview tool in #BabelMap and #BabelPad provides summary info for all enumerated T/T and O/T fonts
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 August 2014 at 22:48
Latest version of #BabelPad allows user-defined highlighting of arbitrary text strings
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 August 2014 at 22:53
Latest version of #BabelPad also allows quick highlighting by selecting text, right-clicking and choosing "Highlight"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 August 2014 at 00:34
BabelStone Han v. 7.0.0 released babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html -- 1,357 new CJK chars (CJK 819, CJK-A 129, CJK-B 263, CJK-C 146) + 68 PUA
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 August 2014 at 00:37
It's taken me 5 years but BabelStone Han finally has complete coverage of the main CJK block babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 August 2014 at 00:40
BabelStone Han covers 33% of all encoded CJK unified ideographs babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 August 2014 at 00:43
Over the last 5 years I've added over 10,000 CJK glyphs to BabelStone Han, with an average time of 5 mins. per glyph babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 August 2014 at 10:29
Tangut is hard, Tangut glyphs are hard std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 August 2014 at 11:29
Just added the first new character to my new working draft of BabelStone Han: U+203F9 𠏹 ほとけ "Buddha"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 6 September 2014 at 17:54
Study of the "Manuscript Codex Written in the Khitan Large Script" by Viacheslav Zaytsev orientalstudies.ru/eng/index.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 September 2014 at 11:14
Shang or Zhou dynasty bronze sword found in a river in Jiangsu bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-new…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 September 2014 at 18:31
Arrived today, Sofronov's 1968 "Grammar of the Tangut Language" (М. В. Софронов, Грамматика тангутского языка).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 September 2014 at 18:56
Also arrived today, Nevsky's monumental 1960 "Tangut Philology" (Н. А. Невский, Тангутская филология) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 September 2014 at 18:59
... published posthumously 23 years after Nevsky was cruelly murdered by the NKVD during the Great Purge of 1937 (himalayanlanguages.org/files/driem/pd…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 September 2014 at 19:23
ISO/IEC 10646: 2014 (4th ed.) has now been published (although not yet available for free download) isotc.iso.org/livelink/livel… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 September 2014 at 19:28
... ISO/IEC 10646:2014 (std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/d…) plus Amendment 1 (std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/d…) will correspond to Unicode 8.0 in summer 2015 ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 September 2014 at 19:35
... ISO/IEC 10646:2014 incorporates CJK Extension E, so I guess it is legitimate to release CJK-E fonts now; the question is, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 September 2014 at 19:36
... should I release a first draft of my CJK-E font now (with 620 chars done) or wait until I have finished the next 2,235 chars on my list?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 20:21
Recipe for displaying colour fonts on Windows 7 (main ingredients @highlogic FontCreator and latest version of Firefox) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 20:23
1) Take a handful of #Unicode Regional Indicator characters and mix into an html page @highlogic
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 20:27
2) Use @highlogic FontCreator to bake up a mixture of multicolour flag glyphs;
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 20:29
3) Sprinkle in some OpenType magic using the @highlogic FontCreator OpenType Layout Features Editor;
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 20:32
4) Serve in the latest version of the #Firefox browser (running on Windows 7 in my case) [my thanks to @highlogic]
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 20:38
Notes on my BabelStone Flags font: 1) Yes, I am deliberately contravening the #Unicode rules for the use of Regional Indicator characters;
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 20:39
Notes on my BabelStone Flags font: 2) No, there is no flag for Northern Ireland, as Northern Ireland does not have an official flag.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 21:26
BabelStone Flags test page using WOFF font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/FlagsTes… (try it in latest version of Firefox)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 13 September 2014 at 09:20
Arrived today, Kychanov's 1966 "Chinese Classics in Tangut Translation" (Китайская классика в тангутском переводе)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 13 September 2014 at 09:23
ex libris Johannes Rahder (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_…), prof. of Japanese at Yale University from 1947 until 1965 ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 13 September 2014 at 09:26
...I once shared the same address as stamped on this book. It would be funny if his office in HGS was the same one I occupied 30 years later
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 15 September 2014 at 18:43
天子千秋萬歲常樂未央 -- a mysterious Chinese-style palace thousands of miles from home in Siberia siberiantimes.com/science/casest…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 15 September 2014 at 20:22
"Unicode version of Tulu script released" thehindu.com/news/national/… -- surely some some mistake ! (preliminary proposal std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/d…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 September 2014 at 18:03
Arrived today, the crucial 1969 edition of the "Sea of Characters" (Море письмен), a Tangut rime dictionary.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 September 2014 at 21:47
《三国演义》解释苏格兰独立公投： ＂天下大势，分久必合，合久必分＂ ... 问题是三百年还算久吗？ #indyref #sanguoyanyi
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 September 2014 at 12:10
Photographs of the Cultural Revolution by Li Zhensheng 李振盛, official photographer of the Red Guard photographyofchina.com/blog/li-zhensh…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 September 2014 at 12:13
Photographs of the Chinese Revolution of 1911 and the Shanghai Commercial Press 1909-1915 by Francis E. Stafford searchworks.stanford.edu/view/th998nk07…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 September 2014 at 17:39
ISO/IEC 10646:2014 (which includes CJK-E and other Unicode 8.0 additions) is now available for free download standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyA…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 September 2014 at 10:37
吉林「春捺缽」遺址：大陸最大遊牧民族漁獵遺址 chinatimes.com/realtimenews/2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 27 September 2014 at 13:46
Maps attributed to Marco Polo sketch what looks like the coast of Alaska smithsonianmag.com/history/did-ma…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 04:07
At the WG2 meeting in Colombo Sri Lanka all this week, plenty of interesting stuff on the agenda std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 04:09
... Tangut, Tangut radicals, Khitan Large, Nüshu, Naxi Dongba, Shuishu, Small seal script, and controversial emoji skin tone characters
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 05:20
Unicode's skin tone modifier symbols proposal for emoji std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 05:22
Alternate proposal for Tone Modifier Symbols for Emoji
from Japanese experts std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 05:24
Alternate proposal for Portrait Symbols instead of skin tone modifier symbols from @Evertype std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 07:52
Final Tangut radicals proposal std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 11:10
Tangut glyph corrections revised and expanded std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 October 2014 at 06:02
Unicode 9.0 (June 2016) will be huge -- currently includes CJK-F, Nüshu, Tangut + radicals, Marchen, Bhaiksuki, Zanabazar Square ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 October 2014 at 06:03
... at 11,630 characters Unicode 9.0 will have the largest number of new characters since CJK-B was added to Unicode 3.1 in 2001
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 October 2014 at 08:31
After 7 years and 35 documents totalling 250 megabytes the Tangut script is getting close to being encoded babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/TangutD…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 October 2014 at 16:21
Just arrived back from Colombo WG2 meeting; next year Matsue in Japan; and hopefully St Petersburg in Russia in 2016 std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 October 2014 at 16:30
After 25 years as WG2 convener Mike Ksar hands his gavel over to Michel Suignard on last day of Colombo WG2 meeting std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 October 2014 at 17:27
111 "Afroji" (Afrocentric #emoji symbols) proposed for encoding unicode.org/L2/L2014/14229… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 October 2014 at 17:29
... all I can say is that there was unanimous agreement among WG2 experts this week never to encode any more realistic human symbols #emoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 6 October 2014 at 19:56
EAP550: Preservation of Yao manuscripts from South Yunnan (eap.bl.uk/database/overv…) via @bl_eap
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 6 October 2014 at 22:25
Presentation by SC2 chair to Mike Ksar on retiring from being WG2 convener after 25 years std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/D… … (photo by @evertype)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 October 2014 at 20:58
Draft additional repertoire of 11,630 characters for ISO/IEC 10646:2014 Amd.2 (will correspond to #Unicode 9.0) std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 10 October 2014 at 22:13
Three volumes of the Yongle Dadian now on display at the British Museum britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-afri… via @BLAsia_Africa
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 October 2014 at 12:13
Tongyin Lookup Tool -- lookup Tangut characters in four editions of the 'Tongyin' ('Homophones') babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Tongyin…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 October 2014 at 20:37
Did you know #babelmap and #babelpad have a secret stealth mode that does not read/write the registry? - simply run with "-clean" parameter
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 October 2014 at 21:40
ISO/IEC 10646:2014 PDAM 2.2 now open for 3-month ballot (CJK-F, Marchen, Nüshu, Tangut, Zanabazar, etc.) isotc.iso.org/livelink/livel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 October 2014 at 17:30
"Proposal on Encoding Khitan Large Script" (395 pages) unicode.org/L2/L2014/14234… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 October 2014 at 17:31
... preliminary review of "Proposal on Encoding Khitan Large Script" by Andrew West and Viacheslav Zaytsev unicode.org/L2/L2014/14233…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 October 2014 at 17:36
Proposal to encode Tangut radicals (238 pages) by Andrew West, Viacheslav Zaytsev, Sun Bojun and Michael Everson unicode.org/L2/L2014/14228…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 October 2014 at 17:52
"Tangut glyph corrections" (2nd revision) by Andrew West, Viacheslav Zaytsev, Sun Bojun and Michael Everson unicode.org/L2/L2014/14209…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 October 2014 at 18:05
BBC Genome Project -- BBC radio and television listings from 1923 to 2009 genome.ch.bbc.co.uk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 18 October 2014 at 13:21
"Recommendations to UTC from Script Meeting in Nepal" unicode.org/L2/L2014/14253…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 October 2014 at 17:58
"How the world loved the swastika - until Hitler stole it" bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-… ... sadly no mention of Unicode babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2006/02/when-i…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 October 2014 at 19:34
"Response to the Recommendation for Nepalese Scripts" by @anshumanpandey_ unicode.org/L2/L2014/14258… -- well-reasoned and convincing points
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 October 2014 at 11:26
Egyptian Philae obelisk revealed anew using Reflectance Transformation Imaging bbc.co.uk/news/science-e… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 October 2014 at 11:27
... Reflectance Transformation Imaging so needs to be applied to the corpus of Khitan large script and Khitan small script inscriptions
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 October 2014 at 17:43
"Grave robbery is endemic across China ... in 2012 as many as 100,000 people across the country were involved" mongolschinaandthesilkroad.blogspot.nl/2014/10/1300-r…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 October 2014 at 17:46
"We used to say nine out of 10 tombs were empty because of tomb-raiding, but now it has become 9.5 out of 10" mongolschinaandthesilkroad.blogspot.nl/2014/10/1300-r…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 October 2014 at 19:33
Just noticed that the Tang dynasty inventory of Buddhist texts 開元釋教錄 (Taishō #2154) lists 6 copies of itself cbeta.org/result/T55/T55…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 27 October 2014 at 18:24
Unicode roadmap for the TIP (Plane 3) updated -- Small Seal Script moved to the top and so-called "bronze script" out unicode.org/roadmaps/tip/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 27 October 2014 at 18:47
Unicode roadmap for the SMP (Plane 1) updated -- 15,888 code points still completely free unicode.org/roadmaps/smp/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 October 2014 at 18:50
"The story of the Chinese [porcelain] seals found in Ireland [during the 19th century]" by Imre Galambos shahon.org/2011/06/chines…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 October 2014 at 19:03
Imre Galambos on last month's Tangut workshop at Cambridge University shahon.org/2014/10/tangut… with @sam_vanschaik & me
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 6 November 2014 at 19:24
New CJK swastika character to be included in CJK-F babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2006/02/when-i… (that's 3 swastika-derived characters scheduled for Unicode 9.0)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 November 2014 at 20:04
Coming to Unicode soon? EMOJI MODIFIER BRISTOL STOOL TYPE-1 thru 7 for U+1F4A9 PILE OF POO 💩 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_s… (h/t Karl Williamson)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 November 2014 at 22:16
Double-printed pages of a woodblock edition of the Tangut translation of the Flower Garland Sutra (ch.45)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 November 2014 at 22:24
Stupa and flower interlinear decoration in a woodblock edition of the Tangut translation of the Flower Garland Sutra
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 November 2014 at 22:33
More stupas in a woodblock edition of the Tangut translation of the Buddha Names Sutra
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 November 2014 at 23:13
Siddham seed syllable hūṃ 𑖮𑖳𑖼 in a woodblock edition of a Tangut Buddhist text
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 November 2014 at 23:15
Siddham seed syllable oṃ 𑖌𑖼 in a woodblock edition of a Tangut Buddhist text
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 November 2014 at 23:48
Vajras ࿅ on the loose in a woodblock edition of a Tangut Buddhist text
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 November 2014 at 13:44
Some examples of incidental decoration in Tangut woodblock printed texts babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/TangutD…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 10 November 2014 at 20:09
BabelStone Han font now has a Tangut stupa symbol in its PUA -- many thanks to Chris Fynn
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 15 November 2014 at 15:21
Received today, Kychanov's "Catalogue of Tangut Buddhist Monuments at the IOS of RAS" (1999) -- more on this soon!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 15 November 2014 at 17:35
Tangut manuscript with three ducks (?) (and swastika) added in at a later date eap.bl.uk/database/overv… (image #3)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 16 November 2014 at 11:17
Marc Miyake asks whether Tangut comets are beautiful brooms? amritas.com/141115.htm#111…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 18 November 2014 at 20:38
Taco Bell petitions @Unicode to ensure Taco emoji is added to Unicode 8.0 change.org/p/unicode-cons… -- how did character encoding go so wrong?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 November 2014 at 18:18
Public feedback on #emoji skin tone modifiers unicode.org/review/pri286/ -- if you have views on the subject why not make your voice heard too?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 November 2014 at 18:33
"skin-tone modifier characters are unnecessarily politically correct, possibly racist, and out of scope for plain-text encoding"— @DougEwell
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 November 2014 at 18:42
Unicode also soliciting feedback on 36 of the 37 Unicode 8.0 #emoji candidates unicode-inc.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/new-em… (no feedback on taco emoji required)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 22 November 2014 at 11:33
Unicode enforces religious harmony by proposing to encode Mosque and Synagogue symbols on adjacent codepoints (next to Dove of Peace 🕊).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 22 November 2014 at 20:02
Unicode trivia quiz: what are the only two Unicode characters which have palindromic character names?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 25 November 2014 at 18:56
Winged immortal with enormous ears riding a dragon from a W. Han tomb mural in Chang'an babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/lost-g…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 25 November 2014 at 20:19
铜骰…分别错出篆书或隶书“一”至“十六”以及“酒来”和“娇”字。“一、三、七、十、娇、酒来”等六面为嵌金地错银一周，另十二面为嵌银地错金一周。在各面空隙间用金丝错出三角卷云纹，中心镶嵌绿松石或红玛瑙。—《满城汉墓发掘报告》图一八三
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 09:23
Eastern Han mural of Liubo players coloured with "Han Blue" and "Han Purple" pigments babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/lost-g…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 11:21
Just added one more Han dynasty stone picture of Liubo players to my Liubo blog series babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/lost-g…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 15:47
Just added three more recentish discoveries of Liubo boards and game pieces to my Liubo blog series babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2011/01/l…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 15:50
I've just updated my Google map of Liubo sites (red = boards, blue = picture stones) google.com/maps/d/viewer?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 18:28
Decoding the week's news in Unicode emoji bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/30253… by @BBCNewsbeat
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 December 2014 at 12:11
#whiskyemoji submission to Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2014/14298… — but will it end up as WHISKY GLASS or as a generic TUMBLER WITH ICED DRINK?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 December 2014 at 12:40
Marc Miyake on Edwin G. Pulleyblank (1922-2013) amritas.com/141206.htm#120…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 December 2014 at 19:54
David Helliwell discusses the great Yongle Dadian 永樂大典 oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/yon… @bodleianlibs
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 December 2014 at 19:56
David Helliwell's catalogue of Yongle Dadian 永樂大典 holdings in Europe bodley.ox.ac.uk/users/djh/seri…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 December 2014 at 20:19
Princeton Conference on Dunhuang manuscripts orientalstudies.ru/eng/index.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 December 2014 at 12:18
What Is This Symbol? by @TranslatorTools — learn how to identify any Unicode symbol that you may encounter translatortools.net/articles/whati…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 9 December 2014 at 21:32
In 1909 Pyotr Kozlov buried 50 or so Tangut sculptures outside walls of Kharakhoto, but when he returned in 1926 he could not find them ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 9 December 2014 at 21:37
... because at least some of them were found by Langdon Warner in 1923, and are now in the Fogg Museum at Harvard University ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 9 December 2014 at 21:39
... this head harvardartmuseums.org/collections/ob… was photographed by Kozlov in 1909 when it was still attached to its body
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 12 December 2014 at 19:32
Contribution préliminaire à l'étude de l'écriture et de la langue si-hia (1904) par M. Morisse gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 12 December 2014 at 20:01
6 vols. of the Tangut Lotus Sutra found in a heap by the White Stupa of Miaoying Temple in 1900 during the chaos of the Boxer Rebellion
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 14 December 2014 at 14:24
Should a Tangut character reflect how it is drawn in Tangut sources or how modern scholars think it should be drawn? unicode.org/L2/L2014/14301…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 14 December 2014 at 17:26
Fragment of a 12th century Tangut - Old Cornish glossary covering birds and beasts.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 December 2014 at 18:56
Rubbing of Liangzhou Stele Tangut inscription of 1094 in Devéria's 1898 "L'Écriture du Royaume de Si-Hia ou Tangout"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 December 2014 at 13:09
番國寶錢 -- a new type of Western Xia coin or a new type of fake? zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 December 2014 at 13:54
2 pieces reportedly found in Ningxia bbs.chcoin.com/show-7777853-1… but I have learned to be sceptical about the world of Chinese coin collecting
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 December 2014 at 15:08
Decorating the stupa — illustration of Tangut stupa in Tangut edition of "Maitreya's Ascension to the Tuṣita Heaven"
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 14:18
Somehow I missed the most important Tangut discovery of 2014, a Yuan gravestone with Chinese & Tangut inscriptions epaper.yzdsb.com.cn/201404/04/4976…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 14:23
Tangut experts (a few familiar faces) gathered around the Tangut-Chinese gravestone discovered in Hebei last year
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 14:29
The Chinese side of the Yuan dynasty Tangut-Chinese gravestone discovered at Daming in Hebei
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 16:57
The text of the Tangut side of Chinese-Tangut gravestone from Daming (= Chinese 小李統軍、大田氏、夫兒、阿母)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 16:59
Actually found in September 2013, but the photographs were taken in March 2014. The Chinese inscription dates it to 1278.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 17:28
The 8th and 9th characters are transliteration characters for Chinese 'fu' and 'er', translated oddly as "夫也" in Chinese articles ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 17:30
... I think that they perhaps transliterate a Chinese female name 福兒 Fú'ér "Fortune".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 17:47
Location of Tangut, Jurchen and Khitan inscriptions google.com/maps/d/viewer?… — the southernmost blue tag is the Chinese-Tangut gravestone ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 18:02
... and therefore the most southerly discovery of Tangut writing to date.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 January 2015 at 20:08
2,200+ year old dried fish found in Warring States period Chu tomb in Hubei mongolschinaandthesilkroad.blogspot.nl/2015/01/ancien…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 11 January 2015 at 02:18
Two Tangut Families in Yuan China Part 1 babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/two-ta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 23 January 2015 at 21:10
Accumulated Feedback on Unicode Public Review Issue #286 "Unicode Emoji" unicode.org/review/pri286/ -- you have until Monday to add your voice.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 19:04
The development of the Unicode Standard (and #emoji) is not just controlled by Unicode Consortium, but depends on the ISO ballot process ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 January 2015 at 19:05
... ballot comments by China, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Mongolia, UK and USA on the repertoire for Unicode 8.0 and 9.0 unicode.org/L2/L2015/15020…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 30 January 2015 at 00:42
Two Tangut Families Part 2 babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/two-ta… -- annotated translation and study of the Chinese-Tangut stele unearthed in Daming in 2013
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 30 January 2015 at 12:12
Recommended disposition of #emoji feedback to Unicode Consortium by @mark_e_davis unicode.org/L2/L2015/15032…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 30 January 2015 at 19:09
Is this the solution to representing arbitrary #emoji combinations of people and things using Unicode characters? unicode.org/L2/L2015/15029…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 30 January 2015 at 19:20
Multiracial family #emoji in Unicode? <WOMAN + EMOJI MODIFIER TYPE-1-2 + ZWJ + BOY + EMT-3 + ZWJ + GIRL + EMT-1-2 + ZWJ + MAN + EMT-4> !!!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 February 2015 at 19:22
BabelStone Han v. 7.0.1 released babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html — includes 703 new Han ideographs: +156 CJK-A, +392 CJK-B, +155 CJK-C characters
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 February 2015 at 12:59
WG2 site (std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/) now defunct; all new WG2 docs at isotc.iso.org/livelink/livel… but invisible & password protected w/o login :(
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 February 2015 at 13:32
WG2 membership is also secret, but currently 53 committee members: AT 1, CA 2, GB 1, IE 1, IN 1, JP 17, LK 6, NO 1, RU 1, and US 22 !
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 February 2015 at 14:03
Why is WG2 changing web site and now only meeting once a year? All in response to JTC1 N12032: unicode.org/L2/L2014/14206…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 February 2015 at 18:22
Marc Miyake's Tangut Phonetic Database Version 1.0 amritas.com/150207.htm gives simple & complex transcriptions for 6,074 Tangut characters
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 February 2015 at 10:09
ISO/IEC 10646:2014 PDAM 2.3 now available isotc.iso.org/livelink/livel… (public download) — CJK-F, Nüshu and Zanabazar Square out; Taco et al. in
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 February 2015 at 16:51
Baoding, the most polluted city in China in 2014 bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 February 2015 at 16:53
... but luckily not when I visited in December 2014 to see its famous Tangut dharani pillars babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/ancien…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 February 2015 at 17:27
"The complex Chinese language requires the use of both parts of the brain, while English only uses one side" bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-new… Noooooo!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 3 February 2015 at 17:31
"Mandarin is a notoriously difficult language to learn" news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/30… ... really ?! ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 February 2015 at 17:39
Must be all those conjugations, declensions, grammatical gender & irregular verbs that Mandarin does not have that makes it so hard to learn
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 4 February 2015 at 19:06
འཇོར་ཇི་ཨོར་ཝེལ་གྱིས་བརྩམས་པའི་《གཅིག་དགུ་གྱ་བཞི》ཞེས་པ་རྡོ་རྗེ་ཚེ་བརྟན་གྱིས་བོད་ཡིག་ཏུ་བསྒྱུར་ནས་པར་སྐྲུན་བྱས་ཡོད་པ། tibetcm.com/news/2015-02-0…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 4 February 2015 at 19:25
George Orwell's "1984" translated into Tibetan by Dorje Tseten has recently been published by the Gansu People's Publishing House
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 4 February 2015 at 19:56
Mummified monk recently discovered in Mongolia is not necessarily dead bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 February 2015 at 20:57
Thou shalt not desyre thy neighbours house, his wyfe, his seruaunt, ... *wrongfully or vniustly* notes Henry VIII twitter.com/RareBooksOfBod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 7 February 2015 at 05:40
Genghis Khan and Tangut by @Jakujin amgalant.com/genghis-khan-a…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 February 2015 at 21:16
In 1985 I spent 10 days travelling by truck from Chengdu to Lhasa, celebrating Losar at Chamdo this day 30 years ago
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 February 2015 at 21:51
Now uploaded to Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Losa… -- one day I'll get round to digitising all my photos from that trip
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 00:17
Tangut writing practice piece from Kharakhoto with five characters repeated multiple times idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 00:21
Today I suddenly realised the characters are copied from the preface to the "Grains of Gold in the Palm of your Hand"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 00:30
Tang dynasty stone figurines of dragon, snake, sheep & chicken commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ston… @BLAsia_Africa #ChineseNewYear
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 23:40
My annual reminder to everyone of what today's date in Tangut is babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Tangu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 20 February 2015 at 20:26
I'm waiting until the afternoon of 18th July 2015 to celebrate the Year of the Goat babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Manch…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 February 2015 at 22:58
United States Geological Survey set of fossil symbols -- symbols that would actually be useful to encode in Unicode ngmdb.usgs.gov/fgdc_gds/geols…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 March 2015 at 20:59
Duang ! BabelStone Han PUA version 1.007 released babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 March 2015 at 21:06
"The sinographic form of "duang" doesn't yet exist in any electronic font" -- Victor Mair @LanguageLog -- now it does babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 March 2015 at 19:39
Babelstone's Dissection of Khitan 'succession' amritas.com/150321.htm#031… raises more questions than it answers
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 March 2015 at 13:12
Somebody asked me where they could find a list of Tangut place names -- babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/a-frag… is the answer
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 March 2015 at 19:48
Recommendations for emoji glyph changes in Unicode charts unicode.org/review/pri294/… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 25 March 2015 at 19:50
... No to adding eyes to U+1F4A9 Pile of Poo @Evertype ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 March 2015 at 19:53
... and definitely No to changing glyph for U+1F3B1 Billiards to an "8 ball" as that narrows scope down to a particular American game
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 April 2015 at 22:09
Reluctantly and incompletely I ask What's New in Unicode 8.0 ? babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/whats-… (post to be completed tomorrow)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 April 2015 at 17:01
I conclude my story of Unicode 8.0 with a long rant about emoji babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/whats-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 April 2015 at 17:34
What's new in Unicode 8.0? -- It's the Taco Stupid! babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/whats-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 April 2015 at 20:20
Liao dynasty clay coins with Khitan Large Script 天朝萬順 inscription bbs.chcoin.com/show-7330804.h…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 April 2015 at 20:23
Finding Phadampa in Bhutan tibeto-logic.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/findin…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 April 2015 at 09:43
For context please read Gary Ashkenazy's @primaltrek blog post on Chinese Burial Money primaltrek.com/blog/2015/03/2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 April 2015 at 00:03
New version of "BabelStone Han PUA" released babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html with 398 additional unencoded CJK characters, including ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 April 2015 at 00:07
... 68 Oracle Bone script transcription characters and 194 Chu script transcription characters (latter for typesetting a forthcoming book)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 April 2015 at 15:49
"Buried Ideas — Legends of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early Chinese Bamboo-Slip Manuscripts" by Sarah Allan sunypress.edu/p-6111-buried-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 April 2015 at 16:23
Only 199 characters left to make before BabelStone Han version 7.0.3 is ready for release; then version 8.0.0 will be released in May
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 April 2015 at 18:54
"The Berries" — field name evidence for the Viking-age fortification of Eashing Burh surreymedieval.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/wil… via @SurreyMedieval
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 19 April 2015 at 19:30
BabelStone Han v. 7.0.2 released — 921 additional CJK characters (66 CJK-A, 212 CJK-B and 643 CJK-C) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 19 April 2015 at 19:35
BabelStone Han font now covers all G-source characters in CJK Extension C (c. 1,000 CJK-E characters in next version) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 20 April 2015 at 19:30
"大般若[波羅蜜多]經第十二卷" — title slip from a copy of the Tangut "Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra" idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 22 April 2015 at 00:54
Tangut Manuscript Miscellanea—the Mahāyāna śatadharmā-prakāśamukha śāstra (大乘百法明門本母) babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/tangut…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 25 April 2015 at 16:30
Waverley Abbey after end of filming for the Huntsman (Snow White & the Huntsman prequel) commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wave…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 27 April 2015 at 23:23
A Web of Tangut Catalogues babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/web-of…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 April 2015 at 00:13
#Tangut manuscript illustration of a plant ... looking particularly #Voynich manuscriptish
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 April 2015 at 22:21
Index of #Tangut texts digitised under the Endangered Archives Project @bl_eap @idp_uk babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/EAP140.…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 29 April 2015 at 11:46
"Proposal to encode three control characters for Egyptian Hieroglyphs" by Bob Richmond unicode.org/L2/L2015/15123… — seems like a good idea to me
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 29 April 2015 at 11:57
Proposal to encode one UNC Chinese character {石示} unicode.org/L2/L2015/15114… — evidence seems sufficient to me @CJKType
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 29 April 2015 at 21:06
The same location after end of filming for "Into the Woods" in September 2013 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Into…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 19:10
Sarah Allan's study of Chu bamboo ms "When Red Pigeons Gathered on Tang's House" 赤{⿰鳥咎}之集湯之屋 journals.cambridge.org/action/display…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 19:12
BabelStone Han PUA v. 1.009 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html includes 5 additional unencoded CJK characters, including ⿰石示 and ⿰鳥咎
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Friday, 1 May 2015 at 22:12
Proposal to add further regional indicator symbols to allow Unicode representation of flags for country subdivisions unicode.org/L2/L2015/15145…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 May 2015 at 22:19
As you can tell from this tweet twitter.com/BabelStone/sta… I am very much in favour of this proposal
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 May 2015 at 22:40
Font test page (in Firefox) showing English, Scottish and Welsh flags that are currently not representable in Unicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 May 2015 at 13:50
A general index of Tangut titles babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/TangutT…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 May 2015 at 11:41
Looking forward to Unicode 9.0, the disposition of comments for PDAM2.3 unicode.org/L2/L2015/15125… are well worth reading (esp. pp.2-3 re IRG)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 May 2015 at 11:56
Code charts for DAM2 (final ISO technical ballot) unicode.org/L2/L2015/15124… showing new repertoire (inc. #Tangut) that will be in Unicode 9.0.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 7 May 2015 at 21:04
BabelMap Online for Unicode 8.0 BETA babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm… (and Unicode 8.0 BETA slide show babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/unicod…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 7 May 2015 at 21:13
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E with BabelStone Han in BabelMap Online for Unicode 8.0 BETA babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 7 May 2015 at 21:34
No change to glyphs for Billiards, Pile of Poo, Face with Look of Triumph, or Sleepy Face. twitter.com/mark_e_davis/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 8 May 2015 at 07:45
Segoe UI Historic for W10 msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/bb688099 covers Brahmi, Carian, Cypriot, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Glagolitic, Gothic, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 8 May 2015 at 07:46
... Imperial Aramaic, Inscriptional Pahlavi, Inscriptional Parthian, Kharoshthi, Lycian, Lydian, Meroitic Cursive, Phoenician, Ogham, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 8 May 2015 at 07:46
... Old Italic, Old Persian Cuneiform, Old South Arabian, Orkhon, Runic, Shavian, Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform, and Ugaritic Cuneiform. Nice!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 8 May 2015 at 11:07
Resurrecting TAG characters to represent sub- and supra-national flags in Unicode ? unicode.org/L2/L2015/15145… — can't help thinking it's not...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 8 May 2015 at 21:36
Latest emoji candidates, including Mother Christmas, Selfie and (appropriately) Face Palm unicode.org/L2/L2015/15054…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 9 May 2015 at 19:25
Tibetan shorthand contractions བསྐུངས་ཡིག babelstone.co.uk/Tibetan/Contra… — newly revised, corrected and expanded
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 9 May 2015 at 21:18
劉鳳翥編著《契丹文字研究类编》：汇集契丹文字研究最新成果 stv.cssn.cn/index.php?opti…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 May 2015 at 19:25
Unicode 8.0 implementation notes: remember that Cherokee case-folds to UPPERCASE (all other bicameral scripts case-fold to lowercase)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 May 2015 at 11:40
Will Coleman on Plen an Gwari, the Playing Places of Cornwall oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-05-1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 May 2015 at 13:19
Unicode 8.0 implementation notes (2): New Tai Lue is not old New Tai Lue (encoding model for NTL changed so many NTL char props changed)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 May 2015 at 13:20
Unicode 8.0 implementation notes (3): 5 variation sequences for Manichaean are first script-specific var seqs since Phags-pa in Unicode 5.0
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 May 2015 at 13:22
Unicode 8.0 implementation notes (4): Indic_Matra_Category property out, Indic_Positional_Category property in unicode.org/reports/tr44/t…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 May 2015 at 21:42
BabelMap beta for Unicode 8.0 available now babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 15 May 2015 at 18:46
Ask the Emojic 8 Ball xkcd.com/1525/ — those are actual Unicode text emoji characters in the ball not drawings
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 May 2015 at 21:01
BabelPad beta for Unicode 8.0 available now babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 May 2015 at 21:38
Unicode 8.0 implementation notes (5): Tag chars U+E0020..U+E007E are no longer deprecated (but E0001 & E007F remain deprecated)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 May 2015 at 11:26
BBC announce the coming of 38 new #emoji to #Unicode 9.0 next year bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/artic… ... no mention of #Tangut I'm sorry to say
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 May 2015 at 11:29
Shame they don't need a cataloguer for the Tangut project twitter.com/idp_uk/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 May 2015 at 22:06
#Tangut "Heaven" idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 May 2015 at 23:01
Namo Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva 南無虛空藏菩薩 idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo… #Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 May 2015 at 20:04
Noticed amongst the latest batch of Tangut fragments from @idp_uk : 《新集藏經音義隨函錄》 idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 May 2015 at 19:44
David Helliwell continues his series of posts on the Yongle Dadian oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/yon…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 30 May 2015 at 00:38
Tangut Manuscript Miscellanea 2: Grains of Gold babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/tangut…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 30 May 2015 at 10:34
"A mosque & a synagogue, side by side, only in Yazd, city of Zoroastrians!" twitter.com/Iran_Style/sta… And in #Unicode!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 1 June 2015 at 08:21
ISO/IEC 10646 5th ed. CD ballot isotc.iso.org/livelink/livel…, inc. Adlam, Masaram Gondi, Newa, Nüshu, Soyombo, Zanabazar Square, CJK-F & 38 emoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 June 2015 at 12:27
Preliminary proposal to encode Old Sogdian script in #Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2015/15089…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 June 2015 at 12:16
Now revised and updated with three additional fragments of #Tangut "Grains of Gold" practice pieces babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/tangut…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 11 June 2015 at 21:41
And on the other side, Vaiśravaṇa the Deva King of the North "北方多聞天王" #Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 14 June 2015 at 13:46
BabelStone Han v. 8.0.0 released — plus 1,642 CJK characters, including 1,125 CJK-E characters for Unicode 8.0 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 June 2015 at 17:32
BabelMap v. 8.0.0.1, supporting #Unicode8, has just been released babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 June 2015 at 17:32
BabelPad v. 8.0.0.1, supporting #Unicode8, has just been released babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 June 2015 at 17:34
You can now open uninstalled TTF/OTF fonts with BabelMap and BabelPad (i.e. right-click on a font file and open with BabelMap or BabelPad)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 June 2015 at 23:24
BabelMap Online for #Unicode8 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 June 2015 at 23:27
If you've got 201 minutes to spare why not watch the 120,672 characters in #Unicode 8.0 (font support required) babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/unicod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 29 June 2015 at 20:31
Dear #Unicode Consortium "Say Yes to Fun: Vote for a bubble-blowing emoji" change.org/p/unicode-cons… — I can't think of any reason not to ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 30 June 2015 at 18:55
Dear #Unicode Consortium "is it not time that your average man-with-beard gets represented [as an #emoji]?" change.org/p/the-unicode-… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 30 June 2015 at 19:00
... yes, but not without a bearded lady #emoji as well #ConchitaWurst #Unicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 July 2015 at 21:23
Ode to the Tangut Tripitaka Part 1 babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/ode-to… ... in which I start to reconstruct a lost #Tangut odic text.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 July 2015 at 11:06
The problem with not encoding traditional forms for #Unicode simplified characters like 𬲱 & 鿕 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuzhou_cu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 July 2015 at 10:53
Unique and hitherto unknown "Tangut Dictionary" pmgs.kongfz.com/item_pic_54538… robbed from a tomb (?) and sold for $100K
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 13 July 2015 at 10:59
Eight more Tangut texts of unknown provenance (i.e. robbed from a tomb or pagoda) in the same November 2014 sale douban.com/note/456762770/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 July 2015 at 11:35
Higher resolution image at dbpm.cn/auction/sdetai…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 July 2015 at 21:46
The Baisigou Square Pagoda (拜寺沟方塔) in Ningxia, blown up by treasure hunters in 1990 babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Baisigo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 July 2015 at 21:47
Wikipedia article on the Baisigou Square Pagoda en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baisigou_…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 July 2015 at 22:07
史金波 "存世最早的文字木雕版——西夏文木雕版" twitter.com/Romain_Tangout…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 July 2015 at 19:09
Right-to-left mirrored runic text renders correctly with BabelStone A/S runic fonts on Firefox babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/AngloSax…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 July 2015 at 17:47
Emojification of #Unicode Egyptian Hieroglyphs ? unicode.org/L2/L2015/15208… No, just no!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 29 July 2015 at 18:36
#emoji bible at Reading Museum — "the face of a 🦁 on the right side; and they had the face of an 🐂 on the left side"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 1 August 2015 at 23:27
Russia could ban same-sex #emoji (#Unicode U+1F46C 👬 and U+1F46D 👭 Two wo/men holding hands) theguardian.com/world/2015/aug…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 1 August 2015 at 23:34
Microsoft is already ahead of the game with its Segoe UI Symbol font (on Windows 7) — conspicuously avoiding 👬 & 👭 !
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 3 August 2015 at 21:28
"Tangut Texts for Sale" babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/tangut… — a prelude to my preliminary analysis of a newly-discovered Tangut text
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 11 August 2015 at 22:48
Preliminary Analysis of a Newly-Discovered Tangut Wordbook babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/prelim… #Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 11 August 2015 at 22:54
新發現的西夏文字書初探 babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2015/08/p… #西夏文
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 12 August 2015 at 11:36
Kitan-Language Crash Course to be held by Professor Daniel Kane at Yale University in May 2016 networks.h-net.org/node/22055/dis…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 16 August 2015 at 15:17
BabelPad v.8.0.0.2 released babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel… (several enhancements + fixes regression bugs for pinyin conversion and Mongolian NNBSP)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 August 2015 at 21:16
"Preliminary Analysis of a Newly-Discovered Tangut Wordbook" now available as a PDF download from independent.academia.edu/AndrewWest/Pap…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 18 August 2015 at 18:20
My "Musical Notation for Flute in Tangut Manuscripts" (2012) now available for download from independent.academia.edu/AndrewWest/Pap…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 August 2015 at 11:30
Enhancements: dropdown lists for find/replace dialog; remove blank lines; remove trailing whitespace; option to remove whitespace on save.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 August 2015 at 22:52
Tangut "Sea of Characters" 《文海》 lookup tool babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/WenhaiL… now available, a companion to ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 August 2015 at 22:54
... the Tangut "Homophones" 《同音》 lookup tool babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Tongyin… (newly updated and extended to cover British Library fragment)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 31 August 2015 at 09:24
BabelStone Han PUA v.1.11 released, +129 characters, inc.110 for "Sourcebook of Archaic Chinese Bronze Inscriptions" babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 September 2015 at 08:51
Does anyone know what script this Kharakhoto ms fragment is? idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo… @idp_uk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 September 2015 at 23:23
Revised version of my analysis of a Tangut text babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/prelim… incorporating suggestions from @Romain_Tangoute and @MarcMiyake
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 September 2015 at 23:32
Is this the only evidence of a Tangut translation of a lost biography of Qingjue (1043-1121)? babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/prelim…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 September 2015 at 14:02
Counting rod numerals (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_…) are found on some Tangut manuscripts, e.g. idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 13 September 2015 at 11:39
BabelStone Han PUA v.1.12 released, +123 characters for oracle bone transcription in Takashima's Concordance babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 13 September 2015 at 12:17
Precious Seals of the Qing Dynasty 故宮信片第五集：清代寶璽 (most with Manchu seal script) babelstone.co.uk/Manchu/Qingdai…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 September 2015 at 20:43
BabelStone Han PUA v. 1.13 released, now with simplified form of "biang" at F300 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html @CJKType
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 19 September 2015 at 18:09
Mao badge issued by 计量局 Bureau of Metrology, using 二简字 that is in forthcoming Ext. H submission @CJKType twitter.com/ClintTwist/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 October 2015 at 19:43
Recent Advances in Old Chinese Historical Phonology at #SOAS 5 November 2015 soas.ac.uk/south-asia-ins…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
(reply to @ken_lunde)
Monday, 19 October 2015 at 00:31
@ken_lunde @CJKType WG2 meeting starting here at the Kunibiki Messe in Matsue in half an hour, on a hazy morning.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 19 October 2015 at 05:22
New WG2 documents are now mirrored at unicode.org/wg2/docs/ #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 20 October 2015 at 00:12
Nüshu 女书 ad hoc just started, with experts from China, Japan, US, UK and Ireland, expected to last all morning #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 20 October 2015 at 02:32
... after nearly two and half hours successfully dealt with 33 UK comments on Nüshu 女书 code chart ... 32 glyph changes and/or moves accepted
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 20 October 2015 at 03:10
Nüshu 女书 ad hoc completes successfully, with final repertoire agreed upon, now break for lunch.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 20 October 2015 at 03:29
Group photo with Chinese Nüshu 女书 experts and @Evertype (Prof. Zhao Liming 赵丽明 on my right)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 20 October 2015 at 07:14
CJK Ext. F all afternoon ... long and detailed discussions of some problematic characters: 2D13F unified with 𠦑 and removed #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 20 October 2015 at 23:39
2CEF1 in Ext F may be the Bopomofo letter ㄛ with a dot indicating light tone ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 20 October 2015 at 23:42
... but no-one knows for sure (the dictionary source just tells us it's a phonetic symbol), so we are encoding it as a CJK ideograph anyway!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 21 October 2015 at 00:31
Japanese presentation on Hentaigana and Hentaigana proposal unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4674… #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 00:21
Chinese presentation on Shui script 水书 in preparation for a forthcoming encoding proposal #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 01:40
Presentation on state of Chinese Small Seal Script 小篆 encoding project #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 02:21
Discussing 2CEF1 now unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4695… #WG2_64 @lianghai
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 02:37
Removing 2CEF1, and encoding a new Bopomofo letter at 312E with the name BOPOMOFO LETTER O WITH DOT #WG2_64 @lianghai @CJKType
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 03:35
Discussed unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4661… — Stupa and Pagoda symbols accepted; #Indalo #Ichthys and #DarwinFish symbols deferred for now #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 06:33
Added 2 Tangut components, removed 1 Tangut ideograph, and moved 2 Tangut ideographs, as recommended in unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4667… ... #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 06:38
... Codepoints for 6,125 Tangut ideographs and 755 Tangut components are now stable, and Tangut will be in #Unicode9 in June 2016 #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 06:52
New Nüshu code chart after reordering 14 characters and correcting glyphs for 20 characters unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4697… #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 07:07
吉祥如意 — #Nüshu 女书 calligraphy by Prof. Zhao Liming 赵丽明, a kind present to me at the end of #WG2_64 meeting in Matsue
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 08:57
Matsue castle 松江城 on an early morning walk #WG2_64
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 October 2015 at 09:00
The UTC wants feedback on Ichthys and Darwin Fish characters, so if you have any opinion unicode.org/reporting.html twitter.com/CodepointsNet/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 25 October 2015 at 18:32
BabelStone Han PUA version 1.015 released — plus 1,288 additional unencoded CJK ideographs babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 29 October 2015 at 13:33
"Is 'biang' the hardest Chinese word to write?" bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi… @CJKType #biang
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 29 October 2015 at 21:15
"Chinese characters are among the most difficult languages in the world to write and master"—why is the concept of script so hard to master?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 29 October 2015 at 21:19
"The word [biang] holds no meaning", except that it means "kick the bucket", as in (excuse my language) 狗日的这回才biang了 (《都市方言辞典（陕西卷） 》) #biang
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 31 October 2015 at 15:45
Proposal for #Unicode Customized #Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2015/15252… ... a loosely-defined tag-based glyph definition language
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 November 2015 at 12:56
BabelStone Han PUA v.1.016 released babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html —now covers all characters in pending UTC IRG submission unicode.org/L2/L2015/15223…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 November 2015 at 22:21
"Emoji ZWJ Sequences Considered Harmful" unicode.org/L2/L2015/15319… #emoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 7 November 2015 at 16:16
Finnish #emoji including Sauna ♂ and ♀, Headbanger and the Unbreakable Nokia 3310 finland.fi/life-society/t…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 November 2015 at 18:42
Just received my copy of "Buried Ideas" by Prof. Sarah Allan sunypress.edu/p-6111-buried-… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 11 November 2015 at 18:45
... with 166 not yet in Unicode archaic characters typeset using my BabelStone Han PUA font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 November 2015 at 18:48
... these and other characters used to transcribe oracle bone and bamboo texts submitted for encoding as IRGN2107 appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg45…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 24 November 2015 at 21:49
New pages on the as yet unencoded Sani Yi script babelstone.co.uk/Yi/Sani.html #unicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 November 2015 at 12:25
List of 1,390 unique Sani Yi script characters babelstone.co.uk/Yi/Sani_list.h…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 November 2015 at 12:26
Sani Yi font used on my Sani Yi script pages babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/YiScan.h…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 28 November 2015 at 17:35
BabelStone Han v. 8.0.2 released (correcting mistakes in 8.0.1)—over a 1,000 additional CJK-A, B, C and E characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 29 November 2015 at 14:25
Filming Wonder Woman (code name Night[ingale]) at the Bourne Wood in Farnham yesterday
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 December 2015 at 19:43
Starting to prepare for Unicode 9.0 and Tangut (June 2016) #Unicode #Tangut #BabelMap
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 December 2015 at 23:12
Workshop on Tangut Studies at Hamburg University on 14 December manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/cal-details/15… —I will be there with @Romain_Tangoute & @MarcMiyake
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 December 2015 at 20:27
The KitKat Break #emoji petition to #Unicode Consortium change.org/p/thebreakemoji — an emoji petition too far I think!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 December 2015 at 21:33
In Memoriam Michael Kaplan @michkap unicode.org/consortium/mem… #Unicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 12 December 2015 at 01:43
BabelStone Han PUA v. 1.19 released, with 130 additional characters used for Chu script transcription (清华简《系年》) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 December 2015 at 22:19
Tomb raiders in China infographic scmp.com/sites/default/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 15 December 2015 at 09:04
Gathering of Tangutologists in Hamburg yesterday manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/cal-details/15… #Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 December 2015 at 11:08
The nativity story as told in the earliest Chinese version (mid C7th): 天尊當使涼風向一童女，名為末豔。涼風即入末豔腹內。…末豔懷後產一男，名為移鼠。 (cbeta.org/result/T54/T54…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 26 December 2015 at 22:20
Jin dynasty brocade depicting the Jurchen's annual spring swan hunt twitter.com/metmuseum/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 29 December 2015 at 00:58
BabelStone Han PUA v. 1.20 released babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html —141 new characters (mostly dialect use), in total 3,209 non-Unicode characters
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 29 December 2015 at 01:28
BabelStone Han PUA 新版本收3,209非Unicode字，包括“十日九不见，入山见大虫”（lāi dài）两个山西方言用的字 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html (下图是电视剧《打狗棍》的剧照)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 29 December 2015 at 13:48
BabelStone Han v. 8.0.3 released babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html —end of year minor update with 233 additional CJK characters and 272 PUA characters
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 29 December 2015 at 14:37
BabelStone Han now supports the 49 secret characters of the "Ninja alphabet" 忍びいろは in 《萬川集海》 babelstone.co.uk/CJK/Images/Ban…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 29 December 2015 at 16:09
Draft documents for a possible future IRG submission babelstone.co.uk/CJK/IRGDraft/ (already includes 359 characters ) @CJKType
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 29 December 2015 at 19:07
Does anyone have a print source showing the character ⿰奚力 and/or ⿰⿱爫夫力 used as a promoted piece in Wa Shōgi 和将棋 (ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A3%9B… ?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 December 2015 at 12:13
I don't particularly care for gold and glitter, but I really do hope that his library was buried with him! twitter.com/NEAarchaeology…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 December 2015 at 18:02
Draft code charts for ISO/IEC 10646, including 7,485 characters in CJK Ext. F unicode.org/L2/L2015/15339… (expect in #Unicode 10.0 in June 2017)
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 January 2016 at 22:28
What's new in #Unicode 9.0 ? babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/whats-… — Osage, Bhaiksuki, Marchen and Tangut, and maybe a few #emoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 January 2016 at 23:47
Thanks! Eight years! twitter.com/DopefishJustin…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 January 2016 at 21:41
First #Unicode #Tangut font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/TangutUn… (although it only covers half of the 6,125 Unicode Tangut characters)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 January 2016 at 21:44
First #Unicode encoded #Tangut web page (uses web font) babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/WenhaiU…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 3 January 2016 at 21:40
Alpha builds of BabelPad & BabelMap for Unicode 9.0 are now available babelstone.co.uk/Software/Beta.… for testing Osage, Bhaiksuki, Marchen, Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 January 2016 at 21:01
There seem to be way more readers of my blog than normal due to interest in #Unicode #Emoji babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/whats-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 January 2016 at 21:28
"Translating Chinese Tradition and Teaching #Tangut Culture" by Imre Galambos degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/pr… (open access)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 8 January 2016 at 23:46
"A Hanseatic afternoon of pure #Tangut joy" par Xun Gong indosinica.hypotheses.org/63 avec @MarcMiyake
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 January 2016 at 22:55
Combined basic data attributes for IRG Working Set 2015 (candidates for #CJK Ext. G) babelstone.co.uk/CJK/IRG2015/ (newly corrected files)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 January 2016 at 22:56
UTC 311; UK 1,640; ROK 469; PRC 1,009 + 1,268; SAT 350; TCA 500 = 5,547; minus 54 duplicates = 5,493 characters in #CJK Working Set 2015
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 January 2016 at 23:09
See IRGN2091 and IRGN2107 at appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg45… for these characters (IRG Working Set 2015) twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 January 2016 at 19:57
Kinnara or Kalaviṅka? How can you tell the difference? (silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/vol… calls it a Kinnara but I'm not sure)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 January 2016 at 20:01
Too little too late? twitter.com/TiroTypeworks/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 18 January 2016 at 21:25
Edward Schafer ("The Golden Peaches of Samarkand" p.103) notes that the Kinnara "is really a very different creature" from the Kalaviṅka ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 January 2016 at 21:27
... but what exactly is the difference?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 January 2016 at 18:37
Japan plans to replace #swastika with #pagoda as symbol for temple in maps for foreigners bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi… #卍
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 January 2016 at 18:39
There is no #Unicode pagoda symbol ... so it's a good thing I proposed one for encoding last year, which should be in Unicode 10 next year
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 20 January 2016 at 12:42
I am eager to learn about this "little known nation" (as the BBC blurb puts it) twitter.com/HelenWangLondo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 20 January 2016 at 12:45
#Emoji proposals for Dumpling, Fortune Cookie, Chopsticks and Chinese Takeout Box now submitted to #Unicode unicode.org/L2/L-curdoc.htm
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 20 January 2016 at 13:00
Condom #emoji proposal submitted to #unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16022… ... why not?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 January 2016 at 21:12
Yay! Now we're just one short of a full set ᴀʙᴄᴅᴇꜰɢʜɪᴊᴋʟᴍɴᴏᴘʀꜱᴛᴜᴠᴡʏᴢ ... LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL X next?! twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 January 2016 at 21:25
Has anyone got any more examples of #Bopomofo Letter N (not in #Unicode) #cjk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 January 2016 at 12:48
Here are hm and hng from the same dictionary 《國語辭典》 using ㆬ for m and ㆭ for ng
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 January 2016 at 19:16
3 control characters for Egyptian Hieroglyphs accepted for #Unicode to enable quadrat format unicode.org/L2/L2016/16018…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 February 2016 at 22:59
The origins of Surrey — a mammoth eight-part post by Rob Briggs @SurreyMedieval
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 February 2016 at 19:55
Tibeto-Logic discusses the #Tangut connection to #Padampa tibeto-logic.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-ta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 February 2016 at 22:14
3 painted Japanese inscriptions found on @RISDMuseum's 12th-century Dainichi Nyorai Buddha risdmuseum.org/manual/137_bud…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 6 February 2016 at 09:43
What's New in Unicode 9.0? updated to include Adlam & Newa babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/whats-… — now exactly 7,500 characters scheduled for #Unicode 9.0
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 6 February 2016 at 23:43
Draft proposal to encode four additional #Tangut characters in #Unicode babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/Tangut… @JerryYou517
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 7 February 2016 at 19:08
To celebrate the New Year I have converted "Today's Date in #Tangut" to Unicode characters babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Tangu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 7 February 2016 at 21:52
"New IsiBheqe SoHlamvu script could soon be recognised by the global #Unicode Consortium" mybroadband.co.za/news/science/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 7 February 2016 at 21:55
...but I can find no mention of the IsiBheqe SoHlamvu script in the Unicode document registry, let alone an encoding proposal for the script
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 7 February 2016 at 22:00
Learn how to read and write the IsiBheqe SoHlamvu script at isibheqe.org/ingcazo.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 February 2016 at 19:52
Right this moment I'm eating dumplings with chopsticks, but I feel absolutely no need to represent my meal with #Unicode #emoji ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 February 2016 at 19:53
... but I would really like to wish everyone a Happy New Year in #Unicode #Tangut !!!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 February 2016 at 20:41
See no Emoji, Hear no Emoji, Speak no Emoji ... twitter.com/CJKType/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 February 2016 at 22:35
18 years ago an agreement on encoding #Mongolian in #Unicode was reached std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/D… ... and today there is still no agreement !
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 March 2016 at 19:34
Draft proposal for three #Tangut glyph corrections babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/Tangut…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 March 2016 at 19:35
Draft proposal for standardized variation sequences for 178 #Tangut ideographs babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/Tangut…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 March 2016 at 19:38
Draft proposal to encode five additional #Tangut ideographs babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/Tangut…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 March 2016 at 16:18
BabelStone Han PUA updated with 119 characters used for Hakka Chinese in 19th-century Hong Kong babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 March 2016 at 16:21
BabelStone Han v. 8.0.4 released (many glyph corrections and improvements, and 190 additional CJK characters) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 7 March 2016 at 20:30
BabelStone Han PUA updated again, with 8 more Cantonese characters and one Cantonese place name babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 7 March 2016 at 20:33
My draft IRG submission for encoding CJK ideographs now includes 498 characters (and 300-400 in the pipeline) babelstone.co.uk/CJK/IRGDraft/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 March 2016 at 19:39
An open letter to Rupa Huq, MP, regarding official Parliamentary videos pigsonthewing.org.uk/open-letter-ru… by @pigsonthewing #Wikipedia
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 March 2016 at 22:09
Is there a double lozenge symbol in #Unicode ? @FakeUnicode (from 汉语方言大词典 @ken_lunde)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 March 2016 at 23:05
Example of the double lozenge character in use, indicating that the example refers to 2+ preceding dialects
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 16 March 2016 at 21:26
BabelStone Han PUA font in use for displaying unencoded characters in 《成都话方言词典》! twitter.com/mo_nigeria/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 20 March 2016 at 21:35
Latest version of BabelStone Han PUA released today covers 《亳州老君碑》 characters (PUA in red) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 21 March 2016 at 19:07
《〈亳州老君碑古字谱〉考释》 dao.ccnu.edu.cn/daodoc/down.as…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 March 2016 at 20:12
《佛頂心觀世音菩薩大陀羅尼經》上卷 #西夏文 twitter.com/idp_uk/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Wednesday, 23 March 2016 at 20:40
《𗢳𗵣𗤶𗯨𗙏𘝯𘋢𗥤𘜶𗁬𗓽𘆵𗖰𗚩》𗨁𘐳 #𗼇𘝞 twitter.com/idp_uk/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 March 2016 at 20:51
One day (not too far in the future I hope) this will be legible
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 March 2016 at 20:53
According to the new ISO Policy on Communication of Committee Work iso.org/iso/policy_on_… I can announce that ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 23 March 2016 at 20:54
... ISO/IEC 10646:2014 Amendment 2 (≈ Unicode 9.0) has passed its final ballot, and will soon be published ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 March 2016 at 20:59
... and when it is published it will be legitimate for me to tweet in #Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 March 2016 at 21:36
Digitization is great, but with no associated description or even title, these digitized images are of limited use if you do not read Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 24 March 2016 at 19:49
What this tweet should look like
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 March 2016 at 08:46
Just need better evidence than a cup and Wikipedia @CJKType twitter.com/Kei5_k/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 March 2016 at 12:14
Today's BabelStone Han PUA update adds 13 characters for Leizhou dialect 雷州话 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html @eisoch (still ~200 characters to add)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 March 2016 at 12:18
BabelStone Han PUA now has 3,456 as yet unencoded CJK characters; 580 are candidates for a future IRG submission babelstone.co.uk/CJK/IRGDraft/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 April 2016 at 20:53
It's nice when someone chooses BabelStone Han for typesetting rare Unicode CJK characters in three academic papers ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 April 2016 at 20:54
... Not so nice when the publisher asks me to remap all CJK B-E characters to the PUA because their s/w only supports UCS-2 #UnicodeFailure
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 April 2016 at 21:12
After 10 years and $1025 I have decided not to renew my Unicode membership—there are no benefits of membership and they don't need my money
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 April 2016 at 19:16
Welcome return to blogging by David Helliwell after 10 months hiatus oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/the… #oxford #bodleian
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 April 2016 at 19:17
Nice! twitter.com/idp_uk/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 April 2016 at 19:17
Very Nice!! twitter.com/idp_uk/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 April 2016 at 19:18
Very Very Nice!!! twitter.com/idp_uk/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 April 2016 at 21:19
"China's most important historical object [ever to be put under auction]" — really ?! (and what about provenance ?) twitter.com/CraigClunas/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 7 April 2016 at 18:39
Looks like Indonesia and Russia are more important to Microsoft than gay emoji users 👬 👭 #Unicode twitter.com/jim_beaming/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 9 April 2016 at 10:19
Glad to be corrected! twitter.com/windowsinsider…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 9 April 2016 at 14:20
It was OK (ish) in 2011 and 2013; have to see how things are when I'm in China later this year twitter.com/kendraschaefer…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 April 2016 at 18:31
I would second that, and nominate @FakeUnicode for this year's #Unicode Bulldog Award unicode.org/conference/bul… twitter.com/martineno/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 15 April 2016 at 21:21
Not an unreasonable supposition ... twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 April 2016 at 20:26
Would there any interest? Definitely! twitter.com/zenodotus/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 April 2016 at 11:10
I'm pretty sure you could sneak the Prince symbol into Unicode in this proposal unicode.org/L2/L2016/16080… without anyone noticing @FakeUnicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 April 2016 at 17:46
List of 556 Unicode characters set to be emojified unicode.org/L2/L2016/16088…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 April 2016 at 18:10
The new official unofficial web site for WG2 (the ISO mirror of Unicode) is now hosted by the Unicode Consortium unicode.org/wg2/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 April 2016 at 18:14
And the WG2 document register (which has a curious relationship to the Unicode document register) is here unicode.org/wg2/WG2-curdoc…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 April 2016 at 18:30
2nd century sculpture of Buddha footprints & religious symbols (shh, don't mention the 卐卐卐) bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 April 2016 at 19:12
See also UK Comment T4 to ISO/IEC 10646 CD2 ballot unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4713… p. 24 twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 April 2016 at 21:26
A new version of the Unicode Proposal Summary Form is released
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 4 May 2016 at 19:33
Orange Heart Emoji gets past the Unicode Emoji subcommittee unicode.org/L2/L2016/16124… —∵ we really don't have enough hearts ♡♥❤❥💓💔💕💖💗💘💞💟💙💚💛💜💝🖤
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 4 May 2016 at 19:42
Well, they added shark emoji as a metaphor for Unicode jumping the shark, so I think #dodoemoji would be appropriate twitter.com/hhpapazian/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 4 May 2016 at 21:50
I wonder what the Unicode heartless emoji would look like?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 May 2016 at 11:25
Unicode for Tuskless elephant, Garuda, Naga and Guinea Pig (?!) needed for Burmese astrology en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_z… twitter.com/qvarie/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 May 2016 at 19:57
Weird, even the Burmese Wikipedia calls ပူး < pūḥ> guinea pigs my.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%80%95… but they are in fact pika (鼠兔)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 May 2016 at 21:27
Proposal to Include Menstruation Characters (Femojis) unicode.org/L2/L2016/16126… #Unicode #Emoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 May 2016 at 21:32
Proposal for more winter activity emoji unicode.org/L2/L2016/16127… Sleigh (sled or sledge) and curling stone emoji 👍 #unicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 6 May 2016 at 18:48
I'm sure they mean Tangut! twitter.com/FakeUnicode/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Friday, 6 May 2016 at 21:34
Plan to stop encoding any Unicode emoji that will not be deployed by "at least one full Unicode member" unicode.org/L2/L2016/16128…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 6 May 2016 at 21:35
... proposal authored by Microsoft, Apple and Google representatives to Unicode Consortium
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 6 May 2016 at 21:41
Proposal for Unicode named sequences for Japanese voiced vowels unicode.org/L2/L2016/16133…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 May 2016 at 21:53
This week I am updating BabelPad and BabelMap to support Unicode 9.0 (by which I mean Tangut of course)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 May 2016 at 19:20
Now weakened to "major vendors would plan to include the proposed emoji character into very widely deployed fonts" unicode.org/L2/L2016/16128…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 May 2016 at 07:23
In other news the new emoji for Unicode was accepted as 🕴-ZWJ-🦈 (man in business suit levitating over a shark) twitter.com/jeremyburge/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 May 2016 at 07:26
Interestingly U+1F574 🕴 is annotated as "= jump" in the Unicode code charts unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 May 2016 at 18:48
Small script, big proposal (50MB) ! twitter.com/srl295/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 May 2016 at 19:35
BBC reports that "Google designs emojis depicting professional women" bbc.co.uk/news/technolog… —even mentions Unicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 May 2016 at 20:32
Does anyone use copyleft symbol nowadays? Creative Commons symbols would be more useful creativecommons.org/about/download… twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 May 2016 at 20:59
Their skin color can be specified with Emoji Modifier characters but there is still no Unicode solution for redheads twitter.com/wordsmeet/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 May 2016 at 21:56
I wonder if 💜 (purple heart) is indigo or violet? twitter.com/alolita/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 May 2016 at 22:10
Need some work on those names twitter.com/Emojipedia/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 May 2016 at 22:51
Proposal document already updated to reflect new names unicode.org/L2/L2016/16127… —need to add sledge to the annotation
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 May 2016 at 18:26
As adoptions are permanent they should be dated so that in 10 or 100 years time we know when each started @unicode twitter.com/FakeUnicode/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 May 2016 at 18:37
What Google shows me when I search for Orange Heart Emoji @pauldhunt @alolita
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 May 2016 at 19:34
I said we could have got the Prince symbol into Unicode by sneaking it into this proposal! twitter.com/alolita/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 May 2016 at 21:09
she-moji.com twitter.com/alolita/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 May 2016 at 00:05
Not approved, shall we say. The feedback I got was that ESC wanted more usage data to show how popular mammoths are twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 May 2016 at 10:51
#mammothemoji twitter.com/dominik_schwar…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 May 2016 at 19:14
Or maybe not! Please let the Unicode Consortium know if you want a range of dinosaur emoji unicode.org/reporting.html twitter.com/alyssabereznak…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 May 2016 at 21:01
Yay! That takes my #UTC147 count up to six! twitter.com/alolita/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 May 2016 at 21:05
Yay! Joins ㄭㆸㆹㆺ and unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4695… as the 6th bopomofo character that I have successfully proposed. twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 May 2016 at 21:06
Indeed! #🤴 twitter.com/roozbehp/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 May 2016 at 21:37
BabelMap Online for Unicode 9.0 beta final is now available babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm… (featuring the #Marchen script)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 May 2016 at 21:48
Unicode 9.0 beta slideshow now available babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/unicod… (128,172 characters in 213 minutes 36 seconds)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 May 2016 at 11:18
好! twitter.com/andreschappo/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 May 2016 at 19:31
If only the dinosaurs were here to enjoy the moment ... twitter.com/dorkrawk/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 May 2016 at 19:39
Case for encoding VULGAR FRACTION ONE ONETH ?? twitter.com/TiroTypeworks/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 May 2016 at 17:41
Only if you tell the Unicode Consortium that you support a set of dinosaur emoji unicode.org/reporting.html twitter.com/ADuffie26/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 May 2016 at 19:58
UK response to comments on UK submission for IRG Working Set 2015 (CJK Ext. G) appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg46… @CJKType #Unicode #CJK #IRG
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 May 2016 at 18:28
Lack of component used in 島梟裊鳬鳬 is a real problem which needs to be addressed @CJKType twitter.com/fasihsignal/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 May 2016 at 18:31
Two Issues Regarding UAX #38 and IRG Sources unicode.org/L2/L2016/16166… #IRG #CJK #Unicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 May 2016 at 19:24
Failing to get my Unicode 9.0 Marchen font to render correctly anywhere outside VOLT
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 May 2016 at 19:27
What about the Universal Shaping Engine? Does it need to be updated for Unicode 9.0 before my font will work in W10? @TiroTypeworks
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 May 2016 at 19:52
@CJKType @fasihsignal Other characters with this component: 𠒎𠝷𣁓𤀴𨕙𨖂𪀋𪂧𪆔
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 20 May 2016 at 22:09
Draft minutes for #UTC147 unicode.org/L2/L2016/16121…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 21 May 2016 at 09:22
UTC minutes are frustratingly terse, and give no hint of the discussion involved in the issues ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 May 2016 at 09:23
... On the other hand,WG2 minutes (e.g. unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4603… at Colombo 2014) give the detailed cut and thrust of discussion and argument
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 22 May 2016 at 20:34
"Unicode should ... Collect random things"—What do you think we have been doing for the last 25 years?! twitter.com/letterror/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 22 May 2016 at 20:36
128,019 random things in Unicode 9.0.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 22 May 2016 at 20:37
It's only natural that people like me who compulsively collect Han and Tangut characters will want to collect dinosaur emoji as well!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 May 2016 at 18:09
Oops, not an emoji! @jeremyburge @FakeUnicode twitter.com/botmoji/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 May 2016 at 19:11
Disposition of comments on CJK Ext. F (for Unicode 10) appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg46… by my count 25 removed (unified) & 13 added (disunified) #IRG
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 May 2016 at 19:42
Corrections for misplaced Miao glyphs (𖼬𖼭𖼮𖼯𖼰𖼲) 4 years after Miao was encoded in Unicode is a little embarrassing
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 11:18
Revised (and probably final) code chart for CJK Ext. F for Unicode 10 appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg46… (7,473 characters in range 2CEB0..2EBE0)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 21:13
I'm still mulling over the implications of the decisions on CJK Ext. G made at this week's IRG meeting appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg46… @CJKType
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 May 2016 at 21:38
Disputa en Unicode eldiario.es/hojaderouter/i… Great picture (hint, I took it — thanks for the credit cc-by-sa-3.0 !)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 May 2016 at 21:42
#Tangut calligraphy: U+18250 𘉐 "achievement" (idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…) @idp_uk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 June 2016 at 11:44
Nearly 10 years, and Tangut's not finished yet babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/TangutD… twitter.com/ectowombat/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 June 2016 at 17:13
Revised preproposal to encode the Khitan Small Script unicode.org/L2/L2016/16113… (not funded by any Unicode characters)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 5 June 2016 at 11:59
I wish Unicode had tested new layout of the Character Sponsors page on all major browsers unicode.org/consortium/ado…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 5 June 2016 at 16:03
"Choose the gold level and you or your business will be the sole gold level sponsor for your character" #Unicode 🐺🐺
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 June 2016 at 12:14
All fixed now! unicode.org/consortium/ado… #UnicodeAdoptACharacter
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 June 2016 at 12:15
All fixed now! 🐺 unicode.org/consortium/ado… #UnicodeAdoptACharacter
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 June 2016 at 18:59
Buckquoy spindle whorl ogham inscription shows a "serifed A" or "Hammerhead A" ogham letter @Evertype twitter.com/grungeviking/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 June 2016 at 19:00
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 June 2016 at 19:23
And the @Eagles should adopt #Unicode9 emoji U+1F985 EAGLE 🦅 unicode.org/consortium/ado… twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 June 2016 at 19:24
Unicode 9.0 characters now open for adoption unicode.org/consortium/ado… @FakeUnicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 8 June 2016 at 19:28
And @CincinnatiZoo should adopt #Unicode9 emoji U+1F98D GORILLA 🦍 unicode.org/consortium/ado…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 June 2016 at 19:31
But I have no idea what #Unicode9 character the @NRA should adopt
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 June 2016 at 20:16
My "Musical Notation for Flute in Tangut Manuscripts" (2012) is now available online at orientalstudies.ru/eng/index.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 June 2016 at 18:16
My updated list of 7,473 characters in CJK Ext. F for inclusion Unicode 10.0 babelstone.co.uk/CJK/CJK-F/inde… (code points not yet stable)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 June 2016 at 18:25
My draft BabelStone Han font covers 517 of the 7,473 CJK Ext. F characters (only 971 characters from 古壮字字典 to add)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 June 2016 at 20:01
Just added U+1F6D1 🛑 Octagonal Sign to my BabelStone Han font in preparation for the upcoming Unicode 9.0 release
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 June 2016 at 18:53
#Tangut calligraphy #2: U+17FE2 𗿢 "imperial edict" (eap.bl.uk/database/large…) @idp_uk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 June 2016 at 21:47
BabelStone Han v. 9.0.0 released, adding 661 CJK unified ideographs, 124 PUA ideographs, and 63 other characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 June 2016 at 21:49
@BabelStone BabelStone Han font includes 32 characters added in Unicode 9.0
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 June 2016 at 22:14
"How many Unicode characters are there?" updated for Unicode 9.0 and at new home babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/HowMan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 June 2016 at 22:16
Unicode roadmaps have now been updated for Unicode 9.0 unicode.org/roadmaps/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 June 2016 at 22:38
Which Unicode scripts have the most characters? Han (CJK) easily wins, but Tangut comes in third place after Hangul.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 June 2016 at 11:16
List of 38,822 characters in BabelStone Han font version 9.0.0 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/BabelSto…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 25 June 2016 at 20:25
BabelMap online is back online after being updated for Unicode 9.0 and some enhancements babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 25 June 2016 at 20:38
My "What Unicode character is this?" tool has been updated and improved for Unicode 9.0 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/whatis…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 26 June 2016 at 15:07
Just taken 4.5 hours to compile the release build of BabelMap after adding additional Tangut, CJK and Hieroglyphic data.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 27 June 2016 at 20:20
At least fruit and veg growers understand the purpose of emoji 🥑 🥝 🍐 🍓 twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 27 June 2016 at 20:25
Wot, no shovel or trowel emoji! twitter.com/SarahEBond/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 July 2016 at 06:58
That falſe and ſenſeleſs Way of tranſcribing "Unſound" as "Unfound" @LanguageLog twitter.com/LanguageLog/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 July 2016 at 00:21
BabelMap v. 9.0.0.0 supporting #Unicode9 has now been released babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 July 2016 at 00:21
BabelPad v. 9.0.0.0 supporting #Unicode9 has now been released babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 July 2016 at 00:35
New to BabelMap and BabelPad v. 9: Emoji Data tool which lists details of all Unicode emoji singletons and sequences
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 July 2016 at 00:42
New to BabelMap and BabelPad v. 9: Tangut Character Reference Lookup — lookup Tangut characters by reference codes
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 July 2016 at 00:46
New to BabelMap and BabelPad v. 9: Show extended data for any Tangut character (Ctrl+Shift+I in BabelPad)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 July 2016 at 00:48
New to BabelMap and BabelPad v. 9: Show extended data for any Han (CJKV) character (Ctrl+Shift+I in BabelPad)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 July 2016 at 01:05
New to BabelMap and BabelPad v. 9: Show Gardiner's glyph descriptions for Egyptian hieroglyphs (Ctrl+F9 in BabelMap)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 July 2016 at 19:18
BabelStone Han PUA v. 1.038 just released with new character at F30A: 党在国上——那当然！ babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 July 2016 at 19:19
Background @LanguageLog languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=26587 "I don't think it will take long for someone to create a typable form of the character ..."
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 10 July 2016 at 16:40
Does anyone know how to report errors in the Universal Shaping Engine? (@TiroTypeworks)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 July 2016 at 21:46
Wow, the most completely wrong definition of tofu I've ever seen. twitter.com/watchpocket/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 July 2016 at 20:15
Picture source: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yang… twitter.com/_EricHu/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 July 2016 at 20:21
You can now adopt all Unicode 9.0 characters, including Tangut and Marchen unicode.org/consortium/ado… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 July 2016 at 20:26
... but wouldn't your money be better spent sponsoring someone to develop free fonts for Tangut and Marchen?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 July 2016 at 19:49
Proposal to encode 4 half star symbols in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16186…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 July 2016 at 19:53
Revised proposal to encode four symbols for Go in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16185…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 July 2016 at 19:54
(Circled numbers will be is separate forthcoming proposal)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 July 2016 at 19:57
Concrete proposal to solve the problem of no #ENG #SCO #WAL #NIR flag emoji in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16184…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 July 2016 at 23:06
Where are all the hashflags now? Unlike Unicode flag emoji, the twitter hashflags softly and suddenly vanish away.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 July 2016 at 18:54
"Google's emoji for working women get thumbs up from Unicode" engadget.com/2016/07/14/uni… (approved by the shadowy emoji subcommittee that is)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 July 2016 at 19:04
Google Gender Emoji sequences proposals just posted to the Unicode document registry unicode.org/L2/L-curdoc.htm
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 July 2016 at 20:57
This is just wrong, it's not the way Unicode is meant to work
👩 + 🔬 = fem scientist
👩 + 💻 = fem technologist
👷 + ♂ =male construction worker
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 July 2016 at 21:51
Here's a fun game to play:
Who am I?
👩 + 🔬 + 🐋
I'm a whale biologist!
(not to be confused with 🐋 + 🔬 + 👩 which is a 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑒 biologist)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 July 2016 at 23:00
For just $10K Ford Motor Company grabs all the Unicode characters named automobile (sucks to be Toyota)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 15 July 2016 at 22:22
Revised Hentaigana proposal unicode.org/L2/L2016/16188… #変体仮名
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 July 2016 at 07:53
Do text messages still not support writing Turkish in 2016? @FakeUnicode twitter.com/AlevScott/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 July 2016 at 09:11
Source for St Kew Ogham stone: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_K… twitter.com/PeritiaEditors…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 July 2016 at 21:53
If Salt Shaker emoji, then why not sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar dispensers (and five kinds of pepper grinders)? twitter.com/qvarie/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 July 2016 at 22:16
"If the Unicode Consortium wants proper gender representation in emoji, it needs to be able to represent pregnant people who aren't female"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 July 2016 at 22:17
—Charlotte Buff unicode.org/L2/L2016/16193…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 July 2016 at 19:15
Please tell me they didn't pay someone for this cover? twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 July 2016 at 22:44
Revised proposal to encode the Mandombe script in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16077…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 July 2016 at 22:47
And a revised proposal for Pitman shorthand unicode.org/L2/L2016/16196… (I'm not interested in Pitman, but anything to get away from emoji!)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 July 2016 at 23:33
Sauna emoji proposed by Finland unicode.org/L2/L2016/16197…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 July 2016 at 18:24
It must just be me, but what does this cover design have to with Unicode? twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 July 2016 at 18:34
Ok, they really did blog.unicode.org/2016/07/unicod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 July 2016 at 21:10
Revised proposal to encode the Cypro-Minoan script by @Evertype unicode.org/L2/L2016/16179…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 July 2016 at 21:51
Proposal for a Flying Saucer emoji by @vXBaKeRXv unicode.org/L2/L2016/16206…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 July 2016 at 21:54
Encoding the Flying Saucer emoji will fix the inappropriate unification of Alien and UFO in pre-Unicode emoji sets twitter.com/FakeUnicode/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 July 2016 at 22:27
UTC and UK responses & reviews for IRGN2155 (the future CJK Ext. G) now available at appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg47… (encoding doesn't just happen)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 July 2016 at 08:04
Some companies are beginning to release how adopting Unicode emoji can help with their branding (more will follow) twitter.com/berrycongress/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 July 2016 at 10:43
Excel spreadsheet for proposed set of Hentaigana characters for Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16188… #変体仮名
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 July 2016 at 10:49
Why do we have green, blue and orange book emoji 📗📘📙 but no little red book emoji?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 July 2016 at 18:26
Bitcoin was never scheduled for Unicode 9.0, but will be in 10.0 in June 2017 (see 20BF in unicode.org/L2/L2016/16170…) twitter.com/bitcoin_ita/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 July 2016 at 19:16
Today I visited an underground concrete storeroom at a secret location to see the famous #Silchester #Ogham stone
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 July 2016 at 21:43
Public feedback for forthcoming UTC meeting unicode.org/L2/L2016/16205… (including two on need for multiple #dinosaur #emoji)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 July 2016 at 21:45
Why ZWJ emoji sequences may not be such a great idea unicode.org/L2/L2016/16208…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 July 2016 at 19:42
Unicode Regional Indicator sequences for Eurozone (EZ) and United Nations (UN) coming soon unicode.org/L2/L2016/16207… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 26 July 2016 at 19:44
... "Macroregion region sequences generally do not have official flags, with the exception of the UN and EU" unicode.org/draft/reports/… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 July 2016 at 19:46
... but there are several Eurozone flag designs out there, so no reason not to implement EZ as a flag as well
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 27 July 2016 at 21:42
Should I add 《香港新政字》 characters to my BabelStone Han (PUA) font?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 27 July 2016 at 22:05
如果有香港朋友能把《香港新政字》買給我，我就加入所有創造的新字。
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 July 2016 at 21:32
The Khitan Large Script genitive particle *-un in regular, cursive and seal script calligraphies
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 July 2016 at 22:45
Context for my earlier piece of Khitan Large Script cursive calligraphy: "中京之..." (... of the middle capital)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 July 2016 at 22:46
From the Khitan Large Script manuscript codex Nova N 176 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_N_176
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 August 2016 at 07:45
Additional Unicode ZWJ sequences for Professions unicode.org/L2/L2016/16221… (I want paleontologist & linguist as well)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 August 2016 at 11:32
Unicode will eventually have to implement all of ISCO-08 ilo.org/public/english… as emoji : 7,018 occupations from Abbess/Abbot to Zoologist
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 August 2016 at 21:28
Interesting discussion about defining Unicode emoji flags for England, Scotland, Wales & NI unicode.org/L2/L2016/16184… at #UTC148 just now ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 August 2016 at 22:07
Plan to move Canadian Aboriginal, Miao, Mongolian, Tifinagh, Yi from Aspirational Use Scripts to Limited Use Scripts unicode.org/L2/L2016/16222…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 August 2016 at 22:08
I think that at least Mongolian should move the other way, to Recommended Scripts unicode.org/reports/tr31/#…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 August 2016 at 22:51
Emoji were accepted into Unicode to allow for the interchange of data between Japanese mobile phone carriers and the internet ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 2 August 2016 at 22:52
... PISTOL 🔫 was originally intended to indicate action genre movies アクション(ピストル) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 August 2016 at 22:53
... but now for Apple users PISTOL 🔫 would better indicate children's movies ... is this interchange of data or data corruption?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 August 2016 at 18:55
🏂, 🏇, 🏌, 🤼 and other Unicode emoji characters (but not 🤺) set to become skin tone modifiable unicode.org/L2/L2016/16228…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 August 2016 at 18:59
(following feedback by me on the issue unicode.org/L2/L2016/16205…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 August 2016 at 19:04
Unicode half stars: my proposal dated 11 July unicode.org/L2/L2016/16186…; Ken Shirriff's proposal dated today unicode.org/L2/L2016/16230…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 August 2016 at 19:08
I claim credit for this one; it was missing in the original Chinese proposal, and was added at my suggestion twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 August 2016 at 21:21
4 symbols for Go notation twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 August 2016 at 21:44
Testing my Flags font with RI sequences & Tag sequences babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/FlagsTes… @srl295 @mark_e_davis @jeremyburge
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 August 2016 at 22:26
Proposal of this character dates back 7 years to April 2009 WG2 meeting in Dublin std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 August 2016 at 12:11
.@jeremyburge urges Apple to rethink Unicode gun emoji change bbc.co.uk/news/technolog…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 August 2016 at 14:55
BBC report on proposal for Unicode emoji flags for Wales, England and Scotland by @jeremyburge bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-… (with link to my doc)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 August 2016 at 20:41
@srl295 @mark_e_davis @jeremyburge I forgot to compile the font — tag sequences actually work in Firefox only
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 August 2016 at 21:49
Proposal for Tag Extended Regional Indicator Sequences (TERIS) unicode.org/L2/L2016/16234… by @mark_e_davis
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 5 August 2016 at 21:54
Works with Firefox on W10 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/FlagsTes… @mark_e_davis @srl295 @jeremyburge ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 August 2016 at 21:57
... but IE fallback is possibly problematic @mark_e_davis @srl295 @jeremyburge
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 7 August 2016 at 08:51
The history of 🔫 and 🔪 emoji goes way back before Unicode twitter.com/mwichary/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 7 August 2016 at 08:56
You can tell they're proto-emoji because they only have one camel 🐫 (but no 🐪) twitter.com/mwichary/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 August 2016 at 22:40
Seems reasonable. Unicode already has one 🖕, two 🖔 and four 🖖 finger emoji, so why not a three finger emoji as well? twitter.com/worldscouting/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 14 August 2016 at 18:00
On Windows 10, Phags-pa Unicode variation sequences completely broken, and candrabindu sometimes shows dotted circle
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 14 August 2016 at 18:05
What the same Phags-pa text correctly looks like on Windows 7 (Variation sequence OK and no dotted circle on U+A873)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 September 2016 at 23:23
Yinchuan Day 2: Ningxia Musuem and Chengtian Temple Pagoda with @cosmicore (cloudy all day)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 September 2016 at 18:10
Yinchuan Day 3: 108 stupas at Qingtongxia (still cloudy, and raining on and off)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 4 September 2016 at 19:08
Clay elephant found at the 108 Stupas in Ningxia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundr…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 4 September 2016 at 20:40
Yinchuan Day 5: The obligatory conference photo (with @Evertype & @cosmicore & @JerryYou517) xww.nun.edu.cn/2061/54299.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 5 September 2016 at 19:23
Yinchuan Day 6: Still raining, and flooding cuts short our excursion to the Western Xia tombs and beyond
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 6 September 2016 at 19:38
Day 7: Bus from Yinchuan to Bayanhot (阿拉善左旗) with @cosmicore (still cloudy and raining lightly)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 6 September 2016 at 21:52
Proposal for a Unicode climber emoji unicode.org/L2/L2016/16247…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 6 September 2016 at 21:55
Skateboarding will also be in the 2020 Olympics, so someone needs to submit a Unicode skateboarding emoji proposal as well
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 6 September 2016 at 22:16
Summary of Meeting on Khitan Scripts, 20 August 2016 (Yinchuan, China) unicode.org/L2/L2016/16243…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 6 September 2016 at 22:19
Summary of Meeting on Khitan Scripts, 22 August 2016 (Yinchuan, China) unicode.org/L2/L2016/16244…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 September 2016 at 18:34
Day 8: 10+ hour bus from Bayanhot (阿拉善左旗) to Dalaihob (额济纳旗) around the edge of the Gobi desert (still cloudy)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 September 2016 at 18:37
Day 8: Lunch break at Wuliji (乌力吉苏木) — colourful school and public toilets with emoji gender signs
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 20:50
An unnamed Tibetan city, as imagined by an English illustrator of Marco Polo's Travels, c. 1400 twitter.com/PiersatPenn/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 20:51
"Ci devise le C et XIIII chapitre de la province de Tebet, comment les genz qui y demeurent sont vestuz de piaux des bestes sauvages, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 20:51
... dont il y a grant plenté, et comment il les enchassent par feu."
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 20:58
Day 9: We reach the dead city of Kharakhoto in a minor sandstorm that clouds the cloudless sky (but soon clears).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 21:05
Day 9: Stupas on the northwest corner of the walls of Kharakhoto.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 21:07
Day 9: Remains of the Western Xia stupa inside the city of Kharakhoto.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 21:13
Day 9: Islamic tomb ("Gumbaz") outside the walls of Kharakhoto.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 21:15
Day 9: The carefully laid-out path around Kharakhoto to the East Gate is blocked by a huge sand dune.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 21:18
Day 9: Pottery shards are scattered everywhere within the city of Kharakhoto.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 21:20
Day 9: The base of the "celebrated suburgan" where Kozlov found a huge hoard of Tangut texts and artefacts in 1908.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 21:22
What the suburgan (stupa) looked like during its process of destruction by Kozlov.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 21:38
Day 9: Datong Fort (大同城), several km west of Kharakhoto.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 21:39
"The ruins of the citadel of Altan-khoto, where, according to legend, was once situated the cavalry guard detachment of Khara-khoto"—Kozlov
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 21:44
Day 9: The Red Fort (红城), apparently dating back to the Han dynasty, near the start of the road to Kharakhoto.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 September 2016 at 22:41
Today I was invited to talk about dinosaurs and emoji at #Emojicon (the first ever conference on #emoji) unicode.org/L2/L2016/16103…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 September 2016 at 18:05
Day 10: In a change of plan, we travel to Hohhot by overnight train (16 hours), where we have a 6-hour stopover.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 September 2016 at 18:26
Day 10: We visit the Nationalities Museum of IMU (内蒙古大学民族博物馆) which has the largest collection of Khitan epitaphs
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 September 2016 at 18:52
Day 10: No Khitan epitaphs on display; but we find 3 unpublished Khitan Large Script epitaphs leaning against a wall
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 September 2016 at 18:55
The epitaphs are unpublished and unknown to us; but they look very fishy, and we are not convinced that they are genuine.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 September 2016 at 21:44
Day 10: After the museum we have time for book shopping, and I bought this important addition to my Tangut library.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 09:57
They look like Ichthys symbols to me. twitter.com/rosieshawpaint…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 17:56
New version of BabelStone Han PUA with 61 additional characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html @mo_nigeria @eisoch
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 18:36
Day 11: Night train from Hohhot to Lindong (巴林左旗), site of Liao Upper Capital, and we head for Liao Shangjing museum
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 18:40
Day 11: No Khitan epitaphs on public display here either, but several fragments of Khitan Large Script inscriptions.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 18:41
...the stones wrapped in rubbing paper to make inscription clear.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 18:49
Day 11: Next we go to the private Khitan Museum, but it is closed. However, we manage to gain entrance anyway.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 18:57
Day 11: Downstairs are piles of boxes and stones and stuff, including a *fantasy* Khitan Small Script dharani pillar
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 19:04
Day 11: Upstairs the gallery is ready for opening, and we see our first Khitan (Small Script) epitaph of the trip
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 19:16
Day 11: At the back of the public museum is an external gallery of dharani pillars that doubles as a bike shed
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 19:30
Day 11: At midday we go to the Liao pagoda south of town, and the clear sky turns to pouring rain and lightning.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 19:33
Day 11: By the time we get to the small (possibly Liao) North Pagoda in town the weather is clearing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 19:39
Day 11: In the afternoon we explore the vast empty site of the Upper Capital, where the annual dig is under way ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 19:41
... We are lucky enough to be shown around the dig (at the south gate of the palace) by the archaeologist in charge.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 19:48
Day 11: Scattered across the Upper Capital site are pieces of Liao or Jin masonry (note the distinctive ridges)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 September 2016 at 19:48
Day 11: View of the South Pagoda from the Upper Capital site.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 11 September 2016 at 12:47
Day 12: Early in the morning, before catching the train back to Hohhot, I head back to the Liao dynasty South Pagoda
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 11 September 2016 at 13:09
Sign at Lindong station — No Witches ?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 11 September 2016 at 13:23
Day 12: Train police and swat team investigate a crime that happened right under the chair I was sitting on.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 12 September 2016 at 18:56
Day 13: An uneventful train journey from Hohhot to Yinchuan—giant and very tasteful statue of Genghis Khan at Wuhai.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 12 September 2016 at 19:10
If you have €500,000.00 spare (inlibris.at/?s=Mao) twitter.com/CraigClunas/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 12 September 2016 at 23:23
Unicode document register just updated with revised ½-stars proposal and proposal for Chinese Chess symbols unicode.org/L2/L-curdoc.htm
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 22:23
Day 14: Western Xia Imperial Tomb No. 3 (believed to be for Li Yuanhao, first Emperor of Western Xia)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 22:33
Day 14: Western Xia Tombs 1 and 2, believed to be for Li Jiqian and Li Deming (father and grandfather of Li Yuanhao)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 22:39
(I mean grandfather and father!) Here's a close-up of Tombs 1 (Li Jiqian) and 2 (Li Deming).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 23:11
As we approach the Twin Pagodas at Baiskou I begin to appreciate the enormity of last week's flash floods.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 23:15
Day 14: The twin Western Xia pagodas of Baisikou (拜寺口双塔).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 23:18
Day 14: The east pagoda.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 23:21
Day 14: The west pagoda.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 23:25
Detail of the west pagoda.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 23:36
Day 14:The remains of the Western Xia Basigou Square Pagoda 拜寺沟方塔 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baisigou_…).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 23:41
Day 14: The Western Xia Hongfo Pagoda (宏佛塔), the final view of these fourteen days in Ningxia and Inner Mongolia.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 September 2016 at 23:53
One of several statues of Arhats discovered in a room in the peak of the pagoda during renovations in 1990.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 September 2016 at 19:27
Final proposal to encode the Khitan Small Script unicode.org/L2/L2016/16245… by @Evertype and @cosmicore (I doubt it will be the final proposal)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 September 2016 at 19:31
Proposal to encode 348 circled and negative circled numbers unicode.org/L2/L2016/16256… — my 2nd attempt, with double the evidence.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 20 September 2016 at 22:28
Not so rare, but still nice to have, Grube's 1896 Jurchen dictionary "Die Sprache und Schrift der Jučen" @cosmicore
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 20 September 2016 at 22:43
Jin Qizong's 1984 Dictionary of Jurchen 女真文辞典 which I bought in Beijing when it was newly published @cosmicore
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 24 September 2016 at 17:30
Today's acquisition for my Tangut library, Bonaparte's 1895 "Documents de l'époque mongole des XIIIe et XIVe siècles" @cosmicore @jerryyou
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 24 September 2016 at 17:32
Plates I, II, III, IV
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 24 September 2016 at 17:33
Plates V, VI, VII, VIII
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 24 September 2016 at 17:35
Plates XII, XIII
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 24 September 2016 at 18:34
Went to British Museum today, and pleased to see the Fardel Ogham stone is now on display (used to be in storage, and 1st time I've seen it)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 25 September 2016 at 13:48
Newly discovered fragments of Khitan large script written on the wall of a tomb in Inner Mongolia sssc.cn/a/20160922/147… twitter.com/JerryYou517/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 25 September 2016 at 21:41
Epitaph for Hudujin Shenmi 胡睹堇審密 dated 1091.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 25 September 2016 at 21:50
I have now seen and photographed all certain examples of ogham stones found in England (including Silchester stone) babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/ogham-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 25 September 2016 at 22:59
Now all we have to do is work out what it means! twitter.com/cosmicore/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 30 September 2016 at 19:47
Highlights of this week's #WG2_65 meeting in San Jose (see unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4772… and code chart at unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4770…) #Unicode :
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 30 September 2016 at 19:48
1) 2 half-star symbols and 2 half-filled star symbols accepted for encoding @kenshirriff
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 30 September 2016 at 19:50
2) My proposal for 14 Xiangqi symbols rejected in favour of 30 circled and negative circled Chinese characters unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4766…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 30 September 2016 at 19:55
3) Khitan Small Script accepted for encoding (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4768…) but my simple model for cluster-forming replaced by hideous model ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 30 September 2016 at 19:57
... which requires n-1 format characters to represent cluster of n characters (e.g. 7 format characters for the largest 8-character cluster)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 30 September 2016 at 20:01
4) 285 Hentaigana characters accepted for encoding (254 in existing Kana Supplement block, and 31 in a new Kana Extended-A block)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 30 September 2016 at 20:08
Seem to be greatly down in numbers since Japan last year and Sri Lanka 2014 (std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/d…) twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 30 September 2016 at 20:30
As I stated elsewhere, either they were unbelievably lucky, or 10% of Roman London were Asian, or their methodology is flawed. twitter.com/waymarksblog/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 1 October 2016 at 19:24
How do you implement Western Tally Marks 2 through 4 in a fixed width font? @ken_lunde @CJKType unicode.org/L2/L2016/16065…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 3 October 2016 at 22:48
I often get confused with Batman righto.com/2016/10/inspir… 🦇🕴
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 4 October 2016 at 19:49
V. Zaytsev & Chung-pui Tai, Re-examination of the Tangut Fragment Or. 12380/3495 academia.edu/28898931/Zayts…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 5 October 2016 at 20:39
Pie emoji (unicode.org/L2/L2016/16272…) and Coconut emoji (unicode.org/L2/L2016/16273…) accepted by Unicode Emoji Subcommittee
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 5 October 2016 at 22:45
I gave the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee 25 pages of twitter quotes for my Ostrich emoji proposal (babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/Ostric…) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 5 October 2016 at 22:47
... and the feedback was omit the twitter quotes and give us Google Trends and Instagram statics — which I think are totally irrelevant
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 6 October 2016 at 11:20
I don't know why everyone's so happy about Unicode Pie Emoji—once it is implemented everyone will complain that it is the WRONG KIND OF PIE!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 6 October 2016 at 18:35
That's simply not true: "Noto Sans CJK covers a little under 30K of the 80K CJK Unified Ideographs in Unicode" github.com/googlei18n/not… twitter.com/jes_sherborne/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 October 2016 at 11:45
Google Noto font coverage has jumped from 110,000+ to "hundreds of thousands of characters" monotype.com/resources/case… (actually about 64,000)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 October 2016 at 11:49
Mermaid emoji gets the thumbs up from Unicode Emoji Subcommittee unicode.org/L2/L2016/16274… — presumably as ZWJ sequences: 🐟👩 🐟👨 🐟👧 🐟👦
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 October 2016 at 11:53
Almond emoji gets the thumbs up from the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee unicode.org/L2/L2016/16275… — what about walnuts, hazelnuts and pistachios?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 October 2016 at 18:05
My proposed Stork carrying Baby emoji babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/StorkE… may be a candidate for representation as <STORK ZWJ BABY>
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 October 2016 at 18:11
I guess the Unicode Pie emoji could work if Pork Pie is <PIE ZWJ PIG> and Apple Pie is <PIE ZWJ APPLE> except there is no APPLE EMOJI ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 October 2016 at 18:13
... only RED APPLE 🍎 and GREEN APPLE 🍏 so you will have to specify whether your apple pie is made from red apples or green apples!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 October 2016 at 18:55
My 𝖀𝖓𝖎𝖈𝖔𝖉𝖊 𝕋𝕖𝕩𝕥 𝙎𝙩𝙮𝙡𝙚𝙧 tool babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/text.h… (certified tongue-in-cheek)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 October 2016 at 10:00
I wonder how LessonOne.ppt, LessonTwo.ppt, LessonThree.ppt, LessonFour.ppt, LessonFive.ppt, LessonSix.ppt ... are meant to sort? twitter.com/m13253/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 10 October 2016 at 22:47
Wikipedia article seems to be better information on Noto fonts than the Google developers blog twitter.com/alolita/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 18 October 2016 at 21:07
Proposal to encode Creative Commons license and public domain icons in the Unicode Standard unicode.org/L2/L2016/16283…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 21 October 2016 at 11:02
A Chinese archaeologist's lament (ccrnews.com.cn/index.php/Zhua…):
我多么希望，有一座古墓
从来，没有被盗掘过
我们站着
看着自己的考古工地
墓很多，
但每一座都被盗了
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 23 October 2016 at 21:14
BabelStone Han v. 9.0.1 released (1,041 additional CJK unified ideographs, now 31,289 in total) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 October 2016 at 17:53
Asking for a "dinosaur emoji" in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16289… is like asking for an "animal emoji" or a "fruit emoji"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 27 October 2016 at 19:56
Emoji Subcommittee recommend four animal emoji for inclusion in Unicode 10.0: Giraffe, Sauropod, Zebra, Hedgehog unicode.org/L2/L2016/16295…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 27 October 2016 at 22:03
Brain emoji unicode.org/L2/L2016/16299… — why?!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 28 October 2016 at 11:37
Cricket (insect) emoji unicode.org/L2/L2016/16300… — why is this more important than Mammoth, Dodo or Raptor emoji?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 28 October 2016 at 19:12
Proposal for 11 fantasy emoji—Fairy, Vampire, Zombie, Mermaid, Witch, Elf, Griffin, Wizard, Pegasus, Djinn, Werewolf unicode.org/L2/L2016/16304…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 October 2016 at 10:21
"False teeth and bad back emojis could soon be in use after being sent off [to Unicode] for official approval" bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 November 2016 at 19:17
36 emoji faces proposed for Unicode 10.0 unicode.org/L2/L2016/16313…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 November 2016 at 19:22
14 additional food emoji proposed for Unicode 10.0 –Pie, Pretzel, Sandwich, Hummus, Coconut, Bagel, Cereal, Steak... unicode.org/L2/L2016/16316…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 November 2016 at 19:29
Proposal for gender inclusive emoji representation in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16317… by @pauldhunt
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 November 2016 at 19:32
Proposal to encode ten color swatch emoji characters by @pauldhunt unicode.org/L2/L2016/16318… – BLACK HEART 🖤 with RED swatch anyone?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 November 2016 at 19:39
Proposal for ten additional hand gesture symbols for Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16308… – seems that Chinese hand numbers 6-10 are also needed
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 November 2016 at 22:25
The future is now. twitter.com/wrenpile/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 November 2016 at 20:18
Fragment of the 1,000 Buddha Names of the Present 現在賢劫千佛名經:
𗢰𘓩𘞙… 南無利益佛 — Namo Buddha of Benefit
𗢰𘓩𗯨… 南無世月佛 — Namo Buddha of the World Moon twitter.com/vaniavassis/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 November 2016 at 10:10
Unicode Emoji Subcommittee Terminology and Process unicode.org/L2/L2016/16337… — the five-stage process to emojidom
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 November 2016 at 10:17
Discussion of Cluster Formation in Unicode Khitan Small Script unicode.org/L2/L2016/16296… — this is the big point of contention with the UTC
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 November 2016 at 11:17
New proposal to encode Klingon pIqaD alphabet in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16329… — hard to argue against it given recent Unicode additions
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 November 2016 at 11:51
Apple & Google belatedly oppose racially segregated emoji wrestlers in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16332…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 November 2016 at 12:17
Whose idea was it to apply skin tone modifiers to groups of people in the first place? Yep, it was Apple & Google unicode.org/L2/L2014/14173…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 November 2016 at 12:35
Apple's proposal for gender sequences and skin tone modifiers for SELFIE 🤳 unicode.org/L2/L2016/16333… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 November 2016 at 12:37
... but what about children, old people, people in wheelchairs, people with beards and redheads — are they not allowed to take selfies?!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 7 November 2016 at 19:39
Summary of emoji proposed for Unicode 10.0 unicode.org/L2/L2016/16355… — Zombie but no Troll; Sauropod but no T. Rex; Hedgehog but no Squirrel
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 9 November 2016 at 19:25
I just don't get why Unicode is so accepting of random astrological crap unicode.org/L2/L2016/16174… twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 9 November 2016 at 19:29
Revised proposal to represent "Coded Hashes of Arbitrary Images" in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2016/16105… — please just say no.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 9 November 2016 at 19:32
Updated proposal for animal emoji for Unicode 10.0 now includes "T-REX" as well as SAUROPOD unicode.org/L2/L2016/16295… (but only their heads)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 9 November 2016 at 19:44
Because it so very important to encode astrological symbols for minor planets in the outer reaches of the Solar System twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 November 2016 at 19:55
8 existing emoji candidates unicode.org/emoji/charts/e… plus 48 on this list unicode.org/L2/L2016/16369… I think twitter.com/mark_e_davis/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 November 2016 at 22:39
#Tangut #西夏文 #𗼇𘝞 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 November 2016 at 22:41
#西夏文 #𗼇𘝞 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 November 2016 at 22:42
#西夏文 #𗼇𘝞 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 November 2016 at 21:46
Interesting contrast in emoji scheduled for Unicode 10.0 #sauna #hijab unicode.org/L2/L2016/16355…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 November 2016 at 23:45
Interesting fallbacks when you copy the unencoded glyphs, e.g. Circled 01..07 => ♳ through ♹, and Circled & Negative Circled 08..09 => ⓼⓽ twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 13 November 2016 at 13:29
Large imperial tomb dating to Wei dynasty excavated in Luoyang, possibly the tomb of Empress Guo, wife of Cao Rui mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzI3MD…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 13 November 2016 at 15:03
I created a moment for my travels in Ningxia and Inner Mongolia in August twitter.com/i/moments/7978…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 13 November 2016 at 20:23
catb.org/esr/unicode/th… twitter.com/the_gwalla/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 November 2016 at 19:05
Stone tags for funerary items from Wei tomb: ink lacquer writing table 墨漆書案 and two-sheng ink-lacquer picture bowl 二升墨漆畫椀 (漆 not 淶!)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 November 2016 at 21:48
Still can't work out why there is a cricket but no badger or mammoth. twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 November 2016 at 22:46
Exactly, T. Rex's most distinctive feature is its puny hands. twitter.com/Vanoual/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 17 November 2016 at 13:28
"Recent Advances in Tangut Studies" 28 Feb 2017 at SOAS soas.ac.uk/south-asia-ins… #Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 November 2016 at 12:18
First count of Unicode 10.0 (for June 2017): 8,518 new characters, of which 7,494 CJK unified ideographs, 285 Hentaigana, and ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 November 2016 at 12:19
... four new scripts: Zanabazar Square (72), Soyombo (80), Masaram Gondi (75), Nüshu (397); ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 November 2016 at 12:19
... as well as Bitcoin and 56 emoji (< 1% of 8,518 additions to Unicode 10.0, but > 99% of social media interest in Unicode 10.0)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 November 2016 at 20:07
Provisional list of new Unicode 10.0 characters here babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/Unicod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 December 2016 at 00:33
BabelMap v. 9.0.0.2 released, with bug fixes, UI enhancements, some new features, and updated for IVD and Emoji 4.0 babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 December 2016 at 00:34
BabelPad v. 9.0.0.1 released, with bug fixes, UI enhancements, some new features, updated for CLDR, IVD & Emoji 4.0 babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 December 2016 at 18:52
Tudor scribe practicing the England flag emoji, which (together with Scotland and Wales flags) is unfairly excluded from Unicode
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 January 2017 at 11:04
Tangut Yinchuan, a font covering all #Unicode #Tangut ideographs and components, is now available for free download babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Yinchuan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 January 2017 at 16:01
I just released my font for the #Unicode Marchen script babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Marchen.… (shame that complex shaping does not work under W10)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 January 2017 at 01:16
My Tongyin (babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Tongyin…) and Wenhai (babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/WenhaiL…) lookup tools have been updated to accept & display Unicode Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 January 2017 at 17:46
I have just released a new version of BabelStone Marchen font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Marchen.… which works correctly with latest version of #HarfBuzz
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 January 2017 at 19:58
At SOAS today I find the sources for Clauson's #Tangut Dictionary (evertype.com/books/ctt1-cla…), probably all from Clauson's own collection.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 January 2017 at 21:48
Label on top right is 𗂰𗏣𗵒𗵫 "Golden Star of the West" (Chinese 西方金星). Taurus is the "Golden Ox" 𗵒𗅠 in Tangut, so golden in the picture. twitter.com/JeffreyKotyk/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 January 2017 at 21:49
Label on bottom left is the constellation 𗾲𗵫 (Chinese 昴宿) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_Head
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 January 2017 at 23:06
It seems that Google Search now supports #Unicode #Tangut (which it didn't a couple of days ago)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 January 2017 at 22:07
The Tibetan Book of Proportions—an C18 pattern book for Buddhist figures, in Newari script with Tibetan numerals. publicdomainreview.org/collections/ti…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 January 2017 at 14:06
Or.8210/S.6208, including Songs of Separation for each of the twelve months. twitter.com/vaniavassis/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 January 2017 at 21:25
正月孟春春猶寒，狂夫□□□□□。無端嫁得長征婿，教妾尋常獨自眠。
二月仲春春未熱，自別□□實難掣。貞君一去已三秋，黃鳥窗邊啼新月。也也也也。
三月季春春漸暄，忽憶遼陽愁轉添。嘆妾思君腸欲斷，君□□□□□□。
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 January 2017 at 21:26
四月孟夏夏漸熱，忽憶貞君無時節。妾今猶在舊日境，君何不憶妾心竭。也也也也。
五月仲夏夏盛熱，忽憶征人愁更切。一步□□一山東，忽見□□□□□。
六月季夏夏共同，妾亦情如對秋風。□□□□□□□，□□□□□□□。
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 January 2017 at 21:27
七月孟秋秋已涼，寒雁南飛數幾行。賤妾思君腸欲斷，□□□□□□□。
八月仲秋秋已闌，日日愁君行路難。妾願秋胡速相見，□□□□□□□。
九月季秋秋欲末，忽憶貞君無時節。□□錦被冷如冰，與□□□□□□。
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 January 2017 at 21:30
十月孟冬冬漸寒，今尚紛紛雪滿山。□□別君盡□罷，愁郡作客在□□。
十一月仲冬冬盛寒，憂□獨坐綠窗前。戰袍緣何不領□，愁郡□□□□□。
十二月季冬冬極寒，晝夜愁郡臥不安。□□□子無人見，忽憶貞君□□□。
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 January 2017 at 21:33
NB Text normalized to standard characters as the original text is written phonetically with many homophonic characters, e.g. "了羊" for "遼陽".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 January 2017 at 21:36
Proposal to encode one historical Mongolian letter for Buryat Mongolian unicode.org/L2/L2017/17007…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 January 2017 at 23:39
A Mongolian Manual of Astrology and Divination (in Tibetan) publicdomainreview.org/collections/a-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 20 January 2017 at 19:48
Proposal to encode a Mongolian-specific format character in place of unworkable U+202F NNBSP unicode.org/L2/L2017/17036…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 20 January 2017 at 23:42
Tangut character index for Clauson's "Skeleton Tangut (Hsi Hsia) Dictionary" now available online babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Clauson…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 24 January 2017 at 22:33
Upside-down 福, 春 and 钱 are listed in UTR #45 at UTC-00950 - UTC00952 with status = "Not to encode" unicode.org/Public/9.0.0/u… @mo_nigeria
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 24 January 2017 at 22:41
Long Unicode mailing list discussion of ↕福 in 2011-2012 (started at unicode.org/mail-arch/unic… and continued at unicode.org/mail-arch/unic…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 24 January 2017 at 22:46
There is no appetite to encode ↕福 as a CJK unified ideograph, but I feel it is ripe for encoding as a Unicode emoji by @jenny8lee
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 January 2017 at 09:37
And you mean we can't specify 🍕 toppings in Unicode?! twitter.com/R2D221/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 January 2017 at 01:13
按，鹿生山林，與家畜馬牛別，安能察其生爲何年爲幾歲？既紀年則自二三嵗後皆當有以名之，何獨二歲曰「𪊍」曰「䴤」曰「𪋇」，三歳曰「䴟」，餘皆無名也！ twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 January 2017 at 13:14
2 format characters will account for ~40% of a typical text, and if you misplace any of the invisible critters your text will display badly. twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 January 2017 at 09:36
Why bad programmers get Unicode Anxiety — "my entire program was designed to assume that each character is 1 byte in length" twitter.com/jshxe/status/8…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 January 2017 at 19:33
Received my copy of "A Source Book of Ancient Chinese Bronze Inscriptions" sas.upenn.edu/ealc/publicati… — with 112 BabelStone Han PUA characters.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 January 2017 at 19:49
Copy of Clauson's Skeleton Tangut Dictionary that I donated on display at IOM in St Petersburg (photo by @cosmicore) evertype.com/books/ctt1-cla…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 January 2017 at 10:59
"The Making of Buddhist Wood Sculptures in China" by @gszhang
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 31 January 2017 at 13:03
But I was in a hurry, and I forgot the link ! buddhistdoor.net/features/the-m… @gszhang
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 February 2017 at 22:35
This allows for registration of Ideographic Variation Sequences for Tangut characters in the Ideographic Variation Database. twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 5 February 2017 at 18:10
Direct link to Опыт словаря тюркских наречий menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/id/481451 twitter.com/cosmicore/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 16 February 2017 at 15:01
BabelStone Han PUA v. 1.53 with characters for Nh (⿰钅尔 at F363), Ts (⿰石田 at F365) and Og (⿹气奥 at F366) @eisoch @henryfhchan @ken_lunde
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 16 February 2017 at 15:07
Unicode characters for Nh (⿰钅尔), Ts (⿰石田) and Og (⿹气奥) are urgently needed for #zhwp ! @eisoch @henryfhchan @ken_lunde
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 20 February 2017 at 13:27
Is the new Chinese character for Nh {钅尔} read nǐ or niè? Is its traditional form 鉨 or 鑈?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 February 2017 at 19:58
Standing Document 2 on History of ISO/IEC JTC 1: SC2 "Coded Character Sets" (1961–present) jtc1historyblog.wordpress.com/sc-2/ (me and @Evertype in pic)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 February 2017 at 20:11
School of Oriental Studies (later #SOAS) was opened by King George V #OTD on 23 February 1917 blogs.soas.ac.uk/centenarytimel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 February 2017 at 20:34
All remaining unencoded simplified characters in 2nd ed. of 现代汉语词典 are scheduled for inclusion in CJK Ext. G ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 February 2017 at 20:39
... but at least one simplified character in 6th ed. of 现代汉语词典 has not yet been proposed for encoding: ⿱𥫗劳 in 𥯨簩竹 @eisoch @CJKType
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 February 2017 at 15:40
I don't have a good feeling about this copy of Clauson's Tangut Dictionary that I posted to Moscow last week ... now on the way to Malaysia?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 February 2017 at 19:59
Hmm, what does Netflix want from Unicode? twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 February 2017 at 22:10
𗵣𗖻𘓨𗤋𗄊𗧯 = 頂尊無垢總持 = Dharani of the Immaculate Buddha-Crown twitter.com/MongolsSilkRoa…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 28 February 2017 at 23:18
Latest update: "Your item ... has arrived in KUALA LUMPUR MALAYSIA and is being processed for delivery" – yay!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 March 2017 at 13:12
"Confucius and Laozi at the altar" by Imre Galambos academia.edu/31654777/ —How 夫子杏壇記 "Record of the Master at the Apricot Altar" came ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 March 2017 at 13:12
... to be translated as 𗾖𗸱𗑤𗒪𘐆 "Record of the Master at the Altar of Conciliation" [夫子和壇記] in #Tangut (see note 36 for my theory)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 March 2017 at 20:46
My online digitized version of the catalogue (with Unicode Tangut) is here babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/1999_Ca… twitter.com/cosmicore/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 March 2017 at 13:05
My parcel to Moscow is leaving Malaysia now. I wonder where it will go next?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 March 2017 at 13:33
"The Uses of Early Tibetan Printing: Evidence from the Turfan Oasis" academia.edu/31675417/ by @sam_vanschaik
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 March 2017 at 14:28
"Tibetan Printing: Comparison, Continuities, and Change" available online in its entirety as Open Access from Brill brill.com/products/book/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 5 March 2017 at 23:44
BabelStone Han PUA font v. 1.56 has 162 additional unencoded CJK characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 March 2017 at 00:01
BabelStone Han PUA v. 1.57 with 15 new characters from 《汉语方言大词典》, and 17 new characters from 《金瓶梅》 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 March 2017 at 23:12
BabelStone Han v. 9.0.2 released with 1,338 additional CJK unified ideographs and 417 additional PUA characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 12 March 2017 at 23:19
Now to start preparing for Unicode 10.0 and CJK Extension F (I'm aiming to include at least a 1,000 Ext. F characters in next release)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 March 2017 at 13:50
After almost a month my parcel has finally arrived in Russia!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 19 March 2017 at 00:38
Proposal to encode 108 keyboard symbols unicode.org/L2/L2017/17072…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 19 March 2017 at 00:44
Discussion of way forward for gender-neutral human emoji — but "Don't bother with 'parent christmas' yet" unicode.org/L2/L2017/17071…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 19 March 2017 at 00:54
Accumulated feedback on Unicode 10 beta unicode.org/review/pri350/… — you too can have your say!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 19 March 2017 at 01:17
Minor update to Tangut Yinchuan font (some more PUA characters, some glyph changes, support for vertical layout) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Yinchuan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 22 March 2017 at 13:15
Looks familiar! twitter.com/octahedron80/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 25 March 2017 at 00:34
Discussion of how unsupported emoji sequences should be depicted visually 🐈🚀 unicode.org/L2/L2017/17075…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 26 March 2017 at 21:33
"It speaks Emoji!" — overheard on a trailer for the new series of Doctor Who (but is it fully Unicode compliant?)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 27 March 2017 at 23:48
BabelPad v. 10 will include a separate Japanese-style tooth radical 歯 in the Han Radical Lookup Utility (8 new Ext. F characters under 歯).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 29 March 2017 at 21:49
𐐏𐐭𐑌𐐮𐐿𐐬𐐼 deseretalphabet.info/XKCD/1726.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 30 March 2017 at 11:56
England, Scotland and Wales flag emoji all fallback to the same black flag -- nice! twitter.com/ManishEarth/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 April 2017 at 15:48
First formal release of my BabelStone Flags font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Flags.ht… supporting Unicode colour flags for 55 countries and territories.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 April 2017 at 22:24
Ah, that doesn't look quite right in Firefox babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Flags.ht… -- maybe not a good place to line break!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 5 April 2017 at 00:41
Released BabelStone Flags 2.01 to fix an embarrassing mistake (also adds 22 more flags) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Flags.ht…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 5 April 2017 at 11:34
Firefox 52 supports correct rendering of Marchen script added to Unicode 9.0 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Marchen_…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 5 April 2017 at 11:38
Marchen also displays correctly on latest version of Chrome!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 5 April 2017 at 11:40
For comparison, here's what it looks like on IE
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 21:58
I have just released a new polychrome version of my BabelStone Irk Bitig font for Unicode Old Turkic babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Irk_Biti…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 April 2017 at 23:16
"Preliminary proposal to encode Vexillology Symbols in Unicode" unicode.org/L2/L2017/17089… (personally, I don't see the need for encoding them)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 April 2017 at 23:20
"Proposal to add Roman Numerals Alternate Number Fours" (i.e. IIII & iiii) unicode.org/L2/L2017/17092… (maybe should also propose VIIII & viiii)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 April 2017 at 23:31
"Proposal to add 6 standardized variation sequences for counting rods" [𝍣𝍤𝍨𝍬𝍭𝍱] unicode.org/L2/L2017/17085…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 April 2017 at 00:13
International Maritime Signal Flags should be proposed for encoding in Unicode en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 April 2017 at 00:17
Flag Semaphore Symbols should also be proposed for encoding Unicode en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_sema…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 April 2017 at 13:32
"Proposal to add one ideograph used in Teochew Dialects" [⿳⿲⿲日䜌干⿲月⿲長馬長戈心] by @WangXieyang unicode.org/L2/L2017/17083…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 April 2017 at 13:35
[⿳⿲⿲日䜌干⿲月⿲長馬長戈心] is now in my BabelStone Han font at U+EAFF babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html @WangXieyang
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 April 2017 at 13:36
My BabelStone Han PUA font now includes over 4,000 as yet unencoded CJKVZ ideographs babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 April 2017 at 00:17
With my recent acquisition of the Tangut Tripitaka (temporarily missing v.3) my #Tangut books no longer fit on one bookshelf.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 18 April 2017 at 21:56
All couples are strictly segregated by race in Segoe UI Emoji. And MS still does not endorse inter-racial wrestling.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 18 April 2017 at 23:04
Proposal for emoji for persons with red hair, white hair, curly hair, and bald head unicode.org/L2/L2017/17082…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 April 2017 at 18:37
Now all we need is a Combining Beard Emoji and everyone should be happy.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 April 2017 at 21:38
I've completed 827 Ext. F characters so far, and have 762 Sawndip characters still to do.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 April 2017 at 23:38
I read it as "Unicode dragon depictions found in Siberia" twitter.com/NEAarchaeology…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 09:25
I'd be happy if they just accepted my emoji proposals without complaining I give too much evidence but too few ngram charts. twitter.com/mfarah/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 21 April 2017 at 19:14
Proposal for ZWJ sequences for Unicode planet emoji (e.g. 🌐 ZWJ ♂ = Mars) unicode.org/L2/L2017/17100…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 21 April 2017 at 19:22
Proposal to encode additional Lao characters for Pali unicode.org/L2/L2017/17106…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 23 April 2017 at 16:45
I have added all these characters to my BabelStone Han PUA font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html twitter.com/WangXieyang/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 April 2017 at 19:33
BabelStone Han PUA now up to version 63 and 4,007 unencoded characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 April 2017 at 19:40
A method for encoding Egyptian quadrats in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2017/17112…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 27 April 2017 at 07:38
Proposal for 21 Science Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2017/17113…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 27 April 2017 at 07:40
Fossil fish is good, Ammonite would be better.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 27 April 2017 at 12:44
David Helliwell gives some examples of papermarks on old Chinese books in the #Bodleian library oldchinesebooks.blog/2017/04/26/pap…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 April 2017 at 00:01
Discussion of "touching conjuncts" in Nandinagari by @anshumanpandey_ unicode.org/L2/L2017/17119…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 May 2017 at 21:17
BabelStone Flags font v. 2.02 now includes 130 flags, including flags for all countries of Europe. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Flags.ht…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 May 2017 at 10:59
"Request for greater transparency in the Emoji Subcommittee" unicode.org/L2/L2017/17147…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 May 2017 at 19:05
"Towards an encoding of the Jurchen script and implications for Khitan Small Script" unicode.org/L2/L2017/17107…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 May 2017 at 19:20
Proposal to encode the "Hell pause character" unicode.org/L2/L2017/17151… (more detail and examples would be welcome)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 May 2017 at 19:23
Proposal to add a new block for "CJK Complex Ideographic Symbols" by Suzuki Toshiya unicode.org/L2/L2017/17150…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 May 2017 at 18:42
Proposal to encode a Middle Asterisk by Karl Pentzlin unicode.org/L2/L2017/17152… — seems like a good idea, but I doubt it will be accepted.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 6 May 2017 at 12:35
Proposal to move annual Unicode releases from June to February by @mark_e_davis unicode.org/L2/L2017/17155…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 7 May 2017 at 08:39
China's proposal to encode Unicode characters for three new element names (Nh, Ts, Og) appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg48… (expect in Unicode 11.0)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 May 2017 at 19:39
unicode.org/L2/L2016/16103… we need more #dinosauremoji twitter.com/the_gwalla/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Wednesday, 10 May 2017 at 20:57
Leaf from 1476/1477 book printed by Caxton, cunningly displayed at Reading Uni so as to be near impossible to photo. bbc.co.uk/news/education…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 May 2017 at 21:02
My best attempt at a photograph of the leaf with no reflection or glare. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caxt…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 May 2017 at 22:22
Talking of #dinosauremoji ... twitter.com/Informoji/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 May 2017 at 19:11
Proposal for a Unicode Brick Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2017/17172…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 May 2017 at 19:12
With enough bricks and zero-width joiners we can build any emoji building we want!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 May 2017 at 08:53
Proposal to add new block “CJK Complex Ideographic Symbols” [Suzuki, L2/17-150] — UTC shrugged and went for noodles. unicode.org/L2/L2017/17103…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 May 2017 at 08:56
Xiangqi game symbols [L2/17-161] — Rescind acceptance of 30 Xiangqi game symbols at U+1F270..U+1F28D unicode.org/L2/L2017/17103… @henryfhchan
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 May 2017 at 09:02
1999: Mongolian script is encoded in the Unicode Standard v. 3.0;
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 May 2017 at 09:05
2017: "UTC is investigating the basic Mongolian encoding model and will defer action until it is better understood" unicode.org/L2/L2017/17103…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 May 2017 at 09:13
Release schedule of Unicode Standard changing to beginning of March from 2019 (v. 12.0) unicode.org/L2/L2017/17103…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 May 2017 at 22:45
Any excuse to try out the new Unicode 🦔 emoji. twitter.com/van_strael/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 May 2017 at 09:41
Scroll down to "What's the catch?" ! twitter.com/jeremyburge/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 June 2017 at 07:50
My picture of Odiham Castle is Picture of the Day on Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:F…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 June 2017 at 15:35
New version of BabelStone Han PUA released, with 183 additional unencoded CJK characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 6 June 2017 at 11:08
Unicode Tangut :
𗢰𘓩𘉏𗲠𗔇𘋢𗥤 = 南無虛空藏菩薩 (Namo Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva)
𗈇𗏣𗮅𗓁𘓺𘟙 = 北方多聞天王 (Vaiśravaṇa the Deva King of the North)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 6 June 2017 at 21:24
Tangut paper spirit tablet: 𗯊𗣩𗣧𗸮 = 犍闥婆主 (Gandharva host) idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 6 June 2017 at 21:53
Another Tangut paper spirit tablet: 𗈇𗏣𘜶𗦁𘈈𗼈 = 北方大害施神 (who does this refer to?) idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 June 2017 at 12:13
I'm preparing to release BabelStone Han v. 10.0 tomorrow — last chance to request any Ext. A, B, C, E or F additions to the font.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 June 2017 at 15:54
Han dynasty wooden sculpture of a one-horned beast from Gansu and reconstruction of Elasmotherium gansumuseum.com/vm_bwg/wzxx.as… #cryptozoology
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 12 June 2017 at 23:10
BabelStone Han v. 10.0.0 released babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html — plus 1,729 additional CJK unified ideographs, including 1,141 Ext. F characters.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 June 2017 at 10:11
BabelStone Han font now includes 285 new Hentaigana characters and 22 other characters new to Unicode 10.0 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 June 2017 at 21:41
Ah, my photograph of Yuan dynasty magic square on Wikipedia commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yuan… (not a good photo, but a credit would still be nice) twitter.com/DNeilSchmid/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 June 2017 at 13:10
Hmph, "and other #EastAsian languages" — other a 1,000 of them are Sawndip characters for Zhuang (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawndip) twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 June 2017 at 13:18
*over* a 1,000 of them!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 11:01
Ah, one of my favourite pastimes, talking to Ogham stones. twitter.com/OSaumarezSmith…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 16:34
Proposal for Unicode Emoji hair modifiers unicode.org/L2/L2017/17193… by @Random_Guy_32 — more flexible approach than simple redhead emoji etc.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 21 June 2017 at 18:45
Anyone with additional evidence of printed use (esp. dictionary use) please let me know! twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 June 2017 at 23:20
BabelMap Online for Unicode 10.0 now live babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 June 2017 at 23:21
Unicode 10.0 Slide Show — 136,690 characters in 274 blocks covering 139 scripts babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/unicod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 June 2017 at 23:24
What Unicode character is this? now recognises all 136,690 named characters defined in Unicode 10.0 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/whatis…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 June 2017 at 20:06
Proposal for a Mango emoji unicode.org/L2/L2017/17203… but mango is not very distinctive and does not seem a particularly needed emoji.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 June 2017 at 20:12
Durian emoji would be far more useful than a mango emoji unicode.org/mail-arch/unic…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 June 2017 at 21:50
Ming Fan's optimistic proposal to encode 21 CJK ideographs from 汉语大词典 that do not have head entries unicode.org/L2/L2017/17204… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 June 2017 at 21:51
... problem is that IRG do not want to encode characters like these on evidence such as this, so it will be an uphill struggle ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 28 June 2017 at 11:31
What gives ESC the right to decide mango is more worthy of emojification than papaya, lychee, durian, loquat, or any other popular fruits?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 28 June 2017 at 11:32
There is a strawberry emoji, but what about raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, cranberry ... emoji?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 28 June 2017 at 15:38
Not all Tangut. Writing practice piece for Chinese accounting numbers: 陸柒捌玖拾張 @DuffyChristina @vaniavassis @idp_uk blogs.bl.uk/collectioncare…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 29 June 2017 at 22:33
I find it difficult to conceive that there is as yet no Unicode toothbrush emoji @Informoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 5 July 2017 at 11:09
Recently discovered lost Qi version of the Analects from the tomb of Marquis of Haihun have now been digitized collection.sina.com.cn/qtcp/2017-06-2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 8 July 2017 at 21:59
Lobster emoji proposal unicode.org/L2/L2017/17217… —required to complete the set of crustaceans 🦐🦀. What about completing the set of dinosaurs?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 11 July 2017 at 05:28
BabelPad and BabelMap for Unicode 10.0 are now available babelstone.co.uk/Software/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 12 July 2017 at 10:48
Because Mao was having trouble speaking, she asked him to write in a notepad to ease communication — does this help? bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 July 2017 at 16:17
🐪 ZWJ 🐫 = three-humped Pictish camel? twitter.com/Pseudo_Isidore…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 July 2017 at 23:40
Today's fun Unicode idea: let's indefinitely extend the Unicode code space to allow for extraterrestrial symbols unicode.org/L2/L2017/17225…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 July 2017 at 23:42
The Unicode Character Encoding Stability Policies pretty much make it impossible to extend Unicode beyond 17 planes unicode.org/policies/stabi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 July 2017 at 23:55
Proposal to encode the Elymaean script in Unicode by @anshumanpandey unicode.org/L2/L2017/17226…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 July 2017 at 21:34
Heart with Knife emoji unicode.org/L2/L2017/17228… — what could possibly go wrong with an emoji showing a heart stabbed with a kitchen knife?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 July 2017 at 10:54
Character index for Unicode 11.0 includes:
Betty BOOP
Leppard DEAF
the DOOD
Zorro 1D1E9
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 July 2017 at 20:34
Proposal to encode Latin Letter Thorn with Diagonal Stroke for Old English unicode.org/L2/L2017/17236…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 July 2017 at 23:03
New proposal to add Creative Commons license symbols to Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2017/17242…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 July 2017 at 09:02
"Chinese museum offers $15,000 to anyone who can crack this ancient bone riddle" mnn.com/lifestyle/arts… (nice pictures of oracle bones)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 August 2017 at 20:10
BabelStone Han PUA has 4,300+ unencoded CJK characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html —1,946 Ext. G candidates, 1,130 potential Ext. H candidates.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 August 2017 at 13:39
Naxi manuscripts at Harvard oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/… (@Evertype)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 August 2017 at 23:36
Four Top of Head emoji for use in ZWJ sequences unicode.org/L2/L2017/17284…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 August 2017 at 23:41
BUILD THE WALL (emoji) !
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 August 2017 at 23:47
From Lotion Emoji to Squeeze Bottle Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2017/17212… — what's a squeeze bottle? And why do we need it as an emoji?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 August 2017 at 23:54
They want to add Lacrosse, Softball, Skateboard and Frisbee Emoji, but they replace Billiards/Snooker Emoji with a fortune-telling gimmick!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 August 2017 at 00:00
*Sliced* Bagel Emoji — if you can't easily distinguish a bagel from a doughnut why is it even under consideration? unicode.org/emoji/selectio…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 August 2017 at 00:07
I assume they are planning four Bottom of Head emoji showing different types of facial hair to mix and match with Top of the Heads!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 August 2017 at 00:14
Oh shit, the start of a whole series of anthropomorphic poop emoji to express your every emotion.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 8 August 2017 at 15:46
Emoji Subcommittee recommendations for ZWJ and TAG sequences to be considered for 2018 unicode.org/L2/L2017/17287…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 9 August 2017 at 13:41
And {女聯} (F218) and {⿰禾斉} (F117) and several others. twitter.com/cosmicore/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 15 August 2017 at 19:29
Comments on candidate emoji names by @Random_Guy_32 unicode.org/L2/L2017/17296…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 August 2017 at 16:15
Jurchen inscription (c. 1228) found in 2014 in Northern Shaanxi — incomplete but beautiful calligraphy sohu.com/a/56226426_119… #Jurchen #女真文
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 22 August 2017 at 19:58
𘏨𘛧𗎭 (寶瓶宮) "House of Aquarius" on Tangut fragment recovered by @vaniavassis twitter.com/vaniavassis/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 26 August 2017 at 08:47
3D/VR view of a Western Han tomb mural at Yintun, Luoyang skypixel.com/pilot/photos/3…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 29 August 2017 at 20:20
My map showing locations of the recent Jurchen inscriptions discovered at Shenmu (2014) and Arkhara (2015) google.com/maps/d/viewer?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 August 2017 at 12:00
How not to write a proposal for additional Unicode characters unicode.org/L2/L2017/17306…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 31 August 2017 at 13:17
The need for a basic register of emoji submissions unicode.org/mail-arch/unic… by @anshumanpandey_ (sounds familiar!)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 3 September 2017 at 21:01
孔子知道之易也，易易云者，三日。子曰：此道之美也，莫之造也。— Comparison of the newly discovered 《齊論・知道》 section from 海昏侯墓 (r) with that from 肩水金關 (l)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 September 2017 at 15:32
Well-preserved Liao-Jin tomb has been enclosed in a steel box and transported by cranes to a temporary site twitter.com/EvelyneFerron/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 September 2017 at 20:04
Proposal to encode a capital form of U+204A ⁊ and change ⁊ from a punctuation mark to a lowercase letter unicode.org/L2/L2017/17300… @Evertype
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 September 2017 at 09:26
UTC submission of 193 unencoded CJK ideographs for IRG Working Set 2017 (future Ext. H?) unicode.org/L2/L2017/17308…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 September 2017 at 21:36
Tangut printed with moveable type — the same defective type sort (broken stroke) is used on two consecutive folios unicode.org/L2/L2017/17314…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 September 2017 at 23:52
I've been busy recently, and I am even busier now for the next four days unicode.org/L2/L-curdoc.htm
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 September 2017 at 10:55
Draft Agenda for WG2 #66 in Hohhot 25-29 Sept. I'll be live-tweeting from the meeting (oh, it's China so maybe not) unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4800…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 September 2017 at 21:23
Day 1: Beijing: Haotian pagoda 昊天塔 (Liao hollow brick pagoda); closed for renovations but still managed to take a few photos.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 September 2017 at 21:35
Day 1: Beijing: Pagoda of the Old Man of 10,000 pines 万松老人塔 (Yuan/Qing), an oasis of tranquillity and books in the heart of Beijing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 September 2017 at 10:19
Day 1: Beijing: "A Panda" 阿潘达 and Sun Wukong at Xisi.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 September 2017 at 11:12
Day 2: Beijing: The white stupa of Miaoying Temple (妙應寺白塔), constructed under the supervision of Nepali architect Araniko in 1271.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 September 2017 at 11:13
Day 2: Baoding: Tangut dharani pillars dated 1502, and a 1350 stele commemorating the Yuan dynasty Tangut official Laosuo 老索 (1188–1260).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 September 2017 at 13:43
Kalaviṅka (妙音鳥) from the Yuan capital of Khanbaliq. Kalaviṅka sculptures like this are a particular feature of Tangut Buddhist art.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 September 2017 at 17:23
Day 2: Baoding: Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 September 2017 at 06:01
Day 4 (am): Hohhot: Successful meeting to finalize the encoding of a set of 486 #Shuishu 水书 characters, with @evertype and Shuishu experts.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 September 2017 at 11:48
Day 4 (pm): Hohhot: Successful meeting to progress encoding of set of 1,188 #NaxiDongba 纳西东巴 characters, with @evertype and Naxi experts.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 September 2017 at 09:40
Day 5: Hohhot: The famous Liao dynasty White Pagoda (萬部華嚴經塔), with Khitan & Jurchen graffiti written somewhere on the dark corridor walls.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 September 2017 at 11:36
I went around the pagoda in the dark blindly taking photos of the walls — here's some Phags-pa (ꡌꡓ ꡉ = 寶塔)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 September 2017 at 11:37
And here are a couple of Syriac inscriptions by the Nestorian priest Särgis, with unencoded nišan sign at bottom of each.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 September 2017 at 06:37
Days 6-8: Hohhot: 3 days of intense meetings on fixing Unicode Mongolian encoding model — @lianghai and Prof. Choijinzhab in discussion
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 September 2017 at 06:39
@lianghai Proposal to change Mongolian encoding model from phonetic to graphetic met with opposition from China and Mongolia unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4889…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 September 2017 at 06:40
Day 8: Hohhot: Lunch with a Muya Bönpo lama showing us Ersu astrological books.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:44
Day 7: Hohhot: Khitan small script epitaph for Xiao Dilu (d. 1114) on display at Inner Mongolia University Institute of Mongolian Studies
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:45
Day 8: Hohhot: 3-day conference on fixing Mongolian encoding model ends inconclusively unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4893…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:47
Day 10: Half-day trip to Inner Mongolia Museum, definitely to be recommended.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:48
Nestorian tomb
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:49
Day 11: Hohhot: Escaping from 5 days of Mongolian banquets to a simple meal at the local coffee shop with @evertype
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:49
Day 12: SC2 & WG2 meetings conclude with some satisfactory results from my perspective (including badger, squirrel, swan, dodo, mammoth)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:51
Chinese iteration and punctuation marks accepted for encoding unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4847…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:52
Tangut character additions and glyph corrections accepted unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4896…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:52
Uppercase forms of early pinyin letters accepted for encoding unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4782…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:53
Latin letter thorn with diagonal stroke accepted for encoding unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4836…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:55
Days 12-13: 12½ hours on overnight train from Hohhot to Daban (Balin Youqi) with no seat (Friday before National Day holiday).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:55
Day 13: Balin Youqi: The Liao dynasty White Pagoda (Shakyamuni Relics Pagoda) at the northwest corner of the Liao city of Qingzhou 慶州
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:56
Day 13: Balin Youqi: Jin dynasty earth wall north of Qingzhou marking the boundary of Jin territory (金界壕) [foreground is our road].
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:56
Day 13: Balin Youqi: Liao dynasty dharani pillar with Sanskrit (Lantsa) dharani found at the tomb of Emperor Xingzong.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:57
Day 13: Balin Youqi: Valley of the Tombs of the Kings (王坟沟) [Qingling 慶陵], a protected area not normally accessible to the general public.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:58
Site of tombs of Emperors Shengzong (遼聖宗永慶陵) and Xingzong (遼興宗永興陵); tomb of Emperor Daozong (辽道宗永福陵) is a little way to the left.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:59
Due to logistical problems (an impassable river for our car and our guide wanting to go home) we were unable to get any closer.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 11:59
Day 14: Balin Zuoqi: The enigmatic Stone House 石房子 near the mausoleum of Emperor Taizu of Liao (遼太祖陵) [Abaoji, 872-926].
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 October 2017 at 12:00
Due to logistical problems we were unable to walk up to the valley of Emperor Taizu's tomb, which is behind the large stone in the centre.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 11:24
Day 14: Lindong: I revisit the hexagonal Liao dynasty North Pagoda, on top of a hill that overlooks the Liao Upper Capital.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 11:24
What the Lindong North Pagoda looked like in the 1970s — I guess if it had not been thoroughly restored it would have collapsed by now.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 11:26
The current situation of the Lindong North Pagoda, and the planned new park (which will still be surrounded by tall appartment blocks).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 11:27
Demolition of old houses has already started; and a sign encouraging residents to sign an agreement and move out.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 11:27
Construction of new high-rise buildings that will further obscure the view of the pagoda.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 13:40
Day 14: Lindong: I revisit the Liao Upper Capital (遼上京) and see things I missed last year ("development" of the North Wall depicted).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:13
Cross-section of the west wall of the Liao Upper Capital showing mud brick construction.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:14
A turtle stele base on the empty expanse of the Liao Upper Capital — 2 fragments of a Khitan large script stele were found here in 1965.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:15
Replica of Liao statue of Bodhisattva Guanyin that stood here until 2007 when it was removed to museum due to 2003 earthquake damage.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:15
Her head was lost some time last century, and is reconstructed from early 20th-century Japanese photos.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:16
The original statue is not on display at the Liao Shangjing Museum (much of interest is not on display at the museum).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:17
Abandoned film set for 梦萦大辽 "Haunted by the Great Liao" (whatever that is, Baidu is no help).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:17
One of two half stones lying in the middle of the Liao Upper Capital — Liao or modern ?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:18
Day 14: Lindong: I revisit the Liao Upper Capital Museum (supposed Khitan seal script seal depicted — I am far from convinced).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:18
Liao dynasty wooden burial chamber from a robbed aristocratic grave excavated in 2005 in a valley north-east of the Upper Capital.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:19
Only when I get to Hohhot do I read that there is a Khitan large script inscription on the inner back wall (epic photo failure)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 October 2017 at 15:19
That must be the reason the doors were blocked with a No Photography sign that "someone" removed (but failed to realise why it was there!)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 4 October 2017 at 11:20
Day 15: Hohhot: I return early (skipping "Xanadu") so I can take more pictures of Hohhot Pagoda inscriptions (cursive Jurchen depicted)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 October 2017 at 06:40
Days 16-17: Hohhot to Ningbo by train, arriving late afternoon after almost 30 hours. Seems I'm missing out on all the fun here...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 October 2017 at 13:37
Day 18: Ningbo: Tianfeng Pagoda (天封塔), originally built during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian (695–696). Not really to my taste.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 6 October 2017 at 13:38
Day 19: Ningbo: Tianning Temple Pagoda (天寧寺塔) at 6:30 am on a dull day. Tang square brick pagoda built in 863. Now this one I do like.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 6 October 2017 at 13:39
The pagoda was restored in 1995, but unlike so many pagoda restorations the original brickwork was left intact where possible.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 6 October 2017 at 13:42
The pagoda was restored in 1995, but unlike so many pagoda restorations the original brickwork was left intact where possible.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 6 October 2017 at 13:42
And the bricks used for the pagoda restoration have some nice touches about them.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 7 October 2017 at 13:36
Day 20: Beijing Airport: Leaving China for the land of Miffy.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 8 October 2017 at 15:50
Not actually Lantsa script as @cosmicore has pointed out to me.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 8 October 2017 at 22:29
⚡️ All the tweets from my recent travels in Inner Mongolia and elsewhere now available in one handy moment twitter.com/i/moments/9171…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 08:23
Photo of Ruiguang Pagoda (瑞光塔) at Suzhou that I took 33 years ago this month, during travels over the National Day holiday.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 08:24
What the pagoda looks like now (not my photo) commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ausp…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 October 2017 at 21:25
I'm really confused: emoji + ➡ = left-facing; emoji + ⬅ = right-facing
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 October 2017 at 08:58
It's fixed now. unicode.org/L2/L2017/17375…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 October 2017 at 15:21
I believe that the proposal to encode Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong was written by @Evertype unicode.org/L2/L2017/17002… twitter.com/jenny8lee/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 October 2017 at 15:42
@Evertype "Working on characters used in a small province of China, ..., that’s a more important use of their time". Indeed, but it's not Unicode ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 October 2017 at 15:42
@Evertype ... Consortium spending their time working on these scripts. It was @Evertype and myself who last month were working face-to-face with ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 October 2017 at 15:42
@Evertype ... Shuishu and Naxi people to help finalize encoding of their scripts twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 October 2017 at 16:14
@Evertype Contributions of experts such as @Evertype and myself to development of Unicode Standard seem to be largely airbrushed out.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 October 2017 at 16:15
@Evertype I was primarily responsible for Tangut & Marchen in Unicode 9, but can you find any acknowledgement in the standard? unicode.org/versions/Unico…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 October 2017 at 16:17
unicode.org/versions/Unico… ... but there are no acknowledgements after Unicode 6.0 unicode.org/acknowledgemen…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 20:41
450 years of Anglo-Saxon typographic tradition meticulously documented by myself and @Evertype in unicode.org/L2/L2017/17236…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 21:02
Proposal for 3 additional Ideographic Description Characters by @eisoch at al. unicode.org/L2/L2017/17386…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 21:05
@eisoch Two of these are already in use by me in my IDS file covering 87,882 CJK unified ideographs in Unicode version 10.0 babelstone.co.uk/CJK/IDS.TXT
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 21:10
Proposal to Add Grave and Incense [Emoji] Characters unicode.org/L2/L2017/17387…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 21:17
Seems reasonable to me, although we need a cinerary urn as well (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brit…), and maybe a Sky Burial emoji.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 21:24
Proposal to encode the MIC DROP emoji by @anshumanpandey_ unicode.org/L2/L2017/17389…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 22:03
@Evertype Note also the lowercase and uppercase forms of the letter And (⁊) in both the 1566 and 1665 Anglo-Saxon typefaces (unicode.org/L2/L2017/17300…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 22:30
After nearly two years of painful argument, today IRG finally and reluctantly agreed not to unify these two characters — thanks @ken_lunde
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 22:35
@ken_lunde The bottom character should soon appear in CJK Ext. G submission, but the battle for its survival is not over yet.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 22:38
@ken_lunde The character was proposed for encoding in 2015 as UTC-01950 in appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg45…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 20 October 2017 at 14:32
Unicode Technical Note #42: Tangut Character Additions and Glyph Corrections by @cosmicore and myself unicode.org/notes/tn42/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 October 2017 at 13:41
"You must assign copyright in all photographs ... of Museum objects to Reading Borough Council" readingmuseum.org.uk/sites/default/… #copyrightheft
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 October 2017 at 12:57
China applies Social Credit System to foreign news organizations. twitter.com/fccchina/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 October 2017 at 01:20
BabelMap v. 10.0.0.3 released babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel… — now supports closing to the system tray (File > Close to System Tray)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 October 2017 at 01:22
You can also configure X on title bar and "Close" on system menu to close to the system tray instead of exiting (Options > Other Options)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 October 2017 at 01:25
use -tray command line parameter to close to system tray at start (e.g. if Windows configured to run BabelMap on start-up)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 October 2017 at 01:26
Also has new bookmark manager; and fixes broken CJK/Tangut radical navigation.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 October 2017 at 18:53
Emoji timeline unicode.org/L2/L2017/17405…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 28 October 2017 at 10:45
Post #UTC153 there are 684 provisionally accepted character additions (inc. 66 emoji) for Unicode 11 next year babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/Unicod…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 28 October 2017 at 20:56
BabelStone Han v. 10.0.1 released — 450 additional CJK unified ideographs and 394 PUA characters from B/S Han PUA babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 October 2017 at 17:09
Jewish tombstone with seven-branched menorah
theguardian.com/artanddesign/2… Why has Unicode only got an explicitly nine-branched menorah 🕎?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 October 2017 at 17:12
And why does Samsung alone of all the vendors draw U+1F54E MENORAH WITH NINE BRANCHES 🕎 with seven branches? emojipedia.org/menorah-with-n…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 31 October 2017 at 16:45
FROWNING POO or POO WITH SAD FACE Emoji Submission posted unicode.org/L2/L2017/17407… —we thought it was dead, but it has come back to haunt us.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 31 October 2017 at 21:55
Does anyone really use the Pile of Poo emoji to communicate the state of their bowel movements on social media ?! twitter.com/michielsikma/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 31 October 2017 at 23:32
"Football ground street signs are wrong" bbc.co.uk/news/uk-418137… — at least emoji soccer ball ⚽ is correct (except for Mozilla)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 November 2017 at 20:53
Senator Angus King from Maine writes to the Unicode Consortium to express his support for the Lobster Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2017/17408…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 November 2017 at 23:07
Here are the Lobster Emoji proposals:
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 November 2017 at 16:55
Who decides what can be an emoji? — interview with @jenny8lee bbc.co.uk/newsround/4186…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 5 November 2017 at 10:00
On Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons a bot went and changed all NNBSP in Mongolian and Manchu text to an ordinary space. @lianghai @Evertype
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 5 November 2017 at 10:02
@lianghai @Evertype It's fixed now, but it's another example of why using a space character as a format character for Mongolian is a big mistake.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 6 November 2017 at 10:40
The Unicode Standard Acknowledgements have now been updated for Unicode versions 7 through 10 unicode.org/acknowledgemen…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 6 November 2017 at 23:55
Unicode Should Take a Hint from Paleontologists When Designing Dinosaur Emojis—@beckyferreira motherboard.vice.com/read/dinosaur-… (not-a-dinosaur shown)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 November 2017 at 12:17
Looks like we need a lot more Mesozoic emoji unicode.org/L2/L2016/16103… twitter.com/upulie/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 November 2017 at 23:47
Draft minutes of #UTC153 unicode.org/L2/L2017/17362…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 November 2017 at 00:30
Apparently none of my Emoji proposals for Mammoth, Dodo and Ostrich are "well-formed", so Emoji Subcommittee won't post them to the Unicode document register.
babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/Mammot…
babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/DodoEm…
babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/Ostric…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 November 2017 at 00:44
This is an example of a well-formed Emoji proposal accepted by ESC and UTC that I should emulate unicode.org/L2/L2016/16300…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 November 2017 at 01:20
Since 2003 I have been the principal author or co-author of successful proposals to encode over 7,000 Unicode characters for Phags-pa, Marchen, Tangut, Runic, Bopomofo, Mongolian, Latin and Han scripts (and ~3,000 CJK ideographs in the pipeline) ... but what do I know?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 November 2017 at 01:21
babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/unicod… twitter.com/khalkeus3d/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 November 2017 at 12:26
When will #biang be in Unicode? twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 November 2017 at 13:57
And then someone else's Red Envelope unicode.org/L2/L2017/17023… and Mooncake unicode.org/L2/L2017/17024… emoji proposals were posted in 2017 twitter.com/eisoch/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 November 2017 at 14:19
Were there 🐪 or 🐫 in Roman Britain? A brief note on the nature and context of the London camel remains — new post by @caitlinrgreen caitlingreen.org/2017/11/were-t…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 10 November 2017 at 22:14
They're really just a set of icons not emoji. twitter.com/m_strent/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 November 2017 at 20:55
I've just released a new version of my BabelStone Flags font with ten additional flags for Southeast Asian countries babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Flags.ht…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 November 2017 at 20:04
Looks like Donkeys, Horses and Mules in middle of 4th row ... I think Noah could have safely left one of those pairs behind. twitter.com/jeffreyjcohen/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 November 2017 at 19:37
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 20 November 2017 at 23:30
I've just invoked List of fictional rodents in literature in a Unicode proposal en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_f…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 21 November 2017 at 16:55
1834 Biscuit at @AshmoleanMuseum commemorating the abolition of slavery, inscribed "Liberty and Plenty or Slavery and Want" commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abol… #EdibleArchives
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 November 2017 at 11:09
Additional repertoire for ISO/IEC 10646:2017 (5th ed.) Amendment 2.2 unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4922… including 5.007 CJK unified ideographs, 470 Khitan Small Script characters, and 486 Shuishi logograms (most targetted for Unicode 12 in 2019)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 November 2017 at 11:12
Draft repertoire for CJK Ext. G unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4922… — 5,002 characters at U+3000 through U+31389 in the Tertiary Ideographic Plane
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 November 2017 at 13:45
Isle of Barra's flag officially recognised ... but not by Unicode bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 November 2017 at 12:06
Today is the 80th anniversary of the murder of the great Tangutologist Nikolai Aleksandrovich Nevsky and his wife Iso Mantani-Nevsky #OTD 24 November 1937 during the Great Purge. #Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 24 November 2017 at 12:17
"As he was led away, he said to his wife: "Don't touch the papers on my work desk — I will be back soon."" (academia.edu/24616385/Tangu… note 35)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 November 2017 at 12:20
"Some of his papers were found years later, but some remain missing to this day" (academia.edu/24616385/Tangu… note 39)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 November 2017 at 12:37
"Tangut Studies in the Soviet Union: the Quinta Essentia of Russian Oriental Studies" by Sergey Dmitriev academia.edu/24616385/Tangu… — "Unfortunately, the field of Russian Tangutology today is inactive and there is almost no one to resume the splendid work of the earlier generations"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 November 2017 at 12:45
It's not entirely inactive, with Kirill Solonin working on Tangut Buddhism, and @cosmicore working with me on Tangut character encoding, but certainly the field of Tangut Studies in Russia is very quiet compared with 20 years ago. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_T…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 November 2017 at 13:07
Nevsky's "Tangut Philology" published in 1960 mostly comprises his monumental but incomplete manuscript dictionary of Tangut — he was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin_Pri… for it in 1962. twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 November 2017 at 21:28
Prof. Kychanov's paper on the mysterious loss and rediscovery of the #Tangut "Precious Rhymes of the Sea of Characters" (𘝞𗗚𘏨𗖵 = 文海寶韻) manuscript orientalstudies.ru/eng/images/pdf…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 November 2017 at 11:15
Behind the Curtain: How the Unicode Consortium Works unicode.org/L2/L2017/17413…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 November 2017 at 23:26
And here is my entry for 18 September 2017 at Monk Wansong Pagoda babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/wanson… — "an unexpected oasis of greenery and tranquillity in the heart of modern Beijing"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 November 2017 at 23:29
My travel diary currently lists "Beijing Pagodas", "Berkshire Tangut Churches", and "Ningxia Ogham" among its topics. babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/p/contents.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 December 2017 at 19:49
Sad poop emoji gets flushed after row bbc.co.uk/news/technolog… — lazy rehash of buzzfeed article by the BBC
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 7 December 2017 at 10:34
My Mammoth emoji submission unicode.org/L2/L2017/17420… has been posted to the Unicode document register after consideration and expected rejection by the Emoji Subcommittee. But the mammoth is not dead yet.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 7 December 2017 at 20:55
It hurts me when otherwise great sites do not use correct Unicode character ⁊ in Irish & OE texts:
Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language uses U+2510 ┐ (dil.ie/27503)
Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220 uses U+02E5 ˥ (le.ac.uk/english/em1060…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 8 December 2017 at 18:35
Proposal by @ken_lunde to give emoji presentation to U+261C ☜, U+261E ☞ and U+261F ☟, to match U+261D ☝ which already has emoji presentation (and also add emoji presentation for U+3020 〠) unicode.org/L2/L2017/17421…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 9 December 2017 at 19:40
Mammoth in search of a #MammothEmoji twitter.com/Jamie_Woodward…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Tuesday, 12 December 2017 at 17:32
According to Wikipedia (but citation needed): "There used to be a pair of them, but in the 1940s the Soviet garrison used cannon fire to destroy one for amusement". twitter.com/csen_nomads/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 December 2017 at 18:20
This statement in the 2014 article is bizarre: "They also found remnants of a mural that suggests the Khitan were more advanced than historians realized"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 December 2017 at 22:33
David Helliwell writes: "Earlier this year I was dismissed from my post on the grounds of age, a questionable and not entirely lawful practice which in Great Britain is carried out only at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and St Andrews, where it is known as "retirement"...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 12 December 2017 at 22:34
... The occasion was marked by nothing more than a single message from my superior telling me to clear my office of all personal effects by 30 September. Thus charmingly were my forty-one years of service to the Bodleian Library and its collections brought to a close." ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 December 2017 at 22:35
What a great shame for @bodleianlibs ! Please read David's great Serica blog at serica.blog/2017/12/12/the…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 December 2017 at 23:09
The pagoda at Kherlen Bars in 2014 (© Tetsuo Shoji) and in 2016 (© Ганпүрэв Цэдэнбатаев)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 December 2017 at 18:46
BabelStone Han font v. 10.0.2 released with fix for display of hentaigana plus dakuten or handakuten in vertical layout. Font now has over 35,000 encoded CJK unified ideographs and 4,444 unencoded CJK ideographs. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 December 2017 at 20:27
Nice photo by someone called BabelStone commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brit… ᛋᛒᛖᚱᚫᛞᚻᛏᛇᛒᚳᚪᛁ ᛖᚱᚻᚪᛞᚫᛒᛋ twitter.com/crewsproject/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 December 2017 at 20:43
Runic inscription displayed using my BabelStone Runic Berhtwald font (babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/AngloSax…) showing bind runes encoded as ZWJ sequences
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 December 2017 at 12:27
Japan requests the reservation of a code point for the square symbol for the era name of the new Japanese emperor, to be announced shortly before the start of the new era on 1 May 2019 unicode.org/L2/L2017/17429…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 December 2017 at 12:28
Awkward timing because if Unicode 12 release is moved to February 2019, as has been mooted, the new era name will miss the boat, and will have to wait until Unicode 13 in 2020.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 December 2017 at 20:20
I now hear that Unicode 12 is scheduled for release at the end of March 2019, so the square era name character could still make it into Unicode 12 if the era name is announced before #UTC157 in September 2018.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 December 2017 at 23:27
For everyone who's been asking, here's the proposal for a Yawning Face emoji unicode.org/L2/L2017/17432… — does it make you want to yawn?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 December 2017 at 23:29
And here's the proposal for a Razor emoji unicode.org/L2/L2017/17431…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 December 2017 at 10:31
I understand that this will be the last edition of ISO/IEC 10646 with integrated code charts due to issues with ISO/IEC bureaucracy. twitter.com/wtnelson/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 December 2017 at 10:39
In future editions the code charts for ISO/IEC 10646 will be hosted on the Unicode website and referenced from the standard to avoid copyright issues (ISO/IEC claiming copyright over charts that are coproduced with Unicode).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 December 2017 at 11:13
Tangut Workshop with Kirill Solonin at Yale University 18-19 January 2018 networks.h-net.org/node/22055/dis…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 December 2017 at 11:35
Kirill Solonin at Tangut Workshop in Hamburg two years ago (middle back row; I am behind the camera) twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 December 2017 at 19:55
Proposal by @DougEwell @Evertype et al. to encode 207 legacy graphic characters (and 198 new variation sequences) used by computers in the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, and by teletext unicode.org/L2/L2017/17435…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 December 2017 at 19:59
EBNF and Regex expressions for identifying Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2017/17434… by @mark_e_davis
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 December 2017 at 21:15
Massively important discovery of 14 pillar stones with Old Turkic inscriptions in Dongoin shiree in Eastern Mongolia twitter.com/csen_nomads/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 22 December 2017 at 21:19
More on the future publication plans of ISO/IEC 10646 by the project editor at unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4859…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 December 2017 at 21:20
Prototype of the ISO/IEC 10646 code charts for the 5th edition at unicode.org/wg2/iso10646/e…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 December 2017 at 09:42
WTF, you do know what "et al." means? Of course I read the authorship credits, but @DougEwell and @Evertype are the only two who are friends of mine and I know on twitter. twitter.com/mexamexo8/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 December 2017 at 12:12
Life of Tangut Jesus by 大白高国尼卒广播台 media.weibo.cn/article?object…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 December 2017 at 23:01
"As per section 6 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994 showing of the middle finger is also an offence in Ireland" — that's ironic, given that the middle finger emoji was proposed by Ireland via @Evertype twitter.com/NewIndianXpres…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 27 December 2017 at 22:48
Tertiary Ideographic Plane (TIP) updated to include CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G (scheduled for Unicode 12) unicode.org/roadmaps/tip/t…
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 January 2018 at 23:43
Dodo emoji submission unicode.org/L2/L2017/17441…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 January 2018 at 17:14
Squirrel emoji submission unicode.org/L2/L2017/17442…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 January 2018 at 19:49
Axe emoji submission unicode.org/L2/L2018/18002…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 January 2018 at 19:50
Parachute emoji submission unicode.org/L2/L2018/18003…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 January 2018 at 19:53
"Proposal to reconsider compatibility symbols and punctuation used in the DPRK" by @mexamexo8 unicode.org/L2/L2018/18004…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 January 2018 at 22:04
(rejected by the Emoji Subcommittee)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 January 2018 at 22:05
(rejected by the Emoji Subcommittee)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 January 2018 at 19:28
Bird or phoenix on the last page of a #Tangut book #NationalBirdDay #NationalBirdDay
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 January 2018 at 23:27
I've released a Tangut IDS file babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/TangutI… to complement my CJK IDS file babelstone.co.uk/CJK/IDS.TXT @eisoch @d_s_corbett
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 January 2018 at 19:10
Proposal for a Poison Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18019…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 January 2018 at 19:11
Proposal for a Chess Game Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18018…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 January 2018 at 19:15
If Chess emoji is accepted then we also need a Go/Weiqi emoji, and a Draughts/Checkers emoji, and a Backgammon emoji, ... and a Crossword emoji, and the list goes on and on ....
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 January 2018 at 19:40
Proposal to define standardized variation sequences for Horizontal and Vertical forms of Bopomofo Letter I by @eisoch and Selena Wei unicode.org/L2/L2018/18020…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 12 January 2018 at 11:10
In Duolun County where the Yuan summer capital of Shangdu (Xanadu) was located, no coinidence perhaps. twitter.com/JeremiahJenne/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 12 January 2018 at 13:46
People need to use existing emoji creatively rather than trying to get every possible concept accepted as a discrete emoji. twitter.com/KeithBroni/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 12 January 2018 at 16:13
Incontrovertibly false. twitter.com/pauldhunt/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 January 2018 at 23:51
Response to feedback from WG2 email discussion list on PDAM 2.2 unicode.org/L2/L2018/18027…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 16 January 2018 at 23:54
"The proponents are welcome to submit a proposal as described on unicode.org/emoji/selectio…" × 5 ... and the ESC will reject any proposal, however well-written, if they don't want it in the first place, so what's the point?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 January 2018 at 21:27
Proposal to encode the Palaeohispanic script unicode.org/L2/L2018/18030…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 January 2018 at 21:35
New feedback from the WG2 email discussion list on emoji and more unicode.org/L2/L2018/18031…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 January 2018 at 15:22
Really, "asperand" is not the "official name" of the @ sign; that is just one of several neologisms that never caught on. twitter.com/BBC/status/953…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 January 2018 at 19:49
Two documents urging the UTC not to change the DIYA emoji to a generic oil lamp emoji which vendors could well render as a lantern or Aladdin lamp:
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 January 2018 at 23:34
Emoji Subcommittee recommendations for Emoji 11.0: "the UTC has a target “budget” of 50-70 emoji characters per release" unicode.org/L2/L2018/18023…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 January 2018 at 23:36
As expected, Emoji Subcommittee recommends emojifying a single chess piece only (U+265F BLACK CHESS PAWN) to represent a Chess emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18023…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 January 2018 at 00:33
Emoji Subcommittee proposes special case mappings for U+24C2 Ⓜ unicode.org/L2/L2018/18037… (this hurts so much):
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 January 2018 at 12:16
A Preliminary Proposal for Encoding Mayan Hieroglyphic Text in Unicode by Carlos Pallán Gayol unicode.org/L2/L2018/18038…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 January 2018 at 12:24
Unicode Emoji Subcommittee's Gender Emoji Strategy (revised) unicode.org/L2/L2018/18022… : Revert DANCER 💃 to neutral, add DANCER + ♀
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 January 2018 at 13:12
Essential reading on Emoji gender issues: Analysis of Emoji Proposals for Gender‐Specific Additions by @Random_Guy_32 unicode.org/L2/L2017/17439…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 January 2018 at 20:44
This is a good one. The Committee Draft for ISO 20674-1 Transliteration of scripts in use in Thailand -- Part 1: Transliteration of Akson-Thai-Noi defines transliterations for 20 unencoded Thai characters at provisional code points pending acceptance into ISO/IEC 10646/Unicode...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 19 January 2018 at 20:52
...Unfortunately nobody on the ISO/TC 46 committee remembered to actually make a proposal to SC2 to encode these 20 Thai characters ... and now they have suddenly realized their embarrassing omission unicode.org/L2/L2018/18041…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 20 January 2018 at 10:27
甘肃武威亥母寺遗址出土250余片西夏文献 kaogu.net.cn/cn/xccz/201801…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 20 January 2018 at 11:34
Or they could just let subscribers choose what language they want to receive the alerts in. twitter.com/michellebvd/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 January 2018 at 00:20
Fragment of the Tangut "Homophones" 𗙏𘙰 text (folio 49A) found at the Haimusi site kaixian.tv/gd/2018/0120/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 22 January 2018 at 16:04
Proposal to encode an Invisible Letter in 2004 ... still needed in 2018. twitter.com/aharoni/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 22 January 2018 at 21:14
Surprisingly, the Standard Telegraph Codebook of 1983 标准电码本（修订本） includes an unencoded Chinese ideograph for IQH unicode.org/L2/L2018/18045…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 22 January 2018 at 21:15
IQH is available in my BabelStone Han PUA font at EFA0 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 22 January 2018 at 21:21
Emoji Script Subcommittee Recommendations for Emoji 12.0 (deadline May 2018 for 2019 publication) unicode.org/L2/L2018/18024…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 22 January 2018 at 21:24
Yes to: Razor, Yawning Face, Axe, Parachute
No to: Mammoth, Dodo, Squirrel, Billiard Games, Troll
(anyone see any sort of pattern here?)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 22 January 2018 at 21:39
Internet-Draft by Slevinski describes an implementation of SignWriting that uses unassigned Unicode Plane 4 characters in range U+40001 to U+4F428 tools.ietf.org/html/draft-sle… h/t @DougEwell
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 22 January 2018 at 21:43
It is quite likely that allocation for archaic Chinese scripts (Oracle Bone script, Small Seal script, etc.) will be moved from Plane 3 (unicode.org/roadmaps/tip/) to Plane 4 in the not too distant future.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 January 2018 at 00:03
Presentation to Unicode Technical Committee on encoding Mayan Hieroglyphs by Carlos Pallán Gayol unicode.org/L2/L2018/18047…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 January 2018 at 13:19
According to ISO/IEC JTC1 N13635 "Proposal for future JTC 1 plans", JTC1 wants to engage in discussions with relevant consortia (Linux Foundation, Open Connectivity Foundation, Apache, W3C, CSCC) regarding open source software development ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 January 2018 at 13:20
... the Unicode Consortium is not best pleased that it has been omitted from the list of relevant consortia, and complains in SC2 N4582 that some ISO/IEC subcommittees are ignoring the Unicode Consortium's open source projects such as CLDR.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 January 2018 at 23:13
Ad hoc responses on emoji by Mark Davis unicode.org/L2/L2018/18051… #UTC154
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 24 January 2018 at 23:16
"We are doing a single chess piece. Because they are widely supported in current fonts, unlikely to have problems" ... except for people playing twitter chess who will have huge 3D black pawns among the other pieces @Informoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 January 2018 at 23:19
"1F9A0 MICROBE; add cldr keywords AMOEBA, BACTERIA, VIRUS" — not like anyone would ever want to distinguish between amoeba, bacteria and virus because they're all just tiny organisms non-one can see @Evertype
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 January 2018 at 00:12
And in other news, the President of the Unicode Consortium is unable to put an umlaut on the name of Christoph Päper @Cr1ss0v @Informoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 January 2018 at 13:44
Proposal to add G source references to 3 characters in China’s telegraph codebook by Jaemin Chung appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg50…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 January 2018 at 14:08
"the systematic study of Dūnhuáng variant characters" sounds like a good idea twitter.com/GhentCBS/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 January 2018 at 18:49
The Unicode Consortium requests reserving the code point U+32FF ㋿ for the new Japanese era name unicode.org/L2/L2018/18056…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 30 January 2018 at 09:58
They've changed BRICKS emoji to BRICK @Evertype @Informoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 January 2018 at 10:00
But they've changed ROLL OF TOILET PAPER to ROLL OF PAPER
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 30 January 2018 at 10:03
No other emoji changes for Unicode 11.0
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 30 January 2018 at 17:17
Unicode 11.0 scheduled for release on 12 June 2018 unicode.org/versions/Unico…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 31 January 2018 at 01:19
Unicode pipeline updated unicode.org/alloc/Pipeline… but nothing unexpected @Evertype @Informoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 February 2018 at 00:35
Draft Minutes of UTC Meeting 154 unicode.org/L2/L2018/18007… @Evertype @Informoji @FakeUnicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 1 February 2018 at 00:44
"Change the glyph for U+1F3B1 BILLIARDS to show a cue and a ball"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 1 February 2018 at 00:45
"Add RAZOR, YAWNING FACE, AXE,and PARACHUTE as provisional emoji candidates"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 1 February 2018 at 00:45
"Do not accept MAMMOTH, DODO, SQUIRREL, BILLIARD GAMES, or TROLL as provisional emoji candidates"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 1 February 2018 at 00:49
"Create new glyphs for U+13432..U+13435 based on L2/18-036 and discussion in the meeting"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 1 February 2018 at 00:56
"The UTC will provide one of two outcomes for emoji proposals that are not immediately accepted ... (1) declines to encode; or (2) a "not now" status."
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 February 2018 at 01:02
"Add DIYA LAMP to the provisional emoji candidate list" (backed away from changing name to generic OIL LAMP)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 February 2018 at 09:19
By having the foresight to put Portable Antiquities Scheme photos under Creative Commons license without a no-commercial-use clause @DEJPett has made an absolutely huge contribution to Wikimedia Commons and the large number of Wikipedia articles that use PAS photos. @wikimediauk twitter.com/captain_primat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 February 2018 at 15:29
Today's addition to my library: "Histoire générale des voyages, ou nouvelle collection de toutes les relations de voyages par mer et par terre" tome 25: Description de la Tartarie orientale et du Tibet (Paris, 1749), including a map of the Xia (Tangut) Empire
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 February 2018 at 22:56
The 1749 map of the Xia Empire is pretty accurate, and correctly positions Etzina (Khara-khoto) and Lake Subo. If Kozlov had this map he may not have found it so hard to find Khara-khoto.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 2 February 2018 at 23:15
In contrast, the Western Xia Topographic Map from the Ming dynasty is not very accurate or useful for getting anywhere (modern redrawing of 1895 version shown) — Khara-khoto is shown at the top left as 鎮燕軍黑水
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 2 February 2018 at 23:17
This is a rather poor image of the earliest surviving 1608 version of the Western Xia Topographic Map.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 February 2018 at 23:57
A Fragment of Tangut Geography babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/a-frag… which includes my Index of Tangut Place Names
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 February 2018 at 00:14
That takes the amount of money taken by the Unicode Consortium for emoji sponsorship to over a quarter of a million dollars ($251,200) since the program started just over two years ago. twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 February 2018 at 00:32
How to Apply for an Adopt-a-Character Grant unicode.org/consortium/app…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 February 2018 at 10:30
Rejected emoji proposals twitter.com/Informoji/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 4 February 2018 at 22:28
I have just released the first version of my BabelStone Zanabazar font for the Zanabazar Square script introduced in Unicode 10.0 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Zanabaza…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 February 2018 at 19:35
"The man and woman emoji can now have various hair styles (red-haired, curly-haired, white-haired, and bald)" — but no brown hair or grey hair or straight hair or balding hair. Why? twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 February 2018 at 19:44
Why define inconsistent order of ZWJ and VS characters in Unicode ZWJ flag sequences?
Rainbow flag 🏳️🌈 = 🏳 VS16 ZWJ 🌈
Pirate flag 🏴☠️ = 🏴 ZWJ ☠ VS16
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 February 2018 at 17:00
The History of Unicode according to XKCD (Randall nailed it)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 February 2018 at 17:07
... except that the bearded guy looks suspiciously like @mark_e_davis
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 February 2018 at 23:03
1911 photo by Maurice-Louis Branger of the Yuan dynasty "Cloud Platform" (1342-1345) at the Juyong Pass of the Great Wall near Beijing china-underground.com/2017/09/28/rar…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 February 2018 at 23:09
2011 photo by Andrew West of the Yuan dynasty "Cloud Platform" from the same spot babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/cloud-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 17 February 2018 at 19:47
I've just released BabelStone Maritime, a colour font for International Maritime Signal flags babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Maritime…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 19 February 2018 at 23:13
The search for emoji perfection ... in my opinion if you want a photo-perfect skateboard emoji then you're better off posting a photo of your skateboard rather than using an emoji. twitter.com/tonyhawk/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Monday, 19 February 2018 at 23:37
42 Unicode 11 characters in the next version of my BabelStone Han font (releasing next month).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 February 2018 at 14:49
"陈[受鸟](音shou)教授逝世讣告" news.nankai.edu.cn/zhxw/system/20… — awkward when you cannot write the name of a professor in an obituary notice (⿰受鸟 and ⿰受鳥 both not encoded) h/t @eisoch
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 February 2018 at 01:01
Proposal for Interracial Couple Emoji Sequences unicode.org/L2/L2018/18067… by @jenny8lee et al. — where race is defined by skin color alone, so no East Asian men or women are depicted; and even black people are just white people with skin and hair that are colored dark. #racistemoji
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 February 2018 at 09:53
Did I mention that I proposed 25 of these characters for encoding? (although 2 were fast-tracked to Unicode 11 on the basis of subsequent proposals by others)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 February 2018 at 16:00
Now revised as "Proposal for Inter-Skintone Couple Emoji Sequences" unicode.org/L2/L2018/18067…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 February 2018 at 01:32
The next release of BabelStone Han will include some polychromatic glyphs for the first time, including Xiangqi game symbols (will fall back to black and white glyphs where colour fonts are not supported).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 28 February 2018 at 12:19
I take @Unicode's commitment to helping digitally disadvantaged languages with a large pinch of salt. Last year @Evertype and myself were invited to help finalize the encoding of the Shuishu script (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 28 February 2018 at 12:21
The agreed Shuishu repertoire was accepted for encoding by the SC2 meeting at Hohhot in September 2018, and this is the response of the Unicode Consortium via their surrogate the "US National Body":
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 28 February 2018 at 12:26
@Evertype and myself do not receive any Emoji money (over $250,000 to date) for our work in encoding various ancient and modern scripts. Maybe it's just my cynicism, but I suspect that Unicode would be more supportive of encoding Shuishu if it was sponsoring it from Emoji money.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 28 February 2018 at 12:40
WTF do the Unicode Consortium think we were all doing in that room in Hohhot, and in email exchanges over the months preceding the meeting? We and Shuishu experts have been working on Shuishu encoding since at least 2014, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 28 February 2018 at 12:42
... and have had previous face-to-face meetings at SC2/WG2 meetings in Sri Lanka (2014) and Japan (2015). Unicode Consortium/USNB have done nothing to help, and everything to hinder.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 28 February 2018 at 12:49
In other news, yesterday I joined the Unicode Consortium as a lifetime individual member unicode.org/consortium/mem… ... mutters something incoherent about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 28 February 2018 at 22:47
I believe that the Emoji Subcommittee operates on the same principal -- they shout various emoji suggestions at each other and occasionally the Shadowy Emoji Overlord shouts out Emojiwang. twitter.com/jpwarren/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 28 February 2018 at 22:54
(Oh, fuck, I can't spell principle)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 28 February 2018 at 23:06
Feedback now posted:
tl;dr ... not Thai letters and need to make a proper proposal for them.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 March 2018 at 01:22
BabelStone Han PUA now includes 4,500 unencoded characters. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 March 2018 at 11:14
Read the whole thread! twitter.com/Random_Guy_32/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 March 2018 at 23:45
Today I took a lunchtime walk around Reading in the light snow. First stop, the Maiwand Lion (1884) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiwand_L…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 March 2018 at 23:55
Oscar Wilde (1895-1897), with the walls of Reading Gaol on the left and the River Kennet on the right.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 March 2018 at 23:57
Another view of Oscar Wilde.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 March 2018 at 00:04
St James Church (1840) — unmistakably Pugin (with the remains of the north transept of Reading Abbey Church)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 March 2018 at 00:07
Reading Abbey, founded by Henry I in 1121 (he is buried in the car park)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 March 2018 at 00:20
Christchurch Bridge (2015) spanning the River Thames.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 March 2018 at 00:29
Angels on either side of the west entrance to St Laurence's Church, one with a freshly-broken wing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 March 2018 at 00:40
Reading Station. I arrived at the station at 17:15 to catch the train home; but due to 2 cm of snow it took until 21:35 to reach Guildford, 10 miles from where I really wanted to go, and it was an hour later that I eventually got home by alternative means.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 March 2018 at 00:50
The old Reading Station building. Interesting factoid, my great great granduncle Henry West (after whom my great grandfather is named) fell to his doom from the top of Reading Station during construction in the Great Whirlwind on 24th March 1840.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 3 March 2018 at 01:12
Reading Gaol in the background.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 4 March 2018 at 09:50
Read by John Hines as þ[-]æflæd ᚦ[-]ᚫᚠᛚᚫᛞ, an uncertain female name. twitter.com/TRegistrars/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 5 March 2018 at 14:34
"... And there be many men and women the whiche cannot speake one worde of Englyshe but all Cornyshe." (c. 1542) twitter.com/CBarnacles/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 5 March 2018 at 16:24
Retweeting for #StPirans day twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 5 March 2018 at 23:49
Towards a comprehensive proposal for Thai Noi / Lao Buhan script by @OhBendy unicode.org/L2/L2018/18072…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 11 March 2018 at 22:29
Gets my vote. If it wins then it will be the first Unicode Standard cover to feature anything relating to Unicode since v. 5.0 in 2006. The last two covers were abominations. twitter.com/OxC0FFEE/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 March 2018 at 22:10
BabelStone Han v. 11.0.0 available now: it covers 48,296 characters, including 35,716 CJK unified ideographs; and has 44 new Unicode 11 characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 17 March 2018 at 00:36
᚛ᚌᚑᚑᚌᚂᚓ
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 18 March 2018 at 12:30
Waverley Abbey this morning.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 18 March 2018 at 12:35
Cows and calves at Waveley Abbey.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 18 March 2018 at 18:09
This weekend I have been working on a prototype font for Khitan Small Script with automatic cluster formation babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/KSS_Test… (works on Windows 10)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 March 2018 at 16:57
Proposal to add decomposition mappings for three Unicode Tibetan characters unicode.org/L2/L2018/18078… — unfortunately the author forgot to read the Unicode Stability Policy unicode.org/policies/stabi… which make the proposed changes impossible.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 March 2018 at 23:00
The document has now been rewritten and retitled, taking into account the stability policy, and so now proposes deprecating the three characters. (It seems unnecessary to me.)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 23 March 2018 at 01:06
Top animal emoji requests on @Emojipedia for March 2018 are Flamingo, Sloth and Triceratops blog.emojipedia.org/top-emoji-requ… ... I will not be surprised to see them all in Unicode 12 next year.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 23 March 2018 at 19:06
Apple makes a proposal to encode 13 new accessibility emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18080…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 March 2018 at 11:43
Rejang numbers are rather interesting — proposal to encode them from @anshumanpandey_ unicode.org/L2/L2018/18081…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 March 2018 at 23:16
I really hope that S. I. Rudenko’s unpublished manuscript monograph on the "Dead City of the Ancient Tangut Empire" can finally be published! scfh.ru/en/papers/in-s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 29 March 2018 at 13:01
Documents for Mongolian Working Group Meeting 2, 3-5 April 2018 unicode.org/~lisa/mongolia…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 29 March 2018 at 13:30
Hmm, I wonder what is wrong with "改进的蒙古⽂编码字形模型" ?!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 31 March 2018 at 19:31
After a hiatus of more than 2 years I return to my blog with a post about a Jurchen inscription on the River Arkhara in Russia babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/jurche…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 31 March 2018 at 22:08
Rabban Sawma was supposedly entertained by Tangut Christians in Shazhou (Dunhuang) on his way to Europe, but by 1280 the Tangut regime had long since been annihilated, and it is doubtful there were many Tanguts left in what had been the far western corner of the Tangut empire. twitter.com/caitlinrgreen/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 1 April 2018 at 11:56
Mirrored at babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2018/03/j… for anyone in China. Another Jurchen post planned for later this month.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 April 2018 at 18:50
Beta version of BabelPad supporting Unicode 11.0 (scheduled for release on 5 June 2018) is now available for download from babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 April 2018 at 18:50
Beta version of BabelMap supporting Unicode 11.0 (scheduled for release on 5 June 2018) is now available for download from babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 April 2018 at 21:51
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 April 2018 at 23:29
Tangut Yinchuan font updated for five additional Tangut ideographs added in Unicode v. 11.0 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Yinchuan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 April 2018 at 09:45
Today I learned from @Umihotarus that U+2CF01 𬼁 and U+2CF04 𬼄 in CJK Ext. F are kanji versions of U+0292 ʒ "dram" and U+2125 ℥ "ounce" respectively.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 April 2018 at 09:47
And that ⿰氵𬼁 "fluid dram" and ⿰氵𬼄 "fluid ounce" are not yet encoded. (Picture from dnp.co.jp/shueitai/konet…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 April 2018 at 08:11
9 unencoded CJK ideographs in the New Standard Telegraph Codebook (Hong Kong, 1972) unicode.org/L2/L2018/18097…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 7 April 2018 at 17:10
I've just released BabelStone Han v. 11.0.1 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html, now with more than 36,000 CJK unified ideographs and 67 Unicode 11.0 characters.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 7 April 2018 at 18:22
Currently my main task is to complete coverage of CJK Ext. E characters submitted by China, but most of the 1,410 characters sourced to 《殷周金文集成引得》 are complex and time-consuming to create glyphs for — 656 left to do.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 7 April 2018 at 18:45
In the background I am preparing for CJK Ext. G likely to be in Unicode 13 (2020). I have completed 1,890 glyphs already, but still have 2,017 China-submitted characters left to do!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 7 April 2018 at 18:49
(I might just do 18 Ext. G characters right now, just so that my to do list is under 2,000.)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 April 2018 at 22:11
Mongolian Working Group Meeting 2 Report unicode.org/L2/L2018/18108… — it does not feel like there was much real progress, other then the abandonment of the brave attempt to radically reform the broken Mongolian encoding model.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 April 2018 at 09:15
A few months ago I mentioned that I did not know what had become of three of the six Tangut volumes found discarded at Miaoying Temple in 1900 by Morisse and Berteaux babeldiary.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/beijin… — now I know! twitter.com/MongolsSilkRoa…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 April 2018 at 22:25
Recent emoji proposals (1/2):
Auto Rickshaw unicode.org/L2/L2018/18086…
Stitting & Standing unicode.org/L2/L2018/18091…
Ballet unicode.org/L2/L2018/18113…
Iceberg unicode.org/L2/L2018/18111…
Blood Drop unicode.org/L2/L2018/18092…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 April 2018 at 22:25
Recent emoji proposals (2/2):
Otter unicode.org/L2/L2018/18093…
Flamingo unicode.org/L2/L2018/18098…
Waffle unicode.org/L2/L2018/18087…
Butter unicode.org/L2/L2018/18112…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 April 2018 at 11:55
Looks like a squirrel emoji to me ... twitter.com/_xxyy/status/9…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 April 2018 at 20:54
Today I explore the discovery, loss and rediscovery of a golden Tangut manuscript babelstone.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/redisc…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 April 2018 at 20:56
And for my friends in China the post is mirrored at babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2018/04/r…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 April 2018 at 22:55
Discussion of Cluster Formation Model for Khitan Small Script unicode.org/L2/L2018/18121…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 April 2018 at 19:36
Recent emoji proposals (3/2):
Banjo unicode.org/L2/L2018/18124…
Oyster unicode.org/L2/L2018/18123…
Falafel unicode.org/L2/L2018/18125…
Juice unicode.org/L2/L2018/18130…
Yo-yo unicode.org/L2/L2018/18129…
Ringed planet unicode.org/L2/L2018/18127…
Skunk unicode.org/L2/L2018/18128…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 April 2018 at 09:56
Unicode Technical Committee docs with "emoji" in file name:
2006: 0/407
2007: 1/423
2008: 5/431
2009: 9/425
2010: 5/476
2011: 5/451
2012: 3/391
2013: 1/243
2014: 15/304
2015: 30/343
2016: 55/385
2017: 72/442
2018: 32/131
Somebody please extrapolate the emoji singularity for me.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 April 2018 at 12:25
Nie Hongyin and Sun Bojun's review of Gerard Clauson's Skeleton Tangut (Hsi Hsia) Dictionary (Evertype, 2016. ISBN 978-1-78201-167-5) in Tangut Research 2018.01 en.cnki.com.cn/Journal_en/F-F…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Thursday, 19 April 2018 at 13:49
Today's quote from the Shadowy Emoji Overlord (aka President of the Unicode Consortium): "Emoji are a relatively small part of the work of the consortium, and should remain that way". unicode.org/mail-arch/unic…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 April 2018 at 14:07
The agenda for the last Unicode Technical Committee meeting (#UTC154) unicode.org/L2/L2018/18006… throws doubt on the assertion that "Emoji are a relatively small part of the work of the consortium".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 April 2018 at 15:10
Revised draft for extended Egyptian Hieroglyphs repertoire now has 6,324 additional Egyptian Hieroglyphs (1,820 more than previous draft) unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4944… @Evertype @FakeUnicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 April 2018 at 23:03
All vulgar fractions from 1/32 to 31/32, nice! twitter.com/FakeUnicode/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 April 2018 at 20:28
Recent emoji proposals (4/2):
Kite unicode.org/L2/L2018/18135…
Pinch unicode.org/L2/L2018/18139…
Orangutan unicode.org/L2/L2018/18137…
Stethoscope unicode.org/L2/L2018/18140…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 April 2018 at 20:48
Lot's of feedback on the proposed accessibility emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18138…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 April 2018 at 21:17
+ Sari emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18144…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 April 2018 at 22:50
Paper by Wang Rongfei on a newly-identified woodblock printed edition of the Tangut 1,000-character "Grains of Gold" 《𗵒𗭭𘃎𘐏𘝞》 (《碎金置掌文》) academia.edu/36507920 (important as the only known printed edition, all other versions being manuscript copies)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 April 2018 at 22:55
My blog post on the many Tangut "Grains of Gold" fragments held at the British Library babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2015/05/t…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 27 April 2018 at 15:31
+ adhesive bandage emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18146…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 April 2018 at 21:35
Now it's just getting ridiculous:
+ one-piece swimsuit emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18166…
+ briefs and shorts emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18167…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 April 2018 at 21:44
Really shit proposal from Emoji Subcommittee to specify color of emoji by putting a red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, or brown circle immediately after an emoji (i.e. no zwj between), e.g. 🐻○ = polar bear unicode.org/L2/L2018/18141…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 28 April 2018 at 07:56
Latest Emoji Subcommittee recommendations unicode.org/L2/L2018/18143…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 28 April 2018 at 07:57
Encode a skunk emoji, but because it may be confused with badger emoji, recommend that badger is depicted with brown fur.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 28 April 2018 at 07:59
Yes to ballet shoes, but no to male and female ballet dancers because it's too much trouble to have any more emoji depicting human skin.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 28 April 2018 at 08:05
Juice emoji accepted, but renamed as "beverage box" (emoji shown is not easy to identify at emoji size) — presumably there will be a need for a "freshly-squeezed juice" emoji as well.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 28 April 2018 at 08:08
Iceberg accepted, but changed to ice cube for use in drinks. Totally unrelated to the original proposal (unicode.org/L2/L2018/18111…) so ESC are just using it as a hook to hang their own preferred emoji on.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 28 April 2018 at 08:13
Sitting emoji accepted but as an empty chair, so that it can be used in ZWJ sequences such as "moderately-dark-skinned female firefighter with red hair sitting down while waiting for a call out" emoji.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 28 April 2018 at 08:16
One-piece bathing suit recommended — we already have swimmer 🏊 to represent swimming and bikini 👙 to represent sunbathing, so what is the use case for one-piece bathing suit?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 28 April 2018 at 08:19
Shorts emoji and briefs emoji both recommended, but why on earth are either needed? The ESC is neutral on the stethoscope emoji which seems far more useful to me.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 28 April 2018 at 08:23
Finally, Yellow, Orange, Green, Purple and Brown circles for use in their bonkers scheme for specifying emoji colour twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 28 April 2018 at 10:16
Overheard somewhere this morning from someone influential in the Unicode Technical Committee: "UTC meetings ... completely consumed ... nowadays ... by emoji".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 29 April 2018 at 08:17
Agenda for #UTC155 starting tomorrow posted unicode.org/L2/L2018/18114… — you see, "Emoji are a relatively small part of the work of the [Unicode] consortium"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 29 April 2018 at 18:14
BabelStone Han PUA is now available in WOFF2 format, almost half the size of the WOFF file babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 April 2018 at 19:46
(Of course I should have said that the paper is by Prof. Jing Yongshi and Wang Rongfei.)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 April 2018 at 19:59
Proposal by @mexamexo8 to encode a set of Shogi game pieces unicode.org/L2/L2018/18170… — the main problem is that there is very little evidence they are required as most Shogi books use plain kanji in game diagrams.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 10:56
Emoji colors proposal updated to exclude the cunning mechanism for showing any RGB color by zwj-ing sequences of primary color circles unicode.org/L2/L2018/18141…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 13:12
Preliminary proposal to encode Old Uyghur in Unicode by @anshumanpandey_ unicode.org/L2/L2018/18126… — I am very much looking forward to Old Uyghur being encoded, and welcome this proposal!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 20:57
Emoji colors proposal revised yet again, this time to propose 14 new colored squares, circles and hearts to make emoji squares, circles and hearts each available in nine colors. No explanation why Squares, Circles and Hearts needed in nine colors. unicode.org/L2/L2018/18141…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 23:39
New url: unicode.org/L2/L2018/18126…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 May 2018 at 09:18
So it seems that the proposed colored circles, squares and hearts are intended for use as visible emoji "adjectives", and not as swatches which will change the color of an emoji. But they leave open the possibility of using the color squares as colorizing swatches in the future.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 May 2018 at 21:45
Just stumbled upon this fine "Illustration of sportsmans knife containing 80 blades from the Official descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851" at @ExploreWellcome wellcomecollection.org/works/yhvvcx55
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 2 May 2018 at 21:47
In Manchu imprinted with imperial seal engraved ᡥᡝᠰᡝ ᠸᠠᠰᡳᠮᠪᡠᡵᡝ ᠪᠣᠣᠪᠠᡳ (hese wasimbure boobai) and 制誥之寶 ("precious imperial decree").
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 2 May 2018 at 21:53
Compare Seal #14 in the 1932 postcard set of 100 Precious Seals of the Qing Dynasty babelstone.co.uk/Manchu/Qingdai… which has the same text but the Manchu is written in seal script (postcards kindly given to me by @thg250)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 May 2018 at 22:00
If anyone (@ken_lunde) is interested in the real "sportsman's knife containing eighty blades and other instruments" here it is iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/L0050382…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 11:31
Buddhist Kanjur in Manchu at @ExploreWellcome wellcomecollection.org/works/qcarhzrt
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 13:21
Illustrations of plants and animals for a Tibetan materia medica at @ExploreWellcome wellcomecollection.org/works/a59n273r
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 13:23
Three leaves from a Tibetan musical score used in Buddhist monastic ritual with the notation for voice, drums, trumpets, horns and cymbals at @ExploreWellcome wellcomecollection.org/works/kt847fcq
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 13:32
All leaves are available at wellcomecollection.org/works?query=%2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 13:37
I'm not entirely sure that this style of Tibetan musical notation can be represented in Unicode.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 14:33
Glazed tile pagoda (琉璃塔) at Beijing's Fragrant Hills (香山) photographed by John Thomson in 1871 (91 years after it was built), in collection of @ExploreWellcome wellcomecollection.org/works/zd22j6y6
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 18:13
Photograph of two pagodas in China, circa 1860, in collection of @ExploreWellcome wellcomecollection.org/works/p4ymu8s6 — 7 and 13 storey stone octagonal pagodas, probably Jin or Liao, possibly two of the pagodas at Silver Mountain (銀山塔林) north of Beijing?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 18:26
Illustrated description of the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing after its restoration in 1808, in collection of @ExploreWellcome wellcomecollection.org/works/t3eejdy6
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 18:33
The tower was destroyed in 1856 during the Taiping Rebellion. Here is an 1871 photograph by John Thomson of its bronze top wellcomecollection.org/works/hetfphut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 3 May 2018 at 19:58
Tibetan stupa drawing on back of a thangka painting in collection of @ExploreWellcome wellcomecollection.org/works/vraxpypm (image is mirrored for some reason) : om̐ āh hūṃ ཨོཾ ཨཱཿ ཧཱུཾ repeated in Rañjanā and Tibetan scripts.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 May 2018 at 21:12
Charles Bawden was head of department when I started at SOAS in 1983, but unfortunately I only met with him once, and he left in 1984 before I had a chance to study Mongolian with him. twitter.com/BuuralG/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 May 2018 at 17:03
"Confidentiality of meeting discussions" was inserted in the Technical Committee Procedures for the Unicode Consortium (unicode.org/consortium/tc-…) in January 2017; before then some people were known to live-tweet UTC meeting decisions. Now information is strictly controlled ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 May 2018 at 17:07
... the procedures do allow for the application of the "Chatham House Rule" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_H…), but has it ever been invoked at UTC? I think UTC meetings should be held under the Chatham House Rule as a matter of course. UTC secrecy only harms the reputation of the UTC.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 May 2018 at 08:24
Here are the other sides of the three sheets, including the title page wellcomecollection.org/works/t6ug7ndr
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 May 2018 at 23:02
Four footprints, two languages, one tile by @Katherine_McDon katherinemcdonald.net/2016/01/14/fou…
Two languages, two scripts, two writing directions:
𐌇𐌍 𐌔𐌀𐌕𐌕𐌉𐌉𐌄𐌝𐌔 𐌃𐌄𐌕𐌚𐌓𐌉 𐌔𐌄𐌂𐌀𐌍𐌀𐌕𐌕𐌄𐌃 𐌐𐌋𐌀𐌅𐌕𐌀𐌃
HERENNEIS AMICA SIGNAVIT QANDO APONEBAMVS TEGILA
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 8 May 2018 at 21:55
Recent emoji proposals (5/2):
Saw unicode.org/L2/L2018/18178…
Screwdriver unicode.org/L2/L2018/18179…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 9 May 2018 at 11:58
Justification for encoding new emoji is largely based on popularity of the corresponding English word, which I think is ridiculous. Because #screwdriver is a popular hashtag, does this mean if screwdriver emoji is encoded everyone will change to use #{screwdriver emoji} instead? twitter.com/jgerity/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 May 2018 at 13:37
Falafel proposal: Give us an unambiguously vegetarian food emoji that is not just fruit and vegetables!
Emoji Subcommittee: Right, meatballs it is.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 May 2018 at 13:41
Don't even ask me what they are thinking about waffle.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 13 May 2018 at 08:58
Fantasy proposal by Norbert Lindenberg to replace the Japanese writing system with a new Hangul-based script called Niji norbertlindenberg.com/2018/03/niji-s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 14 May 2018 at 21:18
Proposal to encode the Assamese script by the Bureau of Indian Standards unicode.org/L2/L2018/18181… i.e. disunify the Assamese alphabet from the Bengali alphabet — this could be interesting.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 15 May 2018 at 13:56
Japan has just submitted a "Proposal to start the development of CJK Regional Supplementary Ideographs and terminate the development of CJK Unified Ideographs" appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg50… (it's a really bad idea btw)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 15 May 2018 at 15:01
"the Japan NB has been very concerned about the proliferation of variant characters" ... ironic when Japan is the worst offender, with most of the 1,646 Japanese characters in CJK Ext. F being trivial variants.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 15 May 2018 at 15:12
"the Japan NB has been very concerned about the proliferation of ... rarely used ancient/academic characters in CJK Unified Ideographs extensions" — the characters complained about are actually of great importance to scholars studying ancient (bronze, silk, bamboo) texts.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 15 May 2018 at 15:13
Japan equally dislikes (and tries to obstruct) the encoding of new simplified Chinese characters. Japan basically has an "I don't like it" attitude to all non-Japanese characters, but at the same time gets very angry at anyone who questions any of their submissions.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 17 May 2018 at 19:44
The authors of the proposal obviously failed to notice that the BMP only has two free contiguous ranges (48 at 0870..089F and 16 at 2FE0..2FEF), and 0870..089F are pre-assigned for RTL characters, so the demand for BMP allocation of 104 contiguous characters is impossible.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 May 2018 at 20:00
Revised discussion of our proposed Cluster Formation Model for Khitan Small Script with @cosmicore and @Evertype unicode.org/L2/L2018/18121…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 May 2018 at 13:42
It is interesting that the Unicode Consortium recognizes "Taiwan (ROC)" as having equal status with "China (PRC)" — bravely bucking the current trend!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 May 2018 at 18:15
Actually the Google Maps view showing just the north fence and watchtowers looking over an otherwise invisible detention facility is more interesting to me. google.com/maps/place/43%… twitter.com/shawnwzhang/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 May 2018 at 18:16
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 27 May 2018 at 15:44
The Unicode Consortium is worried about people representing the "pistol" emoji facing the wrong direction (but apparently not whether it is a gun or a water pistol) unicode.org/reports/tr51/ h/t Ivan Panchenko on Unicode public mailing list
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 June 2018 at 12:47
Comments on Emoji 12.0 Candidates by @Random_Guy_32 unicode.org/L2/L2018/18191… — I strongly agree with their comments on Coloured Squares and Circles, Stethoscope, Ice Cube, and Service Animal Vest.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 June 2018 at 13:29
Just received my signed copy of Словари кяхтинского пиджина [Dictionaries of Kyakhta Pidgin] by Profs. Irina F. Popova and Takata Tokio orientalstudies.ru/rus/index.php?… for which I provided the Chinese font covering some rare and as yet unencoded Han ideographs.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 2 June 2018 at 13:30
Abstract, Contents and Introduction available as PDF at orientalstudies.ru/rus/images/pdf…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 June 2018 at 13:37
Here is an example of one of the unencoded characters on p. 71 and p. 446: 猞{⿰犭立}猻 (@eisoch)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 June 2018 at 15:30
"Analysis of Shuishu character repertoire" unicode.org/L2/L2018/18193… with @eisoch
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 June 2018 at 21:54
Four of the Shuishu scan fonts used in this document are now freely available for download from babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Shuishu.…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 June 2018 at 22:00
PUA scan fonts for Shuishu 水书 and Naxi Dongba 纳西东巴文 scripts that are not yet encoded in Unicode:
babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Shuishu.…
babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Naxi.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 June 2018 at 00:25
BabelMap Online updated for Unicode 11.0 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 June 2018 at 00:33
BabelMap Online en français mis à jour pour Unicode 10.0 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/babelm…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 June 2018 at 11:27
Translation by Ma Xiaofang 麻晓芳 of a paper based on my blog post Preliminary Analysis of a Newly-Discovered Tangut Wordbook babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2015/08/p… has just been published as 新见西夏字书初探 in 《西夏研究》2018年02期 cnki.com.cn/Journal/F-F4-X…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 8 June 2018 at 08:21
Recent emoji proposals (6/2):
Ninja Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18197…
Feather Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18200…
Camouflage Helmet Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18199…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 9 June 2018 at 14:29
BabelStone Shapes is a new font covering geometric shapes, arrows and stuff, including the half stars recently encoded in #Unicode11 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Shapes.h…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 9 June 2018 at 14:34
BabelStone Xiangqi is a new font covering the Xiangqi 象棋 (Chinese chess) game symbols recently encoded in #Unicode11 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Xiangqi.… — it comes in black & white and colour versions
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 9 June 2018 at 14:37
BabelStone Mayan Numerals is a new font covering the twenty Mayan numerals recently encoded in #Unicode11 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Mayan.ht…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 June 2018 at 11:08
Comments by UTC experts on Khitan Small Script clustering model unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4977…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 13 June 2018 at 11:09
This is in response to the proposed Khitan Small Script clustering model documented in unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4943… by myself and @Evertype and @cosmicore
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 13 June 2018 at 11:13
Test page for my prototype Khitan Small Script font which works just fine using existing OpenType features is here: babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/KSS_Test…
Three prototype KSS fonts can be downloaded for testing from babelstone.co.uk/Khitan/Prototy…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Wednesday, 13 June 2018 at 11:15
"Use of space to separate clusters would be a new model ..."
I simply cannot understand this statement at all. Spaces separate words in most scripts, and spaces are required in KSS whatever clustering model. There is no added complexity or burden on implementers.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 13 June 2018 at 11:16
"Editing is not ideal ..."
Editing behaviour is defined at the application level, and should not depend upon the encoding model.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 June 2018 at 11:16
"Model requires OpenType features that are not yet supported."
My prototype font works fine with existing OT features, and @d_s_corbett has demonstrated that new OT features are not required for dynamic clustering. twitter.com/d_s_corbett/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 June 2018 at 11:57
And anyway, space characters do not have any special function in our model. KSS clusters are typically separated by whitespace, but could be punctuation marks or 💩 ... what is on either side of a KSS cluster should be irrelevant to the font and the rendering engine.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 June 2018 at 12:12
A Letter from Shui Community (Shuishu Users) in China: 关于水书国际编码提案研究情况的说明 unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4981…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 June 2018 at 12:13
I originally supported the Chinese proposal, but after spending considerable time on an analysis of the Shuishu repertoire unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4956… with @eisoch I believe that the current repertoire does need to be improved before Shuishu can be encoded.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 June 2018 at 11:24
Michel Suignard presenting the current state of the project to encode extended Egyptian Hieroglyphs in Unicode at UCL London
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 14 June 2018 at 14:58
Classification of Hieratic signs presented by Svenja Gülden of the Altägyptische Kursivschriften project
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 June 2018 at 15:27
A new Hieroglyphic font created in collaboration with Montpellier 3 University presented by Pierre Fournier
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 15 June 2018 at 12:42
Day 2 of the Unicode Egyptian Hieroglyphs meeting at UCL — contemplating making an auto-icon of myself.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 15 June 2018 at 21:03
Shabti on display at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at UCL, where most of the participants at the Meeting on Egyptian Hieroglyphs in Unicode went after the two-meeting finished early this afternoon.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 15 June 2018 at 23:09
I'll be there, along with @Evertype -- it should be an interesting meeting! twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 June 2018 at 11:51
At #WG2_67 at SOAS London discussing #emoji with @Evertype 🦕 and @jeremyburge 🦘
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 June 2018 at 11:55
Why no submarine emoji? @jeremyburge #WG2_67
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 June 2018 at 09:57
Lively exchange of opinions during discussion of the proposal to disunify Assamese from Bengali (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4947…) on Day 2 of #WG2_67 at SOAS London — Mahendra Kumar Yadava speaking.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 June 2018 at 15:14
At #WG2_67 today I presented proposals for additional characters for Gongche Notation (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4967…), Zanabazar Square (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4945…), and Tangut Components (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4957…). @eisoch @JerryYou517
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 20 June 2018 at 10:56
At #WG2_67 this morning I presented for an hour on the Cluster Formation Model for Khitan Small Script (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4943…) ... interesting exchange of opinions @cosmicore
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 20 June 2018 at 14:30
Most of #WG2_67 today spent discussing various CJK matters, including the Japanese "Proposal to start the development of CJK Regional Supplementary Ideographs and terminate the development of CJK Unified Ideographs" (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4948…) 🦃🦃🦃
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 June 2018 at 09:22
We discussed Khitan Small Script from 17:00 to 18:00 yesterday at #WG2_67 (after spending an hour discussing it first thing that morning) — here is me trying to explain something.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 June 2018 at 10:05
At #WG2_67 this morning we discussed contributions on Sui script (Shuishu) by Suzuki Toshiya (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4942… and unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4946…) as well as the big document by myself and @eisoch (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4956…).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 June 2018 at 10:07
The letter from Chinese Shuishu experts (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4981…) was noted, but it did not provide a way of progressing the encoding of Sui script. A completely new proposal is required.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 June 2018 at 14:00
#WG2_67 at SOAS University of London finished early this afternoon, but SC2 will convene tomorrow morning for resolutions. Here is a group photo taken on Wednesday morning.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 June 2018 at 08:56
Final day of #WG2_67 at the Ministry of Truth #󠇯1984
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 June 2018 at 12:50
Proposal for an emoji sequence of "light bulb" 💡 emoji and "house" 🏠 emoji to form "lighthouse" emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18204… — this is a very bad idea as light + house is a rebus that works only in English, and makes no sense to speakers of most other languages.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 June 2018 at 12:52
Lighthouse would be a good emoji (compared with most of the current candidates for Unicode 12.0), but it should be encoded as an atomic character.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 June 2018 at 13:03
Dodo emoji anyone? twitter.com/NLNatArchief/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 June 2018 at 19:36
After #WG2_67 finished for the week at 15:00 today, @Evertype and myself went to the nearby British Library to look at medieval Cornish manuscripts.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 June 2018 at 00:06
Mary's writing practice on the back of a page in a 1571 book of sample writing hands, including "abcdefghiklmnopqrstuwxyz" in Thomas Shelton's 1650 Zeiglographia shorthand system (a few small errors: i is inverted, w is mirrored, and x & y are swapped). @Evertype
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 June 2018 at 00:15
The four and twenty zeiglographic letters in a 1659 edition of Thomas Shelton's "Zeiglographia, or A New art of Short-writing never before published".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 June 2018 at 11:39
Sample of lettre frizée calligraphy in a 1571 manual of handwriting.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 June 2018 at 20:23
I spent all day at Cambridge today — beautiful sunny day, but I spent most of the time coding a new feature for BabelPad (which was incidental to me being at Cambridge)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 June 2018 at 21:00
Recommendations from last week's #WG2_67 (which I attended as "expert from UK") unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4954…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 June 2018 at 21:12
Repertoire for the final draft of ISO/IEC 10646 (5th ed.) Amendment 1 (FDAM1): 911 characters corresponding to content already added to Unicode 11.0 unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5005…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 June 2018 at 21:13
Repertoire for the draft of ISO/IEC 10646 (5th ed.) Amendment 2 (DAM2): 609 characters corresponding to some content already added to Unicode 11.0 as well as some new content for Unicode 12.0 unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5000…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 June 2018 at 21:14
Repertoire for the committee draft (CD) of ISO/IEC 10646 (6th ed.): 5,738 characters including CJK Ext. G, mostly corresponding to content targeted for Unicode 13.0 (but some will be fast-tracked to Unicode 12.0) unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5006…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 June 2018 at 21:46
CJK Unified Ideographs Supplement (32 code points) is squeezed between CJK Exts. B and C — the Platform 9¾ of CJK encoding. The seven characters in this block proposed by @eisoch and @JerryYou517 are in BabelStone Han PUA at F1D3..F1D9.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 June 2018 at 21:54
Some of the emoji accepted for encoding at last week's #WG2_67 meeting, including Dodo, Mammoth and Troll ... @Informoji @FakeUnicode
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 June 2018 at 21:57
... oddly the expert from UK abstained on encoding these emoji, whereas the experts from the Unicode Consortium and US voted for them. twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 June 2018 at 20:54
How not to write a Unicode proposal unicode.org/L2/L2018/18206… — this demand for 1120 more superscripts, subscripts and small capitals is not a well-formed proposal and will simply be thrown out without consideration.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 27 June 2018 at 14:37
Could an emoji save your life? by @maryhalton bbc.co.uk/news/science-e… "Unicode are currently considering Emerji's flood and earthquake designs" — I can find no evidence that that is the case ... probably lost in Emoji Subcommittee limbo.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 June 2018 at 18:49
Resolutions of the 23rd ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 Plenary Meeting, London, UK, 2018-06-18/22 isotc.iso.org/livelink/livel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 June 2018 at 20:10
Need to complete Unicode encoding of Egyptian hieroglyphs used on the Rosetta Stone was mentioned at the Egyptian Hieroglyphs in Unicode meeting at UCL 2 weeks ago. I think it should be a priority. @Evertype twitter.com/Eleanor_Robson…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 July 2018 at 11:36
Unravelling an archaeological silk bundle blogs.bl.uk/collectioncare… — revealing a date in Chinese characters: 嘉定七年 = 7th year of the Jiading era (of Emperor Ningzong of Southern Song) = 1214
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 July 2018 at 12:04
Early 15th century Russian written in Uighur script! "Thus the note seems to be the earliest text in Russian transcribed in characters other than Cyrillic, preceding those in Greek and Latin characters for centuries." elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=25… twitter.com/dmatsui1217/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 6 July 2018 at 21:53
Boy discovers mammoth bone pendant with Old Turkic (Orkhon) inscription in Yakutia siberiantimes.com/science/others…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 6 July 2018 at 21:56
The inscription is relatively clear but frustratingly difficult to make sense out of. The top word is probably :𐰇𐰲 üč "three", and the bottom word is :𐰉𐰆𐰞 bol "to be, to become", but the middle two words are not obvious to me.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 6 July 2018 at 21:58
In particular the second word has a back vowel o/u 𐰆 between two front consonants ök 𐰜 and äb 𐰋 which should not occur.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 7 July 2018 at 19:07
Ditto for Tangut! twitter.com/tkasasagi/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 July 2018 at 12:41
Love the hype: "The most important Chinese manuscript ever to have appeared at auction" — a late copy of an often-copied Buddhist manuscript has little intrinsic importance, whether written in ink, gold or blood. twitter.com/incunabula/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 July 2018 at 12:50
The gold-inked Yuan dynasty Tangut Buddhist manuscript recently rediscovered in Poland babelstone.blogspot.com/2018/04/redisc… is much more interesting (and even important, dare I say) ... I just hope it never goes under the hammer.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 July 2018 at 22:17
My apologies for the late release of BabelMap for Unicode 11.0 babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 July 2018 at 19:06
Recent emoji proposals (7/2):
Inhaler emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18215…
Magic Wand emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18218…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 July 2018 at 14:35
I think that this article clearly demonstrates that emoji are fundamentally not ordinary Unicode characters. twitter.com/mark_e_davis/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 July 2018 at 14:43
List of all digitized Anglo-Saxon charters at the British Library blogs.bl.uk/files/list-of-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 July 2018 at 19:41
To be brutally honest, I really like the cover of this one. twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 July 2018 at 13:12
The index character 來 after the title is the 18th character of the Thousand Character Classic and indicates that this volume belongs in the 18th of 479 cases that the Chinese Buddhist canon was traditionally divided into. babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Kaiyuan… twitter.com/incunabula/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 July 2018 at 00:19
At the very least it is misleading to state that emoji adoption money supports "digitally disadvantaged languages". What it actually supports is encoding long extinct scripts used mostly by a small number of scholars. twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 July 2018 at 00:25
I'm all for encoding obscure historic scripts, but it is disingenuous to pretend that the money raised from emoji adoption is used for "digitally disadvantaged languages", which most people would assume refers to minority or endangered languages actually spoken by living people.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 July 2018 at 18:15
Proposal for Deaf Woman and Deaf Man emoji sequences unicode.org/L2/L2018/18229… — what about deaf girl and boy? and deaf gender-neutral adult/child? or even deaf red-haired persons?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 July 2018 at 18:33
Defining a complex sequence containing three different body parts that may each take a different skin tone modifier seems to me to be a recipe for disaster.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 July 2018 at 18:52
More emoji documents coming soon in readiness for next week's UTC meeting. Obviously nothing here to suggest that the UTC will be dominated by emoji issues. unicode.org/L2/L-curdoc.htm
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 10:21
'brog mi phyag rgya འབྲོག་མི་ཕྱག་རྒྱ = "seal of the nomad". Is "Nomad" here the name of the Tibetan scholar-traveller 'Brog-mi (992-1072)? twitter.com/idp_uk/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 11:38
Revised proposal for Inter-Skintone Couple Emoji Sequences unicode.org/L2/L2018/18228…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 11:45
Frisian flag Emoji Submission unicode.org/L2/L2018/18233… — already representable as NL-FR flag tag sequence 1F3F4 E006E E006C E0066 E0072 E007F {🏴} but not currently recommended for general interchange (RGI) so not supported by vendors.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 11:53
Draft proposal to add 330 new gender neutral emojis (55 gender neutral glyphs × 6 skintones) unicode.org/L2/L2018/18225…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 11:55
In order to ensure cross-platform alignment of glyph forms I think -- the proposal is not very clear, and does not give any examples of the proposed gender neutral glyphs.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 20:18
Just a reminder that the Unicode Square Japanese Era Name characters ㍾㍽㍼㍻ were encoded for compatibility only, and are not used in most calendar software, where the corresponding ordinary kanji are ordinarily used (W10 Japanese calendar shown using 平成 rather than ㍻) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 20:23
... so there really should be no need for the mad rush to encode a new Unicode Square Era Name compatibility character for the new Japanese Emperor's era in Unicode 12.1 as very few applications use them (and those that do may not be updated in a timely manner anyway).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 20:28
Sure, applications need to update to use the kanji for the new era name when it is announced (?? in the W10 Japanese calandar shown), but they mostly don't need any new Unicode character to be encoded. The whole Unicode frenzy over the new era name is rather unnecessary I think.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 20:47
Three emoji-related documents from Mark Davis:
UTS #51: add skin-tone/gender info for groups unicode.org/L2/L2018/18223…
Emoji Skin-Tone Combinatorics unicode.org/L2/L2018/18226…
Unspecified-Gender Census unicode.org/L2/L2018/18227…
(tbh, I don't really understand any of them)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 22:19
Brief Report from London meeting of [Unicode] Egyptologists, 14-15 June 2018 at UCL unicode.org/L2/L2018/18237… (I was there with @Evertype and @r12a)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 July 2018 at 22:21
Emoji Subcommittee recommendations for Emoji/Unicode 12.0 and Emoji/Unicode 13.0 unicode.org/L2/L2018/18222…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 July 2018 at 18:34
Proposal to encode the recently revived Yezidi script unicode.org/L2/L2018/18238…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 24 July 2018 at 11:00
Difficult to be excited about this one ... twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 July 2018 at 22:27
Proposal for animal service vest emoji replaced by proposal for human safety vest -- more useful, recognizable and flexible; and can be zwj-ed with dog to make a service dog emoji. unicode.org/L2/L2018/18256…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 26 July 2018 at 23:27
Where did it all go so wrong? unicode.org/L2/L2018/18223…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 July 2018 at 23:41
And just a reminder, U+1F46F 👯 is actually named WOMAN WITH BUNNY EARS, and when originally encoded in 2010 it was depicted as a single woman with bunny ears in the official Unicode code charts. unicode.org/Public/6.0.0/c…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 July 2018 at 10:10
L2/17-067R2 Wancho @Evertype
L2/17-342 Cornish @Evertype
L2/18-164R2 Chorasmian @anshumanpandey_
L2/18-184 Symbol @mexamexo8
L2/18-194 Tangut @BabelStone
L2/18-221 Small Khitan @BabelStone @cosmicore @Evertype
L2/18-245 Gongche @eisoch @JerryYou517
L2/18-255 Bopomofo twitter.com/ken_lunde/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 July 2018 at 11:08
If the Unicode Consortium enforced the singularity of the character, and Apple did not willfully disregard the consortium it is a member of, then it would all be a whole lot simpler.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 July 2018 at 17:50
᚛ᚆᚉᚐᚂᚂᚓᚉᚓᚂᚂᚐᚉᚆ twitter.com/eDIL_Dictionar…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 29 July 2018 at 11:47
"An inscribed travertine bowl has just flashed briefly on the internet, the image now gone, the find spot unknown." decipherment.wordpress.com/2018/07/07/if-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 July 2018 at 09:11
That is some panther in an image from a 15th century ms in @BLMedieval's post on medieval pilgrimages (human and animal). blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus… Are panthers commonly depicted thus in medieval manuscripts?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 July 2018 at 09:17
Got to love the MVSEVM BRITANNICVM stamp. You have to be a brave librarian to do that. (A Guide to British Library Bookstamps blogs.bl.uk/collectioncare…) twitter.com/BLMedieval/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 August 2018 at 12:26
Japanese postcard to Mrs Phelps, i.e. Rose Janet née Hutchinson, wife of John Jay Phelps (1861–1848) of Red Towers Hackensack NJ, found in a second-hand book purchased from the #Yale Co-op in 1995.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 August 2018 at 12:27
With a limerick to Mrs Phelps on the back:
This lady resides at Red Towers
Such is named after one of the flowers,
And that is the rose,
As everyone knows,
So she is the Rose of Red Towers.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 August 2018 at 18:59
Recent emoji proposals (8/2):
Pickup truck emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18260…
Potted plant emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18261…
Tissue box emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18262…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 August 2018 at 22:13
John Jay Phelps (1861–1948)
And is named after one of the flowers
I hate twitter
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 August 2018 at 19:16
Feather emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18265…
Grave emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18266…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 10 August 2018 at 17:42
Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī riding a lion on a Tangut silk painting from Khara-Khoto hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/her… #WorldLionDay
As is the case with so much Tangut vocabulary, the Tangut word for 'lion' 𘆅𗹛 ₂ka¹₂che³ is of unknown etymology (the 2nd element 𗹛 is a homophone of 𗗯 'dog').
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 August 2018 at 15:37
Contrary to China's anti-terrorism laws, three Uyghurs were found living in privately-rented accommodation in Henan and seditiously cooking Uyghur flat bread. Their landlord was fined and detained for 15 days; the Uyghurs were forcibly sent back to Xinjiang for "education". twitter.com/liuhu2017/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 August 2018 at 13:32
Tangut clay elephant from inside one of the 108 stupas in Ningxia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:108_… — possibly the base for a statue of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra #WorldElephantDay
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 August 2018 at 13:38
There are five possible Tangut words for 'elephant' : 𗦵𘇇 ¹py₁ ²bu₄, 𘁔𗵚 ²rer₁ ¹bu₃, 𘁆𘁉 ²khan₄ ²ngwo₁, 𘁊𘁉 ²lhiq₄ ²ngwo₁, 𘑞𘁉 ²zon₁ ²ngwo₁, but like much of Tangut vocabulary we do not know what each of these words exactly mean.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 August 2018 at 21:04
First eleven letters of the Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet (ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳᚷᚹᚻᚾᛁ). twitter.com/liddyprosser/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 13 August 2018 at 21:06
The PAS record (finds.org.uk/database/artef…) reads the mostly missing letters at the 7th and 8th positions as the letter 'e' ᛖ (which is normally the 19th letter), but the three surviving strokes look like the remains of the expected letters 'g' ᚷ and 'w' ᚹ to me.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 13 August 2018 at 21:11
The PAS record gives the penultimate letter as 'g' ᚷ, but I think it is clearly the expected letter 'n' ᚾ. Thus the inscription reads f-u-þ-o-r-c-g-w-h-n-i ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳᚷᚹᚻᚾᛁ, the normal first eleven letters of the Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet or fuþorc.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 August 2018 at 21:19
Compare with the Malton runic pin held at the British Museum which is also engraved with eleven letters of the Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, f-u-þ-o-r-c-g-l-a-æ-e ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳᚷᛚᚪᚫᛖ, but mistakenly with 'l' ᛚ for 'w' ᚹ, and three vowels after the first eight runic letters.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 August 2018 at 09:36
ON BM Add. MS 47967 f. 1 are neatly written the Anglo-Saxon runes y-r-þ-e-r-o-ng-t-ng-æ-o-n-ḡ-o-n-ḡ ᚣᚱᚦᛖᚱᚩᛝᛏᛝᚫᚩᚾᚸᚩᚾᚸ incongruously annotated as a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-l-m-n-o-p-r-s. bl.uk/catalogues/ill…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 August 2018 at 09:38
It is difficult to make any sense of them. They could be the key to a runic cipher except that several runes are used several times. Page 1973 honestly admits "I have no idea what their significance is".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 August 2018 at 20:25
Another Anglo-Saxon disc-headed pin with a runic inscription, found at Bardney in Lincolnshire, this time engraved with the 15th through 25th letters of the Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet: ᛉᛋᛏᛒᛖᛗᛚᛝᛞᛟᚪ x-s-t-b-e-m-l-ng-d-oe-a finds.org.uk/database/artef…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 14 August 2018 at 20:32
The inscription comprises 11 runes, as is the case with the other two Anglo-Saxon runic-inscribed disc-headed pins. The order of runes on this pin exactly matches the order given in the Vienna Codex (Codex Vindobonensis 795).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 15 August 2018 at 09:20
If the standard Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet has 28 letters; and A/S Pin A has runes #1-11; and A/S Pin B has runes #15-25; then I surmise that runic pins like this were part of a set of four matching items, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 15 August 2018 at 09:27
... two disc-headed pins with 11 runes engraved on each (#1-11 and #15-25), together with two other items of jewellery with three runes engraved on each (#12-14 j-eo-p ᛄᛇᛈ and #26-28 æ-y-ea ᚫᚣᛠ).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 August 2018 at 21:52
How many couple emojis would there be if you allow for 3 genders and 6 skin tones and 5 hair types (neutral, red, white, curly, bald) for each person in the pair? And what about beards and tattoos and wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs and ... and still none of them look like me!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 August 2018 at 17:47
Whenever I go to the British Museum, as I did today, I get to this Ogham stone from Devon, and just stop and gaze at it for ten minutes. For me it is one of the most perfect objects in the museum.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 August 2018 at 17:49
FANONI MAQVI RINI on the front
SAGRANVI on the back
ᚄᚃᚐᚊᚊᚒᚉᚔ and ᚋᚐᚊᚔᚊᚔᚉᚔ around the edge
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 August 2018 at 18:02
Ogham-inscribed jewellery is very rare. This amber bead from Co. Clare is inscribed with a magical word in Ogham script that Macalister, with no great conviction, reads as ATUCMLU ᚐᚈᚒᚉᚋᚂᚒ (-CMLU visible in the image, the V-shaped mark below the stemline is U apparently).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 August 2018 at 18:27
This set of three linked Anglo-Saxon disc-headed pins shows how the runic-inscribed disc-headed pins might have been linked (the Malton pin has a hole for linking on the right side), with runes #12-14 and #26-28 engraved on the linking pieces.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 August 2018 at 19:03
The Anglo-Saxon runic-inscribed Seax of Beagnoth en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seax_of_B…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 August 2018 at 19:10
Detail of the wire-inlaid runic inscription, comprising the 28 letters of the standard Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet (ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳᚷᚹᚻᚾᛁᛄᛇᛈᛉᛋᛏᛒᛖᛝᛞᛚᛗᛟᚪᚫᚣᛠ) and the name Beagnoþ ᛒᛠᚷᚾᚩᚦ.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 August 2018 at 20:00
Anglo-Saxon gold runic ring, found in June 1817 at Kingmoor near Carlisle, and inscribed with an uninterpretable inscription comprising 30 Anglo-Saxon runes (last 3 on inside):
+ÆRKRIUFLTKRIURIÞONGLÆSTÆPON / TOL
᛭ᚫᚱᛣᚱᛁᚢᚠᛚᛏᛣᚱᛁᚢᚱᛁᚦᚩᚾᚷᛚᚫᛋᛏᚫᛈᚩᚾ / ᛏᚩᛚ
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 August 2018 at 20:32
Anglo-Saxon stone cross-head from St Mary's Church, Lancaster, inscribed with runes reading: ᚷᛁᛒᛁᛞᚫᚦᚠᚩ | ᚱᚫᚳᚣᚾᛁᛒᚪᛚ | ᚦᚳᚢᚦᛒᛖᚱᛖ[ᚻᛏ] ''gibidæþ foræ cynibalþ cuþbere[ht]'' ("Pray for Cynibalth, Cuthbert").
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 August 2018 at 20:36
Detail of the runic inscription.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 August 2018 at 23:42
"I believe the true line of research lies in the careful noting and comparison of the smallest details" — Flinders Petrie, 1931. On the entrance staircase to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 19 August 2018 at 21:51
I saw this as I left the museum, but it kept gnawing away at me as I walked through the streets of London, and so I had to turn back and take a photo. Petrie's words have haunted me every since, as I patiently but belatedly try to untangle the Tangut script. Eight years too late.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 20 August 2018 at 09:01
Beautiful and unusual example of the use of the X-shaped supplementary ogham letter k ᚕ. Three of the stones in this cluster commemorate members of the Toicacas tribe, twice spelt normally as TOICACI ᚈᚑᚔᚉᚐᚉᚔ, but once spelt TOICAKI ᚈᚑᚔᚉᚐᚕᚔ (as shown on the photo). twitter.com/Vkkokko/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 16:37
A brick, a couple of bricks, or a brick wall? Looks like the vendors are waiting for Apple to tell them all how to the draw the *Brick* emoji. Proposal was for a single brick (unicode.org/L2/L2017/17172…), but I predict brick wall will win in the end ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 16:41
... in the meantime don't be surprised if your emoji-tweet about a wall crumbles into a single brick on someone else's device.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 27 August 2018 at 18:08
"A bit of Tangut printing" from T. F. Carter's "The invention of printing in China and its spread westward" (1931) twitter.com/shugeorg/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 27 August 2018 at 18:24
T. M. 188 (T. M. = Manuscripte aus Turkistan) means collected from Turfan by Albert Von Le Coq, and held at the Museum für Völkerkunde (now the Ethnological Museum of Berlin) — Berlin Turfan collection not digitized under IDP? @idp_uk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 28 August 2018 at 00:24
Here's my transcription of the Tangut text with the corresponding Chinese version:
𗧓𘌽𘛽𗍊𘉏𗲠 = ...如我此身空處
𗈐𗌮𗒘𗍊𘗫𗾫 = ...如如無妄想
？𗫌𘐩𘋢𗥤𗗙 = ...出家菩薩住
𘗀𘍞𘏋𘟂𗥗𗁆 = 是名...修滿...。長者！
𗳒𗤁𘏞𗓽𗕥𘍞 = ...滿六波羅蜜。
𗨄𗌭𗠝𘍑𘎑𗯩 = ...知阿練兒處。
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 August 2018 at 00:25
It seems to be a translation of part of ch. 82 of the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra 大寶積經 (Sutra of the Heap of Jewels) tripitaka.cbeta.org/T11n0310_082#0…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 30 August 2018 at 19:35
Recent emoji proposals (9/2):
Capsicum emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18277…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 30 August 2018 at 19:38
The proposed capsicum emoji is red and has the proposed keyword "red", but capsicum are also commonly green, and often yellow. At emoji size it looks like a red apple (or a green apple if it were green). Still, only another 500 varieties of fruit and vegetable emoji needed.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 31 August 2018 at 10:15
ᚴᚢᚱᛁᛚᛋᛅᚱᚦᚢᛅᚱᛅᚠᛅᚱᚦᚢᚾᚢᚠᚢᚾᛏᛁᚾᛁᛋᛏᚢᚦᚢᚱᚢᛁᚵᛁᚦᛁᚴ
ᚦᚨᚱᛋᛅᛏᚱᚢᛏᛁᚾᛁᚢᚱᛁᛚᛋᛅᚱᚦᚢᛅᚱᛅᚢᛁᚦᚱᛅᚦᚱᛅᚢᛅᚱᛁ
kurilsarþuarafarþunufuntinistuþuruigiþik
þorsatrutiniurilsarþuarauiþraþrauari twitter.com/wyrdwritere/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 August 2018 at 10:28
Transcription into Old Norse:
Gyril sárþvara, far þú nú, fundinn ertu. Þórr vígi þik,
þursa dróttin, [G]yril sárþvara. Við æðrafari.
John McKinnell and Rudolf Simek with Klaus Düwel, "Runes, Magic and Religion : A Sourcebook" (Vienna: Fassbaender, 2004) dro.dur.ac.uk/1053/1/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 31 August 2018 at 10:30
And translation into English from the same source:
Gyril wound-stirrer, go now! You are found! May Þórr ‘hallow’ you, lord of ogres (= demons), (G)yril wound-stirrer. Against rushing (infection?) in the veins.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 12 September 2018 at 13:16
I just mapped the location of all 200+ tombs at the Western Xia imperial cemetery at Yinchuan google.com/maps/d/viewer?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 12 September 2018 at 14:59
Account of my visits to the Western Xia tombs at Yinchuan in 2016:
babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 13 September 2018 at 10:10
On Tuesday I visited St Peter's, parish church of Farnborough, to look at the exquisite medieval (early 13th century) wall paintings of three female saints. babeldiary.blogspot.com/2018/09/farnbo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 13 September 2018 at 10:13
Saint Eugenia, holding her breast with her right hand to show she is a woman, and thus prove her innocence to a charge of adultery while secretly living as an abbot. This may be the only surviving medieval depiction of Eugenia in England.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 13 September 2018 at 10:16
Saint Agnes, who was martyred for refusing to marry the son of the Prefect of Rome.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 13 September 2018 at 10:21
Saint Maria, identified as Mary Magdalene by the pot of ointment for anointing the feet of Jesus that she holds. Painted in semi-profile this picture is particularly stunning in its lifelikeness.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 14 September 2018 at 11:48
Continuing to catch up on the backlog for my photo diary for 2016, I have just published the account of my visit to the Western Xia twin pagodas at Baisikou in Ningxia babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 14 September 2018 at 11:53
Western Xia Imperial Tombs seek world heritage status xinhuanet.com/english/2018-0… — "We will move the museum, tourist center, and offices to a new museum complex one km away from the site. The modern buildings in the site will be demolished."
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 14 September 2018 at 23:18
I finish off my stay in Yinchuan with a visit to Hongfo Pagoda babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 22 September 2018 at 11:32
Shang, Zhou and Han depictions of rhinoceroses in bronze are extremely accurate and lifelike. Ancient Chinese rhinos had two horns, and are thought to have been a subspecies of the Sumatran Rhinoceros. This Han rhino in the National Museum of China has a saddle. #WorldRhinoDay
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 25 September 2018 at 19:08
Recent emoji proposals (⑩/⧜):
Disguised Face emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18311…
Coin Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18310…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 25 September 2018 at 19:14
It is interesting to me that both proposals talk about adding the proposed emoji to the "Unicode emoji character library" or "emoji library" rather than adding it to a character encoding standard. Makes it seem that the Unicode Standard is something different than it actually is.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 25 September 2018 at 19:16
I'm also looking forward to see a proposal for a Round Coin with Square Hole emoji. @eisoch
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 25 September 2018 at 19:29
The Wikipedia article on "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_quick…) is frequently edited by people who sincerely believe that it is missing one or more letters of the basic English alphabet ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 25 September 2018 at 19:30
Today: "Where are the letters W annd V?" en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 25 September 2018 at 19:33
Yesterday: "The phrase 'A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' is missing the letters 't' and 'h'" en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Sunday, 30 September 2018 at 17:38
Special Tangut issue of the Journal of Chinese Writing Systems (September 2018) journals.sagepub.com/toc/cwsa/2/3 — with papers by Nie Hongyin, Sun Bojun, Tai Chung-pui, Ma Xiaofang and myself.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 30 September 2018 at 17:48
I am pleased to say that the contributions by myself and Tai Chung-pui use Unicode Tangut. Unfortunately the contributions by all the mainland PRC scholars still use a GB hack encoding, even though Nie and Sun were instrumental in getting Tangut into Unicode.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 30 September 2018 at 19:22
Sunset at Hope Cove last night.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 16:40
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 16:41
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 October 2018 at 17:41
Warring States period bronze rhinoceros belt hook inlaid with gold and silver decoration, unearthed in Sichuan in 1954, and photographed by me in 2011 at the National Museum of China in Beijing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 10:12
Prof. Nie's article discusses three recently-identified Tangut characters used to transcribe Sanskrit "vajra", one of which (𘟰) was added in Unicode 11.0, and the other two are scheduled for inclusion in Unicode 12.0 ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 10:14
... of course if he used the Tangut Yinchuan font he would not need to use images for these three characters!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 October 2018 at 12:06
@cosmicore and myself discuss these three characters in detail in Unicode Technical Note #42 "Tangut Character Additions and Glyph Corrections" unicode.org/notes/tn42/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 October 2018 at 09:27
The 1350 Stele of Laosuo 老索 (1188–1260), a Tangut official under the Yuan dynasty, found in 1985 at Baoding, Hebei babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2015/01/t…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 October 2018 at 09:28
The 1278 Stele of Xiaoli Qianbu 小李鈐部 (1191–1259), a Tangut official under the Yuan dynasty, found in 2013 at Daming, Hebei babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2015/01/t…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 October 2018 at 09:41
Qianbu 鈐部 *kem pu is an alternative transcription of the Tangut title "Army Commander" 𘒏𗩈 *ga mbu (normally transcribed in as Ganbu 甘卜 or 敢不 *gam bu) and is strong evidence that the prenasalized stop reconstructed for 𗩈 by Sofronov (but not by others) is correct.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 October 2018 at 16:13
There is a long Chinese inscription dated 1278 on one side, and a short Tangut inscription on the other side:
𘄱𘞽𗥑𗄋𗥼𗴺
𗼽𘝾𘒏𗩈𗿒
"Mother, Madam Tian Fu'er" (Chinese 田氏福兒阿媽)
"The official, Xiaoli Qianbu" (Chinese 小李鈐部大人)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 October 2018 at 19:05
Detail of the front face showing part of the start of the inscription, including 老索，唐兀氏，世為寧夏人 "Laosuo was a Tangut, and his family had lived in Ningxia for generations". (This is the best-preserved part of the inscription, much of the rest is not so clear).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 20 October 2018 at 19:56
Early 20th-century Japanese copy of a Qin score and lyrics for 'High Peaks' (Gaoshan 高山), on display at the newly reopened Japanese Gallery at the British Museum.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 October 2018 at 17:33
The Decree of Pixodaros in the Lycian script (Xanthos, c. 340-334 BC), photographed at the British Museum yesterday.
(Twitter discriminates against Unicode Lycian characters, so the Lycian text is in the next tweet.)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 21 October 2018 at 17:34
𐊁𐊑𐊏𐊚𐊓𐊆𐊜𐊁[𐊅]𐊀𐊕(𐊀)𐊁𐊋𐊀𐊗
𐊀𐊕𐊑𐊏𐊀𐊖𐊁𐊗𐊍𐊀𐊇𐊀𐊖𐊁𐊓
𐊖𐊁𐊜𐊀𐊅𐊀𐊇𐊙𐊗𐊆𐊎𐊁𐊑𐊏𐊀
..𐊗𐊕𐊒𐊇𐊁𐊛𐊁𐊑𐊏𐊁𐊖𐊁𐊗𐊆
......𐊒𐊗𐊆𐊋𐊂𐊆𐊊𐊁𐊛𐊁𐊅𐊆
..........𐊗𐊆𐊖𐊗𐊇𐊁𐊑𐊗𐊁𐊋
..................𐊆𐊍𐊍𐊆𐊁𐊂
..........................𐊏𐊁
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 21 October 2018 at 17:40
Romanization:
eñnẽ pixe[d]ar(a) ekat
arñna se tlawa se p[ñ]
se xadawãti meñna
..truweheñneseti
......uti kbijehedi
..........tistwe ñte k
..................illieb
..........................ne
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 October 2018 at 17:42
The inscription records grants made by Pixedara (Pixodaros) to the Lycian cities of Arñna (Xanthos), Pñ (Pinara), Tlawa (Tlos) and Xadawãti (Kadyanda).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 October 2018 at 09:25
Here's something I've never seen before. A Chinese style carved wooden table with an inscribed slab of rock (10" × 6") embedded in the middle (transcription in next tweet). Found in a junk shop in Cirencester. Anyone got any ideas about when or why the table was made?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 24 October 2018 at 09:35
The stone is engraved with the well-known Sanskrit Buddhist mantra "oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, oṃ a hūṃ" in Lantsa script on two lines (oṃ ma ṇi pa dme | hūṃ oṃ a hūṃ).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 24 October 2018 at 09:38
For comparison, here is a woodblock print of "oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ" in Lantsa script.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Wednesday, 24 October 2018 at 09:59
Lantsa Sanskrit Buddhist inscriptions are found in China during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), for example on the Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass (居庸關雲臺) in Beijing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 October 2018 at 10:07
You can learn more about the 14th-century Buddhist inscriptions in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Phags-pa (Mongolian), Old Uyghur, Tangut and Chinese that are engraved on the inside arch of the Cloud Platform in my account of my visits there in 2011 and 2013 babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 October 2018 at 11:43
"Added the word “gray”, which is correct. Without the “g” you have no pangram." en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 October 2018 at 20:44
Recent emoji proposals (⑪/⧜):
Fly emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18317…
Ladder Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18320…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 October 2018 at 20:53
Flies and ladders, but not a single emoji for playground equipment: no swing, no see-saw, no slide, no merry-go-round, no helter skelter, no climbing frame ... do children not count?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 October 2018 at 21:02
A much better picture of the Sanskrit inscription, with transcription by Ananda Maharjan facebook.com/photo.php?fbid…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 00:49
The earliest Western printed description of Xiangqi (Chinese chess) in Thomas Hyde's 1694 De Ludis Orientalibus.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 01:08
And Hyde's depiction of a Weiqi (Go) board, with an explanation of eyes and how stones are captured.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 01:09
Maybe Hoy kî 囬碁 here is a mistake for the Japanese simplified characters for igo 囲碁 (weiqi 圍碁).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 01:20
Some of the game-related Chinese vocabulary that Hyde records. But I don't know what 小麥 (wheat), 大麥 (barley) and 馬料麥 (oats?) have to do with anything.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 01:22
Hyde also described some other Chinese games that I know nothing about.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 01:33
Hyde's pièce de résistance is the large drawing of the Shengguantu 陞官圖 diagram — or Snakes and Ladders for Mandarins. babelstone.co.uk/Ludus/DeLudisO…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 10:20
Holding an early 11th-century lead spindle whorl with Norse runic inscription mentioning the gods Óðinn and Heimdallr, found at Saltfleetby St Clement, Lincolnshire in 2010 finds.org.uk/database/artef… twitter.com/findsorguk/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 23:01
This evening I attended the preview of my friend Adrian Bradshaw's exhibition of photographs from 1980s China at Oxford Brookes University brookes.ac.uk/public-art/gla…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 23:06
This the photographer, Adrian Bradshaw, who went to China in 1984 as a 2nd year SOAS student, and stayed there for thirty years ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 23:25
... and here is a rather badly-aged photograph by me of the artist as a young man (we were roomies at the Beijing Language Institute 北京语言学院 1984-1985).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 October 2018 at 23:57
Adrian mostly documented everyday Chinese life in a changing China, but also got to photograph celebrities such as Deng Xiaoping (see top of thread) and Muhammad Ali.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 26 October 2018 at 16:20
A hundred years later a more detailed account of Xiangqi is given by Eyles Irwin, based on information received from "Tinqua, a Soldier Mandarin of the Province of Fokien" (Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy vol. V 1793-1794). babelstone.co.uk/Ludus/Irwin179…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 October 2018 at 16:29
Irwin seems ignorant of Hyde's work, and the only antecedent English source he refers to is Chamber's Cyclopædia which "mentions it to be the favourite pastime of the ladies, but quotes no authority for the assertion" (entry for Chess from 1728 ed. v. 1 p. 359 shown).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 October 2018 at 18:11
It's only fair that I post Then and Now photos of myself, so here's an original Adrian Bradshaw photo of me at Chengde in 1985 wearing a hat decorated with a plastic lobster ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 26 October 2018 at 18:19
... and here I am yesterday evening at Adrian's photo exhibition at the @glass_tank with Steve, another of the SOAS 1984/1985 contingent of 落后分子 (Steve, as some of you probably already know, was the most backward of all backward elements).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 October 2018 at 18:23
I only wear my Taijiquan Panda T-shirt for the most important occasions, such as when I visited the dead city of Kharakhoto in 2016 twitter.com/i/moments/7978…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 00:16
The Lianhui Tang edition of Sanguo Yanyi is an old friend of mine from my PhD days babelstone.co.uk/Publications/B… twitter.com/shugeorg/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 16:59
Beautifully produced new edition of Jackson's 1937 translation of the Outlaws of the Marsh 水滸傳 foliosociety.com/uk/outlaws-of-…, one of my favourite of the four great Ming novels ... twitter.com/xuetingni/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 17:13
Like many of my generation I was introduced to the novel as a teenager through the wonderful Japanese television series of the Water Margin, first broadcast on BBC in 1976-1978 ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 17:25
But I really got to know the novel through Sidney Shapiro's English translation of Outlaws of the Marsh, published in 1980 by Foreign Languages Press, which I read shortly after it was published during my lost years ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 17:32
Like the other translations of classical Chinese novels published by the Foreign Language Press, which I eagerly devoured in the years before I applied to study Chinese at SOAS, Outlaws of the Marsh was issued in fine cardboard cases ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 17:50
When I got to Beijing in 1984 one of the first things I did was buy Chinese editions of these novels. Here is my well-worn copy of the Shanghai Guji Chubanshe 1984 edition of Shuihu Quanzhuan 水浒全传 that accompanied me on many long train journeys across China ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 18:01
And here is my copy of the Collected Commentary Edition 水浒传会评本 published by Beijing University Press in 1987 ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 18:24
The earliest English translation of the Outlaws of the Marsh (水滸傳), under the title All Men Are Brothers, was made by Pearl S. Buck in 1933. 70 years ago an edition with vibrant colour illustrations by Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957) was published by the Heritage Press ... 0/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 18:32
Frontispiece. Liang Shan P'o, The Robbers' Lair (梁山泊) 1/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 18:36
Prologue. The Commander Hung, in heedlessness, frees the spirits (洪太尉誤走妖魔) 2/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 18:53
Chapter 2. Captain Lu kills the bully of Kuangsi with his fists (魯提轄拳打鎮關西) 3/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 18:58
Chapter 3. Lu the Priest makes a mighty turmoil [on The Five Crested Mountain] (魯智深大鬧五臺山) 4/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:05
Chapter 5. The Nine Dragoned Shih Chin turns robber [in The Forest of Red Pines] (九紋龍翦徑赤松林) 5/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:09
Chapter 6. The Tattooed Priest pulls up the weeping willow (花和尚倒拔垂楊柳) 6/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:14
Chapter 7. Ling Ch'ung is branded and sent into exile (林教頭刺配滄州道) 7/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:17
Chapter 11. Yang Chi goes to the capital [city to sell his knife] (汴京城楊志賣刀) 8/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:38
Chapter 12. The Eager Vanguard struggles for glory [in The Northern Capital] (急先鋒東郭爭功) 9/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:44
Chapter 13. The Redheaded Devil sleeps drunken in the temple (赤髮鬼醉臥靈官殿) 10/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:49
Chapter 14. Wu Yung exhorts the brothers (吳學究說三阮撞籌) 11/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:50
Chapter 14. The Three Juan Brothers join the robber band (吳學究說三阮撞籌) 12/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:51
Chapter 14. Kung Sung Sheng fulfills The Prophesy Of The Seven Stars (公孫胜應七星聚義) 13/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:54
Chapter 17. The Beautiful Bearded [traps The Winged Tiger by guile] (美髯公智穩插翅虎) 14/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:57
Chapter 18. Ling Ch'ung kills a comrade in The Robbers' Lair (林沖水寨大並火) 15/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 19:57
Chapter 20. Sung Chiang in his wrath kills P'o Hsi (宋江怒殺閻婆惜) 16/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 20:16
Chapter 21. Chu T'ung allows Sung Chiang to go free (朱仝義釋宋公明) 17/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 20:21
Chapter 22. Wu Sung kills The Great Tiger of Ching Yang Ridge (景陽岡武松打虎) 18/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 20:21
Chapter 26. Wu Sung meets Chang Ch'ing [at The Cross Roads Ridge] (武都頭十字坡遇張青) 19/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 20:22
Chapter 30. Wu Sung walks by night [on Centipede Hill] (武行者夜走蜈蚣嶺) 20/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 20:32
Chapter 33. The Fire In The Thunder Clap (霹靂火夜走瓦礫場) 21/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 20:43
Chapter 34. Hua Yung shoots a wild goose [with his arrow] (小李廣梁山射雁) 22/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 20:48
Chapter 37. The Black Whirlwind fights with White Stripe [In The Waves] (黑旋風展浪里白條) 23/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 20:49
Chapter 40. Li K'uei [swings his broadaxes] (宋江智取無為軍) 24/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 21:06
Chapter 41. Sung Chiang sees The Goddess Of The Ninth Heaven (宋公明遇九天玄女) 25/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 21:12
Chapter 43. Yang Hsiung [meets Shih Hsiu upon a market street] (病關索長街遇石秀) 26/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 21:13
Chapter 47. The Ten Foot Green Snake captures Wang The Dwarf Tiger (一丈青單捉王矮虎) 27/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 21:13
Chapter 47. The Ten Foot Green Snake and Wang (一丈青單捉王矮虎) 28/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 21:19
Chapter 60. Wu Yung beguiles The Jade [Ch'i Lin] (吳用智賺玉麒麟) 29/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 21:20
Chapter 62. Sung Chiang and his fighting men attack Ta Ming Fu (宋江兵打大名城) 30/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 21:22
Chapter 62. Kuan Sheng seeks a way [to seize The Robbers' Lair] (關勝議取梁山泊) 31/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 21:24
Chapter 68. Sung Chiang sets free The Warrior Of The Two Spears (宋公明義釋雙槍將) 32/32
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 21:30
Finally, here are all the illustrations by Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957) for a 1948 Heritage Press edition of Pearl Buck's 1933 translation of All Men Are Brothers twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 28 October 2018 at 00:51
And as a postscript, I should not forget these two signed copies of Shuihu studies by Prof. Yau-Woon Ma 馬幼垣, which sit on the other end of my Water Margin shelf. They contain images of many different editions of Shuihuzhuan, including ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 28 October 2018 at 00:56
... a fragmentary page (held at the Shanghai Library) from an edition of Shuihuzhuan titled 京本忠義傳 that is thought to date to the Jiajing era (1522-1567), and may be the earliest surviving exemplar of the novel.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 09:53
Bodhisattva Benzaiten 弁財天 playing the biwa 琵琶 (Chinese pipa, a type of four-stringed lute) on a silk scroll of c. 1300-1400 hanging in the newly-reopened Japanese Gallery at the British Museum.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 11:42
Benzaiten's biwa is virtually identical to this example preserved in the Shōsō-in (正倉院) treasure house at Nara, which dates to the Tempyō period (729-749) and may have been imported from Tang China.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 11:45
Here is another example from the Shōsō-in. Note the four frets on the neck, which are indicative of the traditional medieval biwa/pipa (the modern pipa is quite a different instrument, with up to 26 frets running all the way down the body).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 14:02
The Shōsō-in treasure house in Nara also houses a fragmentary sheet of lute music (天平琵琶譜), dated to circa 738, for a tune entitled Fanjia Chong 番假崇 in the "huangzhong diao" 黃鐘調 mode.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 14:19
The system of tablature used in the Tempyō Lute Score derives from China, where it is attested in three Dunhuang manuscripts held in Paris. The back of Pelliot chinois 3719 (idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…) shows a fragment of a single tune, Huànxīshā 浣溪沙 "Washing in the Stream".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 14:26
Pelliot chinois 3539 (idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…) lists the twenty tablature signs used for the four-stringed lute (open string and four frets for four strings equals twenty possible finger positions).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 14:35
And Pelliot chinois 3808 (idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…) is a long scroll comprising 25 tunes written in two hands (Tunes 20-23 shown).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 14:45
No other examples of this system of pipa lute notation are known from China, although it is attested in some later Japanese manuscripts (9th through 14th centuries). For more information see my blog post One to Twenty in Jurchen, Khitan and Lute (babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2012/12/o…) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 14:48
... and my 2017 preliminary proposal to encode this system of musical notation in Unicode unicode.org/L2/L2017/17311…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 15:17
There are many Chinese depictions of musicians playing the pipa, either solo or more commonly as part of an orchestral ensemble, on Dunhuang and Yulin murals, in Tang paintings, and as tomb figurines (Dunhuang mural shown).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 15:20
Sometimes the virtuoso feat of playing the pipa behind the back is depicted, as in this scene from a Dunhuang mural.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 15:26
Another example from Dunhuang, showing a group of male musicians (playing on either side of a female dancer who is not shown here).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 15:27
And this example from the Tang dynasty caves at Yulin.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 15:31
"Palace Concert" by an unknown Tang dynasty artist shows palace ladies at a
banquet playing various musical instruments (pipa at top of the table).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 15:36
And the most famous Chinese painting depicting a lutenist is this scene from Night Revels of Han Xizai by Gu Hongzhong 顧閎中 (937–975).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 16:15
Tang dynasty silk painting from Dunhuang dated 897 showing the Tejaprabhā Buddha and the Five Planets (熾盛光佛並五星圖), with Venus playing the pipa. britishmuseum.org/research/colle…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 17:31
Liao dynasty (907-1125) tomb mural in Inner Mongolia showing a Flutist and Lutenist.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 19:21
The pipa is not a native Chinese musical instrument but came to China from Central Asia, probably during the Northern Wei (386–535). By the Tang it was firmly established as a favourite, as evidenced by tomb figurines of orchestral ensembles such as this (metmuseum.org/art/collection…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 19:27
This set of Tang tomb figurines of musicians and dancers at the Miho Museum (miho.or.jp/booth/html/art…) includes a 4-stringed lute (bent neck) on the left and a 5-stringed lute (straight neck) on the right.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 19:34
This very similar set of eight musicians from a tomb in Anyang dates to the Sui dynasty (581-618), and also includes both a 4-stringed pipa (left) and and 5-stringed pipa (right) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 19:36
... and here is a photograph of the player of the 4-stringed pipa that I picked up from the internet somewhere.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 19:44
And a Tang figurine of a standing pipa-player (but I can't remember where it was found or where it is now).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 19:55
And finally, a group of Tang dynasty tomb figurines of four musicians and a dancer that I saw at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford last Thursday ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 20:02
... I originally thought it was a five-stringed pipa because of the straight neck, but it clearly shows only four strings, so perhaps the bent pegboard has broken off.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 10:08
Tangut glossary of stringed musical instruments.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 15:10
The Tangut character meaning "four" (𗝝 ngwə̣) in the name of the pipa is not the ordinary Tangut (Tibeto-Burman) word for "four" (𗥃 ldi̯ẹ), but belongs to a mysterious alternative set of numbers which some scholars believe represent a linguistic substratum ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 15:25
... for an unknown language that is mixed in with the Tibeto-Burman language that accounts for the majority of Tangut vocabulary in surviving texts. Unfortunately, no cognates for the substratum vocabulary have been found in any other language ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 15:26
... and the words for "four" (𗝝 ngwə̣) and "seven" (𗸨 ngwə̣) in this mysterious sub-Tangut language are exact homophones. What language pronounces "four" and "seven" identically?!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 15:48
For further reading see Marc Miyake's 13-part series "Revisiting the Tangut ritual language" from 2011:
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 16:26
Five-stringed pipa are not as frequently represented in art as the four-stringed variety, but here is an apsara (飛天) on a Dunhuang mural playing one.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 16:42
Here's a drawing of a five-stringed pipa (I've forgotten the source). It has a straight neck, and compared with the four-stringed pipa it has an extra string, an extra peg, and an extra fret (not obvious here) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 16:51
... the extra fret is called the "lonely fret" and is only used with the fifth string, so the five-stringed lute has 26 finger positions, and its musical notation requires 26 tablature signs ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 16:53
The only surviving score for the 5-stringed biwa (Gogen Kinfu 五弦琴譜, a Japanese manuscript dated 842) uses the 20 pipa tablature signs plus the kanji 子 zǐ “son”, 九 jiǔ “nine”, 中 zhōng “middle”, 四 sì “four”, 五 wǔ “five” and 小 xiǎo “little” for the fifth string positions.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 16:57
As you may have guessed by now, the Shōsō-in (正倉院) treasure house at Nara holds a stunningly beautiful five-stringed biwa (with five frets), which dates to the Tempyō period (729-749) and may have been imported from Tang China.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 17:06
The Shōsōin is ceremoniously unsealed once a year, and a few precious objects are taken out to be put on display at the Nara National Museum for just a couple of weeks every autumn — if you are in Japan go there right now! twitter.com/tkasasagi/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Thursday, 1 November 2018 at 16:54
The Shōsō-in (正倉院) treasure house at Nara holds one more Tempyō period (729-749) stringed musical instrument from Tang China, a ruanxian 阮咸 (or ruan 阮), a type of moon lute (yueqin 月琴), with four strings and 14 frets (in this example).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 1 November 2018 at 16:59
Here is a picture on a Dunhuang mural of the ruan moon lute being played (without a plectrum, unlike the medieval pipa which was always played with a plectrum).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 November 2018 at 17:08
BTW, the source for my pictures of Shōsōin musical instruments is "Shōsōin no gakki" 正倉院の楽器 (Tokyo, 1967). It also has some interesting photos of flutes, but perhaps I should save those for another thread on another day.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 1 November 2018 at 17:52
This painted brick from the Wei-Jin period (220-419) tombs near Jiayuguan, Gansu shows two male musicians, one playing a ruanxian lute with a round body and long neck, and one playing on a long bamboo flute (九節尺八長笛).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 November 2018 at 17:56
And this painted brick from the same Wei-Jin period (220-419) tombs at Jiayuguan shows an ensemble of female and male musicians playing drums, long flute, ruanxian lute with a pear-shaped body, and a qin (was the qin reserved for male musicians only?).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 November 2018 at 23:08
Arthur Cooper's introduction to Chinese and Japanese Characters, "The Other Greek", edited by Imre Galambos, has just been posthumously published by Brill brill.com/abstract/title…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 November 2018 at 23:52
Arthur Cooper is perhaps best remembered for his translations of the poems of Li Bo and Du Fu (penguin.co.uk/books/34928/po…). Along with G. W. Robinson's Poems of Wang Wei, and A. C. Graham's Poems of the Late T'ang, these were my introduction to Tang poetry in the late 1970s.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 November 2018 at 22:38
Kim Jong-un: My name is always printed in bold, how about yours?
Xi Jinping: Um, yeah, of course ... [aside: Make it so!]
twitter.com/FakeUnicode/st… twitter.com/CraigClunas/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 5 November 2018 at 11:36
David Helliwell's first blog post for this year discusses a recently rediscovered leaf from a 1597 Ming edition of a popular encyclopedia which was presented to Anna Maria van Schurman by Adreas Colvius in 1637. Great reading as always! serica.blog/2018/11/05/chi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Friday, 9 November 2018 at 09:08
The entire translation is wrong, the date is impossible, there are more than two known examples of round paizi with this Phags-pa text, and the fact that it does not have a Kirtimukha loop at the top like the other examples means it is probably not original ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 9 November 2018 at 09:19
The example at The Met is double-sided, with the inscription mirrored on one side (for use in stamping the text on documents). metmuseum.org/art/collection…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 9 November 2018 at 09:25
The silver example at the Inner Mongolia Museum (unfortunately not on display when I visited last year) has the same text but in a cursive style of Phags-pa calligraphy. zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 9 November 2018 at 18:54
The man behind the Genghis Khan collection is Don Lessem en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lessem who is an author of popular books on dinosaurs, and more a showman than a serious collector historical artefacts ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 November 2018 at 18:56
'Lessem found one very rare passport that is written in a secret language. "There's only one guy in the Western World who could translate it, basically says "I am the emissary of the Khan, if you defy me you die."' …ngolschinaandthesilkroad.blogspot.com/2015/07/ghengi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 10 November 2018 at 11:42
Here is the Phags-pa text of the paizi ("passport") in plain text Unicode:
ꡏꡡꡃ ꡁ ꡊꡠꡃ ꡘꡞ
ꡗꡞꡋ ꡁꡟ ꡅꡟꡋ ꡊꡟꡘ
ꡢꡖ ꡋꡟ ꡆꡘ ꡙꡞꡢ ꡁꡦꡋ
ꡠ ꡛꡦ ꡎꡟ ꡚꡞ ꡘꡖꡦ ꡛꡟ
ꡝꡙ ꡊ ꡉꡟ ꡢꡗꡞ
Note that the original reads vertically in columns running left-to-right.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 10 November 2018 at 11:44
This is a transliteration of the Phags-pa text, with transcription into Mongolian in parentheses:
mong kha deng ri (möngke tengri)
yin khu chun dur (yin küčün dür)
qa· nu jar liq khėn (qaɣan-u ǰarliɣ ken)
e sė bu shi r·ė su (ese bišire-esu)
'al da thu qayi (alda-tuɣai)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 10 November 2018 at 11:47
And this is my translation:
"Through the power of eternal heaven, [this is] an order of the Emperor (Khan). Whoever does not show respect [to the bearer] will be guilty of an offence."
Note that the actual khan who issued it is not named, so it is not certain to be Kublai Khan.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 November 2018 at 11:51
Although it may seem a mystical script to modern eyes, Phags-pa was originally not a "secret language", but intended as a common unifying script for writing the various languages used throughout the Mongol empire ... so in fact the opposite of a secret language!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 12 November 2018 at 00:05
David Helliwell barely disguises his contempt for the exhibition on Shen Fuzong, the first Chinese visitor to Oxford in Autumn 1687, now open at the China Centre in St Hugh’s College serica.blog/2018/11/11/she…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 November 2018 at 18:54
It is a shame that I missed this workshop on recent research and discoveries related to Bodhgaya, held at the British Museum today, with @MarcMiyake discussing Old Mon Tablets from Bodhgaya. soas.ac.uk/south-asia-ins…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 22:47
Letter from Qi Yuzhen 祁育真 (Member of the Shantou Christian Association 汕头市基督教联合会 in the 1950s) to Prof. Evangeline D. Edwards (1888-1957) at SOAS, dated 23 December 1932 (in the papers of Charles Otto Blagden) digital.soas.ac.uk/BL00000059
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 23:07
老師：
你還能記得十二年前的一個小學生否，現在她在這國中快住到一年的工夫了，可是在最近的日期内才打听着你老人家的一個住址，故此，敬草几字特候台安，如上帝許可，深聁望在囘中國之先能見您的面，不尽歡言，希再談：
生 祁育真拜 十二月廿三
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 23:11
Photograph of Qi Yuzhen c. 1932
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 23:42
Various designs drawn by Charles Otto Blagden (1864-1949) digital.soas.ac.uk/blagden/all/br…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 23:43
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 23:43
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 23:44
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 23:44
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 23:45
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 23:46
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 November 2018 at 23:46
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 November 2018 at 00:59
Evangeline D. Edwards (1888-1957), Professor of Chinese and Head of Department of the Far East at SOAS, and Acting Head of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, 1921-1955
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 15 November 2018 at 11:30
The #Wikipedia elves saw this photograph, and magically there is now a Wikipedia article for her! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelin…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 16 November 2018 at 09:05
Recent emoji proposals (Ⅻ/⧜):
Wrapped Food in Leaf emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18325…
Hook emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18327…
Fondue emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18328…
Elevator and Flight of Stairs emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18329…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 16 November 2018 at 13:12
Photograph of staff and students of the @SOAS Far East department in 1943 soasalumni.org/Document.Doc?i… with Prof. Eve Edwards barely visible at ⑨
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 16 November 2018 at 16:24
It is difficult to understand how something with such intricate decoration, which someone obviously spent a lot of time and effort making, could have G and S written reversed ... twitter.com/NWales_FLO/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 16 November 2018 at 16:29
... and equally hard to understand how the record for this object (finds.org.uk/database/artef…) states that the N is also reversed (I'm looking at my keyboard, and I'm 90% sure that N is written the right way round) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 16 November 2018 at 16:31
... the record does not make it clear what the final letter is, but I think it is an & (not written reversed as the record states).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 21 November 2018 at 10:37
Folke Bergman's photo of the northwest corner of Khara-khoto in January 1931 (jarringcollection.se/travel/travels… via @csen_nomads) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 21 November 2018 at 10:45
My photo from about the same spot when I visited in August 2016 with @cosmicore — the stupa on the left of Bergman's photo has disappeared but a new stupa has grown up on the right ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 21 November 2018 at 11:06
Aurel Stein's photos of Khara-khoto taken in May 1914 show only the single large stupa at the northwest corner, and the stupa rising from the sands on the left of Bergman's 1931 photo is nowhere to be seen (and not indicated on Stein's plans) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 21 November 2018 at 11:15
Stupas are fast growing, and as of 2016 there is now a family of five stupas living on the northwest corner of Khara-khoto ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 21 November 2018 at 11:22
And maybe when I next visit Khara-khoto there will be even more stupas, as workers were busy repairing or renovating the east wall during a mild sandstorm when we arrived.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 22 November 2018 at 00:19
Excavations of a Liao dynasty imperial mausoleum in the vicinity of Yiwulü Mountain 醫巫閭山 northwest of Beizhen city in Liaoning have uncovered pieces of jade tablets inscribed with Khitan Small Script. kaogu.cssn.cn/ywb/news/new_d… (@cosmicore)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 22 November 2018 at 00:34
This is my initial reading of the jade fragment shown. The middle block of two characters, reconstructed as reading "mó'er", is a common Khitan word meaning "mother, wife, woman, lady".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 22 November 2018 at 00:43
(The reading of "ren" for the first character is not a phonetic reconstruction, but a transcription convention because the Khitan character looks like the Chinese character 刄 rèn — I should have replaced it with a question mark in my transcription.)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 22 November 2018 at 01:39
Corrected transcription, with thanks to @cosmicore for pointing out my misreading of the second character of the first block (but I am responsible for any remaining errors).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 22 November 2018 at 17:20
Nobody knows exactly what the difference in use between Khitan Small Script and Khitan Large Script is, but the use of KSS on the jade tablets could be predicted from this map where yellow = KLS monuments, green = KSS monuments, and location of jade tablets is marked in purple.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 23 November 2018 at 21:23
Ce matin j'étais à Arras avec @Romain_Tangoute @vauzhao et des autres tangutologues pour un colloque international «Recontre de Tangoutologie» ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 23 November 2018 at 21:36
Mathieu Beaudouin, Gong Xun et Arakawa Shintarō discutent de la particule négative de tangoute.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 23 November 2018 at 21:49
Romain Lefebvre, Arakawa Shintarō et Wang Rongfei during the third session.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 23 November 2018 at 21:56
Tai Chung-pui from Hong Kong presents his research with @cosmicore on the Tibetan phonetic glosses on fragments of a Tangut manuscript which until 1922-1923 formed the cover of a Tangut book from Khara-khoto.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 00:49
Here is the programme for Rencontre de Tangoutologie, held at the Université d'Artois in Arras on Friday, and continued at the the École normale supérieure in Paris yesterday morning transfers.ens.fr/rencontre-de-t…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 00:55
After the conference we went to the Bibliothèque nationale de France to examine Tangut fragments and other treasures. Here is me and Prof. Arakawa Shintarō looking at an unidentified Tangut dharani (I left my reading glasses in the cloakroom, so it is all a bit of a blur for me!)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 01:03
And here we are looking at an unidentified gāthā from a fragment of a Tangut printed text.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 01:23
Here is a BnF fragment of a Tangut text printed using movable type. Notice the uneven inking, irregular size and ragged layout of characters, which are distinctive features of movable type printing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 01:36
And this is a fragment of an Old Uyghur manuscript from the Pelliot collection (gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…) for @dmatsui1217
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 01:38
"Le mot burxan, comme les noms βı̊ročan et Ločana, ainsi que deux points dans chaque groupe de quatre points servant de ponctuation, figurent partout à l'encre rouge, parfois surchargée sur de l'encre noire pâle" (archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc1…) @vauzhao
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 02:15
By far the most exciting moment of my visit to the Bibliothèque nationale de France came when I saw this scroll being unrolled, and I immediately recognised it as the unique Tang dynasty manuscript of pipa lute notation for 25 tunes.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 02:17
Less than a month ago I posted a picture of this manuscript on a long thread about the pipa/biwa lute in medieval China and Japan twitter.com/BabelStone/sta… but I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would ever get to see it in person!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 02:25
After studying Tangut for ten years, today was the first time I have ever had an opportunity to see an original Tangut text in person (and not behind a glass screen in a museum) so my visit to the BnF today has seen the fulfillment of a long-held wish ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 02:41
... but there are many thousands of Tangut texts in collections around the world. On the other hand, this single manuscript scroll is the only surviving Tang dynasty manuscript that preserves complete tunes in pipa musical notation so seeing it was a thousand times more exciting!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 23:56
Many thanks to Laurent Hericher (pictured), the Chief Curator of the Oriental manuscripts division, for showing us some truly marvellous items from the collection at the Bibliothèque nationale de France! And many thanks to @Romain_Tangoute for organizing the visit!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 26 November 2018 at 00:07
The credit for all the photographs in this thread goes to my good friend Tai Chung-pui who saved the day after I accidentally left my camera at the hotel. To finish off, here are two sheets of practice drawings of Buddhist figures in various poses from the Pelliot collection.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 November 2018 at 12:01
The Tangut fragments from the Pelliot collection at BnF can be viewed online on the gallica site (gallica.bnf.fr) by searching for "Pelliot xixia" (in quotes). This is the Tangut dharani fragment I was looking at at the start of this thread (gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 29 November 2018 at 10:32
I've just published a blog post on the Khitan Jade from the Liao Mausoleum at Yiwulü Mountain babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2018/11/y…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 1 December 2018 at 10:12
More detailed discussion of this Khitan inscription babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2018/11/y…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 4 December 2018 at 12:03
If you have legacy CJK-encoded Tangut data using the XXZT font, I have just created a tool that will convert it to Unicode Tangut babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/xxzt.h…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Tuesday, 4 December 2018 at 12:10
This is what the contents of the top box is (it looks like Tangut when XXZT font is applied):
修 = 崇 tśhjɨ j, bottom
眩 = 纳 pha, left
裀 = 緈 bjịj, right
衈 = 蛃 njij, middle
萨 = 饲 iọ, rim
The contents of the bottom box is real Unicode Tangut.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 4 December 2018 at 12:19
Next I need to create a conversion tool for Mojikyo Tangut, but that is horrible because Mojikyo uses two fonts (M202 and M203) for Tangut, and 360 code points in both fonts are mapped to different Tangut characters, so it is impossible to do a simple plain text conversion.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 4 December 2018 at 12:29
This is a real world example, where I copied text from the PDF of an article published recently journals.sagepub.com/toc/cwsa/2/3 (6 of the 8 papers use CJK-mapped XXZT font; only the papers by myself and Tai Chung-pui use Unicode Tangut).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 4 December 2018 at 22:04
The Mojikyo Tangut to Unicode conversion tool is now available at babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/mojiky…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 December 2018 at 17:54
Strong sense of déjà vu In August 2005 SOAS made the Chinese and Japanese/Korean subject librarians redundant (theguardian.com/education/2005…), and they were only reinstated in November 2005 after a vigorous campaign (theguardian.com/education/2005…). twitter.com/SaveSOASLibrar…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 December 2018 at 20:02
Four Girls in Harmony is a stunning CD of sacred and secular music from the 16th through 20th centuries, sung by the Girls' Quartet from the Choir of St Thomas-on-The Bourne (including my daughter) — great Christmas present! babelstone.co.uk/Music/Quartet2… 💿🎁🎶
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 December 2018 at 23:51
I've now written a blog post about the Khitan Fragments from the Tomb of Yelü Pugu babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2018/12/y…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 10 December 2018 at 12:34
Sample tracks from this and other CDs from the choir of St Thomas-on-The Bourne are available from thebourne.org.uk/media/index.php
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 10 December 2018 at 21:39
My Catalogue of the Morrison Collection of Chinese Books was published 20 years ago, in December 1998, when I was working at @SOASLibrary
SOAS Library is now threatened with devastating staff cuts change.org/p/soas-univers…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 10 December 2018 at 21:41
The catalogue has now been digitized and made available by SOAS on a CC BY-NC license digital.soas.ac.uk/LOAA003467/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 14 December 2018 at 19:36
Today I received my complimentary author's copy of the September 2018 issue of Journal of Chinese Writing Systems, with my paper on the Tangut Homonyms (one of two papers in this issue that are devoted to this newly-discovered text).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 14 December 2018 at 19:46
Now also available, On Christmas Night, a feast of carols from the choirs of St Thomas-on-The Bourne babelstone.co.uk/Music/Christma…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 14 December 2018 at 22:20
Proposal to encode LISU LETTER YHA ... but Lisu block is full and BMP is nearly full. Suggested location of 0870..087F is not possible as this range is reserved for RTL characters. Only possibility is 2FE0..2FEF in the CJK area. unicode.org/L2/L2018/18338…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 December 2018 at 02:07
མྱི་ཁྱོད་གི་རོགས་ནི་ལྷ་ཨི་ཤི་མྱི་ཤི་ཧ་ཞེས་བྱ་སྟེ་། །ཕྱག་ན་རྡོ་རྗེ་དཔལ་ཤག་ཀྱ་ཐུབ་པ་བྱེད་དེ་། ...
"i shi myi shi ha" = "Jesus Messiah" twitter.com/Lhatseri/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 24 December 2018 at 02:24
"Man, your ally is the god called 'Jesus Messiah'. He acts as Vajrapāṇi and Śrī Śākyamuni. ..." — see earlytibet.com/2007/12/02/chr… for discussion of Christianity in early Tibet by @sam_vanschaik
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 24 December 2018 at 02:33
Sam's article is translated into Tibetan at tsanpo.com/debate/25898.h… which gives a transcription of the passage in red (but ཨི་ཤི་མྱི་ཤི་ཧ་ is misspelled as ཨི་ཤི་མྱི་ཞི་ཧ་)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 24 December 2018 at 13:19
And in the earliest Chinese Christian text (7th century), the name of Jesus is bizarrely transcribed as 移鼠 [yí shǔ], literally "moving mouse" twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 24 December 2018 at 13:30
天尊當使涼風向一童女，名為末豔。涼風即入末豔腹內。…末豔懷後產一男，名為移鼠。
God thereupon caused a cool wind to blow towards a virgin named Maryam. The cool wind immediately entered into Maryam's belly. ... After her pregnancy Maryam gave birth to a boy whose name was Jesus.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 December 2018 at 13:33
... from the Sutra of Hearing the Messiah 序聽迷詩所經 tripitaka.cbeta.org/T54n2142 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutra_of_…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 25 December 2018 at 22:15
The St Thomas-on-The Bourne choirs singing the traditional Ukrainian Carol Of The Bells from their Christmas CD is available on YouTube. Pictured at Christ Church, Oxford during their 2013 tour. youtube.com/watch?v=WdtI29…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 December 2018 at 14:32
This morning I checked Wikipedia, and unexpectedly there was no article for Wang Quanzhang — now there is! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Quan… twitter.com/ChuBailiang/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 31 December 2018 at 12:54
My highlight for 2018 was getting to see this manuscript in person at the Bibliothèque nationale de France twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 31 December 2018 at 14:25
No New Year's resolutions; no predictions for 2019; no complaints about what I failed to achieve this year; just my highlights of 2018 in eight tweets:
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 31 December 2018 at 14:27
March 31: In my first blog post in more than two years I look at a newly-identified Jurchen inscription on the bank of the River Arkhara in Russia twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 31 December 2018 at 14:29
April 15: For my second blog post of the year I explore the fascinating history of the discovery, loss, and rediscovery of a Tangut Buddhist manuscript written in gold ink twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Monday, 31 December 2018 at 14:34
June 6: A translation into Chinese of my preliminary study of a newly-discovered Tangut wordbook (《新见西夏字书初探》) is published in Tangut Research (my first publication since 2012) twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 31 December 2018 at 14:35
June 22: I get to see the earliest extant fragment of a Middle Cornish text at the British Library with @Evertype twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 31 December 2018 at 14:39
August 17: My second paper on the recently-discovered Tangut Homonyms text is published in the Journal of Chinese Writing Systems twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 31 December 2018 at 14:41
November 25: I am privileged to examine Tangut texts and the Dunhuang pipa manuscript scroll at the Bibliothèque nationale de France with @vauzhao and others twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 31 December 2018 at 14:43
November 29: I write a blog post about a fragment of Khitan Small Script engraved on a piece of jade from a recently-discovered Liao dynasty imperial mausoleum twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 31 December 2018 at 14:45
December 9: I round off the blogging year with a post on fragments of Khitan Large Script inscriptions on a mural from a Liao dynasty tomb excavated in 2016 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 January 2019 at 02:32
My first Tangut publication, "Musical Notation for Flute in Tangut Manuscripts", was published in 2012 (orientalstudies.ru/eng/images/pdf…), and a Chinese translation (西夏写本中的笛谱) published the same year in Tangut Research (cnki.com.cn/Journal/F-F4-X…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 January 2019 at 19:32
Film by Ilia Stogoff made for the 200th anniversary of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (Asiatic Museum) of the Russian Academy of Studies orientalstudies.ru/eng/index.php?… (the Tangut dictionary "Sea of Writing" 𘝞𗗚 shown)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 January 2019 at 13:22
I've just released a new version of my BabelStone Han font, with 820 additional CJK ideographs for a total of 37,031 encoded CJK ideographs, and over 50,000 characters in total. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 January 2019 at 01:18
Report on excavations of the site of the capital of Rui state (芮国) and tombs of the Dukes of Rui from early Eastern Zhou — burial goods include bronze ritual vessels, sets of bronze bells, sets of stone chimes, as well as gold, jade and lacquer artefacts kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 5 January 2019 at 01:28
Brief report in English also available at kaogu.cssn.cn/ywb/news/new_d… (bronze vessel with inscription around the rim shown)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 5 January 2019 at 13:26
The inscription includes the characters "内(=芮)太子白" Prince Bai of Rui (on left) which are also found on a bronze vessel held at the Palace Museum in Beijing: 内(=芮)太子白作簠，其萬年子𖿣孫永用 dpm.org.cn/collection/bro…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 5 January 2019 at 13:30
(For Unicode geeks, that was the first twitter use of U+16FE3 OLD CHINESE ITERATION MARK which is coming in Unicode 12.0 in March this year.)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 January 2019 at 14:03
A very similar bronze li (鬲) vessel with an identical inscription referring to Prince Bai of Rui (芮太子白) was found at the Liangdaicun tombs (梁带村芮国墓地), 60km east of the Liujiawa site, in 2005.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 January 2019 at 16:17
Western Xia bronze hand mirror with a picture of an official and a deer, above which are the #Tangut characters 𘔭 [1dzen4] "money" (Chinese 錢) and 𘑨 [2wuq1] "to aid" (Chinese 祐) respectively. Photographed at the Xixia Museum in Yinchuan.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 5 January 2019 at 22:35
In Chinese the official and a deer (官鹿 [guān lù] "official deer") are a rebus for 官禄 [guān lù] "official salary".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 January 2019 at 17:13
A very common design of bronze mirrors from the Jin dynasty (1115-1234) shows a pair of fish placed head-to-tail. At 43 cm in diameter, this example from Acheng in Heilongjiang is the largest one ever found. Photographed at the National Museum of China in Beijing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 6 January 2019 at 17:21
I photographed this much smaller example of a Jin dynasty double fish bronze mirror at the Liao and Jin City Wall Museum in Beijing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 6 January 2019 at 17:27
And I photographed this one at the Capital Museum in Beijing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 January 2019 at 21:58
BabelMap beta for Unicode 12.0 is now available at babelstone.co.uk/Software/Downl…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 7 January 2019 at 13:57
I don't think I've ever seen 妄 written like that before. (@eisoch) twitter.com/incunabula/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 7 January 2019 at 14:39
More information on the Jin dynasty (1115-1234) summer palace discovered at Taizicheng ("Prince's city") when preparing the area for use as a skiing venue for the 2022 Winter Olympics kaogu.cssn.cn/ywb/news/new_d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 7 January 2019 at 14:52
The striations on the brick shown here are typical of Liao and Jin dynasty palace architecture, and are not found on bricks from later dynasties (or so I have been informed) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 7 January 2019 at 14:58
Here is a Liao or Jin dynasty striated brick at the site of the Liao Superior Capital (辽上京) at Lindong in Inner Mongolia.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 8 January 2019 at 10:29
Now also BabelPad beta for Unicode 12.0 babelstone.co.uk/Software/Downl…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 8 January 2019 at 12:47
New features and enhancements for BabelPad 12 are listed at babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 9 January 2019 at 01:32
Um, a polite reminder, "Always use “Unicode” as an adjective followed by an appropriate noun. Do not use “Unicode” alone as a noun." unicode.org/policies/logo_… twitter.com/unicode/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 9 January 2019 at 11:34
Report on the excavation of the site outside Lhasa where the 9th-century Karcung Pillar (嘎尔琼拉康石碑 = སྐར་ཅུང་ལག་ཁང་རྡོ་རིང) stood until it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in 1968. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 9 January 2019 at 11:40
Fortunately, the inscription had been well studied by Hugh Richardson and others before it was destroyed. Here is Richardson's orderly copying the Karcung inscription in 1948. web.prm.ox.ac.uk/tibet/photo_20…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 9 January 2019 at 11:54
Fifteen fragments of the 9th-century Tibetan inscription were identified during the recent excavation of the Karcung Pillar site, including this fragment comprising the left part of lines 13-16 of the original 57-line inscription.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 9 January 2019 at 12:17
Transcription of the Tibetan text of the above fragment:
བརྩན་གྱྀ་རིང་ལ། །བྲག་མ[ར་གྱྀ་བསམ་ཡས་ལས་སྩོགས་]
པ།དབུང་མཐར་གཙུག་[ལག་ཁང་བརྩྀགས་སྟེ། །དཀོན་]
མཆོག་གསུམ་གྱྀ་རྟེན་བཙུ[གས་པ་དང། །ལྷ་བཙན་པོ།ཁྲི།]
ལྡེ་སྲོང་བརྩན་གྱྀ་རིང་ལ་ཡང[་། །སྐར་ཅུང་གཙུག་ལག་ཁང་]
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 9 January 2019 at 12:21
... building temples at the centre and on the borders, Bsam-yas in Brag-mar and so on; and in the time of the divine btsan-po Khri Lde-srong-brtsan also, shrines of the Three Jewels were established by such acts as building the temple of Skar-cung and so on.
(Richardson trans.)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 10 January 2019 at 20:28
Translation taken from H. E. Richardson's "A Corpus of Early Tibetan Inscriptions" (1985) pp. 75-77 which can be downloaded from epdf.tips/a-corpus-of-ea…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 10 January 2019 at 20:34
Richardson's photographs of the Karcung Pillar and its inscription can be seen at the Tibetan Album (British photography in Central Tibet 1920-1950) site tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/thumbnails_reg… ... the top two lines on this photo are the bottom two lines of the fragment shown above.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 10 January 2019 at 20:38
Finally, a colour photograph from a different angle of the scene of Richardson's orderly copying the inscription shown earlier. tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/photo_BMR.6.8.…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 January 2019 at 12:07
Tangut title on top left is 𗼑𗎾𗵫 "moon comet star". The donor's name is given at the bottom left as 𘓞𗄈𗇋𗥚𗳩[?][?] but I can't make out the last two characters which are the given name of someone with the family name 𗥚𗳩 Ziq-o (in Miyake transcription). twitter.com/JeffreyKotyk/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 January 2019 at 12:44
I just assume that everyone sees Tangut text in my tweets with no problem, but I suspect almost no-one does because neither twitter nor browsers allow the user to specify default fonts to use for individual scripts (IE does, but it only knows about Unicode 3.0 from 20 years ago).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 11 January 2019 at 12:48
The only way I can get it to work in Chrome is to set the "standard font" to Tangut Yinchuan in Settings > Customise fonts, and then Chrome falls back to Tangut Yinchuan for anything it does not know what to do with (this does not actually impair my general browsing experience).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 January 2019 at 12:53
Chrome's Advanced font settings extension is a complete and utter waste of time. It does allow you to map fonts to Unicode scripts (including Tangut), but it only applies the font if the text has no explicit font set and is language-tagged which is never the case ever anywhere.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 January 2019 at 13:51
This is the page of the Sea of Writing (文海) shown above. It is the most important source for Tangut lexicography, but has never been published as a high quality colour facsimile, which is a shame as in some places the text is hard to read or illegible in existing reproductions.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 January 2019 at 19:40
Western Xia painting of a Garuda (Tangut 𗡝𗜪𗓽 ka lew lo) from Khara-Khoto at the Hermitage Museum hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/her…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 12 January 2019 at 13:11
Anyone care to identify and explain the various objects scattered at the feet of the purported Tangut emperor in this painting from Khara-Khoto at the Hermitage? Including coral branch, rhinoceros horn, pair of flaming pearls? hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/her…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 13 January 2019 at 00:32
Ketu, called the Pearl Star (𗊏𗵫) in Tangut. The Tangut version is depicted with green skin and a hideous appearance, completely different from the other East Asian depictions, and lacking their distinctive iconography. twitter.com/JeffreyKotyk/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 13 January 2019 at 00:37
Here is another very similar example of the Pearl Star Ketu in a Tangut painting from Khara-Khoto hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/her…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 17 January 2019 at 23:51
China want to get the images used in Ersu astrological texts such as this added into Unicode (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4901…) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 17 January 2019 at 23:58
... but there is little chance that they will be accepted for encoding as characters because they really are pictures not text. On the other hand, if emoji why not these?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 January 2019 at 00:20
I'm not sure that astrological almanacs such as these are unique to the Ersu people, as I have seen similar Tibetan and Mongolian examples which use at least some of the same pictures/symbols.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 January 2019 at 01:31
The first text shown above laid out in full.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 January 2019 at 01:45
Close up of the monthly almanacs for half of the 4th month and half of the 6th month, with explanations written in Tibetan.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 January 2019 at 01:50
Ersu sacred printing sticks.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 January 2019 at 01:54
Close-up view of some of the printing sticks, showing a variety of chorten (stupas), as well as some deities and animals.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 January 2019 at 02:05
Close-up view of the largest printing stick, which combines several different symbolic or pictographic elements: sun, moon, seven stars, and a goat I think.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 January 2019 at 12:05
Pottery coin mould for 大泉五十 big 50 coins excavated from the site of a mint dating to the reign of Wang Mang (9-23) in Nanyang, Henan kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 January 2019 at 12:32
The reverse side of the above printing block shows a wind horse with wish-fulfilling flaming jewel on its back.
(All photos in this thread have now been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:… and commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 January 2019 at 13:33
Incidentally, the name of the Muya or Minyak people appears to be cognate with the endonym of the Tangut people (𗼎𗾧 mɪ ni̯aɯ, transcribed as Míyào 彌藥 in modern Chinese), and both are called Minyag མི་ཉག in Tibetan.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 January 2019 at 23:09
L2/19-058 "Mongolian ad-hoc report" is just a photo of a whiteboard — perhaps the shortest yet most intriguing UTC document I've ever seen unicode.org/L2/L2019/19058…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 10:10
First Unicode Emoji submission for 2019 is for a "Cooking Pot" (saucepan) ... which is required to symbolize cooking because the existing emoji actually called COOKING 🍳 cannot be used to represent cooking because the egg in the pan is confusing (!) unicode.org/L2/L2019/19060…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 10:17
At typical text size the proposed Cooking Pot emoji will look like this. Is this really an improvement on 🍳 or more obviously a representation of cooking?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 10:22
If we need a cooking pot, then why not add emoji for a wok and a bamboo steamer and a host of other cooking implements that are used throughout the world?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 11:33
Professor Tashpolat Tiyip is a renowned geographer and was president of Xinjiang University from 2010 to March 2017, when he was arrested for being "two faced", and subsequently sentenced to death for "separatism" (reprieved for 2 years) at a secret trial. livingotherwise.com/2019/01/22/dea…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 11:42
The list of university presidents on the Xinjiang University web site from 2017 (Tashpolat Tiyip listed 2010-), 2018 (unexplained gap between December 2010 and March 2017) and 2019 (stops at December 2010) xju.edu.cn/xxgk/lrxz.htm
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 11:46
The header of this web page in 2017 and now ... notice any difference?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 12:15
Xinjiang University has done a very thorough job of airbrushing Tashpolat Tiyip out its web site.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 16:22
The Unicode Emoji Subcommittee has received a proposal for a Tibetan Flag emoji, and wants vendors to let it know whether they should accept it or not unicode.org/L2/L2019/19019… ... what is the likelihood that Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. will dare to support the Tibetan flag?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 16:33
There already is a valid Unicode sequence for the flag of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China (CN-XZ = 🏴), but Chinese provinces and regions explicitly do not have flags. Hijacking that sequence for the flag of the Tibetan Government in Exile would not be right.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 20:23
Of course the Unicode Consortium has no intention of adding a Tibetan flag emoji (or emoji sequence), and are only making the existence of the proposal public so they can shift the blame for rejecting it to the vendors.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 24 January 2019 at 23:46
The group photo of Tangutologists at the Université dArtois in Arras on 23 November 2018, with @vauzhao standing in the wrong place!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 26 January 2019 at 00:39
New photo of the jade fragment with Khitan Small Script inscription that I discussed on my blog last year babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2018/11/y…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 26 January 2019 at 00:49
The photo comes from a list of the most important archaeological discoveries in Liaoning during 2018 kknews.cc/zh-cn/culture/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 26 January 2019 at 16:29
Pleased that my photograph of the Caxton leaf at Reading University was useful for @erik_kwakkel in his blog post on the Oldest Surviving Printed Advertisement in English (London, 1477) medievalbooks.nl/2019/01/24/the…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 28 January 2019 at 13:26
Dan Yerushalmi translates a Tibetan account of the flooding incident during the Mongolian siege of the Tangut capital in 1210, as given in the biography of Tishirepa (ཏི་ཤྲི་རས་པ) by his Tangut disciple Repakarpo (མི་ཉག་རས་པ་དཀར་པོ) tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-fl…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 28 January 2019 at 13:47
Repakarpo's biography (བླ་མ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་འགྲོ་བའི་མགོན་པོ་ཏི་ཤྲི་རས་པའི་རྣམ་པར་ཐར་པ) is in Vol. 7 of lo pan rnam thar phyogs bsgrigs (ལོ་པན་རྣམ་ཐར་ཕྱོགས་བསྒྲིགས) "Complete collection of biographies of translators and scholars" published by China Culture Publishing House in 2018.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 January 2019 at 12:38
Foxy friends in my back garden enjoying the sunshine on a frosty morning.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 31 January 2019 at 19:25
Submission for a Placard emoji. Placard emoji?! Does anyone really need a placard emoji? unicode.org/L2/L2019/19061…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 February 2019 at 22:44
At the British Library on Monday examining "The Cornish British Vocabulary" by William Hals (1655–1737) — photo by @Evertype
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 February 2019 at 19:52
This week I am in France for a few days, and today I attempted to do a round trip train journey from Lyon to Paris and back (2 hours each way by TGV) in order to consult a Tangut manuscript at the Musée Guimet ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 18 February 2019 at 19:59
... but today was the day that the TGV service between Lyon and Paris went into meltdown, and I was forced to abandon my train at Mâcon (see platform selfie) when it became evident that it would not reach Paris until at least 16:30 (over four hours after scheduled arrival time).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 February 2019 at 20:31
But still, I managed to spend a very pleasant afternoon exploring Vieux Lyon with @april_nishi
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 February 2019 at 20:59
#OTD in #Lyon 75 years ago: "Ici le 18 février 1944 Bernard Guy, Sergent F.F.I. a été tué par la milice en tentant de s'évader. Passant, Souviens toi!"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 February 2019 at 22:36
The Claudius Tablet discovered in Lyon in 1528 gives the text of a speech by Emperor Claudius (born in Lugdunum in 10 BC) in 48 AD. Only half of the original tablet survives, but it is huge (1.40 × 1.93 m, 222 kg).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 February 2019 at 22:46
The left and right surviving parts of the Claudius Tablet.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 February 2019 at 22:51
Detail of the text of the Claudius Tablet, which was initially engraved in wax, then moulded and cast in bronze.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 February 2019 at 23:09
Ci-gît un nid-de-poule 2011–2017 (à Lyon)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 February 2019 at 23:21
Mysterious Gallo-Roman bronze dodecahedrons at the Musée gallo-romain de Lyon-Fourvière.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 February 2019 at 15:09
The "Xenia" mural, a Roman wall painting c. 50–70 AD discovered in Lyon in 1988, with trompe-l'œil depiction of presents given by guests to the master of the house.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 February 2019 at 15:13
Detail of the Xenia wall painting, showing a jug, a white napkin, a large knife, and a dead hare in the foreground, and a cockerel and two pieces of fruit in the background.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 February 2019 at 22:43
Copy of the Claudius Tablet inscription from "Musée de Lyon: Inscriptions antiques" tome 1 (1888) [facing p. 70].
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 February 2019 at 14:57
View of the astronomical clock in the Cathédrale Saint-Jean in Lyon.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 22 February 2019 at 15:03
The clock was originally constructed in the 14th century (first recorded 1383), but was severely damaged in 1562, and reconstructed in 1660-1661.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 February 2019 at 15:05
Details of the main clock face and the right side face.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 February 2019 at 18:58
Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age (c. 700 BC) processional chariot discovered at la Côte-Saint-André (Isère) in 1888. The procession of the flaming bucket in the chariot is thought to have been associated with the worship of the sun.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 18:07
During my recent visit to the wonderful Musée Gallo-Romain in Lyon, I noticed that a particular feature of many of the Roman funerary inscriptions at the museum is an engraved ascia (stonemason's axe or adze).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 18:14
The ascia symbol is typically placed between the letters D M (Dis Manibus) at the top of the inscription, and the inscription typically ends with the formula 𝑠𝑢𝑏 𝑎𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑎 𝑑𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑡 ("dedicated under the axe"), as in this example.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 18:28
In some inscriptions there are a pair of mirrored ascia symbols, either at the top or one on each side of the inscription, as in this memorial inscription for Q. Acceptius Venustus that was discovered in 1870.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 18:35
This the epigraphic transcription of the above inscription in "Inscriptions antiques du musée de la ville de Lyon" tome 2 (1889).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 19:05
Vol. 1 of "Inscriptions antiques du musée de la ville de Lyon" (1888) represented the ascia symbol in transcription by the word 𝑎𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑎, but they had special sorts cut for the left-facing and right-facing ascia symbol for use in vols. 2–5 (1889–1893).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 19:19
The occurrence of the ascia symbol and the 𝑠𝑢𝑏 𝑎𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑎 𝑑𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑡 (or related) formula is largely restricted to funerary monuments from Gaul, especially the area around Lyon, dating from the mid 1st century to the early 4th century.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 19:51
Over 150 examples of funerary inscriptions with the ascia symbol have been found in the vicinity of Lyon, but they have occasionally been found as far as Britain, such as this tombstone for Titus Valerius Pudens found in Lincoln in 1849 britishmuseum.org/research/colle…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 20:27
Or this fragment of a funerary inscription for Lucius Cunctus Muciens found in Colchester in 1821, with an ascia symbol between the D and M (Dis Manibus), now in the Fitzwilliam Museum data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/65555
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 20:30
Since the early 18th century there has debate about the meaning and significance of the ascia symbol and associated formula. In 1955 Jérôme Carcopino suggested that the ascia was a coded Christian symbol used by the large Christian community of Lugdunum (Lyon) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 20:32
... This Roman funerary portrait sculpture at the Musée de Châteauroux shows the deceased clutching an ascia in the same way that a cross may be in later Christian sculptures.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 February 2019 at 11:47
Today I learned (h/t @CraigClunas) that the John Rylands Library (Manchester University) holds Qing dynasty copies of the Sanskrit and Tibetan inscriptions at the Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass. Very important if they predate Bonaparte's 1895 rubbings. luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 25 February 2019 at 11:53
Johannes S. Lotze notes that "The JRL should hold three volumes in total. ... However, when I ordered these three volumes, on 28 June 2018, only two arrived, together with this remark on the slip: “could only see 2 vols”" ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 25 February 2019 at 11:58
The Juyong Pass inscriptions (babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…) are in six languages/scripts (Sanskrit/Lantsa, Tibetan, Mongolian/Phags-pa, Uyghur, Tangut Chinese), so I really hope that the missing third volume is still somewhere in the library, and it is the Tangut volume !
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 February 2019 at 23:14
Selection of Roman terracotta oil lamps from Lyon at the Musée Gallo-Romain with pictures of various gladiators — Gotta catch 'em all!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 February 2019 at 01:27
Gravestone at the Musée Gallo-Romain in Lyon for Aurelius Leons, a letter engraver, who died aged 18 years, 7 months and 5 days. This is claimed to be the only surviving Roman funerary monument which explicitly records the deceased's occupation as a letter engraver.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 February 2019 at 01:39
Unfortunately the inscription is not in good condition, so here is a transcription from "Inscriptions antiques de musée de la ville de Lyon" tome 3 (1890) p. 59.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 February 2019 at 20:28
This is the last photo I took at the Musée Gallo-Romain in Lyon a week ago, just as the battery on my camera died. The Roman Christian gravestones were almost the last room in the museum, and it is a shame I only managed to get this one photo.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 26 February 2019 at 20:53
Here is the transcription in "Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule antérieures au VIIIe siècle" (1856) v. 1 pp. 67–68: "In this tomb rests in Christ, Bellausus, who died at the age of 42 on the nones of July" — what a beautiful typeface !! (can anyone identify it for me?)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 26 February 2019 at 21:05
A pair of doves is the defining symbolism of Roman Christian tombstones from Gaul, and over fifty examples have been found in the region of Lyon. They are so common that dove type pieces were cut for "Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule antérieures au VIIIe siècle" (1856).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 26 February 2019 at 22:14
The pair of doves are often placed on either side of a traditional Christian symbol such as a cross or a chi rho symbol, as in the above examples, and in these drawings from "Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule antérieures au VIIIe siècle" vol. 1 (1856) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 26 February 2019 at 22:39
... the doves frequently have an olive branch in their beaks, and are sometimes perched on a tree ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 27 February 2019 at 13:27
... sometimes the doves are placed on either side of a tree, in one case pecking at the leaves ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 27 February 2019 at 13:39
... sometimes the doves are shown with vine leaves or in one case pecking at grapes on a vine ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 27 February 2019 at 17:14
... sometimes the doves seem to be feeding from a vase or a chalice placed between them ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 27 February 2019 at 21:09
... (here are transcriptions of a couple of the previous inscriptions showing the typographical representation of the vase/chalice) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 27 February 2019 at 21:26
... (I forgot to show an example of the typographical representation of the doves holding a branch in their mouth) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 27 February 2019 at 21:37
... in these two examples the pair of doves have mutated into peacocks (I am sorry to report that the transcription omits the peacocks) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 February 2019 at 09:25
... finally here are a couple of fish swimming with a pair of doves.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 February 2019 at 14:47
Video of Prof. Andrey Zabiyako's Summer 2018 expedition to the rock art and Jurchen inscriptions on the River Arkhara. twitter.com/cosmicore/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 28 February 2019 at 16:19
I am very pleased that @library_carlyr has been able to locate the missing 3rd volume, which turns out to comprise four fascicles in a single case, covering the other four languages/scripts (Mongolian/Phags-pa, Old Uyghur, Tangut, Chinese) at the Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 28 February 2019 at 16:22
... @library_carlyr took some photos of the four books in the 3rd volume, which she has very kindly allowed me to share on twitter ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 28 February 2019 at 16:32
This insert is a diagram of the layout of the inscriptions in six scripts/languages (Nüchïh = Jurchen is actually Tangut). We know that Alexander Wylie and Joseph Edkins were the two Western missionary-scholars who visited Juyong Pass and made copies of the inscriptions ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 28 February 2019 at 16:40
... Wylie always wrote Uyghur as "Ouigour", whereas Edkins always wrote it as "Wigur", so as Uyghur is written as "Wigur" on this diagram we can be fairly confident that it was created by Edkins, probably around 1863–1867.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 March 2019 at 10:14
I released BabelStone Han v. 12.0.0 (babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html). Mostly updates for forthcoming #Unicode12 release, including coloured circles, squares and hearts, small kana extensions, and variation sequences for East Asian punctuation positional variants (@ken_lunde)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 March 2019 at 10:27
Also includes two punctuation marks for ancient Chinese texts proposed by myself and @eisoch unicode.org/L2/L2017/17310…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 1 March 2019 at 10:40
Although I referred to the "3rd volume", as @cosmicore has pointed out (twitter.com/cosmicore/stat…) this is not strictly correct as the "3rd volume" is a case containing 4 thread-bound volumes, so @TheJohnRylands actually holds all six volumes of the set of Juyongguan inscriptions.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 2 March 2019 at 17:25
I'll post pictures of the four scripts/languages kindly supplied by @library_carlyr over the next few days. To start with, here is the first page of the volume covering the Chinese inscriptions, which corresponds to lines 1-2 of the large character inscription on the west wall.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 2 March 2019 at 17:37
This is the corresponding transcription given by Nishida Tatsuo in "Chü-Yung-Kuan: The Buddhist Arch of the Fourteenth Century A.D. at the Pass of the Great Wall Northwest of Peking" (Kyōto: 1957; Murata Jirō ed.) p.200.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 2 March 2019 at 18:18
Only the 1st character at the top of the 2nd line (野) survives in the 1957 rubbing and Nishida's transcription, but in the JRL hand copy the first three characters of the 2nd line are reproduced (野阿建) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 2 March 2019 at 19:33
... which reflects the state of the inscription shown in the rubbings in Prince Roland Bonaparte's "Documents de l'époque Mongole des XIII et XIV siècles" (Paris, 1895).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 2 March 2019 at 22:32
The rubbings of the complete inscriptions on both walls given in Bonaparte 1895 Plates II and III (original 6.18 × 2.38 m and 6.30 × 2.55 m) were made by Édouard Chavannes who donated them to the Musée Guimet. The other rubbings (Plates IV–VIII) were made by G. Devéria.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 3 March 2019 at 10:35
This is the last page of the Chinese volume, corresponding to lines 18-21 of the small character inscription on the east wall (i.e. the end of the Record of Merits for Constructing the Pagoda 造塔功德記) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 3 March 2019 at 10:44
... and this is the corresponding transcription by Nishida in Murata 1957, which although it has plenty of missing characters is actually more complete than the earlier JRL copy ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 3 March 2019 at 10:49
... this is because the very poor quality of the lower part of this section of the inscription makes it difficult to recognise some of the characters (Devéria's rubbing in Bonaparte 1895 shown).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 March 2019 at 10:56
This is the first page of the volume of inscriptions in the Phags-pa script, corresponding to the start (line 1 + beginning of line 2) of the Sanskrit inscription in large Phags-pa script on the west wall. It reads top-to-bottom running from left to right (same as Mongolian) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 March 2019 at 11:15
... this is Nishida Tatsuo's transcription in Murata 1957 p. 157. There are a couple of mistakes in the JRL copy where it is unclear in the original (ꡋꡋ for ꡋ ꡏ at start of l. 1; ꡐꡟꡋ for ꡐꡞꡋ), but on the whole it seems to be an accurate transcription in a good hand ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 March 2019 at 11:34
... the JRL copy preserves text that was later lost; e.g. it shows the incomplete syllable ꡖ [-'a] (for ꡝꡖ ā) at start of l. 2 before ꡗꡟꡋ [yun], which is not seen in either the Bonaparte/Chavannes 1895 or Murata 1957 rubbings, and is not given in Nishida's transcription.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 5 March 2019 at 18:44
The next image is the last page of the Phags-pa volume, comprising a single line of Mongolian written in Phags-pa script, corresponding to the last line of the small character Phags-pa inscription on the east wall:
ꡆꡘ ꡅꡞꡏ ꡎꡟ ꡗꡋ ꡉꡟ ꡗꡞꡋ ꡁꡦꡡꡘ ꡁꡞ ꡁꡦꡊ ꡎꡦꡘ ꡠ
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 5 March 2019 at 19:48
Transcription: ǰar čʽim bu yan tʽu yin kʽėor kʽi kʽėd bėr e ≈ Mongolian ᠵᠠᠷᠴᠢᠮ ᠪᠤᠶᠠᠨᠲᠤ ᠶᠢᠨ ᠬᠥᠷᠦᠭ ᠬᠡᠳ ᠪᠡᠷᠡ (Phags-pa Mongolian kʽėor kʽi [körki] corresponds to Classical Mongolian körüg "picture, painting, image").
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 5 March 2019 at 19:54
Here is Devéria's rubbing of the small character Phags-pa inscription on the east wall given in Bonaparte 1895 (the last line is the short line on the right).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 March 2019 at 21:44
BabelPad and BabelMap for Unicode 12.0 have now been released babelstone.co.uk/Software/ (lots of updates to BabelPad but I ran out of time for a couple important new features).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 6 March 2019 at 01:13
Here's a bonus picture of the penultimate page of the Phags-pa volume, covering the two preceding lines of the inscription (the 2nd and 3rd lines from the right in the rubbing in the previous tweet).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 6 March 2019 at 15:57
This is the first page of the Tangut volume, corresponding to the surviving two-thirds of the first line of the Tathāgata-hṛdaya-dhāraṇī-sūtra in large Tangut characters on the west wall:
□□□□□□□□𗏵𘅄𗬂𘈪𗏤𘕜𗫂𘀍𗕘𗙫𗏵𗶴𗦆𗞞𗏵𗐱𗅒𗬔𘀍𘅄
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 6 March 2019 at 15:59
I accidentally broke this thread. It continues here: twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 6 March 2019 at 16:09
Here is the rubbing of the entire inscription in large Tangut characters on the west wall from Murata 1957. The text in the previous tweet is the column on the far right (Tangut reads top-to-bottom in columns running right to left, the same as Chinese).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 7 March 2019 at 16:43
This is the last page of the Tangut volume, corresponding to the last 3⅓ lines of the transcription in small Tangut characters on the east wall of the Sanskrit Dharani-Sutra of the Victorious Buddha-Crown.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 7 March 2019 at 16:51
The copying of the [at that time unknown] Tangut characters is reasonably good, and the text is mostly legible without needing to refer to the rubbing of the original inscription (Devéria's rubbing from Bonaparte 1895 shown).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 8 March 2019 at 11:43
"Revitalising Naxi dongba as a ‘pictographic’ vernacular script" by Duncan J Poupard academia.edu/38495582/Revit… @Evertype
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 8 March 2019 at 11:48
Unfortunately Poupard's recent review of the Naxi dongba repertoire under ballot (unicode.org/L2/L2019/19071…), whilst useful, undermines the stability of a repertoire agreed by consensus over several years of meetings, and gives the UTC an excuse push back against the encoding.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 8 March 2019 at 12:01
Obligatory link to my tweet from 2017 when @Evertype and myself were meeting with the Chinese Naxi experts in Hohhot to finalise the stable repertoire for modern usage twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 March 2019 at 00:08
I've already added another new feature which I find rather useful. BabelPad 12.0.0.2 now supports drag-and-drop between instances of BabelPad and between BabelPad and other applications.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 March 2019 at 01:48
The draft Unicode data for version 12.1 (unicode.org/Public/12.1.0/…) includes an entry for U+32FF which gives a fake name and decomposition mapping (左右) for the as yet unknown new Japanese era name (tba April 1st).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 March 2019 at 01:52
Personally, I think that is high irresponsible as there are bound to be some early bird implementers who add the name and mappings into their software from the draft data, unaware that it is just a placeholder, and for years to come we'll see Sayuu era popping up in odd places.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 March 2019 at 01:58
And if you don't believe me, I've just added "SQUARE ERA NAME SAYUU" to my BabelPad/Map codebase as a placeholder. Hopefully I'll remember to change it before release ... but I bet there'll be code monkeys out there who don't.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 13 March 2019 at 00:36
Praetermissa in Archivum A: Est libellus pro Institutione eorum qui primò addiscunt scribere linguam Chinensem, continens varia Exemplaria rariores Scripturae tam quadratae quam cursivae. Anglicè: A China Copy-booke. serica.blog/2019/03/12/pra…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 March 2019 at 10:03
More than a thousand of the 5,200 bamboo slips discovered in the tomb of the Han dynasty Marquis of Haihun 海昏侯 (Emperor for 27 days in 74 BCE) have been identified as a text on the board game of Liubo 六博 kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 March 2019 at 10:09
It's not really new news, as it was already reported in 2016 that some of the bamboo slips seemed to be related to Liubo, but now the extent of the Liubo text has been revealed m.news.cctv.com/2016/11/06/ART…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 March 2019 at 19:04
Finally we come to the 4th volume, with copies of the inscriptions in the Old Uighur script (parent of the Mongolian script). This page corresponds to the large Uighur inscription on the west wall, starting about ½ way down the 2nd line and ending near the bottom of the 3rd line.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 March 2019 at 19:29
The Uighur inscription is not very easy to read, but that does not explain why the JRL copy leaves a couple of words blank at the top of the 3rd line even though in the Bonaparte 1895 rubbing they are clearer than some of the following words which are present in the copy.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 March 2019 at 20:29
And this page corresponds to the bottom ⅓ of the 8th line to the top ⅓ of the 12th line of the small Uighur inscription on the east wall (presumably the last ⅔ of the last line are over the page) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 March 2019 at 20:42
... the Uighur copy is the least careful and most error-filled copy of all the scripts. The section marked in red is blank even though it is clear in both Bonaparte and Murata rubbings; whereas the section marked in blue is a duplicate of the start of the following line ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 15 March 2019 at 20:50
... and the copying of the Uighur text is also very poor. Here is just a single example from line 9, where the copyist has mistaken the punctuation mark ᠅ for the letter SA, and so joined two unconnected words into a single imaginary word.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 March 2019 at 13:01
I'm trying to think of something nice to say about the Noto Serif Tangut font, but I can't. It's really ugly, and very un-Tangutlike.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 March 2019 at 13:18
To be fair, I doubt that I could have done any better. The main reason why I have never attempted to create my own Tangut font is that I was afraid that it would end up looking something like this.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 March 2019 at 13:31
The dark underbelly of #Tangut society ... a manuscript contract for the private sale of household slaves (Institute of Oriental Manuscripts Inv. No. 4579 from Kharakhoto).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 16 March 2019 at 13:41
This is one of three slave contracts from Kharakhoto studied by Shi Jinbo 史金波 in a 2014 paper (gscass.cn/upload/201706/…). I am in absolute awe of Prof. Shi's ability to read cursive Tangut, made even more illegible by the bleed-through of text on the other side of the paper.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 16 March 2019 at 13:59
The sale is for two slaves, a woman named as "May Dog" (𗏁𗼑𗘂 = 五月犬) and her child, for a price of 50 bushels of mixed grain. These are the names and marks of the sellers (four members of the same family) and the witnesses and the contract writer.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 16 March 2019 at 14:11
Slaves do not have family names, and in most cases their name includes the epithet "dog". Inv. No. 5949-29 for the sale of six slaves for the 450 strings of iron cash, includes "Bitch Flourishing" 𗘂𗿦𗯿 [犬婦盛], "Bitch Precious" 𗘂𗿦𘏨 [犬婦寶], and "Growing Dog" 𘞵𗘂 [增犬].
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 16 March 2019 at 23:51
The marks (画押) written under the names of the sellers and witness are not easy to distinguish clearly in this photo, but at least one of them is identical to a Tangut "tamga" shown by Terentiev-Katansky in his 1981 book.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 17 March 2019 at 00:25
Here's a fragment of a Tangut legal document on @idp_uk which shows the signature marks more clearly (three different marks along the bottom) idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 17 March 2019 at 00:40
And this rather lovely signature mark sitting all by itself is basically the same as Terentiev-Katansky example #1 shown above idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo… ... someone really needs to make a detailed study of these marks!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 17 March 2019 at 11:32
Tangut cursive script is extremely difficult for the modern student to learn (we have no masters to teach us), and I am still a beginner. Maybe when @tkasasagi has completed her fantastic work with AI recognition of kuzushiji she can turn her attention to cursive Tangut!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 17 March 2019 at 11:36
These are the first five names at the end of the contract discussed in this tweet, with the cursive characters glossed on the right (roles in orange, names in red). I hasten to add that the identification of the cursive characters is by Shi Jinbo, not me! twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 17 March 2019 at 11:43
This example is made extra difficult by the extensive bleed-through of text from the other side of the paper (a colour photograph would be better). Anyway, here's the Tangut text:
𘝞𗃮𘃡𗇋𗼨𘂋𘟔𗵆𘟣
𗃮𗖚𘎆𗼨𘂋𘟔？？
𗃮𗖚𘎆𗼨[𘂋]𘟣𘄄𗯿
𗄻𘓐𗰔𗣠？？𗫉
𗄻𘓐𗒩𗣀？？
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 17 March 2019 at 19:02
Photograph of the great Tangutologist N. A. Nevsky with his Japanese wife Isoko Mantani-Nevsky and daughter Elena (1928-2017). Nevsky and Iso were murdered during the Great Purge in November 1937, but his death was not confirmed until two decades later. Photo via @vauzhao
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 March 2019 at 22:37
The Tangut manuscript discussed here (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…) & here (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…) is interesting in so many ways; and one unexpected point of interest turns out to be the writing on the other side of the paper which so annoyingly disrupts our reading of the text ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 18 March 2019 at 22:51
As far as I know, the other side of this manuscript has not been published, but we can read it well enough by mirroring the photo. What we see is a row of larger-sized characters running along the top of the page (green), and each character repeated 13 times underneath (red) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 18 March 2019 at 23:06
The 18 characters running along the top of the page [𘛯𗑐𗒉𗯒𘂋𗃞𗗿𗴂𗧇𗿿𗏥𘎧𗰞𗦗𗰦] come from a Tangut poetic text comprising 1,000 different characters called "Grains of Gold Placed in the Palm" 𗵒𗭧𘃎𘐏𘝞 which was frequently used for elementary writing practice ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 18 March 2019 at 23:16
... not calligraphy, but blindly copying the 1,000 characters of the text multiple times in order to memorise how to write the characters ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 18 March 2019 at 23:42
... its so happens that one of my hobbies is collecting fragments of "Grains of Gold" writing practice pieces, which I have put on display in this blog post, so this is a welcome and important addition to my collection. babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2015/05/g…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 March 2019 at 00:33
Incidentally the Tangut character in the column of characters marked in red above is 𘂋 which is the second character in the clan name of the first two signatories of the contract (seen mirrored on the left of the mirrored image).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 March 2019 at 01:46
If you want to explore the Tangut Grains of Gold further, I have made an index to the translation and detailed explication of the first 520 characters of the text made by @MarcMiyake (under the title the Golden Guide). babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Golden-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 March 2019 at 13:56
How to excavate a 5,000 year old grave kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 March 2019 at 17:56
What I forgot to mention, is that this manuscript is important because it allows us to accurately date the writing exercise. The contract is dated 24th day of 3rd month of 6th year of Tianqing era (i.e. 21st April 1199 in the Julian calendar), ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 March 2019 at 18:01
... and as it would not have been reused for writing practice until at least a few years later, and as we can assume it predates the annihilation of the Western Xia in 1227, the writing practice must date to the between 1200+ and 1227 ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 March 2019 at 18:06
... moreover, as all the other practice pieces in the Stein Collection at the British Library have the same layout and style as this piece, we can infer that they all date to the last couple of decades of the Western Xia. QED
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 March 2019 at 21:12
Discovery at Anyang (Henan) of a Jin dynasty brick mural tomb for four monks dated 1159. sohu.com/a/300787080_26…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Tuesday, 19 March 2019 at 21:21
The memorial stone set up by Honglun 洪論, abbot of the Manjushri Temple of Hongfu Monastery 洪福寺文殊院 (rubbing shown) indicates that the tomb was originally built underneath a pagoda (often the case for high monks) that has long since vanished.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 March 2019 at 21:34
Detail of the tomb mural showing a boy looking out through a door (童子启门图).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 March 2019 at 21:43
Another section of the mural shows a woman holding a baby buying medicine from a monk sitting in dispensary, with a sign "Medicine Store" (藥鋪) hanging above his head.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 20 March 2019 at 08:57
Here's another scene from the mural, showing a man holding up a rather large fish on a stick and two people carrying a pot of soup to feed the monks (寺院施粥图).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 20 March 2019 at 10:05
Looking into the main chamber of the tomb through a mock wooden doorway kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 10:51
大金重遷祖塔誌 沙門 善篪 撰
夫無生而生無滅而滅唯達者之能明洎乎生也色
身有家舍之所依洎乎滅也遺形有墳隴之所藏此
其世間不易之道自古不無矣相之洪福寺文殊院
始自大宋慶曆中以遠祖 捐公等同會一塔葬之
於城西開元寺之旁時以 大金天會四年戊申
巨兵攻圍城壁因乃廢焉噫萬物無不皆有其數乎
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 10:54
主僧洪論以正隆四年己卯三月初五日奉其靈骨
改葬於西陵鄉孫平村豎之以支提植之以松柏使
後世之徙不忘其歸敬自 捐至 新今已四世耳
新公將逝而有遺言故附之於塔邊 新公乃論之
師也論乃竭其力盡其心以辦兹緣人莫不欽歎之
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 10:55
一日命予作銘以記之予既確辞不免聊以成言銘曰
故墳随數壞 新塔以時興 孝道人簽議
真猷萬世稱 院 主 僧 洪論
并弟監院僧 ？？覺 立石
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 11:33
The following is my rough attempt at a translation of the above memorial tablet. Corrections and improvements welcome!
1. Record of the Relocation of the Patriarch's Pagoda during the Great Jin. Written by the monk Shenchi (2nd character of his name is not certain).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 11:34
2. As to being without birth yet there is birth, being without extinction yet there is extinction, only an enlightened one can understand this.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 11:35
3. Arriving at birth, the carnal body has a house and family to depend on; arriving at extinction, the mortal remains have a grave to be stored in. This is the unchanging way of the world, since antiquity it has never not been like this!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 11:45
4. The Manjushri Temple of Hongfu Monastery in Xiangzhou (=Anyang) was founded during the Qingli era [1041-1048] of the Great Song. Because the patriarch Master Juan and others used to meet up in a certain pagoda, they buried him next to Kaiyuan Temple in the east of the city.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 12:11
5. In 4th year of the Tianhui era of the Great Jin, on a wushen day (=7 March 1126?), a great [Jurchen] army besieged the city walls, and so [the temple] was abandoned.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 12:14
6. On the 5th day of the 3rd month of the 4th year (jimao year) of the Zhenglong era [26 March 1159 in the Julian calendar] the head monk Honglun took his remains and reburied them at Sunping village in Xiling district, where he erected memorials (caitya) and planted pine trees.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 12:39
7. From [Master] Juan up to [Master] Xin there have already been four generations [of masters]. When he was close to death Master Xin left final instructions, so he is also buried (附=附葬) next to the pagoda.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 12:57
8. Master Xin was the teacher of Honglun, so Honglun exerted all his effort and put his whole heart into it in order to arrange this, therefore there is no-one who does not admire him!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 12:59
9. One day Honglun commanded me to write an epitaph as a record. As I agreed to do so, I cannot avoid putting together a few words:
The old tomb naturally decays,
A new pagoda in time arises.
Filial way all men agree with,
The true plan is acclaimed by all generations.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 13:04
10. The abbot Honglun and his brother the monastic supervisor [...][...][jue?] set up this stone.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 14:09
The tomb comprises a single chamber with an entranceway at the south, and alcoves on the north, east and west sides (see top picture in thread). Four pottery urns containing bone and ash were found in the alcoves. These are presumed to be the cremated remains of four high monks.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 March 2019 at 21:08
When I was attending a Tangut colloquium in France last November (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…) Prof. Arakawa Shintarō kindly gave me a copy of his 2016 study on Tangut cursive characters, which includes this very useful appendix by Ono Hiroko (小野裕子) listing 60 characters.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 March 2019 at 21:13
The pages are available for reference here:
babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Images/…
babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Images/…
babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Images/…
babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Images/…
babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Images/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 March 2019 at 02:20
I cannot believe they actually put "© Wikimedia Commons" on the picture rather than the name of the photographer. Do they not understand how copyright works? Or that #Wikimedia Commons is just a repository for PD and freely-licensed media? commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Naum… twitter.com/Medievalists/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 25 March 2019 at 09:16
Class action suit against Getty Images for fraudulently claiming ownership of copyrights in public domain images and selling fictitious copyright licenses for public domain images courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 March 2019 at 23:20
To belatedly celebrate #TolkienReadingDay how about subscribing to a new edition of The Hobbit in Breton to be published by @Evertype? facebook.com/evertypepubs/p…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 27 March 2019 at 09:32
Chicken eggs found in 2,500 year old tomb at Liyang in Jiangsu. Why? "Because little chicks hatch from eggs, and they symbolise the endless cycle of birth and countless generations of descendants ... or maybe the dead person just really loved eating eggs." kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 March 2019 at 10:22
Discovery of a pair of Song dynasty tombs in Chongqing, with superb Buddhist engravings kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 March 2019 at 10:40
.@dmatsui1217 discusses the Uighur Buddhist Buyan-Qaya and his father Yïγmïš-Qaya, both from Suzhou (modern Jiuquan in Gansu), who left their marks at the Mogao and Yulin caves. academia.edu/38650396/Dai_M…
Picture shows "I, Buyan-Qaya" in Phags-pa scipt: ꡏꡦꡋ ꡎꡟ ꡗꡦꡋ ꡢ ꡗꡦ
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 March 2019 at 11:08
This is the current state of the north wall of the corridor to Mogao Cave #217 shown in the above picture (from Les grottes de Touen-Houang Plate 366). The Uighur script inscription by Buyan-Qaya is gone, but luckily the Phags-pa inscription has survived. e-dunhuang.com/cave/10.0001/0…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 March 2019 at 11:35
Fragment of a Chinese bronze mirror unearthed in Kyrgyzstan, with interweaving lines of a poem by an unknown Tang dynasty lady zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 28 March 2019 at 11:54
The poem is a tour de force known as the Panjiantu 盤鑒圖 (Map on a Hanging Mirror) which was reputedly composed during the Tang dynasty by an unknown lady poet. It later acquired a preface by the poet Wang Bo 王勃 (650–676). readers365.com/quweigushi/02.…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 28 March 2019 at 12:04
This is the poem, with the characters on the Kyrgyzstan bronze mirror fragment highlighted.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 March 2019 at 14:27
The British Library’s unique copy of the 1592-1593 Amakusa edition of Feiqe no monogatari [Heike monogatari], Esopo no fabulas [Isoho monogatari] and Qincuxu [Kinkushū] in Portuguese romanization is now available online dglb01.ninjal.ac.jp/BL_amakusa/en.…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 28 March 2019 at 22:43
Here is the mirror fragment superimposed on the reconstruction made by La Vansa on Zeno. The fragment is c. 9.0 × 9.0 cm, so the whole mirror would be about 30 cm in diameter.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Friday, 29 March 2019 at 19:08
Really stupid scheme to enable anything or anyone that has a Wikidate ID (currently over 55 million data items) to be representable as an emoji using Unicode tag sequences. For example, my personal emoji would be represented by the tag sequence <Q4758888> unicode.org/L2/L2019/19082…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 29 March 2019 at 19:25
It seems like a cunning plan to deflect complaints about the lack of particular emoji from the Unicode Consortium to Wikimedia.
Food lover: Why no custard and banana pizza emoji?
Unicode: Not our fault, go ask Wikidata to add a data item for it.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 March 2019 at 19:32
This scheme (completely unbelievable only a few years ago) is proposed by Mark Davis, founding father of Unicode and lifetime president of the Unicode Consortium — how is it possible that they have strayed so far from the original ideals of the Unicode Standard?!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 March 2019 at 19:48
Interesting and compelling discussion by @CharlotteBuff on Why There Should Not Be a Transgender Flag Emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19084… (tl;dr there are an open-ended number of cultures and communities that want recognition and the cachet of an emoji flag)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 March 2019 at 19:49
Lots of great quotes which underline how little the people in charge of emoji understand how people want to use emoji: "The consensus among the general public appears to be that an emoji is not representative of me unless it equals myself in every possible aspect precisely".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 March 2019 at 20:01
Smileys under consideration for Unicode 13.0 (March 2020) unicode.org/L2/L2019/19085… — of course they will satisfy no-one, either because they are not exactly what the emoji user has in mind or because they will be rendered differently on different platforms.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 March 2019 at 20:05
*Wikidata* ID wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 March 2019 at 23:40
Recent emoji proposals (𝋭/⧜):
Boomerang emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18331…
Bubble tea emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18341…
Worm emoji unicode.org/L2/L2018/18343…
(resuming this series at December 2018 after I gave up in despair)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 March 2019 at 23:45
Recent emoji proposals (𝋮/⧜):
Cooking Pot emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19060…
Placard emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19061…
Piñata emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19062…
(clearing the January/February emoji backlog)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 29 March 2019 at 23:48
Recent emoji proposals (𝋯/⧜):
Accordion emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19087…
Sewing needle emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19088…
(and back to today)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 30 March 2019 at 19:03
Thanks to @gar3t for pointing out that there is a complete bronze mirror with the same design at the Saint Louis Art Museum slam.org/collection/obj…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 31 March 2019 at 11:53
Mochi, my lovely hamster!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 1 April 2019 at 21:11
BabelMap beta for Unicode 12.1 is now available for download from babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel… (BabelPad beta will be available later today)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 1 April 2019 at 21:15
This version of BabelMap now supports drag-and-dropping from the character grid to another application.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 April 2019 at 00:20
BabelPad beta for Unicode 12.1 is now also available for download from babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 April 2019 at 09:28
I went to Lyon for two days in February, and came back with three Unicode proposals: Latin Letter Reversed Half H (unicode.org/L2/L2019/19092…); Roman Ascia symbols (unicode.org/L2/L2019/19091…); and Rho Cross and Rho Cross + Chi Rho with alpha and omega symbols (unicode.org/L2/L2019/19093…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 April 2019 at 12:12
115 Western Zhou period tombs of the Guo (虢) state found near Sanmenxia in Henan kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 3 April 2019 at 12:19
... including this inscription on a bronze vessel, which confused me for a while because it is placed immediately below a sentence discussing a bronze inscription from M34 reading "昜㛣作宝鼎子子孙孙永宝用享". It actually reads "虢季氏子虎父作[寶]鼎子子孫[孫]永寶用".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 April 2019 at 13:58
This ding vessel was made for Guo-Ji Zihu 虢季子虎, whose ancestor Guo-Ji Zibo 虢季子白 cast one of the most famous Western Zhou inscribed bronzes, during the 1st month of the 12th year of King Xuan of Zhou (816 BCE), before the clan migrated to the east. chnmuseum.cn/Default.aspx?T…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 April 2019 at 14:16
Recent emoji proposals (𝋰/⧜):
Long Drum emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19095…
Cockroach emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19095…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 April 2019 at 14:34
Current arthropod emoji: (🐛)🐜🐝🐞🕷🦂🦋🦗🦀🦐🦟🦞
Other potential arthropod emoji: praying mantis, stick insect, locust, woodlouse, head louse, flea, tarantula, caterpillar, centipede, millipede, earwig, mite, trilobite, sea scorpion ... how does cockroach rate against these?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 April 2019 at 19:27
Today's acquisition for my Tangut Library is this volume from Ostasiatische Zeitschrift October 1917 / March 1918, which includes Anna Bernhardi's "Buddhistische Bilder aus der Glanzzeit der Tanguten" which I think must be the first ever article on Tangut art.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 5 April 2019 at 19:53
Bernhardi's article includes illustrations from the Tangut translation of the Lotus Sutra held at the Berlin State Library. These are important because the Berlin volumes were lost during WWII (one of the lost volumes was rediscovered in 2017 babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2018/04/r…) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 5 April 2019 at 19:54
The illustration for the first volume extends over six pages, and is titled 𗤓𗹙𗤻𗑗𗖰𗚩𘂫𘍦 [妙法蓮華經變相] "Transformation tableau for the Lotus Sūtra of the Wonderful Dharma"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 5 April 2019 at 20:34
The other volumes all have a double-page illustration at the start. This one is from Vol. 3, and is titled 𘕕𗡪𘂫𘍦 [第三變相] "Transformation tableau No. 3".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 5 April 2019 at 22:07
These are the illustrations for vols. 2, 6 and 8 of the Tangut Lotus Sutra held at the Musée Guimet in Paris (as you can see they are drawn in gold ink). The illustrations for each volume are similar in layout but different in detail.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 6 April 2019 at 22:11
Bernhardi's explanations of the illustrations to the Tangut Lotus Sutra is absolutely astounding. She translates almost perfectly the 25 Tangut captions on the illustration for vol. 1 (her only mistake is for 𗷅𗡝𗢳 "Śākya Buddha" which she gives as Pak-ka-Put = Bhagavat Buddha).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 7 April 2019 at 12:33
酔後失禮謝書 (Or.8210/S.2200)
昨日多飲，酔甚過度。麁踈言詞，都不醒覺。朝來見諸人説，方知其由，無地容身，慚悚尤積。本緣小噐，到次滿盈，(深反仄，深反仄)。伏望仁明，不賜罪責。續當面謝，先狀諮申。伏惟監察。不宣，謹狀。 twitter.com/BL_MadeDigital…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 7 April 2019 at 12:43
Yuling Pan and Dániel Z. Kádár, "Politeness in Historical and Contemporary Chinese" (2011) pp. 54–55:
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 7 April 2019 at 13:34
The first three characters of the second column, written 深及庂 are a mistake for 深反庂 (cf. Or.8210/S.4761) = 深反仄 meaning "惶恐不安". The three dots to the side indicate that the three-character phrase is repeated, so "I'm terribly sorry! I'm terribly sorry!"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 April 2019 at 22:42
Recent emoji proposals (𝋱/⧜):
Matryoshka emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19096…
Wood emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19097…
Mirror emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19098…
Person Looking in Mirror emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19099…
(because the UTC is "reining it in while we can, as much as we can")
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 9 April 2019 at 22:14
Recent emoji proposals (𝋲/⧜):
Hut emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19102…
Teapot emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19103…
Flip-flop / Strap Sandal emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19104…
Bucket / Pail emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19105…
(Coming in thick and fast ... 12 proposals in 12 days)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 April 2019 at 11:32
Archaeologists receive their trowels in a ceremony to start the new excavation of the chariot and horse pit at the mausoleum for Duke Jing of Qin (d. 537 BCE). The pit was discovered in 1977 and partially excavated in 2003. It is believed to contain 3 sets of horses and chariots.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 April 2019 at 11:35
Oh, I forgot to link the article: kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
"Shaped like an inverted pyramid, the tomb [of Duke Jing of Qin] is as deep as an eight-story building and is the size of a palace. It is the largest tomb ever excavated in China." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Jing…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 19:41
My hamster Mochi eating a pumpkin seed.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 April 2019 at 23:37
Recent emoji proposals (𝋳/⧜):
Window emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19108…
Two People Hugging emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19109…
Beaver emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19110…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 April 2019 at 23:45
Recent emoji proposals (፳/⧜):
Mouse Trap emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19144…
Rock emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19145…
Olive emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19146…
Beetle emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19148…
Knot emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19152…
Roller Skate emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19151…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 April 2019 at 23:50
Recent emoji proposals (㉑/⧜):
Seal emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19155…
Tooth Brush emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19153…
Tamale emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19154…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 April 2019 at 23:52
Recent emoji proposals (㉒/⧜):
Lung emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19149…
Heart emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19150…
Slightly Smiling Face with Tear emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19147…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 April 2019 at 23:57
A few documents on Mongolian encoding issues for consideration by the Unicode Technical Committee unicode.org/L2/L-curdoc.htm
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 April 2019 at 07:57
Recent emoji proposals (㉓/⧜):
Latin Cornbread emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19156…
Blueberries emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19157…
Plunger emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19158…
"What do you want?" pinched fingers emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19159…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 15:43
Carving of a domestic silkworm in the process of spinning silk, made from the tusk of a wild boar, discovered at the Shuanghuaishu site in Henan dating to the late Yangshao period, about 5,300-4,800 years ago. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 April 2019 at 15:32
Dan discusses a previously unknown 8th-century Tibetan stone inscription reported to be sited at the Traduntse Temple (པྲ་དུན་རྩེ་གཙུག་ལག་ཁང) in southwest Tibet. tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2019/04/stone-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 26 April 2019 at 17:40
The inscription is interesting in that it mentions the annexation of the territory of Zhang-zhung (ཞང་ཞུང་སྡེ) to the Tibetan kingdom, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 April 2019 at 17:43
... and also uses the Zhang-zhung word "dang ra" (དང་ར) meaning "lake" to refer to the "soul lake" (བླ་མཚོ) "having a halter of turquoise" (གཡུ་མཐུར་ཅན), i.e. the Dangra Yutso Lake (དྭངས་རྭ་གཡུ་མཚོ) 250 km northeast of the temple.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 April 2019 at 19:26
Amazing Kuzushiji Character Prediction tool by @tkasasagi tkasasagi.com/en/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 29 April 2019 at 18:08
From exactly 50 years ago, Chairman Mao and Lin Biao at the 1st Plenary Session of the 9th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, on a tin plaque with Tibetan inscription published by the Nationalities Press (Minzu chubanshe) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 29 April 2019 at 18:25
... I got it when I was in Lhasa in March 1985. It was one of half a dozen Cultural Revolution era plaques that had been cemented to the wall of the Ramoche Temple (ར་མོ་ཆེ་དགོན་པ = 小昭寺) for many years, and now lay unwanted after having recently been removed ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 29 April 2019 at 18:27
... The main Tibetan inscription reads རླབས་ཆེན་གཙོ་འཛིན་མའོ་ཀྲུའུ་ཞི་ཁྲི་ལོར་བརྟན་པ་ཤོག! ཁྲི་ལོར་བརྟན་པ་ཤོག! ཁྲི་ལོ་ནས་ཁྲི་ལོར་བརྟན་པ་ཤོག! "Long Live, Long Live, Long Live the Great Leader Chairman Mao !" [伟大的领袖毛主席万岁! 万岁! 万万岁!] ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 29 April 2019 at 18:28
... and the second two lines of Tibetan read "The Great Leader Chairman Mao and his closest comrade at arms Comrade Lin Biao at the 1st Plenary Session of the 9th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China" (held in April 1969).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 May 2019 at 14:32
It's been sitting in a quiet corner of my study for the last few years, and when I took it down to look at the other day I found that unfortunately the Tibetan text has all faded a pale pink.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 May 2019 at 20:10
I've just released two new fonts that support all second stage simplified forms (二简字), including all derived simplifications listed in the 1977 draft plan babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Erjian.h…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 May 2019 at 10:30
Mars (𗜐𗵫) with Scorpio (𘓺𘊓), and the 3rd lunar mansion (𘞱𗵫 = "Under Constellation") on his left. #Tangut twitter.com/JeffreyKotyk/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 May 2019 at 17:33
Tangut seal imprint for the "Head Supervisor of Grain Measurement" 𘑐𘅞𗥦[𘏿] on a fragment from the Stein Collection at @idp_uk idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 May 2019 at 17:47
The Tangut term 𘑐𘅞𗥦𘏿, which literally means "measure-face head-supervisor", occurs at least 8 times in the "Law Code for the Celestial Prosperity Era" (天盛改舊新定律令), where Kychanov translates it as "Старшего весовщика-мерщика". I have no idea what "face" is doing here!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 5 May 2019 at 21:47
"Chinese Bronze Mirrors: A Compendium of Random Findings" by Y. V. Oborin and S. L. Savosin describes 840 mirrors and fragments discovered in Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Electronic edition (Moscow, 2017) available for download from zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 6 May 2019 at 13:34
Today's exciting (for me) #Tangut discovery in the Stein Collection at @idp_uk is a tiny fragment of the very rare "A edition" of the Tangut Homophones (𗙏𘙰 = 同音) idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo… (outlined in red)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 6 May 2019 at 13:39
Homophones survives in "A" and "B" editions. There are multiple copies of the B edition at the IOM in Russia, and many fragments of the B edition elsewhere (nearly 80 fragments in the British Library), but only a single incomplete copy of the A edition is preserved in the IOM ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 6 May 2019 at 13:50
... and before today only a single small fragment of the A edition of Homophones was known in any other collection (idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo… also at the BL).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 6 May 2019 at 14:04
The fragment I noticed today is hidden amongst several unrelated Tangut fragments that were previously described simply as fragments of "Buddhist sutra". It is actually from Homophones Ed. A folio 25A cols. 5-6 babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Tongyin…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 May 2019 at 09:07
Brief report on the discovery of the late Western Han tombs of the Marquis of Yichun (宜春侯) and his wife in Xi'an, excavated last April kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 May 2019 at 09:15
A brick with part of an ink inscription reading 此五十二...宜春侯...椁馀□ "this fifty-two ... Marquis of Yichun ... coffin, remnant [?]" identifies the occupant. Final character looks like {⿰扌⿱土旱} but it has not been identified — perhaps twitter sinologists can explain it?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 May 2019 at 13:22
Why does this twisted tale of burnt tails keep getting repeated as if it were true? ft.com/content/7408cc… (Gabriel Ronay tells this story in his 1978 book "The Tartar Khan's Englishman" [p. 116])
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 11 May 2019 at 13:30
Where is Volohai even? The only mention I can find of such a place is in this story, and the earliest version of the story with Volohai and Tanguts seems to be "Incendiary Cats and Birds in Warfare" by Robert Davis in his 1947 "Breathing in Irrespirable Atmospheres" (p. 32).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 11 May 2019 at 13:34
The earliest version of the story in English seems to be in Henry Hoyle Howorth's 1876 "History of the Mongols" (v. 1 pp. 56-57) where there are *10,000* swallows and a 1,000 cats; no mention of Volohai or the name of the besieged city; and the besieged are Jurchens not Tanguts.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 11 May 2019 at 13:45
Howorth's source is the "Chronicles of Sagang Sechen" translated by Schmidt in 1829. The same story with the same details (Jurchens, 10,000 swallows, no Volohai) is also translated by Charles Bawden in his 2013 "Mongolian Literature Anthology" (p. 27).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 11 May 2019 at 13:51
So is the version of the story with 1,000 swallows, Tanguts and Volohai a random corruption of the original story by Western authors, or is there a separate early Mongolian or Chinese source for it?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 May 2019 at 22:40
Further investigation indicates that Volohai is Woluohai 斡羅孩 or Wulahai 兀剌海 (Uraqai in Mongolian), which is recorded as the first Tangut fortress taken by Genghis Khan, but without the aid of any burning cats or swallows.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 May 2019 at 18:50
Outside of Farnham Castle (shell wall built in late 12th-century around the Norman keep built in 1138) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 May 2019 at 18:57
... Inside of Farnham Castle (deep shaft dug from the top of the keep beneath a lost Norman tower down to ground level where a well was dug even deeper)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 May 2019 at 11:33
After nearly three years I finally get round to writing up an account of my visit to Kharakhoto with @cosmicore in August 2016. babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 20 May 2019 at 14:29
Two days later and and 1,500 km east we arrive at the site of the Liao Superior Capital, where I encounter two pagodas, a genuine Khitan epitaph, a fake Khitan dharani pillar, and a hoard of dharani pillars and stone cinerary coffins in a bicycle shed. babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 22 May 2019 at 10:34
And I have just finished writing up my 2017 revisit to Lindong North Pagoda babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 22 May 2019 at 10:45
... and my 2017 revisit to the site of the Liao Superior Capital (遼上京遺址) babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201… where I encounter a replica statue of Guanyin in the wild, and catch a glimpse of the genuine statue in a closed area of the museum.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 23 May 2019 at 10:20
And now here is my account of my visits to the White Pagoda at Hohhot in 2017, where I looked for ancient graffiti in Chinese, Phags-pa, Uyghur, Syriac and Jurchen babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 24 May 2019 at 20:53
And ten days later I visit another White Pagoda near the tombs of three Liao dynasty emperors babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 25 May 2019 at 16:18
I finally complete my backlog of travel diary entries for 2016 and 2017 with a visit to an enigmatic stone building babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 30 May 2019 at 10:08
Stone mould for a bronze fishhook (铜鱼钩石范) among ten stone moulds for spearheads etc. found at a 1st millennium BCE site in Yunnan kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 June 2019 at 18:31
Little egret in the River Wey today, and then the same bird two hours later in a different stretch of the river.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 16 June 2019 at 23:32
Arrived at airbnb in Bellevue WA with @Evertype for #WG2_68 in Redmond next week.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 June 2019 at 06:18
Snoqualmie Falls, in the heart of Twin Peaks country.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 June 2019 at 16:15
Steeling myself for #WG2_68 at Microsoft campus this morning with a stiff black coffee and a slice of cherry pie ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 June 2019 at 18:07
Proudly showing off my #taito and #biang badges at #WG2_68 courtesy of @ken_lunde (taito is a UK-submitted CJK ideograph and both characters are in CJK Ext. G which will be coming to Unicode soon).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 June 2019 at 04:35
Recent emoji proposals (㉔/⧜):
Biting Lip emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19219…
Diaper emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19215…
Bison emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19187…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 June 2019 at 11:15
This is a really bad argument for not encoding new Hangul letters used in DPRK between 1948 and 1954 unicode.org/L2/L2019/19233… — the only valid encoding criteria is whether they were used in newspapers, books or other publications that we should be able to digitally preserve.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 June 2019 at 11:19
2nd Stage simplified Chinese characters 二简字 (babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Erjian.h…) were only officially used from December 1977 to July 1978, but the "Table 1" characters were used in newspapers etc. so were accepted for encoding, and will be in CK Ext. G as part of Unicode 13.0 in 2020.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 June 2019 at 11:33
Recent emoji proposals (/):
Troll emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19232…
@Evertype and myself had to drag this one kicking and screaming through the emoji subcommittee and on to the Unicode document registry!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 June 2019 at 12:05
BabelStone Troll colour font with PUA mappings (E000) available from babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Troll.ht…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 June 2019 at 13:21
The Biting Lip emoji proposal (unicode.org/L2/L2019/19219…) is a perfect example of how ludicrous the criteria for emoji encoding are. Proposers are asked to provide statistics on the relative frequency of words or phrases associated with the proposed emoji ... 1/3
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 26 June 2019 at 13:25
... rather than addressing the issue of whether the emoji is required or would be used. So the Biting Lip proposal compares the relative frequency of the words "biting lip" and "drooling face" as evidence that a biting lip emoji is far more needed than drooling face 🤤 emoji. 2/3
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 26 June 2019 at 13:30
But this is meaningless because people almost never need to write the words "drooling face", yet 🤤 is one of the top emoji on twitter. And just because people say "I keep on biting my lips" does not mean that they want or need a corresponding emoji. 3/3
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 June 2019 at 13:32
The statistics that the Emoji Subcommittee have so much faith in are just so much pseudo-scientific bunkum! {insert appropriate emoji here} 4/3
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 27 June 2019 at 14:36
New release of BabelPad with many new features and enhancements babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 27 June 2019 at 14:39
... including new tools for calculating frequency of words, user-specified strings, and grapheme clusters in the current document; an option to customize collation elements when sorting using the Unicode Collation Algorithm; and just for fun a pan-Unicode Caesar cipher function.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 1 July 2019 at 09:28
Undisturbed Song/Jin dynasty husband-and-wife brick tomb in good condition, with Jin dynasty epitaph, discovered in Yuanqu County, Shanxi hkcna.hk/content/2019/0…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 1 July 2019 at 09:47
Some more pictures from sohu.com/a/320887868_10…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 July 2019 at 16:12
Thousands of miniature five-tier towers (gorintō 五輪塔) discovered in boxes at the Entsuji Temple on Mount Koya in Japan mainichi.jp/english/articl…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 July 2019 at 16:17
Close-up view of one of the gorintō, with Sanskrit letters written on each of the five levels (representing the five elements: earth, water, fire, wind and air), and a tiny piece of Buddhist scripture that was stored in the base of the tower.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 July 2019 at 16:29
Pictures of the Song dynasty brick tomb discovered at Longxi County Gansu during road building yesterday xw.qq.com/partner/wcsbzs…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 4 July 2019 at 16:48
A couple of phone videos available here xw.qq.com/partner/vivosc…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 July 2019 at 17:19
Just like the Song/Jin dynasty tomb discovered last month in Shanxi, this is an octagonal brick tomb with an imitation wooden structure
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 July 2019 at 09:12
"The Unicode Gang" in 2009 unicode.org/history/photoa… #UnicodeGang
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 5 July 2019 at 09:21
10 years later and some have gone and others have taken their place, but six of the original 2009 #UnicodeGang were at #WG2_68 last month:
Lee Collins (pictured), @Evertype, Asmus Freytag, Lisa Moore, Michel Suignard, and Ken Whistler (but I forgot to take a group photo of them)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 5 July 2019 at 09:24
Lisa Moore at #WG2_66 (September 2017 in Hohhot) with @lianghai #UnicodeGang
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 July 2019 at 09:28
Mike Ksar, Michel Suignard and @Evertype at #WG2_63 (September 2014 in Colombo) #UnicodeGang
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 July 2019 at 20:42
BBC News - Wuhan protests: Incinerator plan sparks mass unrest bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-chi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 9 July 2019 at 09:12
Yuan dynasty brick tomb with wall paintings discovered in Jinan Shandong. Mural is helpfully inscribed with the date 大元國至元二十二年 "22nd year of the Zhiyuan era of the Great Yuan State" = 1285 kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 9 July 2019 at 09:27
The tomb was discovered last week (3 July) when digging a drainage channel, and there is only a small gap into the tomb, which is why the photos are not so great. kswchina.com/ksgzj/59377.ht…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 July 2019 at 10:31
Yuan dynasty tomb with wall paintings discovered at Shuozhou in Shanxi last month. Inscription on a brick indicates that the tomb is for Zhang Delin and his wife Madam Wang (祖耶耶张得林娘娘王氏) art.ifeng.com/2019/0621/3482…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 15 July 2019 at 10:52
Cotton On, Target investigate after women speak out about forced labour abc.net.au/news/2019-07-1… via @ABCNews
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 July 2019 at 14:00
The Unicode Consortium launches a trendy new website in celebration of World Emoji Day home.unicode.org
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 July 2019 at 10:12
The Legal page of the new @unicode website is interesting home.unicode.org/legal-news/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 22 July 2019 at 16:18
I wonder how the trolls and apologists explain this (@incunabula)
Xinjiang People's Publishing House 新疆人民出版社:
Chinese: 12 pages of books
Mongolian: 3 pages of books
Uyghur: not a single book
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 22 July 2019 at 16:35
Kazakh 10 pages, Kyrgyz 2 pages, Sibe 4 pages ... so apparently it's just Uyghur language books which are effectively banned in Xinjiang.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 22 July 2019 at 23:22
In 2015 there were eight pages of Uyghur books listed on the site web.archive.org/web/2015040313… but even the books of Xi Jinping speeches and the anti-terrorism handbook are all gone now.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 00:21
The Ming dynasty Diamond Throne Pagoda of the Temple of True Enlightenment in Beijing, commonly known as the Temple of Five Pagodas (五塔寺) commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wuta… ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 00:26
... now being rebuilt in Shanghai in 21st-century style. Grotesque.
H/T @xujnx twitter.com/xujnx/status/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 10:29
"Xinjiang People's Publishing house was founded in 1951 as a general regional publisher in the six languages of Uyghur, Chinese, Kazakh, Mongolian, Kyrgyz and Sibe." xjrmcb.com/about/show/125… (notice the order of languages) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 10:32
You can download their lists of books published in Chinese, Kazakh, Mongolian, Kyrgyz and Sibe languages (up to end of 2014 only) from xjrmcb.com/down/0.aspx ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 10:37
But their list of books published in the Uyghur language, which used to be top of the page is no longer available. web.archive.org/web/2015040910…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 10:48
I can't find a cached copy of the Uyghur booklist (新疆人民出版社维吾尔文图书目录.xlsx) but here is a partial list showing the range of books that have disappeared (dictionaries, the Koran, world history, a brief history of Islam, and even books on Chinese socialism and the CCP).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 13:06
British Library Add MS 73525 (bl.uk/manuscripts/Fu…) is a collection of manuscript fragments dating from the 10th through 16th centuries, including this single folio "in an unknown script, in red, blue, and black ink, possibly liturgical in nature".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 15:24
And the other side of the folio, with the same undeciphered writing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 15:36
I have no idea what the writing is, but would observe that there may be two forms of writing here: the headings and some "words" (highlighted) look more like alphabetic writing than the more disjoined, dotty signs which make up most of the text — could they be musical notation?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 24 July 2019 at 11:40
四月印芫萎餅 Making Coriander Cakes in the 4th month. Coriander cakes (芫荽餅) are traditionally eaten on the Buddha's Birthday celebrated on 8th or 15th day of the 4th lunar month.
Via @JeffreyKotyk twitter.com/JeffreyKotyk/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 25 July 2019 at 16:59
The Silchester Ogham Stone, found at the bottom of a well in the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum in 1893. Photographed by me on this day three years ago. twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 July 2019 at 08:36
Ming dynasty tomb with wall paintings inscribed "Buried on the 11th day of the 2nd month of the 9th year of the Yongle era of the Great Ming" "大明永樂九年二月十一日葬" [1411] discovered at Yuxian in Shanxi (山西盂县) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 26 July 2019 at 08:48
Also discovered in the same village of Xiacao (下曹村) were three caches of colour-painted clay and wooden Buddhist statues (38 in total, mostly arhats) from a local temple which had been hidden in caves dug into the hillside during the Cultural Revolution kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 26 July 2019 at 08:54
The statues are thought to date to the Ming dynasty. Local villagers recently went looking for the buried statues, and when they found them they reported the discovery to the authorities (!)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 28 July 2019 at 13:40
Went for a Sunday morning walk, so here are some sheep chilling in the shade of some trees near where we live.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 28 July 2019 at 16:10
Trying out a new recipe for Korean crispy and spicy fried chicken (닭강정) in preparation for visit by @Evertype next month (based on maangchi.com/recipe/easy-da… by @maangchi)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 August 2019 at 10:49
Pica Saxon from "A Specimen of the several sorts of Letter given to the University by Dr. John Fell" (Oxford, 1695) showing lower case and upper case forms of the letter "and" (⁊) digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/p/876b… cc @Evertype
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 5 August 2019 at 15:42
Almost the last day of filming of 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔒𝔩𝔡 𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔡 at the Bourne Woods this afternoon (photos shot at full zoom through a small gap in the trees at about 300 yards)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 5 August 2019 at 16:37
Every time there is filming at the Bourne Woods (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourne_Wo…) they kindly put up a notice at the end of my road to let me know. TOG = en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_G…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 August 2019 at 10:26
#WTF twitter won't let me tweet about an archaeological discovery in China because it wants to protect y'all from spam.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 August 2019 at 10:30
Here are the pictures without a link to the source (just google 山东发掘两座大型汉代画像石墓):
Excavation of two large-scale Han dynasty tombs in Jinan, Shandong, with a total of 58 engraved picture stones.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 at 10:31
Proposal for Face with X Eyes emoji (unicode.org/L2/L2019/19303…) in order to try to sort out the chaos created by incompatible vendor implementations of the existing Dizzy Face 😵 emoji.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 at 10:37
I assume that at least some vendors will respond by keeping their x-eyes emoji where it is, and adding a spiral-eyed emoji at the new code point.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 at 21:17
Also proposed: Face with Open Eyes and Hand Over Mouth emoji because Apple implements Smiling Face with Smiling Eyes and Hand Covering Mouth 🤭 with open eyes unicode.org/L2/L2019/19304…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 at 21:31
And coming soon, proposal for Smiling Face with Smiling Eyes and Three Big Hearts and One Small Heart because @Emojipedia can't count very well 🥰
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 August 2019 at 20:13
Starting to prepare BabelMap for Unicode 13.0 in March 2020, which will see the advent of the Tertiary Ideographic Plane (TIP)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 August 2019 at 20:32
The highlighted character is the simplified form of the Sawndip character for the first part of the word Sawndip 𭨡𮄫 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawndip
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 August 2019 at 20:36
The characters in the edit buffer are 2nd stage simplifications that were briefly used in 1977-1978 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_ro…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 August 2019 at 20:42
CJK Ext. G also includes about 1,000 derived simplified forms of Chinese characters included in the 2nd ed. of the Great Dictionary of Chinese Characters 《漢語大字典》 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Da_…) which will help ongoing efforts to index and digitalize this important dictionary.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 14 August 2019 at 21:05
Discussion of the Tertiary Ideographic Plane from 10 years ago (unicode.org/mail-arch/unic…) ... some thought it would not happen in their lifetime, but John Knightley correctly predicted "the overflow of CJK Extensions from the SIP will take place
sometime between 2020 and 2025"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 14 August 2019 at 22:22
As I recall, the term "Tertiary Ideographic Plane" was coined by @Evertype in about 2007 as a placeholder name for Plane 3, but despite some objections from Japan it stuck.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 16 August 2019 at 18:44
Discovered today in Taiyuan, a well-preserved Tang dynasty tomb with spectacular wall paintings, including a magnificent tiger and a lovely 5-stringed pipa. Importantly, there is a stone epitaph which will provide information about the deceased. mp.weixin.qq.com/s/unvQiOzDwK4W…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 16 August 2019 at 22:48
Unicode 13.0 (March 2020) also includes Khitan Small Script. With font support sequences of individual KSS characters automatically combine into word clusters, as shown here (as with Mongolian & Phags-pa, horizontal text needs to be rotated for vertical display, e.g. using CSS).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 17 August 2019 at 11:23
The KSS text shown in the edit buffer is from the Record of the Journey of the Younger Brother of the Emperor of the Great Jin Dynasty (大金皇弟都統經略郎君行記) dated 1134.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 17 August 2019 at 11:38
I have a test page for my prototype KSS font at babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/KSS_Test…. At present KSS cluster formation works as expected under Windows 10 with my font, but I would not be at all surprised if Microsoft decided to fix it not to work when they add support for Khitan Small Script.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 18 August 2019 at 15:21
Adding some more photos of the tomb in case the linked site ever disappears.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 18 August 2019 at 15:30
And some close-ups of the musicians, tiger, and fenghuang.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 27 August 2019 at 15:20
Visited yesterday, the excavation by @LymingeDig of the Saxon church at Lyminge, Kent, founded by Queen (later Saint) Ethelburga (Æthelburh) in 633. Very clear remains of the apsidal chancel separated from the nave by a triple arch.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 28 August 2019 at 09:35
Buddhist cliff sculptures of a buddha and four bodhisattvas in Baiyu county of Sichuan's Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture are identified as dating to the period of the late Tibetan Empire (9th century). kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 31 August 2019 at 08:43
Unfortunately still using ┐ (Box Drawings Light Down and Left) instead of ⁊ (Tironian Sign Et) twitter.com/Department_ASN…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 September 2019 at 10:26
A couple of plain brick Tang dynasty tombs (M421 and M422) excavated at Lanshan County in the very south of Hunan ... kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 9 September 2019 at 10:31
Nothing very special about them, except that they kindly built in a few date-imprinted bricks to help future archaeologists:
Yongchang 1 永昌元年 [689] (M421)
Wude 1 武德元年 [618] (M422)
Zhenghuan 1 唐貞觀元年 [627] (M422)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 September 2019 at 10:36
And one brick imprinted with the name Léishān 雷山 "Thunder Mountain", which the archaeologists insightfully suggest "might be the name of a mountain".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 September 2019 at 09:13
Proposal to encode 96 Chinese place name ideographs by @WangXieyang unicode.org/L2/L2019/19308…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 14 September 2019 at 20:55
I've never seen the two Tangut seals on the right before:
𘀗𘑨 = 乾祐 Qianyou era (1170-1193)
𗣼𗪘𗍫𗤒 = 元德二年 Yuande 2 (1120)
They both look very fake to me, with poor calligraphy. twitter.com/toranosukev/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 14 September 2019 at 21:21
There's no reason to doubt the authenticity of the "chief" 𗥦𗖅 (首領) seal as many examples are known to have been in the hands of Japanese collectors ... but they have displayed it upside down here (oops!)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 11:48
Five Western Xia official seals in #Tangut seal script on display at the National Museum of China in Beijing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 11:55
These seals are very different to contemporary Song Chinese and Liao Khitan official seals, with the text usually inverted (imprinted in white), and not following the "Seal of {office}" formula used on Chinese and Khitan seals. (Photo of seals at old Xixia Museum in Yinchuan)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 12:07
A very few seals have four or six Tangut characters, such as 𗍅𘏿𗆻𘞪" meaning "special seal of the Supervisor of Works" (Chinese 工監專印) and "𗼨𗆟𘍴𗩙𗆻𘞪" meaning "special seal of the Department of Rites of the Weiming clan" (Chinese 嵬名禮部專印) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 12:16
... but the vast majority of seals have just two Tangut characters "𗥦𗖅" meaning "commander" or "chief" (Chinese 首領). Luo Fuyi lists 85 examples in his 1982 catalogue of Tangut seals, and I have managed to photograph 23 examples at four museums commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 12:42
The calligraphy for the two Tangut characters "𗥦" (首 "head") and "𗖅" (領 "to lead") for the title "commander" varies from one seal to another, and no two seals are exactly the same, but the typical structure of the seal script glyphs is as shown here.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 13:28
The back of the seal is normally engraved with date of issue and name of owner, and 𗹭 (上) "Up" on the knob to show orientation. The handwriting of the reverse inscription is typically atrocious, with malformed characters and incorrect components. (random photo from internet)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 13:58
On this example, the date on the right is 𘀗𘑨𗤁𗤒 (乾祐六年) Qianyou 6 (1175), and the owner's name on the left is 𗚷𗸰・[𘕤𘙲𘀄?] Tśhi̯əton [Seeking-long-luck ?]. The knob character 𗹭 (上) is upside down. chnmuseum.cn/Portals/0/web/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 15:07
The enigma of bronze age tin ingots found off the Israeli coast with marks that may be Cypro-Minoean signs phys.org/news/2019-09-e…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 15:21
Four signs occur on 4 ingots: b, c and d may correspond to Cypro-Minoan signs 95, 75 and 102 respectively, but there is no C-M version of (a) which occurs on all 4 ingots and may have been applied last; a-c do however all have analogues in Iberian scripts. jstor.org/stable/1356605
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 16:17
Tangut seal imprints are sometimes found on Tangut documents in the @idp_uk database, although they are usually too unclear to read, as in these examples:
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 September 2019 at 16:42
@idp_uk However there is one Tangut document in the @idp_uk database which has six seal impressions, five of which are clear impressions of the same (?) "𗥦𗖅" (首領) "commander" seal (all upside down):
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 September 2019 at 12:29
@idp_uk Side-by-side view of the seal impression on the British Library Tangut document from Kharakhoto (rotated 180°) and a bronze seal held at the National Museum of China (mirrored), both with the same "𗥦𗖅" (首領) "commander" inscription.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 September 2019 at 13:10
Annual grape harvest underway at the West household
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 September 2019 at 15:48
Picked about 8 kg of grapes, but still plenty left on the vine for birds and foxes, which made about 5 litres of grape juice. I don't try to make bad wine, but just drink the raw grape juice, which is wonderfully refreshing and sweet, although needs to be finished in a few days.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 September 2019 at 11:35
Wow, it seems that the British Library believes that the Anglo-Saxon Mappa Mundi bl.uk/collection-ite… is in copyright until at least 31 December 2039 under the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act because it was created by a citizen of the European Economic Area (EEA).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 09:38
Proposals for black or white versions of existing emoji using ZWJ sequences:
White Wine emoji {🍷⬜} unicode.org/L2/L2019/19276…
Black Cat emoji {🐈⬛} unicode.org/L2/L2019/19277…
Polar Bear emoji {🐻⬜} unicode.org/L2/L2019/19296…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 09:52
Recent emoji proposals (㉖/⧜):
Submarine emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19305…
Crow/Raven emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19307…
Mirror Ball emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19310…
Bubbles emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19311…
Chainsaw emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19312…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 10:15
My photo of Mr Emojipedia @jeremyburge wearing his submarine emoji shirt last summer.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 15:48
Unperturbed by the unseasonably warm summer weather that we should not be having in late September, today I visited the lovely Norman church of St James at Bramley in Hampshire ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 15:50
... which is justly famous for its medieval wall paintings that were whitewashed over in 1550-1551, and rediscovered in the late 19th century.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 16:09
On the south wall above the original south door is this 12th century depiction of the murder of Thomas Becket, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 16:17
(I meant late 12th or early 13th century ... believed to have been painted within 50 years of the event in 1170)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 16:21
... and on the north wall is a 16th century depiction of Saint Christopher, which has been likened to contemporary portraits of Henry VIII
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 16:29
Unfortunately, the painting of St Christopher has considerably deteriorated since it was discovered in 1874 by the Rev. Charles Eddy, as can be seen from this early photograph.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 19:05
Medieval wall paintings on the east wall of St James' church, Bramley.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 September 2019 at 19:33
Other uncovered text paintings and a painted cross.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 September 2019 at 17:16
Medieval graffiti on the chancel arch of the Church of St Nicholas in Compton, Surrey, depicting a Norman knight with a conical helmet and a nose guard.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 21 September 2019 at 17:23
Close by on the same arch is a medieval engraving of five interlocked circles, perhaps intended to mark the position above for a consecration cross (too close to the floor to be the actual position).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 21 September 2019 at 18:53
To the south of the chancel arch is a doorway to a chantry chapel for Henry de Guildford (d. 1312), on which are engraved the names of his executor John de Brideford alias Le Sweyn and his brother Gilbert le Mareschal: "BR[u]de[n]f[or]de Sway[ne]" and "GilBRetus L eM[areschal]".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 21 September 2019 at 21:56
The 14th-century chantry chapel for Henry de Guildford has a well worn wooden prayer desk and a quatrefoil squint that allowed the priest to observe the high altar.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 22 September 2019 at 11:14
The chantry chapel is commonly confused with an undocumented anchorite cell that was supposed to be attached to the church; but the actual remains of the anchorite cell, with a plain rectangular squint, are on the north side of the chancel.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 22 September 2019 at 13:59
About 9 miles away, in the Church of St James in Shere, there is an anchorite cell documented to have been the home of Christine Carpenter in 1329 and 1332. A squint for receiving communion and a squint giving sight to the altar are all that survive. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 22 September 2019 at 21:07
15th-century painting of St Christopher on the south wall of the Old Church of St Peter and St Paul at Albury Park in Surrey; and an early 16th-century painting of St Christopher on the north wall of the Church of St James in Bramley, Hampshire. I visited both churches this week.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 September 2019 at 18:14
Fragment of jade from the site at Karabalgasun, capital of the Uighur Empire (744/745 to 840 AD), with an Old Uyghur inscription written in Chinese characters — h/t @csen_nomads twitter.com/csen_nomads/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 23 September 2019 at 18:17
@csen_nomads The three Chinese characters read 没蜜施 (Mandarin mò mì shī) which transcribe the Old Uighur word bolmiš "to receive", which occurs in the titles of at least nine Uighur khans from 747 to 848 who are listed in the Old and New History of the Tang Dynasty. zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%9E…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 23 September 2019 at 19:58
@csen_nomads For example in New Tang History (新唐書) 217B.1b there is mentioned 愛登里囉汩没蜜施合毗伽昭禮可汗 = Ay täŋridä qut bolmiš alp bilgä Zhaoli qaɣan "Brave and Intelligent Khagan Zhaoli who received blessing from the Moon God" which is the epithet for Khagan Qasar who ruled 824–832.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 23 September 2019 at 22:17
@csen_nomads This jade fragment reminds me of a jade fragment with a Khitan small script inscription that was found at a Liao imperial tomb in 2018 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 23 September 2019 at 22:47
@csen_nomads Some other photos from the Mongolisch-Deutsche Orchon-Expedition dainst.org/projekt/-/proj…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 24 September 2019 at 09:54
"This means that when the Royal Commissioners walked into the House of Lords it was as if they walked in with a blank sheet of paper." supremecourt.uk/news/latest-ju… ... but it turns out the PM was not Doctor Who
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 September 2019 at 08:41
Liang Sicheng's plans to build gardens along the top of Beijing's Ming dynasty city wall chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/html/cd… twitter.com/CarlZha/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 September 2019 at 12:49
@csen_nomads The project description (dainst.org/projekt/-/proj…) talks of several fragments of polished stone tablets with gold-encrusted Chinese characters [einigen Fragmenten von „Jadebüchern“ (polierten Jadetäfelchen mit chinesischen, golden inkrustierten Schriftzeichen)] ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 September 2019 at 13:12
@csen_nomads ... and I was able to find a picture of one more fragment with five Chinese characters "於天下氣無" in this document (publications.dainst.org/journals/index…) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 September 2019 at 13:26
@csen_nomads ... which come from a memorial poem written by the famous Tang poet Bai Juyi to the Uighur Khagan in 821 (《册回鹘可汗加号文》). It is also the source for "没蜜施" in the other fragment (here written as "歿密施").
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 September 2019 at 16:53
Is it just me? This is what I get when I try to visit home.unicode.org with Internet Explorer.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 30 September 2019 at 17:01
With Firefox I just see PUA characters all over the place.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 September 2019 at 17:04
Chrome's no better.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 October 2019 at 08:16
To celebrate the 35th anniversary of the 35th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, here is a photo of me recently arrived in China circa October 1984, with 35th anniversary poster in the background (roommate photographer Adrian Bradshaw cropped out).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 1 October 2019 at 13:01
Some of my tóngxué stayed in Beijing to watch the mighty military parade, but I and some others travelled south to Suzhou and Hangzhou. Here is the unrestored Ruiguang pagoda (瑞光塔) in Suzhou with a National Day banner over the entrance.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 09:58
I still have my set of tourist maps (which I got for free from the Chinese consulate in London) which helped guide me around China in 1984 and 1985. You can see me studying them in the photo. pic.twitter.com/8D81EzNIqh
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 13:05
I still have my set of tourist maps (which I got for free from the Chinese consulate in London) which helped guide me around China in 1984 and 1985. You can see me studying them in the photo.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 15:08
Which I supplemented with my essential 1982 map of Beijing and my 1980 Tibetan-language map of Lhasa ... how both cities have changed since then!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 8 October 2019 at 16:26
Li Fanwen's Tangut-Chinese Dictionary (2008) has a puzzling Tangut word for Pratyeka-buddha (Chinese 辟支佛) ... it took me a while to realise that 𘆄 "etc." is a mistake for 𘒶 "buddha" (the transcription of Chinese 佛 rather than the normal Tangut word for Buddha 𗢳).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 11 October 2019 at 21:52
@csen_nomads I have now been able to have a look at Lyndon A. Arden-Wong's 2011 "Preliminary Thoughts on the Marble Inscriptions from Karabalgasun" (brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.148…) which describes two more fragments from the same site ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 11 October 2019 at 21:55
@csen_nomads ... and KB002 is a 7.1 cm long marble fragment engraved with the two Chinese characters "較雄" which are also from Bai Juyi's 《册新回鶻可汗文》: 南西東方，亦有君長，較雄鬥智，莫之與京。
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 11 October 2019 at 22:02
@csen_nomads KB001 has the remains of three Chinese characters but only the middle one is identifiable as 雲. This does occur once in Bai Juyi's 《册新回鶻可汗文》, but the characters on either side do not match the description of the fragmentary characters above and below 雲 on the fragment.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 11 October 2019 at 23:20
@csen_nomads I have updated my blog post with details of the two fragments found in 2009 and 2011. We now have fragments from two different investiture texts for the Uighur Khagan written by Bai Juyi in 821 babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2019/10/k…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 24 October 2019 at 13:44
Uyghur economist and activist Ilham Tohti, sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014, has been awarded the 2019 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 October 2019 at 10:53
Recent emoji proposals (㉗/⧜):
Low Battery emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19316…
Raised Little Finger emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19326…
Hand with Index Finger and Thumb Crossed emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19327…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 October 2019 at 11:02
Recent emoji proposals (㉘/⧜):
River emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19334…
Vulture emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19335…
Lotus emoji unicode.org/L2/L2019/19371…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 31 October 2019 at 09:47
Western Jin brick tomb dated 306 discovered at Zixing in Hunan kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 31 October 2019 at 09:54
Like many tombs from this period, its date is recorded on inscribed bricks: 永興三年七月乙酉朔五日己丑石氏作 "Built by Mr Shi on the fifth day (jichou cyclical day) of the 7th month (with the new moon on the yiyou cyclical day) of the 3rd year of the Yongxing era (306 CE)".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 31 October 2019 at 10:01
Inexplicably, the report misreads the inscription as "永兴三年七月酉□五日己丑石氏作", omitting the flat "乙" before "酉" and failing to identify "朔" after "酉". The jichou 己丑 day is of course five days after the yiyou 乙酉 day (the new moon of the 7th month).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 November 2019 at 16:56
A list of books, offprints and papers by Sir Aurel Stein offered for sale by John Randall, together with an important collection of his original letters to the Italian explorer Filippo de Filippi, and related material booksofasia.com/PDFs/Orientali… @HelenWangLondon @incunabula
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 November 2019 at 17:07
@HelenWangLondon @incunabula Some of the 72 letters from Aurel Stein to his friend Filippo de Filippi dated 1913-1938, offered for sale at £45,000.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 November 2019 at 17:26
Sable Wood, Farnham #dailywalk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 November 2019 at 10:04
Jin dynasty brick tomb with murals depicting the Stories of 24 Filial Acts and an inscription dated 1189 discovered near Xingtai in Hebei kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 November 2019 at 10:07
Details of the murals afpbb.com/articles/-/325…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 November 2019 at 10:14
The floor of the tomb was strewn with the bones of the occupants, a man and his two wives wemp.app/posts/57f33463…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 November 2019 at 10:22
The tomb is helpfully dated by an inscription: "Recorded on the 28th day of the 9th month of the 29th year of the Dading era" 大定廿九年九月二十八日記之 (8 November 1189 in the Julian calendar)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 November 2019 at 16:44
The game board depicted on a runestone from Sweden is remarkably similar to that used for playing liubo in China a thousand years earlier. babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2009/05/l… twitter.com/Berserkjablogg…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 14 November 2019 at 00:11
Looks very promising twitter.com/lokamitrahk/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 16 November 2019 at 16:01
Off the beaten track at Bourne Wood Farnham
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 20 November 2019 at 20:49
Foundations of a Song dynasty hexagonal brick pagoda uncovered in Zhejiang. Bricks printed with "道源塔磚" (Daoyuan Pagoda brick) and "南無大乘妙法蓮華經" (Namo Mahāyāna Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra). kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 20 November 2019 at 20:50
At the core were found six coins dating to Tang and Northern Song: "開元通寶" (621–846), "乾元重寶" (758–762), "元豐通寶" (1078–1085), "元祐通寶" (1086–1094).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 November 2019 at 10:50
Foundations for three Liao dynasty hexagonal pagodas excavated in 2012 at the site of the Liao Superior Capital in Inner Mongolia, the largest 40+ metres across, thought to be part of an imperial Buddhist temple kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xcczlswz/2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 November 2019 at 10:58
Buddhist statues and a dharani pillar base discovered during the excavations
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 November 2019 at 11:05
More at my account of my visit to the Liao Superior Capital site in 2017 babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 November 2019 at 11:51
The above photo is a replica of a Liao dynasty Guanyin statue that stood here until 2007. She lost her head in the early 20th century, and was damaged by an earthquake in 2003, so now lives in the nearby Liao Shangjing Museum, not on display but I managed to catch a peek of her.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 November 2019 at 16:07
BBC News - Detectorists stole Viking hoard that 'rewrites history' bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 November 2019 at 13:39
I have just released BabelStone Han v. 13.0.0 with support for the forthcoming Unicode 13.0 (March 2020), and now covering 40,574 CJK unified ideographs babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 22 November 2019 at 13:47
The font covers 2,354 of the 4,939 characters in the new CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G block in the newly-opened Tertiary Ideographic Plane (TIP) unicode.org/charts/PDF/Uni…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 22 November 2019 at 14:29
I proposed the encoding of 1,709 of the characters in Ext. G, including 994 derived simplified characters used in the 2nd ed. of Hànyǔ Dàzìdiǎn 漢語大字典, and 98 2nd stage simplified characters (二简字) which I first proposed over ten years ago (unicode.org/L2/L2009/09260…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 22 November 2019 at 15:04
There are 13 urgently-needed characters added to the end of the main CJK block, mostly names for fish, as well as macaw and hutia (unicode.org/L2/L2019/19202…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 22 November 2019 at 15:14
Added to the end of CJK Ext. A are 10 characters disunified from existing characters (see IRG N2337, N2338, N2370, N2422 appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg53…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 22 November 2019 at 15:16
Added to the end of CJK Ext. B are 7 characters used for Chinese musical notation (hooked versions of the gongche characters 合四一上尺工凡) proposed by @eisoch and @JerryYou517 (unicode.org/L2/L2018/18245…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 22 November 2019 at 15:24
@eisoch @JerryYou517 Also new in Unicode 13 are two Vietnamese "reading marks" which are intended to combine with CJK unified ideographs. BabelStone Han supports a limited set of combining sequences of CJK unified ideographs and these Vietnamese reading marks ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 22 November 2019 at 15:30
@eisoch @JerryYou517 ... which I have tested as working under #HarfBuzz, but they won't work with Chrome or Firefox even though they use versions of HarfBuzz which do work. Test page here babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Vietname…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 22 November 2019 at 15:49
@eisoch @JerryYou517 Finally, this version of BabelStone Han supports a provisional and unregistered set of 934 Ideographic Variations Sequences for 463 CJK unified ideographs (babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/BSH_IVS.…). I may register a BabelStone IVD collection at a future date after feedback from users and experts.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 November 2019 at 11:32
Four important archaeological discoveries on the Silk Road in China announced yesterday:
1) In Qinghai, a royal tomb from the Tibetan Empire, circa 700, excavated Sept. 2018 to Sept. 2019; with murals, a gilt crown and a gold cup inlaid with turquoise. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 23 November 2019 at 11:47
2) In Gansu, discovered on 25 September 2019, the tomb of Murong Zhi 慕容智, 3rd son of Murong Nuohebo, last khan of the Tuyuhun kingdom, who died in 691 aged 42. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 23 November 2019 at 11:51
His wooden coffin is covered with silk cloth with elephants marching left and right.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 23 November 2019 at 11:59
A stone epitaph identifies the occupant of the tomb. This is the cover for the epitaph, inscribed "大周故慕容府君墓誌" = "Tomb epitaph for the deceased Lord Murong of the Great Zhou" (Great Zhou refers to the short-lived Zhou dynasty established by Empress Wu Zetian).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 23 November 2019 at 12:14
3) In Qinghai, at the Reshui tomb complex dating to the 6th-8th centuries, a large mausoleum was excavated between Sept. 2018 and Oct. 2019 in response to a case of tomb robbery. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 23 November 2019 at 12:16
At the tomb entrance is a pit with the skeletons of six horses.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 23 November 2019 at 12:18
Various items of fine jewellery have been found, indicating the high status of the occupant.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 23 November 2019 at 12:28
4) In Xinjiang Yuli County, one of a series of Tang dynasty beacon towers first surveyed by Stein in 1914, has been under excavation for the last month (and is still continuing). kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 23 November 2019 at 12:30
Among the items found so far are some plates of armour ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 23 November 2019 at 12:32
... and the remains of Chinese documents written on paper and wood.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 November 2019 at 14:57
@eisoch @JerryYou517 BabelStone Han now updated to v. 13.0.1 in order to include five new bopomofo letters and various non-Han characters added in Unicode 13.0. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 November 2019 at 15:02
My BabelStone Shapes font is now updated to include Creative Commons symbols and Symbols for Legacy Computing which are included in Unicode 13.0 (March 2020) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Shapes.h… @DougEwell
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 26 November 2019 at 17:43
From Miran Fort, digitized by @idp_uk at:
idp.bl.uk/database/oo_lo… twitter.com/AltaytoYughur/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 November 2019 at 17:51
The puppy has been named "Dogor", which means "friend" in the Yakut language and is also the start of the question "dog or wolf?" bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 28 November 2019 at 17:53
I had my doubts when I read it, but it turns out to be true that "dogor" does mean "friend" in Yakut.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 November 2019 at 22:43
The dictionary shown is a recent edition of N.V. Sljunin's manuscript "Russian-Yakut-Ewenki Trilingual Dictionary" compiled at the beginning of the last century brill.com/view/title/387…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 December 2019 at 10:55
Jin dynasty (1115–1234) wall-mounted pottery lamps excavated from a site south of Kaiyuan Temple in Zhengding Hebei (河北正定开元寺南广场遗址). Some inscribed with the slogan "Be careful of fire; store up water!" 慎火停水 kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 2 December 2019 at 11:13
Some more examples with 慎火停水 slogan kknews.cc/history/lm8pnv…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 2 December 2019 at 11:30
Also from a Jin dynasty rubbish pit at the site, a couple of water storage jars inscribed 天威軍官瓶 "Official jars of the Tianwei Army" (Tianwei Army was a Song dynasty army command based at Jingxing 井陘 60 km southwest of Zhengding, which was defeated by the Jin army in 1126).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 8 December 2019 at 14:35
Some Yue ware vessels from a large cluster of tombs dating to the Six Dynasties period (3rd–6th centuries) under excavation at the Qixingdui 七星堆 site by the Gan River at Nanchang in Jiangxi. xinhuanet.com/2019-12/08/c_1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 8 December 2019 at 14:37
Some more Yue ware from the site.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 8 December 2019 at 14:39
A bronze basin from one of the tombs.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 8 December 2019 at 14:40
And a pottery tile end with a monstrous face.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 December 2019 at 13:11
30 carvings of human faces (10-20 cm in size) discovered on rocks on the northern bank of the Yellow River near Zhongwei in Ningxia. nxbbs.cc/15375-1.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 December 2019 at 13:13
Based on their similarity with the palaeolithic rock carvings at the nearby Damaidi site (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damaidi), these carvings are also thought to date back to the stone age.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 December 2019 at 14:55
Pot containing grain and chicken eggs from a 500 year old Ming dynasty tomb in Sichuan. huaxia.com/zhwh/kgfx/2019…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 December 2019 at 14:56
Of course, that is nothing compared to these 2,500 year old chicken eggs from a tomb in Jiangsu discovered earlier this year. twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 December 2019 at 01:00
Wooden stick (74.2 cm) with 94 Chinese characters written in ink on six sides, thought to date to the 6th-century during the Silla period, discovered near Gyeongsan in South Korea. newspim.com/news/view/2019…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 December 2019 at 01:02
The text relating to land taxation includes the special Korean character 畓 "rice field", previously first attested on a monument erected in 561 at Changnyeong commemorating a border inspection by King Jinheung (r. 540–576).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 December 2019 at 19:31
An account of my visit to the Hongfo Pagoda in August 2016 babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201… twitter.com/incunabula/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 December 2019 at 00:23
This woodblock for a Tangut Buddhist text which was found inside the Hongfo Pagoda 宏佛塔 north of Yinchuan Ningxia in 1990 is believed to be the oldest surviving text printing block in China (I took the photograph at the Ningxia Museum in 2016 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hong…).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 12 December 2019 at 00:30
It is the largest of about two thousand printing block fragments (1,000 with text) that were found during restoration of the pagoda in 1990. The pagoda dates back to the Western Xia (1038–1277), and I visited it in August 2016 babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 12 December 2019 at 00:35
This particular printing block (here mirrored) is for vol. 5 of the Tangut translation the "Shi moheyan lun" 釋摩訶衍論 (attributed to Nāgārjuna, but only extant in Chinese). As far as I know the Tangut translation only survives in the printing block fragments from Hongfo Pagoda.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Thursday, 12 December 2019 at 01:10
This evening I spent a quiet couple of hours attempting to transcribe the Tangut text on this woodblock, and approximately match it against the corresponding Chinese text of 釋摩訶衍論 (T1668).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 December 2019 at 13:49
Here are some more typical-sized fragments of Tangut wooden printing blocks (photo taken by me at the old Xixia Museum in Yinchuan; no provenance given but probably also from Hongfo Pagoda)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 12 December 2019 at 19:13
After filling in some gaps and making some corrections, this is my best attempt at transcribing the Tangut text.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 December 2019 at 19:14
□□𗋕𗡶𗡜𘞂□
𗜓𗱕□𘎳𗴮𘋅𗁲𗪺𗖵𗄊
□𗐱𗌭𗅉𗍫𘋠𘟣𗍫𗫂□
𘋢𗥤𘆄𘟂𗉣𗉣𗹬𗳒𗡜𘞂
□□𗡶■■𘝵𗦳𘈽𗷝𗟧
𗖵𗡶𗟧𗫂𗹙𘛽𘋢𗥤𘟂𗠷𗷎
𗪺𗖵𗋕𗡶𗹢𗭍𗌮𗒘𗡜𘞂𗖵
𘙇𗆐𗡜𘞂𗅋𗍣𗢳𗞞𗨻𘅍𗉘
𗆐𘗽𗋃𘕿𗫡𘌽𗧘𘝶𗦜𗋕𗌮
□𗜓𘉐𗄈𗡜𘞂𗺓𗅋𗍣𘃞
𘓂𘙌𘟂𘈩𗫂𘒣𗆔𗦬𗥠𘗠𗍫
𘗠𗥃𗫂𗠷𗷎𘏒𘎪𘗠𗏁𗫂𗋃
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 December 2019 at 23:05
After 40 years I vote in a General Election for the very first time — in these dire times every vote is needed to kick out my MP Jeremy Hunt and stop the doomsday cult he belongs to. twitter.com/april_nishi/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 December 2019 at 22:27
Well, my faith in the decency and commonsense of British people was wildly misplaced! But at least in my constituency of Surrey South West we managed to slash Jeremy Hunt's majority to 8,817 from 21,590 in 2017 and 28,556 in 2015, with a 15% swing from Conservatives to Lib-Dems.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 December 2019 at 23:01
Two tile ends with faces found during recent excavation of a Liao dynasty palace close to the tomb for a Liao Imperial Concubine which was discovered at Duolun in Inner Mongolia in 2015. chinanews.com/cul/2019/12-13…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 December 2019 at 23:32
Here is a brief report in English about the 2015 discoveries kaogu.cssn.cn/ywb/special_ev…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 15 December 2019 at 20:00
Wooden tablet with ink inscription in semi-cursive Tangut recording repairs to the Baisigou Square Pagoda (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baisigou_…) between the 13th and 23rd days of the 5th month of the 13th year of the Zhenguan era, i.e. 27 June to 7 July 1113 in the Julian calendar.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 December 2019 at 20:49
The inscription on two sides, which lists the names of eight Chinese plasterers, has been translated into Chinese by Prof. Nie Hongyin as:
貞觀癸巳十三年五月
十三日，西浮屠上手乃
泥，二十三日了畢。泥
匠：任原，庶人等六人。
任原 劉平
庶人 □宣 高阿尾
王牛兒 鍾求善
任打打
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 December 2019 at 21:16
Even with the aid of the Chinese translation, it is not terribly easy to read the Tangut text, but here is my attempt.
Front:
𗣼𘝯𘃠𗀋𗰗𘕕𗤒𗏁𗼑
𗰭𘕕𗾞𗜫𗽔𘗣𗀔𗁅𘙌
𘏕𗋋𗍫𗰗𘕕𗾞𗈪𘃪𗋋
𗍅𗕌𗤩𘛢𘓐𘆄𗤁𘓐
Back:
𗕌𗤩 𘛫𗦮
𘛢𘓐 □𗘬 𗣛𗥼𗗶
𗷮𗒫𗄋 𗤛𘋒𘛣
𗕌𗘄𗘄
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 December 2019 at 22:13
1) The workers are called 𗋋𗍅 ¹chor₂ ¹kyr'₄ "mud craftsmen". The Tangut-Chinese glossary Pearl in the Palm includes the related word 𗌒𗍅 ²chor₂ ¹kyr'₄ which is glossed as 埿匠 nì jiàng meaning a worker who applies mud or plaster to the outside of an architectural structure.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 December 2019 at 22:52
2) Nie Hongyin does not translate the 1st character of the 3rd column, but it looks like 𘏕 ¹vir₂ "to throw", apparently used as the verb for applying mud or plaster, although the word order is unexpected if it modifies the following 𗋋 ¹chor₂ "mud".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 December 2019 at 23:49
3) I accidentally said there are eight names listed, but there are actually only seven. The word 𘛢𘓐 = 庶人 "commoner" is inserted between the 2nd and 3rd names, suggesting that the two preceding names are for officials, whereas the last five names belong to common workers.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 15 December 2019 at 23:57
4) The name 高阿尾 Gāo Āwěi "Gao A-tail" should perhaps be translated as "Gao A-fox" as the final character 𗗶 is disunified into two separate characters 𗗶 ny₁ "fox" and 𘴁 ¹ta₁ "tail" in Unicode 13.0 (unicode.org/L2/L2019/19207…), and the form here matches the form of "fox".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 16 December 2019 at 00:00
5) The final name, which Nie Hongyin translates as 任打打 Rèn Dǎdǎ, seems to be written as 𗕌𗘄𗘄 ¹zhin₃ ¹ta₁ ¹ta₁ in Tangut, meaning "Maggot Maggot Ren" (where Ren is a Chinese family name).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 16 December 2019 at 00:18
6) Last but not least, the pagoda is referred to as the "Western Pagoda" (𗜫𗽔𘗣 = 西浮屠), which implies that there was once also an Eastern Pagoda, perhaps one pagoda on either side of the valley, matching the Twin Pagodas still standing at the mouth of the valley.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 December 2019 at 23:59
Han dynasty road densely marked with cart ruts uncovered at a site in Xi'an thought to be close to the location of the Changmen Palace 長門宮 where the deposed Empress Chen was banished to in 130 BCE. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 December 2019 at 00:03
Some footprints (left) and hoofmarks have also been found among the cart ruts (right).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 December 2019 at 09:43
Tomb of Xue Shao 薛紹 (661–689), husband of the Taiping Princess 太平公主 (665–713), son-in-law of Empress Wu Zetian, and nephew of Emperor Gaozong, discovered in Shaanxi at a site between Xianyang and Xi'an. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 December 2019 at 09:47
The tomb, which comprises two chambers and four vertical shafts, has been extensively and deliberately damaged, but apparently not by tomb robbers. Some 120 artefacts have been recovered, including a stone epitaph for Xue Shao.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 December 2019 at 09:57
The epitaph indicates that Xue Shao was interred in this tomb in the 1st month of the 2nd year of the Shenlong 神龍 era (706), at a location identified as Xianyang County in Yongzhou Prefecture 雍州咸陽縣. The epitaph also implies that the tombs of his parents are nearby.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 18 December 2019 at 10:01
Pottery figurines found in a niche.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 December 2019 at 10:03
Stone sculpture of a head found in one of the vertical shafts.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 December 2019 at 10:35
Sixty photographs of the Gansu Corridor (河西走廊) taken by Walter C. Lowdermilk in 1943, mapped by @MicahMuscolino ucsdonline.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/i…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 December 2019 at 14:43
Five Song dynasty (c. 12th century) brick tombs discovered during roadworks at Gaojiahe 高家河 in Ningqiang County Shaanxi were excavated between February and August 2019. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 December 2019 at 14:48
The five tombs (4 single chamber and one double chamber) evidently belong to a single family, and are arranged in order going up a hillside. The earlier tombs are more lavishly decorated and have more grave goods than the later tombs.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 December 2019 at 14:53
The tombs use brick to imitate a wooden structure, as was common for the time, and the four walls of the tomb depict scenes such as husband wife sitting together, doors and windows, furniture and tea equipment, warriors, animals and plants.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 December 2019 at 14:54
The family seem to have had a particular affection for cats!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 December 2019 at 15:21
Three early Tang dynasty white pottery tomb figurines of foreigners (an official, a warrior, and a merchant) discovered during construction work at Nanhe County Hebei. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20191…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 December 2019 at 15:23
A rescue dig of the presumed Tang dynasty tomb the figurines come from is now under way at the huge construction site.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 December 2019 at 21:01
Gold statuette of a camel 🐫 discovered in a tomb associated with the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor dwnews.com/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 30 December 2019 at 21:04
Some of the other objects found in the tomb, indicating the high status of the occupant, and probable close relationship with the Qin royal family.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 30 December 2019 at 21:24
More pictures of the large number of grave goods found in the tomb, including a set of bronze bells.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 December 2019 at 21:47
Today I received a copy of a massive book by Lei Runze et al. on the Western Xia (Tangut) Buddhist pagodas and stupas, which I have being trying to get hold of for several years. It has 227 colour plates and 29 plans and sections of pagodas.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 30 December 2019 at 21:55
The cover shows the 108 heavily-restored stupas at Qingtongxia which I visited in 2016. Like most cultural sites in China, the area surrounding the stupas has now been paved over with beautiful concrete slabs and tasteful water features. babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 31 December 2019 at 16:27
Wow, I didn't know about this 1967 version of publishing online by Tangutologist Eric Grinstead. twitter.com/cosmicore/stat…
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 January 2020 at 12:58
It seems that all issues of the Journal of Chinese Writing Systems have now been made open access. The September 2018 special issue on Tangut is available at journals.sagepub.com/toc/cwsa/2/3
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 13 January 2020 at 17:15
There are many examples of broken type pieces recurring multiple times in this text. For example the broken 𘞙 (U+18799) in the right image of the above tweet also occurs on folio 34B.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 13 January 2020 at 17:16
And a different 𘞙 (U+18799) with two broken strokes occurs on folios 15B, 34A, and 37B.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 13 January 2020 at 17:22
Broken type pieces like this seem to be one of the main characteristic feature of movable type made from baked clay, which is easily chipped; they do not seem to occur (or at least not nearly as frequently) in texts printed with wooden movable type.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 13 January 2020 at 17:32
On the other hand, rotated type pieces cannot really be considered to be a characteristic feature of movable type because they are so rare, not occurring a single time in this text, and afaik only once in the Chinese pagination of the Auspicious Tantra twitter.com/incunabula/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 January 2020 at 10:49
Individual type pieces for the same Tangut character are not made from a single master but are individually created, with the result that the same printed Tangut characters can vary considerably in appearance, as seen in this example where the line "𗋚𗾫𗐱𗌭𘓐𗥒𗀩" is repeated.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 19 January 2020 at 18:32
Bronze sitting dragon (18.5cm, 1.96kg) found at the bottom of a well at the site of a Jin dynasty summer palace at Taizicheng 太子城 in Hebei, one of the skiing venues for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The dragon is thought to be an imperial carriage ornament. bjd.com.cn/a/202001/18/WS…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 20 January 2020 at 17:06
Song dynasty brick tomb discovered during construction work at Zhuanglang County in Gansu. xkkx.com/lishi/1299942.…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 20 January 2020 at 17:14
The tomb has now been dismantled and moved to the county museum for preservation and display.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 20 January 2020 at 17:18
A Neolithic pottery kiln discovered at the site was also wrapped up and moved to the county museum.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 28 January 2020 at 17:31
Copy of the seal of the Dalai Lama in Chinese, Tibetan and Manchu, from a letter of 1734; in Hunter MS 395 "Numophylacium sinicum" by Theophilus Siegfried Bayer (1694-1738), photographed by @HelenWangLondon chinesemoneymatters.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/67-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 28 January 2020 at 17:54
@HelenWangLondon And here is the actual gold seal of the Seventh Dalai Lama from 1723 (mirrored for ease of comarison) in the collection of the Tibet Museum livingbuddha.cn/en/view-106a64…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 11:49
@HelenWangLondon Below are transcriptions of the seal text in Chinese, Tibetan, Manchu, and Mongolian (in my originally tweet I accidentally omitted Mongolian), with thanks to @cosmicore for some corrections to my readings. I leave English translations as an exercise for the reader.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 11:50
@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Chinese:
西天大善自在佛所領天下釋教
普通瓦赤拉呾喇達賴喇嘛之印
xī tiān dà shàn zì zài fó suǒ lǐng tiān xià shì jiào
pǔ tōng wǎ chì lā dá lǎ dá lài lǎ ma zhī yìn
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 11:51
@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Tibetan:
ནུབ་ཕྱོགས་
མཆོགྟུ་དགེ་
བའི་ཞིང་གི་
རྒྱལ་དབང་ས་
སྟེང་གི་རྒྱལ་
བསྟན་ཡོངས་
ཀྱི་བདག་པོ་
ཐཾད་མྱེན་པ་
བཛྲ་དྷ་ར་ཏཱ་
ལའི་བླ་མའི་
ཐམ་ཀ་།
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 11:53
@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Tibetan romanization:
nub phyogs
mchogtu (= mchog tu) dge
ba'i zhing gi
rgyal dbang sa
steng gi rgyal
bstan yongs
kyi bdag po
thaṃd ? (= thams cad) myen (= mkhyen) pa
badzra dha ra tā
la'i bla ma'i
tham ka
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:02
@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Manchu:
ᠸᠠᡵᡤᡳ ᠠᠪᡴᠠᡳ ᠠᠮᠪᠠ ᠰᠠᡳ᠌ᠨ ᠵᡳᡵᡤᠠᡵᠠ ᡶᡠᠴᡳᡥᡳ ᡳ ᠠᠪᡴᠠᡳ ᡶᡝᠵᡝᡵᡤᡳ ᡶᡠᠴᡳᡥᡳ ᡳ
ᡨᠠᠴᡳᡥᡳᠶᠠᠨ ᠪᡝ ᠠᠯᡳᡥᠠ ᡝᡳᡨᡝᠨ ᠪᡝ ᠰᠠᡵᠠ ᠸᠠᠴᡳᡵ ᡩᠠᡵᠠ ᡩᠠᠯᠠᡳ ᠯᠠᠮᠠ ᡳ ᡩᠣᡵᠣᠨ
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:03
@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Manchu romanization:
wargi abkai amba sain jirgara fucihi-i abkai fejergi fucihi-i
tacihiyan be aliha eiten be sara wacir dara dalai lama-i doron
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:07
@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Mongolian next (the Mongolian Unicode text fills the whole tweet with only one character to spare):
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:08
@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore ᠥᠷᠥᠨᠡ ᠵᠦᠭ ᠦᠨ ᠶᠡᠬᠡ ᠥᠯᠵᠡᠶᠢᠲᠦ ᠡᠷᠬᠡᠲᠦ ᠪᠤᠷᠬᠠᠨ ᠤ ᠣᠷᠣᠨ ᠳᠡᠯᠡᠬᠡᠢ ᠳ᠋ᠠᠬᠢᠨ ᠤ ᠪᠤᠷᠬᠠᠨ ᠤ
ᠱᠠᠰᠢᠨ ᠢ ᠡᠷᠬᠢᠯᠡᠭᠴᠢ ᠬᠠᠮᠤᠭ ᠢ ᠮᠡᠳᠡᠭᠴᠢ ᠸᠴᠢᠷᠠ ᠳ᠋ᠠᠷᠠ ᠳᠠᠯᠠᠢ ᠪᠯᠠᠮᠠ ᠶᠢᠨ ᠲᠠᠮᠠᠭ᠋ᠠ
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:09
@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Mongolian romanization:
örön-e ǰüg-ün yeke ölǰeyitü erketü burqan-u oron delekei dakin-u burqan-u
šasin-i erkilegči qamuγ-i medegči včir-a dar-a dalai blam-a-yin tamaγ-a
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:21
@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore The Manchu and Mongolian text may not render correctly on all systems (for me it only looks good on Firefox) — NNBSP and/or MVS may be treated as ordinary spaces — so here is a screenshot of what it should look like (with lines in visual order).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 31 January 2020 at 15:03
知道了! twitter.com/RichardScottMo
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 18:01
This gold pendant with Khitan Small Script inscriptions on one side in regular script and on the other side in seal script was published in "Radiant Legacy: Ancient Chinese Gold from the Mengdiexuan Collection" 金曜風華: 夢蝶軒藏中國古代金飾 (ISBN 978-962-7055-21-1) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 18:24
... it looks too good to be true, and in my opinion it is a fake, an example of the many unbelievable [mostly gold] Khitan-inscribed objects that have mysteriously appeared in recent years. babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2013/01/f…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 18:40
But the Khitan inscriptions do make sense. The regular script inscription reads:
𘱚𘲜 𘱊𘲚 𘱇 [gi.m ŋ.u ui]
𘬥𘰆 𘰷𘭏 𘱚𘱕 [ś.aŋ s.iáŋ g.ün]
which transcribes Chinese 金吾衛上將軍 "general of the imperial insignia guard", a title attested in Khitan epitaphs.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 18:55
The seal script inscription reads:
𘲼𘱆𘱦 [au.ui.er] = "her royal highness"
𘭝 𘬮𘲦 [hoŋ di.en] = "of the emperor"
𘱰𘱀𘱄𘱯𘬜 [d.em.le.ge.ei] = "was granted the title"
although hoŋ and di.en are in the wrong order.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 19:03
Khitan Small Script (KSS) is included in Unicode 13.0 coming in March 2020, but will currently display as boxes for almost everybody, so here is the Unicode KSS text of my tweets in linear layout.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 22:06
And here is a web page showing the gold pendant text using a prototype Khitan Small Script font with cluster formation babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/KSS_Test…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 5 February 2020 at 00:17
And this Jin dynsty hand mirror with double fish design that I saw at the British Museum today.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 5 February 2020 at 00:24
Ming dynasty ceramic mortuary models of dishes of food, including a whole lamb, a pig, a rabbit, a fish, a goose, pomegranates, peaches, water chestnuts, shaobing (fried cakes), and mantou (steamed bread) at the British Museum.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 5 February 2020 at 00:27
And here are some tasty ceramic dumplings and delicacies unearthed in 1972 from a Tang Dynasty tomb at Turpan, on display at the National Museum of China in Beijing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 6 February 2020 at 00:30
I've just had to decline an interview with the excuse that "I do not have sufficient academic expertise in the poop emoji" #ShitAcademicsSay 💩
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 6 February 2020 at 16:28
@csen_nomads I have just updated my blog post with details of this fragment inscribed with the gilded characters 備物 from Bai Juyi's "Text for the Investiture of the New Khagan of the Uighurs" shown in "The Ruins of Kocho" babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2019/10/k…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 6 February 2020 at 16:42
And I nearly forgot about this fine Jin dynasty double fish mirror that I saw at the Inner Mongolia Museum in 2017.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 February 2020 at 18:09
.@MarcMiyake discusses some of the graphic and grammatical errors in the pendant that indicate that it is a fake. amritas.com/200208.htm#020…
To his points I would add that 𘭏 is written like Chinese 並, whereas the two ears should be extensions of the two vertical strokes.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 11:36
"Proposal to add LATIN LETTER THORN WITH DIAGONAL STROKE to the UCS" by myself and @Evertype updated with additional examples from 1698 and 1824 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/N4836R…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 11:38
@Evertype Our proposal was repeatedly rejected by the UTC; but for Unicode 13.0 (March 2020) the code charts are being changed to show U+A764 Ꝥ and U+A765 ꝥ with diagonal strokes instead of horizontal strokes unicode.org/Public/13.0.0/… We consider this to be a bad solution to the issue.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 13:48
Um, that's news to me ... twitter.com/MarshsLibrary/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 16:02
For 窈窕 yǎo tiǎo Google translate gives "Get Fit"; Bing translate gives "Slim"; Baidu translate gives "gentle and graceful (of a woman)". Google fails big time; Baidu wins by quoting "A Chinese-English Dictionary" 汉英词典 (Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1980).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 16:23
This is from the opening words of the first entry in Book of Songs (詩經):
關關雎鳩，在河之洲。窈窕淑女，君子好逑。
which Legge 1871 translates as:
Kwan-kwan go the ospreys,
On the islet in the river.
The modest, retiring, virtuous young lady:—
For our prince a good mate she.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 16:26
... I guess in the end the prince was just looking for a beautiful mind.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 February 2020 at 14:25
Clay seal impression with Chinese inscription 滇國相印 "Seal of the Minister of the Dian Kingdom" (contemporary with Han dynasty, c. 2000 years ago) recently found at the Hebosuo site on the southwest edge of the Dian lake in Yunnan. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 17 February 2020 at 14:40
It and several other clay seal impressions ("王敞之印", "田豐私印") were found about 700 metres north of where a gold seal inscribed 滇王之印 "Seal of the King of Dian" was excavated from a royal tomb in 1956. zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BB%87…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 13:24
Today I gratefully received from Prof. Arakawa Shintarō 荒川慎太郎 a copy of his wonderful book on the Tangut Lotus Sutra 𗤓𗹙𗤻𗑗𗖰𗚩 volume (vol. 4, chs. 8-11) held at Princeton University Library. A valuable addition to my Tangut book collection!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 14:03
I gave Prof. Arakawa a copy of Gerard Clauson's Skeleton Tangut (Hsi Hsia) Dictionary (babelstone.co.uk/CTT/CTT01/inde…) published by @Evertype in exchange, which he also received today.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 14:23
@Evertype The contents are pretty cool as well. Here is the large annotated image at the front of the volume, covering four concertina pages, and reproduced as a folding plate in Arakawa's book.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 14:40
@Evertype And here is the opening page of the text, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 14:41
@Evertype ... and Arakawa's transcription, phonetic reconstruction, and translation of the opening lines.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 14:47
@Evertype For comparison, here is the illustration covering six concertina pages from the lost vol. 1 of the Berlin copy of the Tangut Lotus Sutra twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 17:29
Report on the excavations of the Dian Kingdom 滇國 site at Hebosuo in Jinning Yunnan, where 200+ urn burials (瓮棺) for infants have been found on what was at the time an island kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 17:32
All the urn burials examined so far have been for infants under 1 year old. It is not yet clear whether these are burials or ritual sacrifices.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 February 2020 at 12:27
Five Western Zhou and three Warring States period tombs excavated at a construction site 600m from Baoji South Station in Shaanxi after a bronze vessel was found in the backfill of a trench in November 2018. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 February 2020 at 12:30
Among the 211 items dug up are ten ritual bronze vessels, four of which have inscriptions.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 February 2020 at 20:39
This is big news to me! In May 2015 the National Library of China acquired 18 bundles of Tangut documents in a very poor state from a book dealer in Yinchuan who had contacted eminent Tangutologist Prof. Shi Jinbo. culture.people.com.cn/n1/2020/0221/c…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 24 February 2020 at 20:44
After four years of work, 12 of the bundles comprising 80+ documents have been conserved, and it is planned to complete the conservation of the rest by the end of this year.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 24 February 2020 at 20:56
The hoard of documents comprises eight largely complete fascicles and hundreds of fragmentary pages. In addition to Buddhist works, the texts include Grains of Gold in the Palm of the Hand (𗵒𗭧𘃎𘐏𘝞), Miscellaneous Characters (𗏇𘉅), and Precious Dual Maxims (𗆧𗰖𗬻𘜼𘋥𘝿).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 24 February 2020 at 21:34
The article does not mention provenance, but the suspicion has to be that the documents come from a large Western Xia site called Green City (緑城遺址) in a remote and inaccessible corner of the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 24 February 2020 at 21:46
In November 2014, just six months before the National Library of China acquisition, nine lots of Tangut printed texts and manuscripts of unknown provenance were sold at auction in Beijing. babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2015/08/t…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 24 February 2020 at 21:54
It surely cannot be a coincidence that two separate mixed bags of Tangut texts and fragmentary pages mysteriously appeared on the market within the space of six months. I suspect that these were both looted from the same Western Xia site by a gang of treasure hunters.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 25 February 2020 at 18:13
There is a brief report on the Tangut acquisitions (入藏西夏文古籍回顾) in the March 2016 edition of the National Library of China journal 文津流觞 (Visible Traces) nlc.cn/newhxjy/wjsy/w…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 25 February 2020 at 18:37
The library also acquired 37 tsha-tsha (small clay Buddhist relief figures or sculptures of stupas) and five Buddha crown ornaments along with the Tangut texts, confirming that they must have come from a Western Xia Buddhist site.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 6 March 2020 at 10:35
Pottery vessel with incised "sun-cloud-mountain" symbol from the late Dawenkou culture 大汶口文化 (c. 3000-2600 BCE) recently excavated from a site in Ningyang County Shandong. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 21:04
BabelStone fonts support a wide range of the 5,930 characters added to #Unicode13 which is due to be released in a few days time ... babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/index.ht…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 21:05
... including 2,447 out of the 4,939 characters added to CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G on the new Tertiary Ideographic Plane (TIP) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 21:35
... and the Khitan Small Script (one of two scripts used to write the extinct Khitan language during the Liao dynasty, 10th-12th centuries in Northern China) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 21:50
... and additions of 13 Tangut components and 9 Tangut ideographs (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5064…) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 21:51
... and 212 symbols for legacy computing ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 22:00
... and various other letters and symbols that I helped propose for encoding, including 1F9A3 Mammoth 🦣, 1F9A4 Dodo 🦤, 2E52 Tironian Sign Capital Et ⹒, A7F5/A7F6 Latin Capital Letter Reversed Half H Ꟶ/ꟶ, and 1019C Ascia Symbol 𐆜 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 23:20
Oh, and a gentle reminder that if you do find BabelStone fonts useful you are welcome to make a small donation to me at paypal.me/babelstone
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 9 March 2020 at 20:21
My simple guide to the nine Tangut disunifications introduced in #Unicode13 babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Disunif…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 19:20
Two Song dynasty tombs uncovered (and partially destroyed) during construction work at Luzhou city in Sichuan, one tomb with three chambers (pictured) and one with two chambers news.china.com.cn/2020-03/10/con…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 19:26
Some of the relief sculptures on the tombs 1/2
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 19:27
Some more 2/2
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 22:53
BabelMap and BabelPad for #Unicode13 have now been released:
babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 22:57
In the first significant UI update in 18 years, BabelMap now has separate tabbed views for each Unicode plane ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 22:58
... and now allows the option to show unassigned Unicode ranges ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 23:05
... and even an option to show reserved Unicode planes, giving you access to over a million code points!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 March 2020 at 17:41
Large tomb dating to the early Warring States period (5th-4th century BCE) excavated at a site in Wenxi County, Shanxi 2018-2019. This is one of five large royal tombs at the site, and is thought to be for the wife of a ruler of the State of Jin 晉. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 11 March 2020 at 17:46
This tomb has been robbed many times over the centuries (and was chosen for excavation because a tomb robber had been caught in the act), so there are no large ritual bronzes remaining. But 1,700+ small items have been recovered from the tomb, such as these beautiful jades.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 March 2020 at 17:54
And this bronze bird and stone (?) animal.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 March 2020 at 09:41
Four tombs with boat-shaped coffin burials thought to belong to the Cong people (賨人) of the Ba culture, dating to the late Eastern Zhou (?), uncovered during excavations at the Chengba site (城坝遗址) in Qu County Sichuan carried out since October 2019. sichuan.scol.com.cn/sczh/202003/57…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 12 March 2020 at 09:50
The largest burial (M45) has a pit containing 11 bronze ritual vessels, bells, and drums; and a total of 70+ bronze, pottery, and jade items were found in the tomb, indicating the high status of its occupant.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 12 March 2020 at 09:56
Bronze drum (錞于) and bronze bells from the tomb.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 12 March 2020 at 10:09
Article in English about the Chengba site which was occupied from the Warring States period (c. 475-221) through the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) up until the Jin dynasty (266-420). kaogu.cssn.cn/ywb/news/new_d…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 March 2020 at 10:20
Pottery roof tiles inscribed with the Chinese characters 宕渠 (dàng qú) found at the Chengba site suggest that it was the the recorded Han dynasty city of Dangqu.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 13 March 2020 at 10:08
I've just released an experimental SVG version of my BabelStone Flags font if anyone wants to test it babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/FlagsTes…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 16:26
A rather special addition to my library of Middle Cornish literature: The Charter Fragment and Pascon agan Arluth (The Passion of our Lord) transcribed and prepared for publication by @Evertype, and translated into English by Nicholas Williams amazon.co.uk/Charter-Fragme…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 16:27
With colour facsimiles of both texts
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 16:44
The text is made available in a close palaeographic transcription, an expanded transcription, normalized to Standard Cornish, and translated into English.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 16:53
Here's @Evertype examining the Charter Fragment when we visited the British Library together in June 2018 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 17:03
And here is a better I photograph I took when we revisited the British Library in February 2019.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 23:45
The remains of eight Song dynasty pottery kilns at Phoenix Village (凤凰村) near Yixing in Jiangsu packaged up and moved to various museums and other institutions for further research (three more preserved in situ). ourjiangsu.com/a/20200315/158…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 23:49
This is Kiln Y11 which weighed 18 tonnes after it was packaged up.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 18 March 2020 at 11:10
The character after 答問 is sách (= 册 or 冊) which Vietnam recently proposed for encoding, but IRG decided to unify it with 𠕋 hc.jsecs.org/irg/ws2017/app… which I think was a bad decision. twitter.com/incunabula/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 March 2020 at 19:28
Picture bricks dated to the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589) recovered from six tombs found while building a road near Langzhong in Sichuan culture.workercn.cn/32875/202003/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 March 2020 at 19:31
Bricks showing a door god and servants.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 20 March 2020 at 16:58
Spring walk. Cows. In a field near where I live.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 March 2020 at 09:10
Alpacas. Two of them. On the way home.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 24 March 2020 at 12:01
Today I am mostly updating my Khitan web pages to use Unicode-encoded Khitan Small Script which was added to the Unicode Standard version 13.0 earlier this month unicode.org/charts/PDF/U18…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 24 March 2020 at 12:08
First thing I've done is update and publish the Source Mappings for Khitan Small Script in Unicode originally created by myself and @cosmicore babelstone.co.uk/Khitan/KSS_Map…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 24 March 2020 at 21:27
And now I've finished updating my PUA-mapped Khitan Small Script linear font with Song-style glyphs (it's not great, but nor is the code chart font), and have remapped it to the Unicode 13.0 code points babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/KhitanLi…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 11:57
A roll of Chinese 10 yuan commemorative coins for the year of the Gold Rat (2020)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 12:03
... cunningly packaged so that you cannot see the special design on the reverse!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 12:48
Going back 12 years, this is the Chinese commemorative stamp for the year of the earth rat (2008)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 12:58
I don't seem to have the commemorative stamp for the year of the year of the fire rat (1996), but here is a gift card with commemorative charm for that year.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
(reply to @GBLee)
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 13:14
@GBLee @HelenWangLondon @CraigClunas @bickers @britishmuseum I've just found this sheet of 60 Guangxi 1984 ration tickets for six feet of cloth ... you could make quite a few Mao suits with that!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 13:34
1996 was the year when I published my first book (based on my PhD dissertation), which I wrote in Chinese when I was sojourning at Yale University (hence my sobriquet 赤岩居士) babelstone.co.uk/Publications/B…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 14:03
Going back another 12 years, this is the stamp booklet for the commemorative stamp for the year of the wood rat (1984)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 14:09
And these are a set of 1984 year of the rat matchbox labels from Tonglu in Zhejiang
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 14:32
1984 was the year that I first arrived in China as a mature 2nd-year SOAS student, studying Chinese at the great Beijing Languages Institute 北京语言学院 (photo by @apbbeijing is me on the streets of Lhasa in Spring 1985)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 21:45
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 April 2020 at 22:04
I've just released an update to BabelPad that allows you to convert Unicode Tangut text to your preferred system of reconstructed readings (and also now shows the reading for Tangut characters on the status bar) babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 5 April 2020 at 15:16
And now if you update to the latest version of my Khitan Small Script fonts (babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/KhitanSm…) you can view various of my web pages in glorious Unicode with combining clusters ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 5 April 2020 at 15:17
"A Chronology of Khitan Inscriptions" babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2014/01/c…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 5 April 2020 at 15:18
"Khitan Geography Part 2" (Khitan Small Script) babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2013/05/k…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 5 April 2020 at 15:20
And of course Today's Date in Khitan Small Script babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Khita…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 April 2020 at 15:05
Rock Mill waterfall in Farnham. I've walked past here a hundred times but never realised that it was originally a waterfall until I read this (farnhamherald.com/article.cfm?id…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 April 2020 at 15:09
It was originally very impressive, as shown in these postcards from 1903 and 1905, but it is a mystery as to where the water to power the watermill which fed the waterfall came from.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 April 2020 at 15:10
The most glorious Easter day I can remember, but I didn't really have the heart to photograph my Easter walk this year. But here is some beautiful blossom near the old mill over the River Wey.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 12 April 2020 at 15:15
And here are a pair of Mandarin ducks in the adjacent field.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 12 April 2020 at 15:19
And (if you look closely) here is an iridescent glimpse of one of a pair of kingfishers that were darting up and down the River Wey.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 12 April 2020 at 15:29
And no walk in the English countryside would be complete without at least one alpaca gazing soulfully at you.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 April 2020 at 17:49
Excavations of high status burials and sacrificial pits at the late Shang dynasty site of Chaizhuang (柴庄遗址) at Jiyuan in Henan have uncovered a number of human sacrifices where a headless kneeling body with arms tied in front faces north inside a pit kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 13 April 2020 at 18:18
The sacrificed body is said to resemble the shape of the Oracle Script form of the character 坎 kǎn, a type of sacrifice recorded in oracle bone inscriptions. If I understand correctly 坎 (kǎn) =埳 (kǎn) = 陷 (xiàn) = 臽 (xiàn) which looks like a kneeling human figure in a pit.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 April 2020 at 18:28
It is a bit confusing because the article does not show the oracle script form of the character 坎, and 坎 is normally the modern reading for the oracle script character 凵 meaning 'pit' which is surely not what the archaeologist quoted had in mind. Cf. sohu.com/a/387721816_63…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 April 2020 at 14:55
OK, what the world's been waiting for, here is my anime self via waifu.lofiu.com/index.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 April 2020 at 23:06
"Mozilla urges the Unicode Consortium not to adopt the QID Emoji proposal" unicode.org/L2/L2020/20110…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 April 2020 at 23:16
In April 2019, I myself urged the Unicode Technical Committee to firmly reject the proposal by Mark Davis (founder-president of the Unicode Consortium) to devise a mechanism to infinitely extend the scope of emoji using Wikidata IDs (QID) unicode.org/L2/L2019/19124…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 16 April 2020 at 10:10
Today I learned that the Liao Upper Capital Museum at Lindong (Baarin Left Banner) in Inner Mongolia 巴林左旗辽上京博物馆 relocated to a new site on the west side of the Liao capital site in August 2019. sohu.com/a/336501723_12…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 16 April 2020 at 10:14
I visited the old Liao Upper Capital Museum in 2016 and 2017.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 16 April 2020 at 10:21
The museum has a fine collection of Khitan-script epitaphs, but they were not on public display when I visited in 2016 and 2017. But it does seem that they are on display in the new museum. kuaibao.qq.com/s/20200104AZOY…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 19 April 2020 at 14:58
For those of you who want to learn more Tangut, I've started tweeting one Tangut character a day at @TangutSea, giving its character construction from the Tangut dictionary 'Sea of Writing' 《𘝞𗗚》
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 19 April 2020 at 15:12
The readings are @MarcMiyake's system for the phonetic transcription of Tangut (not phonetic reconstructions as such) which is described at amritas.com/150207.htm#020…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 21 April 2020 at 00:10
I've just released a new version of my BabelStone Han font, with 363 additional CJK unified ideographs (giving a total of 52,887 characters, including 41,246 CJK unified ideographs). The font now covers all encoded U-source characters. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 21 April 2020 at 00:14
My thanks to Michael Bauer (@LowRisingTone) for helping me greatly improve coverage of encoded and unencoded Cantonese usage characters given in Roy T. Cowles' 'A Pocket Dictionary of Cantonese' and 《简明粤英词典》 [A Concise Cantonese-English Dictionary].
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 April 2020 at 23:01
I am greatly saddened to hear of the death last month of Mr Ping-cheng T’ung 佟秉正先生 ("Tóng lǎoshī") my first teacher of Chinese at SOAS from 1983 to 1988 bclts.org.uk/news/news1.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 24 April 2020 at 15:13
I forgot to update my javascript Unicode tools for Unicode 13.0 released last month, so I did it this morning. My Unicode character identification tool is probably the only one that gives meanings for Tangut and Khitan characters babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/whatis…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 26 April 2020 at 09:43
Mouse trap ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 26 April 2020 at 10:25
... mouse trapped!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 26 April 2020 at 10:40
I have a shop-bought humane mouse trap that works a treat normally. I caught five mice in a week with it, but this wily critter refused to be taken in by it. The trap would be triggered but empty every morning; and late at night he would dance around the living room mocking us.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 26 April 2020 at 10:46
After a two-week struggle of wits I finally enticed him into my homemade mousetrap, and then took him for a long drive far away. There are no signs of any more mice.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 26 April 2020 at 11:31
It's not a common house mouse, but a yellow-necked mouse I think, which really does not belong in the house mammal.org.uk/species-hub/fu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:10
Announced today, the discovery of the sunken treasure (over 10,000 items, mostly gold & silver) of Zhang Xianzhong 張獻忠, King of the Great West dynasty in Sichuan between 1644 and 1647, from the Min River at Jiangkou in Sichuan (50 km south of Chengdu) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:19
The most important find is the gold seal of Zhang Xianzhong, weighing 8 kg and now broken into four parts, which has the seal text 蜀世子寶 "Treasure of the Shu (Sichuan) Son of the World"
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:31
Here is the gold seal with turtle knob next to another gold seal of Zhang Xianzhong with a tiger knob (less than 4 kg, and only 70% purity) that was found nearby during archaeological excavations a few years ago
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:40
Here is a better photo of the gold tiger knob seal, with the seal text Yongchang (ever-flourishing) Grand General 永昌大元帥, which is inscribed "Made on an auspicious day in the 2nd winter month of the guiwei year [1644]" 癸未年仲冬吉日造) (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E8%…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:51
Many gold and silver ingots were found, marked with the era name Dashun 大順 and place names Lezhi 樂至, Renshou 仁壽, Deyang 德陽, Guanghan 廣漢, and Anxian 安縣.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:56
A special gold coin inscribed "The King of the West reward for meritorious service" 西王賞功
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 11:09
Aerial view of the archaeological site, thought to be the location of a battle where Zhang Xianzhong's ship was sunk. In the 2018 season three hand cannons (火銃) were discovered, and this year large numbers of lead cannon balls were found, taken as evidence of a battle.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 11:33
In my haste to tweet, I failed to read the discussion of this gold seal (95% purity) with the seal text 蜀世子寶. This was not Zhang Xianzhong's seal, but the seal of the eldest son of a Ming dynasty Prince of Sichuan, and was probably taken as loot and broken in four by Zhang.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 11:44
Please see my correction to this tweet twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 May 2020 at 09:44
"Ethnic Unity" = "Chinese culture is the centre of all culture in Tibet" twitter.com/dolmadeutsch/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 May 2020 at 22:38
One of my favourite things — people playing the ancient board game of liubo 六博 inside a model three-storied tower from an Eastern Han tomb in Shaan County, Henan (My photo at the National Museum of China, August 2011)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 1 May 2020 at 22:53
Here's my unfortunately bad photo of the whole green-glazed pottery model tower (I blame the museum lighting). It was excavated from the early Eastern Han tomb M73 at Liujiaqu (河南陕县刘家渠73号东汉墓) in 1956.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 1 May 2020 at 23:00
This is an illustration from the 1965 excavation report in 《考古学报》 which shows the inside of the second storey from above. The distinctive "TLV" liubo board markings can be seen very clearly.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 May 2020 at 21:22
This could only be one person, the amazing, multi-talented Guillaume Jacques! twitter.com/ThomasPellard/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 3 May 2020 at 13:31
Talking of Guillaume Jacques ... twitter.com/TangutSea/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 10:58
Posted from China at the end of February, and finally arrived today: "The Tangut Manuscripts — Lotus Sutra Collected by the Guimet National Museum of Asian Art in France" 法國吉美國立亞洲藝術博物館藏西夏文獻 (2018)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:05
356 pp., mostly comprising glossy colour photos of the three volumes of the 8-vol. Tangut Lotus Sutra in gold ink that are held at the Musée Guimet in Paris.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:17
These three concertina volumes belonged to Fernand Berteaux who together with Georges Morisse and Paul Pelliot found the set of eight vols. of the Tangut Lotus Sutra outside the White Stupa in Beihai Lake Beijing in August 1900 during the chaotic aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:32
Photos of the Guimet Tangut volumes (vols. 2, 6, 8) are available (art.rmngp.fr/fr/library/art…) but they are too low resolution to be able to read comfortably. Here is the silk case for v. 2 with the label 𗤓𗹙𗤻𗑗𗖰𗚩𘐳𗍫𗡪
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:38
The other five volumes ended up in the Prussian State Library in Berlin, and were thought to have been lost or destroyed during the war. Only photos of a few pages of the lost Berlin volumes exist twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:42
Then in June 2017 one of the lost Berlin volumes (vol. 5) came to light when Dr. Darui Long was doing research on Buddhist texts held at Jagiellonian University Library in Kraków Poland, as I discuss in this blog post babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2018/04/r…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:55
The illustrations from the Berlin volumes of the Tangut Lotus Sutra were published by Anna Bernhardi in her "Buddhistische Bilder aus der Glanzzeit der Tanguten" (1917/1918), but apparently the illustrations are no longer present in the Jagiellonian volume twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:57
In February last year when I was in Lyon, I attempted to take a day trip to Paris to see the Tangut Lotus Sutra at the Musée Guimet in person, together with @incunabula, but I was thwarted by a TGV meltdown twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 12:02
It goes without saying that @incunabula has already got a copy of this book, so I am a bit late to the party! twitter.com/incunabula/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 12:18
And at about the same time that I was ordering this book, I received a copy of Prof. Arakawa Shintarō's edition of the volume of (a different edition of) the Tangut Lotus Sutra held at Princeton University twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 May 2020 at 14:20
I hear that it is cool to post pictures of your bookshelves. Here is mine updated for my latest Tangut acquisitions. Hopefully nothing too offensive!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 May 2020 at 09:46
U+2B9BF 𫦿 (CJK Ext. E) in the wild. Now I've got to add it to my font! twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 5 May 2020 at 13:20
This is one of three bookshelves made about 17 years ago by my late father-in-law, a keen amateur carpenter. Only one of the books on the shelves is devoted to his native language (although the anthology next to it also includes a chapter on it).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 09:39
Murals from a Liao dynasty tomb discovered at Aohan Banner in Inner Mongolia. Musicians and monkeys shown chinanews.com/cul/2020/05-01…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 18:32
Some of my favourite cows ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 18:33
They came closer to have a drink ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 18:35
Then lined up to examine me ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 18:37
The white ones (what breed are they?) seem to have grown bigger since I lasted visited them in March. twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 22:22
Short video about the discovery of the tomb in early April by local villagers building a road ixigua.com/i6821027088468… (the murals have now been moved to a museum for conservation and restoration)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 22:33
Mural of the musicians shown in the first tweet after conservation at the museum.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 9 May 2020 at 23:04
A Khitan Large Script bronze seal discovered in Uzbekistan in 2019 — study by Vladimir Belyaev et al. in Revue de la Société de Numismatique Asiatique No. 33 (March 2020)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 9 May 2020 at 23:23
The most important feature of this seal is the inscription in 20 Khitan Large Script characters crudely engraved around the edge of the top surface.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 9 May 2020 at 23:35
The inscription starts (on the right side reading down) with the date "3rd month of the 20th year of the ??? era". The 1st character means 'Heaven' and 5 or 6 known era names start with this character, but the following two characters do not occur in any known KLS era names.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 9 May 2020 at 23:52
There are only two Liao dynasty eras that lasted 20+ years, and their KLS era names are known but do not match the era name on the seal. The Jin dynasty Dading 大定 era (1161-1189) is long enough but it is very unlikely that Khitan script was used for official seals at this date.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 9 May 2020 at 23:56
Given the location of the find on the Ustyurt Plateau in Uzbekistan, the most plausible explanation is that the unknown era on the seal refers to the Tianxi 天禧 era (1178-1211/1218) of the Western Liao (aka Qara Khitai) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 10 May 2020 at 00:00
... so 20th year = 1197, which makes this the latest dated inscription in the Khitan Large Script or the Khitan Small Script (aside from this seal the latest dated inscriptions are 1176 and 1171 respectively).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 11:23
In response to @TangutSea's latest tweet (twitter.com/TangutSea/stat…), I was up last night until 3 am transcribing the unique manuscript copy of the Tangut translation of the Sāgara-nāgarāja-paripṛcchā (Question asked by the Dragon King of the Sea) [T599] (Or.12380/3621)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 11:47
So for your edification here is the [almost] complete Tangut text of the Question asked by the Dragon King of the Sea, with the Chinese text in parallel (perhaps the shortest text in the Chinese Buddhist canon), complete in five tweets ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 12:39
1/5
《𗢳𗗚𗵃𘟙𗗙𗹙𘟩𘒣𗖰𗚩》
《佛為海龍王説法印經》
𘌽𗍊𗔘𗧓：
如是我聞：
𘃞𗿳𗣧𘀺𗏆𘜶𗗚𗵃𘟙𗎭𗅁𗫻，
一時薄伽梵在海龍王宮，
𘜶𗁡𗳷𗫔𗡞𗍫𘊝𗏁𗰗𘓐，
與大苾芻眾千二百五十人俱，
𗅉𗱕𘏞𗢈𗓚𘄽𗢈𗫔𗄭。
并與眾多菩薩摩訶薩俱。
𗉘𘝨𗦗𘀺𗓽𗵃𘟙𗶠𘏚𗈪𗢵，
爾時娑竭羅龍王即從座起，
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 12:40
2/5
𗢳𗺌𗗙𗍺𘐔，𗢳𗗙𘒣𘘥：
前禮佛足，白言：
「𗯨𗖻！𘓊𗰣𗹙𗒐𗧯𘔼，𗮅𗧸𗼕𗱱𗈪𗉘𘜘？」𘘣
「世尊！頗有受持少法，得福多不？」
𗢳𗗚𗵃𘟙𗗙𘘥：
佛告海龍王：
「𗥃𘋠𗠁𘍳𗹙𘟣，𘎤𗓱𗒐𗧯、𗗈𘆖、𗧘𗖵𗄻𗥤𗌭，
「有四殊勝法，若有受持、讀誦、解了其義，
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 12:41
3/5
𘟏𗪺𘙌𘜶□□𗢼，𗮅𗼕𗣼𘜘，
用功雖少，獲福甚多，
𘉋𗕑𗥃𗡞𗹙𗔇𗗈𘆖𗣼𘉐𗑠𗈪𗅲𗅋𘁟。
即與讀誦八萬四千法藏功德無異。
𗥃𗫂𘓇𘙌𘟂？
云何為四？
𘌽𗫂：
所謂念誦：
𗱕𘝦𗅋𗏹、𗄑𗄑𗄊𘍔、
諸行無常、一切皆苦、
𗱕𗹙𗧓𗤋、𗘺𗈞𗴴𗨻。
諸法無我、寂滅為樂。
𗆫𘆖𗦇𗵃𘟙！
龍王當知！
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 12:41
4/5
𘌽𗫂𗥃𘋠𗠁𘍳𗹙𘟂，
是謂四殊勝法，
𘏞𗢈𗓚𘄽𗢈𘌽𘕾𗅋𗋃𗹙𘄡𘜘，
菩薩摩訶薩無盡法智，
𗉮𘃛𘎳𗤋𘕥，𘜤𘍞𗘺𘕿𗫡，
早證無生，速至圓寂，
𘌽𘔼𗍳𘆄𗏹𗆫𘆖𗦇。」
是故汝等常應念誦。」
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 12:52
5/5
𗉘𘝨𗯨𗖻□𗥃𗣃𗹙𘟩𗖰𗚩𘎪，
爾時世尊説是四句法印經時，
□□□𗓁、𘜶𘋢𗥤𗫔，
彼諸聲聞、大菩薩眾，
𗅉𘓱𗵃𘉋𗴮、𗠝𘏱𗓽、𘀺□□□，
及天龍八部、阿蘇羅、揵達婆等，
□□□□，□□□□，□□𗡶𗭍。
聞佛所説，皆大歡喜，信受奉行。
𗢳𗗚𗵃𘟙𗗙𗹙𘟩𘎪𗖰𗚩 𘃪
佛為海龍王説法印經 畢
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 13:38
If you are unable to read the Tangut text in these tweets, I just threw up a web page with the parallel Tangut and Chinese text babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/DragonK…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 22:59
I've now updated my blog post on (actually catalogue of) seals with Khitan script inscriptions to include the possible Western Liao seal discovered in Uzbekistan last year babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2012/10/k…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 23:11
The back inscription on the Uzbekistan seal (left) has striking similarities with a Khitan large script seal found in Xinjiang (right, characters in common highlighted in red) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 11 May 2020 at 23:14
... the first two characters of the unidentified era name on the Xinjiang seal correspond to Chinese fú 福 'good fortune' (*qudug) which leads me to suppose that it is the Chongfu 崇福 era (1164–1178) of the Western Liao, and that the seal dates to Chongfu 2 (1165).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 12:16
I was waiting for somebody to point out that my transcription of the Tangut title 《𗢳𗗚𗵃𘟙𗗙𗹙𘟩𘒣𗖰𗚩》 does not seem to exactly match the manuscript text. Can you spot the *significant* difference (i.e. not just cursive simplification) in one of the characters?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 13:01
As @edwardW2 was quick to observe, it is the third character from the bottom, 𘒣 [²daq₁] 'speech' which seems to be written with the 'person' component 𘢌 instead of the 'skewer' component 𘡡 on the inside left ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 13:12
There is no Tangut character as written in the manuscript, and Nishida transcribes the character as 𘒣, and translates the title as 《佛海龍王之法印言經典》 with the noun 言 'speech' rather than the verb 説 'to speak' that is in the actual Chinese title 《佛為海龍王説法印經》.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 13:17
Here is the character 𘒣 'speech' written correctly in the body of the text. You can clearly see the difference to the character in the title.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 13:23
Now this is where it gets really interesting. If you look at the end title (on the left), we see that the character is now written (slightly damaged) as 𘎪 'to speak' which matches the Chinese title (which uses 説 'to speak').
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 13:31
So maybe the scribe got a little confused when writing the initial title, and unsure whether they were writing 𘒣 'speech' or 𘎪 'to speak' ended up writing a nonce character which combined elements of both characters. It happens to us all when writing Tangut!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 15 May 2020 at 00:51
Announced today, the excavation since 2015 of a 10 km² site in the south of Chengdu in Sichuan which has revealed neolithic dwellings and more than 6,000 burials spanning two millennia from the Warring States period to the Ming dynasty sc.people.com.cn/n2/2020/0514/c…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 May 2020 at 00:57
More views of the Han dynasty tomb (五根松 M94) shown in the first tweet.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 May 2020 at 01:02
Close-up of some of the items in this tomb, including a pottery figurine of a performer, a colour-painted multi-storey pottery house, and an iron money tree.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 May 2020 at 01:12
A late Warring States period dagger-axe (戈) from Tomb 红花沟 M358, inscribed with the character 郫 pí — an ancient place name in the State of Shu, later a county, and currently Pidu district 郫都区 of NW Chengdu.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 May 2020 at 01:19
Wang Mang era (9–23 AD) knife coin inscribed 一刀平五千 "One Knife Worth Five Thousand" with the two characters "一刀" inlaid in gold.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 May 2020 at 01:27
Another (Han dynasty?) tomb figurine (from news.china.com.cn/2020-05/15/con…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 May 2020 at 01:30
An aerial view of the site. Many more exciting discoveries from the site yet to be seen, including an Eastern Han picture stone coffin (东汉时期画像石棺) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 May 2020 at 09:20
Another interesting find is a (or some?) Western Han "dragon pattern cake coin" made from lead-tin alloy (龙纹铅饼) with "foreign" writing on it — no photos available yet, but here is one of 26 such coins which were found in a Han tomb at Yangzhou in 2015 zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/23767955
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 May 2020 at 09:34
See "Recognition and Interpretation of Inscriptions on Bai Jin San Pin" by Zhou Yanling (issuu.com/jeandigitala1/… pp. 30-34) for discussion of these coins and their undeciphered inscription ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 15 May 2020 at 09:39
... various suggestions have been made: corrupted Greek or Bactrian, Kharosthi, or indigenous Chinese script such as Nuosu (Yi). I'm sure my twitter friends can solve the mystery.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 17 May 2020 at 21:31
Photos of the front and back of the "dragon pattern cake coin" (龙纹铅饼) from the 新川大山坡 M7 tomb. Unfortunately, the writing is not very clear.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 17 May 2020 at 21:50
More pottery tomb figurines from the well-preserved and unrobbed late Han or Three Kingdoms period 五根松 M94 tomb: a shield bearer figurine (持盾俑) and a figurine of an exorcist holding a snake (操蛇方相俑) izhct.com/dili/2020/0515…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 18 May 2020 at 08:19
The official 2nd stage simplification (二简) for 建 was 迠, but as I recall ⿺廴占 (unencoded!) was the more usual form people (myself included) used informally. twitter.com/GBLee/status/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 19 May 2020 at 18:41
This is a bronze Western Xia official seal for a military commander (Tangut 𗥦𗖅 = Chinese 首領) held at the Musée Guimet in Paris.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 May 2020 at 18:43
Source: "The Tangut Manuscripts — Lotus Sutra Collected by the Guimet National Museum of Asian Art in France" 法國吉美國立亞洲藝術博物館藏西夏文獻 (2018) twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 May 2020 at 18:47
About a hundred Western Xia seals with the simple two-character seal text 𗥦𗖅 'commander' are known, but I think this is the only one in a European collection. I discuss these seals in more detail in this twitter thread twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 May 2020 at 19:09
Like most such seals, the year of issue and the name of the person it was issued to are engraved on the back, in this case the year 𗣼𘇚𘕕𗤒 (=正德三年) [1129] and the name 𘔜𗌷𗰞𗵒 (Tangut transcription of the Chinese name Chen Bao (陳寶?) with the Tangut given name Black Gold).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 19 May 2020 at 19:36
Tangut inscriptions on the back of official seals can often be quite hard to read as the characters seem to have been made by hammering a series of straight lines with a chisel in order to produce the rough shape of the character but lacking in subtle calligraphic distinctions.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 20 May 2020 at 11:39
Just for fun, here is a chart of the dates inscribed on the back of 73 Western Xia official seals (all but one are 'commander' seals), spanning just over a hundred years from 1095 to 1201.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 May 2020 at 01:14
And finally, I have managed to find a provenance for the Western Xia seal at the Musée Guimet (no provenance is given in the book): from the collection of Paul Vérondart, interpreter and vice-consul in China (Nanjing) circa 1906-1913. art.rmngp.fr/fr/library/art…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Monday, 25 May 2020 at 10:02
Bronze vessel with a bent neck and swan head (鹅首曲颈青铜壶) among the items found in a late Qin or early Han tomb at Sanmenxia in Henan kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200… (inside the vessel there are 3 litres of unidentified yellowish-brown liquid)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 27 May 2020 at 09:08
This is one of 602 ancient tombs (about half dating to Qin-Han (221 BC–220 AD), rest mostly Tang, Song, Ming, Qing) that have been excavated over three seasons since October 2017 at a site about 500m south of the Yellow River at Sanmenxia in Henan. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 27 May 2020 at 09:18
Some of the Qin-Han pottery vessels are stamped with "陝市" Shǎnshì (left image) or "陝亭" Shǎntíng (right image), indicating that this site is near the location of the ancient city of 陝州 Shanzhou (preserved in the name of 陕州區 Shanzhou District in Sanmenxia).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 27 May 2020 at 09:37
It is worth noting that this group of 600+ tombs is only 2-3 km west of the extensive Guo State Tombs (虢國墓地) dating to the late Western Zhou and early Eastern Zhou baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%99%A2…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 31 May 2020 at 15:52
I've just released version 200 of my BabelStone Han PUA font with exactly 4,000 unencoded hanzi/kanji babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 June 2020 at 17:27
I've spent the best part of the last 2 months upgrading the Tangut Yinchuan font (v. 13.001 released yesterday) to better reflect our current understanding of Tangut glyph forms. This has involved corrections and improvements to about 2,000 characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Yinchuan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 June 2020 at 20:49
David Helliwell has set up his own web server to host sinological material of his that were softly and suddenly vanished away from the Bodleian web site — "There they will remain until I'm touched by the cold hand, which draws closer with each passing day" serica.ie
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 June 2020 at 20:52
Of particular interest is his page on "Chinese Books in Europe in the Seventeenth-century" serica.ie/17thcent/17the…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 4 June 2020 at 21:06
After a hiatus of over a year, David Helliwell makes a welcome return to his Serica blog with a post on the "Four Great Song Stelae of Suzhou" 蘇州四大宋碑 serica.blog/2020/06/04/fou…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 June 2020 at 11:10
One of two surviving Han dynasty sundials, both of which have been repurposed as Liubo game boards by engraving the distinctive "TLV" liubo design over the original sundial markings ... twitter.com/HistAstro/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 10 June 2020 at 11:22
This is the other one babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2011/01/l…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 10 June 2020 at 11:25
And this is a rubbing of the above sundial showing the Liubo game markings more clearly
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 June 2020 at 19:18
"On the History of the Formation and Processing of the Collection of the Tibetan Texts from Khara-Khoto Kept at the IOM, RAS" by Alexander Zorin and Alla Sizova orientalstudies.ru/rus/images/pdf…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 11 June 2020 at 19:34
And Zorin and Sizova's study of the earliest dated (mid-12th century) block print in the Tibetan script and language, in the Collection of the IOM RAS orientalstudies.ru/rus/images/pdf…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 June 2020 at 16:47
This is not Takamatsu 高松 in Japan (where I was meant to be all this week) #dailywalk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 June 2020 at 23:07
Sixteen rock-carved stupas provisionally dated to the Western Xia have been found at Yongchang County in Gansu. The stupas, ranging from 1m to 3.5m in height, incorporate a niche for holding the bones or cremated remains of Buddhist monks gs.chinanews.com/news/2020/06-1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 17 June 2020 at 11:49
BTW, the article says that the rock-carved stupas were recently "discovered", but I'm sure that the local people were perfectly well aware of the existence of these carvings! The interesting question is whether the associated Buddhist monastery can be located and excavated.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 17 June 2020 at 12:12
It seems to have been common practice during the Western Xia to inter the bones of monks in stupas. At the Western Xia Monastery of the Two Pagodas at Baisikou in Ningxia, 62 stupa bases were found on the terraced hillside above the pagodas (model shown) babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 June 2020 at 18:31
A picture of one of the Tangut items acquired by the National Library of China in 2015 guoxue.com/?p=42679
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 June 2020 at 20:32
Another view of the same of Tangut book -- hoping that this collection of texts will be published soon.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 21 June 2020 at 10:15
Only 12 out of these 39 are in Unicode (噯䕐𢯘𨧟𨫤𩵹𪟧𫦿𫪛𬧣𬧬𮛒). twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 27 June 2020 at 09:42
Does anyone have any idea what this script is? I am totally stumped. I'll give the details tomorrow, but all I'll say for now is that it is from China in a c. 12th century context.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 June 2020 at 10:03
@kgro1024 notes that it looks as if it is composed from Tangut components, and it is true that a few of the signs do look Tangutesque (e.g. last sign on 2nd row), but most signs do not seem to be related to Tangut twitter.com/kgro1024/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 27 June 2020 at 10:24
We can compare the signs on this manuscript fragment with the "thirty letter signs" derived from Tangut components which are listed in the Tangut Homonyms, and the obvious difference to me is the lack of any diagonal strokes which are ubiquitous in Tangut script.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 27 June 2020 at 10:26
... but compare the similarity between the 26th Homonyms letter sign and the last sign on the 2nd row of the manuscript fragment.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 July 2020 at 14:13
Here is a Tangut medicinal recipe titled "Powdered medicine for ten thousand ailments" (𗩩𗦮𘋅 = 萬病散), although the first line says that it is a cure for green and white phlegm (taking 𗣩 as a transcription of Chinese 痰).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 1 July 2020 at 14:23
Ingredients
• Yellow morning glory [seeds] 黄牽牛 : 4 ounces
• Ink fragrance 墨香 (?) : 5 drams
• White morning glory [seeds] 白牽牛 : 2 ounces
• Dodder vine [seeds] 門菟 (?) : 3 drams
• Black pepper 胡椒 : 2 drams
• Taro 芋 : 6 drams
• White mulberry bark 桑白皮 : 3 drams
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 1 July 2020 at 14:27
Instructions:
Take these amounts and grind them together into a fine powder. Before going to sleep, put five drams in a cup of wine, then stir vigorously and drink up. Four or five doses [should be sufficient] (or enough for four or five doses).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 1 July 2020 at 15:24
I'm hoping that experts in Chinese medicine will help me correct the translation where necessary. The ingredient 𗐺𘊴 men thu is particularly vexing. The Chinese translation gives 門土 mén tǔ 'doorway dirt' which is not an ingredient of Chinese medicine as far as I can tell ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 1 July 2020 at 15:29
... perhaps 𗐺𘊴 men thu is a transcription of Chinese 燜菟 'braised dodder vines' -- is that a thing? Thinking about it, 'braised rabbit' 燜兔 would also fit, but I think that would be for a different recipe!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 12:16
While we are waiting for my blog post on the Shanzuigou site to be ready, let's look at a third interesting piece: the end page from a Tangut Buddhist text printed using baked clay movable type (you can tell at a glance!). It lists the people involved in the printing process.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 12:53
Listed first are those who checked the pages for printing (𘟩𘅞𘜏𗇋 = 印面校者):
𗃛𗷅𗡝𗥰𗏵 = 梁釋迦喇嘛 = Li̯on Śākya Lama
𗼨𗏡𗊠 = 嵬古竭 = Ngwe Kụ-ngɪn
𘟛𘇚 = 慧治 = Wisdom-governs
Judging from the first name it was an important job ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 12:59
... but did it involve proof-reading the source copy before it was typeset or checking the first printed page for errors before a hundred copies were printed off?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:13
Next is a list of 13 people who selected the type pieces for printing (𘟩𗏇𘏲𗇋 = 印字取者). These are all ordinary monks with matching religious names, distinguished by family name where necessary.
𗃛𘟛𗮔 = 梁慧照 = Li̯on Wisdom-shines
𗃛𘟛𗹡 = 梁慧勇 = Li̯on Wisdom-is-brave
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:14
𗌔𘟛𗮔 = 段慧照 = Thwan Wisdom-shines
𗣆𘀄𘟛𗯿 = 錢玉慧盛 = Tsha-ngi̯u Wisdom-flourishes
𗃛𘟛𗵆 = 梁慧成 = Li̯on Wisdom-accomplishes
𗼨𗆟𘟛𗩴 = 嵬名慧善 = Ngwe-mi Wisdom-is-good
𗭴𘟛𗩱 = 楊慧能 = ꞏi̯on Wisdom-is-able
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:15
𗶣𘏤𘟛𗯿 = 米勒慧盛 = Me-ldi̯ẹ Wisdom-flourishes
𘃣𘟛𗩴 = 魏慧善 = Vi̯e Wisdom-is-good
𗱈𘟛𘉍 = 勒慧明 = Lde Wisdom-is-bright
𗬢𗤂𘟛□ = 甲狄慧□ = Ngwɪ-ndi Wisdom- [?]
𗗧𗙴𗳩𘟛𘏨 = 賈羅訛慧寶 = Kâ-rạ-ꞏo Wisdom-is-precious
𗃛𗹏𗘦 = 梁那徵 = Li̯on Ndon-ndźɪn
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:17
Thirteen seems like an excessive number of people to pick the type pieces, but they may have had different tasks (including setting the type pieces in the printing frame), and it is likely that more than one page would be set up at a time.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:27
Then come two people who made the the type pieces (𗏇𗶦𘄱𘃡𗇋 = 作字兼丁者):
𗃛𘟛𘏨 = 梁慧寶 = Li̯on Wisdom-is-precious
𗤂□𘟛𗮔 = 狄□慧照 = Ndi-[?] Wisdom-shines
The exact interpretation of the Tangut heading is not certain, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:28
... but it seems unlikely that only two people would be needed to make the type pieces, although maybe they only made additional type pieces occasionally when the existing stock of type pieces was not sufficient.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:36
Finally, apparently only a single monk was required for the job of actually printing the typeset frame onto paper (𗺉𘟩𗇋 = 印本者):
𗃛𘟛𗕎 = 梁慧安 = Li̯on Wisdom-is-peaceful
The End
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 19:08
These are some examples of the Kuṭākṣara in Mr Upendra Bhakta Subedi's Collection of Texts on Hindu Rites and Rituals (Nepal) [1690-1982] recently digitised thanks to @bl_eap eap.bl.uk/project/EAP945
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 00:36
68 fragments of this edition titled "Annotated Mirror on the Essential Collected Meanings of the Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra" were found. Here is the start of Part 12 (you can see this particular page on display at the Ningxia Museum in Yinchuan).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 14:00
Three different movable type editions of Tangut Buddhist texts were found at the Shanzuigou site in Ningxia. This one (with a woodblock-printed title slip) shows uneven inking which is a common feature of editions printed with baked clay movable type.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 14:12
14 fragments of this text, titled "Brief Explanations on the Exegesis of Complete Enlightenment" 𘍞𗫨𘋓𗗙𘓋𗔡, were found. The inverse characters are 𗡺 'note' and 𘃪 'end', and are used to delimit the commentary.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 14:37
Incidentally, here is a fragment of a Tangut movable type edition that I saw at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 2018 (they may seem common, but they are actually quite rare compared to woodblock editions and manuscripts) twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:05
What are the distinguishing features of 12th-century Tangut movable type editions?
1. The edges of the frame enclosing the text do not meet at the corners (this is actually the most reliable indicator);
2. The characters do not line up neatly within a vertical column;
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:06
3. Some of the characters are slanted at an angle;
4. Characters vary in size, and have varying stroke thickness;
5. The same characters do not all have consistent glyph forms (because they may have been written and/or carved by different people);
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:09
6. Some characters are only lightly inked, and in some cases only half of the character has been printed due to the type piece not being level;
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:10
7. Some characters are very heavily inked, which is supposedly a particular feature of printing with baked clay type, and is said to be due to the clay type pieces being over-baked, resulting in glazing which causes the ink to spread out;
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:24
8. Some characters show tiny white spots which are supposedly caused by air bubbles forming at the surface of poor quality clay when it is baked;
9. Thin vertical lines where bamboo separators have been inadvertently inked may be seen, especially in blank spaces;
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:26
10. Some characters have missing parts of strokes where the brittle clay type piece has been damaged during handling.
See this example I wrote about in 2017 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:36
I didn't mention upside down characters due to the type piece being put in wrongly. It is a certain indicator of movable type, but I have never seen this phenomenon in Tangut text, but only extremely rarely in Chinese page numbers in Tangut movable type editions.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:48
Tomorrow let's explore the differences between baked clay movable type editions and wooden movable type editions, and how you can (or maybe can't) distinguish them.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 July 2020 at 00:19
The intact family graveyard of Wang Shao 王韶 (d. 593 in 68th year; biography in Sui History vol. 62), comprising seven tombs inside a square enclosure bounded by a ditch, were excavated in Xixian Shaanxi between November 2019 and May 2020 kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 4 July 2020 at 00:23
Look at the perfectly preserved tomb epitaphs for Wang Xian 王顯 (M6) and Wang Hong 王弘 (M4) !!!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 4 July 2020 at 00:26
They found some nice pottery tomb figurines as well ... but really all I want to see are those tomb epitaphs!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 13:24
This is the third movable type edition of a 12th-century Tangut Buddhist text from the Shanzuigou site. It is a translation from the Chinese text 占察善惡業報經 "Sūtra of Divination to Examine the Karmic Retribution" [T839]. Only this page and a very small fragment were found.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 13:59
This one is identified as having been printed with wooden movable type rather than baked clay movable type used for the previous two editions I tweeted about recently. But how can you tell?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:13
It is not as unevenly inked as the other two baked clay editions we have looked at, but we can certainly see heavy inking on some characters, which is supposedly a feature of over-baked clay type. So let's say that that feature is not conclusive.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:14
And if you look very closely you can also see lots of tiny white spots inside the characters, which are supposedly caused by air bubbles in the clay. So let's say that that feature is not conclusive either.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:17
What about those short vertical lines next to many of the characters? (Supposedly caused by raised edges of type pieces being getting inked, but I don't believe that.) We can see one example in a baked clay movable type edition (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…) so that's not conclusive.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:26
OK then, what are the positive features of wooden type? Well one is the presence of long thin lines where the bamboo separators, used for setting wooden type but not baked clay type, have been inked. Except that we also see them in baked clay editions! (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:37
OK, so it turns out that there may not be any certain distinctive features that can be used to distinguish editions set with wooden movable type from editions set with baked clay movable type! Instead, subjective criteria relating to the appearance of the printed characters ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:39
... are used to make the call. Characters in editions set with baked clay type are supposedly less well-defined with coarse, blunt strokes; whereas characters in editions set with wooden type are supposedly neat and well-defined, with smooth and sharp strokes.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:47
I think that these are not good criteria on which to make the decision. There are other factors that could influence the appearance of the printed characters, such as the quality of the materials, the skill and experience of the type makers, and wear and tear of the type pieces.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 14:32
Near where I live hampshirearchaeology.wordpress.com/2017/12/13/har… twitter.com/Roman_Britain/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 15:33
I went to the nearby All Saints Church at Crondall recently, and sitting in the middle of the Paulet tomb (1558) is the marble head reputed to have come from the Roman villa at Barley Pound, and discussed by Linda Munday in the article linked to above.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 17:08
The Tangut discoveries at the Shanzuigou caves (山嘴沟石窟) in Ningxia, a blog post in collaboration with @cosmicore babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2020/07/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 17:16
In 2005 a small team went to photograph and document the Buddhist murals dating to the Western Xia (1038-1227) that are preserved on four out of the six caves at this site ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 17:21
... but they unexpectedly discovered hundreds of pages and fragments of mostly Tangut Buddhist documents lying beneath the centuries of accumulated detritus in and around the caves.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 17:31
Estimate of 5 000 - 8 000 EUR -- who on earth came up with that valuation?! Presumably someone who had not the slightest idea what they are, and what Chinese collectors are willing to spend. twitter.com/JAHBookseller/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 19:23
But I rather like this medieval looking head on the right.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 21:28
Also seen at Crondall parish church, this brass for John Eager who died March XX 1641:
You earthly impes which here behold this picture with your eyes, Remember the end of mortall men and where their glory lies.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 22:31
I have already tweeted about some of the interesting finds from Shanzuigou over the last week, such as this handwritten medicinal recipe in Tangut twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 8 July 2020 at 09:15
I have also already discussed the three editions of Tangut Buddhist texts printed using movable type that were found at the site: twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 8 July 2020 at 09:16
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 8 July 2020 at 09:16
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 8 July 2020 at 09:27
Something I haven't already mentioned here is half a page of a woodblock printed edition of the Tangut lexical text Synonyms 《𗧘𘙰》 which is otherwise only known in two manuscript versions held in Saint Petersburg. It is an important piece of evidence in my forthcoming book.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 8 July 2020 at 22:08
A fun exercise for us was to read and identify this dhāraṇī which is written in cursive Tangut on six oblong strips of paper. It turns out to be "Ye dharmā hetu" which exists in several other Tangut versions, but this one is rather different to any other known example.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 00:16
More information and pictures from the excavation of the large very high status circa Qin dynasty tomb next to the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor news.hsw.cn/system/2020/06…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 00:20
Gold long-sleeved dancing figurine, in situ (left) and after cleaning (right)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 00:27
A silver camel (right) was found in addition to the gold camel (left)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 00:34
View of the large number of bronze vessels, bronze bells and coins that were in the tomb
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 00:40
Many of the pottery vessels from the tomb were engraved with one or two large "yang" 楊 characters
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 15:26
The vast majority of finds at Shanzuigou were in the Tangut script, but a handful of Chinese, Tibetan and Sanskrit fragments were found, including ten complete and partial copies of a woodblock printed Sanskrit dhāraṇī (the Mālāmantra, known as 華鬘真言 in Chinese)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 21:38
I forgot, here is the link to our discussion and reading of the woodblock printed Sanskrit dhāraṇī shown above babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2020/07/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 10 July 2020 at 13:11
Finally we come to the intriguing manuscript fragment with writing in an an unidentified script that I asked twitter about two weeks ago twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 10 July 2020 at 13:19
This received many suggestions including Chinese, Khitan, Nüshu, Yi, Geba, Phags-pa, Tibetan, but no certain identification of the script. We are are also unable to identify it, but make some general observations and analysis of the structure of the signs babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2020/07/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 11 July 2020 at 12:45
I love the colour scheme for the wooden enclosure for the famous Tangut dharani pillars at Baoding ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 11 July 2020 at 12:50
... zooms in on the Tangut text 🎨🤦
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 12 July 2020 at 15:07
The two Tangut dharani pillars erected in 1502 at a Buddhist temple in Baoding spent hundreds of years half buried on their sides before they were discovered in 1962, with the result that the text on five of the eight faces is mostly clear and legible ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 12 July 2020 at 15:14
... whereas almost nothing can be read on the other three faces which were exposed to the elements. Luckily the important parts of both pillars (1st face with title & credits and last face with list of donors) are well-preserved on both pillars.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 12 July 2020 at 15:32
The text inscribed on both pillars is the Uṣṇīṣa-vijaya-dhāraṇī-sūtra (Dharani-Sutra of the Victorious Buddha-Crown = 佛頂尊勝陀羅尼經) which is almost exactly identical to the Tangut version of the text engraved in 1345 on the east wall of the arch at Juyong Pass in Beijing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 13 July 2020 at 17:35
The Tangut text on the Baoding dharani pillars is written in neat regular script, but I've noticed that one character, 𘟛 'wisdom' (used in the names of monks), is written using a cursive form (ms example shown for comparison), as shown for the names 𘟛𗠁 (慧勝) and 𘟛𗗚 (慧海).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 13 July 2020 at 19:06
That the scribe was able to write cursive Tangut characters suggests that the script was still very much in everyday use in 1502. There have been rumours of late Ming usage of Tangut, but no concrete evidence has yet been adduced for Tangut post-1502. twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 16 July 2020 at 09:57
It has now been reported that more than 700 paper documents and wooden tablets have been excavated from the site of a Tang dynasty beacon in Yuli County in Xinjiang twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 16 July 2020 at 09:59
Link to the brief report (kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…). No new photos yet.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 17 July 2020 at 12:17
Based on what Stein found at such sites, we would expect them to be mostly administrative documents, which is indeed the case for the only two pieces of writing (one on paper, one on wood) for which photos have been released twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 17 July 2020 at 12:28
The cursive scrawl on the paper document is not easy to read, but the wooden tablet reads (I think, but I may have misread some of the characters) "十七日第一牌送沙泥" "on the 17th day No. 1 unit sent sand and clay" (like they needed a consignment of sand in the desert!).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 17 July 2020 at 23:40
The paper document is dated the 4th day of the 8th month of the 6th year of the Kaiyuan era (718 CE), during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 20 July 2020 at 15:13
Western Xia painting on the southern wall of Yulin Cave 29 (榆林窟第29窟) in Gansu, showing a child with the accompanying Tangut inscription 𘃾𘝳𗥔𘀄𗈪𗤶𗖵𗨳 "grandson Mɪ-lhəɯ-ngi̯u turns to the Buddha with all his heart". 1/2
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 20 July 2020 at 15:34
This is part of a mural depicting a family group of Tangut donors (grandfather on left and his two sons), all proclaiming in Tangut inscriptions that they turn to the Buddha with their whole heart. The painting of the grandson was done on paper and pasted on afterwards. 2/2
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 21 July 2020 at 09:56
A group of 27 Western Han tombs were excavated at Xi'an, near the mausoleum of Emperor Wen of Han, between March 2018 and May 2019. These included four large scale tombs (photo), the largest of which must have belonged to an aristocrat of the highest order kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 21 July 2020 at 10:18
A large number of high status goods were found in the burial chamber of the largest tomb (photo), including sets of bronze bells and stone chimes, set of pottery figurines of musicians, and 2,200 pieces from a jade burial suit. But very few photos of the finds have been released.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 21 July 2020 at 10:27
Objects from the largest tomb (M1) had sealing clay imprints "Seal of Lujiang residence" 庐江邸印 and "Household aide of [...] Xi" □郤家丞. The latter refers to a position only allowed for the households of princes and marquises.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 21 July 2020 at 10:29
A pottery figurine of a musician from tomb M1 and a painted pottery jar from tomb M2.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 21 July 2020 at 10:32
A bronze basin from one of the smaller tombs (M21) with the inscription 襄城家铜鋗容三升重九斤 "Bronze xuan from the Xiangcheng household, capacity three sheng, weight nine jin".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 22 July 2020 at 15:25
Miniature sandstone ogham stone (only 11 cm in length and 199 g in weight) dug up by a gardener in the Binley and Willenhall area of Coventry. h/t @Evertype coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 22 July 2020 at 15:32
If genuine, this is a fantastic discovery (only 2nd ogham-inscribed stone in England proper), but I've never seen such a tiny ogham stone, and my suspicion is that it is a copy (tourist souvenir?) of a full-size Irish stone. @findsorguk database entry: finds.org.uk/database/artef…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 22 July 2020 at 15:54
The PAS entry notes similarity with the ogham-inscribed red deer antler knife handle found at Weeting in Norfolk in 1950 (twitter.com/BLMedieval/sta…), but a knife handle is utilitarian, and its presence in Norfolk is explicable, whereas a tiny portable ogham stone is inexplicable.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 25 July 2020 at 23:25
Two unusual ways of writing 寶 in Japanese era names (⿱𡧰玉 and ⿱宝缶), neither character yet in Unicode. Thanks to @JUMANJIKYO and @ehime_s_n for the images
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 25 July 2020 at 23:28
⿱𡧰玉 image from twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 25 July 2020 at 23:28
⿱宝缶 image from twitter.com/ehime_s_n/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 31 July 2020 at 12:40
I have spent the last week or so researching the sordid world of Chinese auctions of Tangut documents, and I have documented all I can find on this page babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Auction…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 July 2020 at 12:54
The first thing to say is that there are dozens of auction houses in China, and none of them have any concept of ethics. You think Christie's and Sotherby's sometimes fall short on their ethical responsibilities? In China it is ask no questions and tell loads of porky pies ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 July 2020 at 12:58
Half the antiquities sold at auction in China are modern fakes, and most of what is genuine has been tomb-robbed or looted from unknown historical sites. Apparently this is not a problem because Chinese auction houses never give any provenance for the stuff they sell.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 July 2020 at 13:19
Before 2014 there were virtually no auctions of genuine Western Xia Tangut documents. About the only example I could find were 6 tiny scraps of Tangut texts in a collection of about 30 miscellaneous fragments which failed to reach its asking price in 2012 babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Auction…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 July 2020 at 14:17
Then in November 2014 a group of nine apparently authentic Tangut Buddhist fragments and one complete linguist text of unknown provenance and ownership came up for auction in Beijing babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Auction… (disclaimer: I have published two papers on the linguistic text)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 July 2020 at 14:22
Just six months later, the National Library of China bought 18 bundles of Tangut documents from a "book dealer" in Yinchuan (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…). I suspect that these were looted by treasure hunters from the same Western Xia Buddhist site as the items in the 2014 auction.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 July 2020 at 14:49
This opened up the flood waters, with 17 auctions between 2014 and 2019 including apparently genuine Western Xia items. Some pieces appeared more than once, such as this Tangut manuscript scroll which was auctioned in June 2017, December 2018, and June 2019.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 31 July 2020 at 14:57
It is now known that 21 items auctioned in December 2017 belonged to the collection of Mi Xiangjun 米向军 in Yinchuan (see the excellent article by Gao Shanshan 高山杉 m.thepaper.cn/wifiKey_detail…), but where he did he get them from? That is still a mystery.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 31 July 2020 at 15:40
Only a year ago, in June 2019, 13 Tangut items came up for auction in Beijing, including illustrations of mudras which appear to belong to the same edition of the same text as two leaves in the 2014 auction (and two leaves also appeared earlier at a November 2016 auction).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 August 2020 at 08:44
#二简字 ⿰由攵 for 数 in the wild. This character is from the 2nd set of 2nd stage simplifications which were not officially used, and have not yet been encoded (all outstanding 1st set 2nd simplifications were added to CJK Ext. G in Unicode 13). twitter.com/luoshanji/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 2 August 2020 at 08:46
𰽔 added to CJK Ext. G in Unicode 13. twitter.com/L_L162/status/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 11:44
This Ming dynasty woodblock edition of the Tangut translation of the High King Avalokitesvara Sutra (𗣛𘟙𗯨𗙏𘝯𗖰𗚩 = 高王觀世音經) is one of two Tangut texts from the collection of Zhōu Zhàoxiáng 周肇祥 (1880–1954) which are now held at the Palace Museum in Beijing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 12:15
How do we know it is a Ming edition? Well, it says so in a colophon:
𘜶𗭼𗤀𗋌𘋇𗍏𘆄𗃑𗭊𗏁𗤒𘑲𗼑𗰭𗏁𗾞
大明朝壬子......五年正月十五日
Great Ming dynasty rénzǐ ... 5th year 1st month 15th day
(we will come back to the four elided characters shortly)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 12:27
Great, so which Ming dynasty 5th year of an era falls on the rénzǐ cyclical year? Unfortunately there are two matching years: Hóngwǔ 洪武 5 (1372) and Hóngzhì 弘治 5 (1492). Luckily, the text preceding the date (right three lines of the above image) provides us with a clue ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 12:32
... as it wishes the emperor and the crown prince long life (𘓺𘋨𗕑𗩟 = 皇帝萬歲; 𘓺𘈷𘜶𗸱𗡞𘌞 = 皇子太子千秋), and the Hóngzhì emperor did not declare a crown prince until the 3rd month of the 5th year of his reign, which rules him out.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 12:40
So the date given in the Tangut colophon must refer to the 5th year of the Hóngwǔ era (1372), right? Well, maybe not. Remember the four elided characters before "5th year" (𗍏𘆄𗃑𗭊) — they should represent the Tangut translation or transcription of the era name in question, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 12:48
... but the four characters cannot be a translation or transcription of either Hóngwǔ or Hóngzhì. To make sense of them we need to look at the long list of subscribers for this edition, which follows the colophon. (Zhōu Zhàoxiáng's "百鏡庵藏古雕刻記" red seal at the end)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 17:03
The list of names uses a system of transcription for Chinese that is not normally seen in Western Xia Tangut, with slighter smaller forms of the characters 𗭊, 𗅁, 𘆄, and 𗕘 representing Mandarin -e, -u (in diphthongs), -n, and -ng respectively ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 17:22
... for example, the final line of the Tangut text gives the name of the block engraver as 𗄻𗕘𗕌𘆄𗤛𗅁𘘑𘆄𗥰𗕘 which corresponds to something like Mandarin ne-ŋ re-n zho-u we-n la-ŋ (...周文郎?)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 17:36
So the four Tangut characters 𗍏𘆄𗃑𗭊 before "5th year" can be read as something like su-n d-e or xu-n d-e in Mandarin, which is very close to the name of the Xuāndé 宣德 era (1426–1435) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 17:42
... the only problem is that the rénzǐ cyclical year corresponds to the 7th year of the Xuāndé era (1432), so if the reading of 𗍏𘆄𗃑𗭊 as Xuāndé is correct then the date given must be a mistake for either gēngxū 庚戌 5th year (1430) or rénzǐ 7th year (1432).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 13 August 2020 at 21:53
Exciting news! A Liao dynasty inscription in Khitan Small Script written in ink above the entrance to a cave has recently been discovered at Wulandaba Sumu in Bairin Left Banner, Inner Mongolia
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 13 August 2020 at 22:03
The apparently well-preserved inscription comprises 47 characters, and preliminary reports suggest that it includes names, official positions, and a date.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 13 August 2020 at 22:10
Why were Khitan officials recording their visit to this cave? Some of the experts think it may be related to Khitan shamanistic beliefs. How wonderful if the cave was a repository for Khitan books and manuscripts, like the Tangut cave at Shanzuigou twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 13 August 2020 at 22:19
The article mentions that this inscription includes some characters not found on stone epitaphs, so it is possible that we will need to encode some additional characters to the Khitan Small Script block that was added to Unicode 13.0 just five months ago unicode.org/charts/PDF/U18….
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 13 August 2020 at 22:28
If you compare the photo of the inscription in the first tweet with the code chart linked to above you can easily recognise 18B62 𘭢 (bottom left), 18C1B 𘰛 (top right), 18BCC 𘯌 (bottom right), and several other characters.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 14 August 2020 at 12:19
Video of the discovery of the Khitan Small Script inscription in a cave high up on the side of a mountain in Bairin Left Banner, with commentary by Prof. Wu Yingzhe 吴英喆. v.qq.com/x/page/c31326j…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 14 August 2020 at 12:48
Article discussing in more detail Prof. Wu Yingzhe's expedition in late July to Jialu Mountain 嘉鹿山 in Ulaan Davaa Sumu in Bairin Left Banner of Inner Mongolia in order to "survey Khitan historical sites and reveal the mystery of Khitan characters" 3g.163.com/dy/article/FJ3…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 15 August 2020 at 22:19
Banquet scene from a Khitan (Liao dynasty, 916-1125) tomb mural from Aohan Banner in Inner Mongolia showing a plate with three water melons (bottom right). Is this the earliest depiction of water melons in Chinese art? nmg.xinhuanet.com/2020-07/10/c_1… #西瓜
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 16 August 2020 at 14:00
I like round numbers.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 16 August 2020 at 20:42
Shadow selfie with cows.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 00:33
Earlier this month the Empress Dowager Xiao Canal Museum of Culture 萧太后河文化馆 opened to the public in Tongzhou District of Beijing, with over 1,000 exhibits relating mostly to Khitan history and culture acquired from private individuals (民间收藏品) beijing.qianlong.com/2020/0803/4517…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 00:38
Mostly fake I hasten to add! Pictures from 3g.163.com/dy/article/FK3…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 00:59
Here's a video introducing some of the highly dubious items that have been miraculously preserved in 'folk collections' for a 1,000 years, including drawers of movable type and printing plates in exotic languages which are staple fare on internet auctions. dayuntongzhou.com/web/ct22887
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 01:08
I can say without a shadow of doubt that all these items shown in the video are fakes. It is sad that a museum full of fakes can open in Beijing without anyone speaking up to denounce the fraud.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 10:06
I apologise if the first tweet of this thread misled anyone into believing that this is an important new museum, but "acquired from private individuals (民间收藏品)" was intended to be a warning that all is not as it seems ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 10:17
As I've said before, there isn't a huge reserve of pristine historical artefacts in ordinary private ownership just waiting to be bought up by the dozens of new private museums that have opened in China over the last 20 years, ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 10:25
... so of necessity any new private museum has to supplement the meagre source of legitimate genuine historical artefacts with fakes, reproductions, and maybe some illicit tomb-robbed items. "民间收藏" is just a flimsy cover story.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 11:29
Gruesome, sickening, evil ... twitter.com/Diplomat_APAC/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 14:19
Sick, inhumane, shameful ... twitter.com/DMReporter/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 16:41
Just look how similar the little chests of storage trays for movable type pieces are to one that I discussed in my blog post about Fake Khitania in 2013 babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2013/01/f…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:06
Yesterday I bought a rather interesting copy of the Manx Bible (Yn Vible Casherick, ny yn Chenn Chonaant, as yn Conaant Noa) published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1819 ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:19
The text is based closely on (apparently identical to) the translations of the OT and NT into Manx that were published in three volumes in Whitehaven between 1771 and 1775, but omitting the footnotes twitter.com/incunabula/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:25
Yn Chenn Chonaant [Old Testament] (which omits the two Apocryphal Books printed in the 1773 edition)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:26
Yn Conaant Noa [New Testament]
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:33
I also have a copy of the 1824 reprint of the 1810 BFBS ed. of the New Testament in Manx. This edition includes the footnotes from the 1775 version that are omitted in the 1819 edition, but also incorporates a number of spelling mistakes not found in the 1775 or 1819 editions.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:42
"Manks Bible and Testament" ("Manks" looks like "Mauke" at first glance!) on the front pastedown of the 1819 Bible.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:54
But it is the facing inscription in Welsh that is of most interest (I wonder if this is the only 19th century Manx book in existence with a hand-written inscription in Welsh). Note the orthography, with Latin Letter Delta ẟ used for "dd".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:59
At
y Parch John Owen
Ysgol Llanamẟyfri
C'lerig oẟi wrth
Egerton G. B. Phillimore
Dyẟ Calan, 1887
For
The Rev. John Owen
Llandovery School (i.e. Coleg Llanymddyfri = Llandovery College)
Cleric, from
Egerton G. B. Phillimore
New Year's Day, 1887
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 12:05
John Owen (1854–1926) was Professor of Welsh at St . David's College Lampeter (1879–1885), Warden of Llandovery College (1885–1889), and Bishop of St. David's (1897–1926). He received priest's orders in 1880. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Owen…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 12:14
Egerton Grenville Bagot Phillimore (1856–1937) was an Englishman who learned Welsh while at Oxford, and went on to become a renowned expert on Welsh placenames. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egerton_P…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 12:41
Below are lines from a New Year's Day poem, "Cywydd i'r Calan" (1755), by Goronwy Owen (1723–1769) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goronwy_O…
—Diengaist yn ryẟ, y dyẟ du!
Rhedaist, fal llif rhuadwy,
I'r môr, a ni'th welir mwy
A dygaist ẟryll diwegi,
Heb air son, o'm byroes ni!
Gor. Owen ai cânt
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 14:19
Inexplicably, I cannot find an English translation of the poem, so here is my attempt at these lines:
—You escaped free, the black day!
You ran as a roaring flood
To the sea, and I'll see you no more.
And you brought sober fragments (?)
Without a word or sound, oh my brief life!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 August 2020 at 11:33
Statement from the Scots Wikipedia user AmaryllisGardener sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uiser_col… twitter.com/r_speer/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 August 2020 at 11:41
This is an example of one of their recent contributions to the Scots Wikipedia sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayne_Man…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 August 2020 at 12:46
I have now made the entire text of the Tangut translation of the High King Avalokitesvara Sutra (𗣛𘟙𗯨𗙏𘝯𗖰𗚩) available on Wikisource for all to read wikisource.org/wiki/%F0%97%A3…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 September 2020 at 00:43
The tombstone of the Jin dynasty Confucian scholar Yáng Huàn 楊奐 (1186–1255) has been "discovered" in Qian County 乾縣 in Shaanxi by a group of scholars of Confucianism who were paying a visit to Yáng Huàn's home town. news.cnwest.com/xianyang/a/202…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 September 2020 at 00:49
Actually, a local villager led the tour group to the tombstone which was lying in plain sight on the side of a stone bridge. They washed and cleaned it so as to be able to read the seal script heading "楊府奐墓碑銘", and reported their discovery (or rather identification).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 September 2020 at 23:17
Two early 6th century Koguryo tombs with murals have recently been excavated at Wŏlji-ri in Anak County of South Hwanghae province, North Korea. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 4 September 2020 at 23:18
Wall paintings from Tomb 1
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 4 September 2020 at 23:22
The plaster wall paintings in the second tomb have largely flaked off, but these nine pieces of gold jewellery were found in it (missed by the tomb robbers of old).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 September 2020 at 23:28
These two tombs are associated with the Complex of Koguryo Tombs which are one of the two UNESCO World Heritage sites in North Korea whc.unesco.org/en/list/1091/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 September 2020 at 23:00
The unidentified yellowish-brown liquid has now been analysed as being a medicinal wine containing hair ash and plant ash, which has similarities to the ingredients for a prescription listed in a Han dynasty medicinal text from Mǎwángduī 《五十二病方》 china.qianlong.com/2020/0918/4743…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 21 September 2020 at 11:31
Q: I've got a 400 year old book that isn't in very good condition; what's the best way to protect it from further damage?
A: A few strips of Sellotape should do the trick!
onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/shop/product/o…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 21 September 2020 at 12:08
A Yuan dynasty painted tomb for a husband and wife was discovered last October in Wuzhao county of Shanxi. The decoration of the tomb chamber includes paintings of landscape paintings kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 21 September 2020 at 12:14
And a male servant dressed in Mongolian attire, including a hat with a red tassel in the middle
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 22 September 2020 at 10:38
In summary, Katrina Parrott works with the Unicode Consortium to develop emoji with five skin tones (unicode.org/L2/L2014/14085… etc.), and is now suing Apple for copyright infringement because they implemented the Unicode Standard for racially diverse emoji. Utterly without merit. twitter.com/questauthority…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 September 2020 at 01:04
BabelMap has been updated for Emoji 13.1, and now has an improved Emoji lookup tool babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 September 2020 at 01:10
The tool lists all 3,521 emoji defined in Emoji 13.1 (unicode.org/emoji/charts-1…), and lets you filter on the emoji name or description. BabelMap does not yet support colour emoji, but you can copy and paste emoji into twitter where they will be shown in colour.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 24 September 2020 at 23:05
Jade spirit tablet for Princess Puna, daughter of Temür Khan (second emperor of the Yuan dynasty, reigned 1294–1307), dated 3rd year of the Yuántǒng era (1335). Collection of Inner Mongolia Museum.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 25 September 2020 at 12:11
I've just added U+20475 𠑵 = "西域哲人" (佛) to my font — it is really not a nice glyph to draw! twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 27 September 2020 at 11:34
A manuscript scroll bought from an antiquarian bookstore by Keio University in 2017 has been identified as a 6th-7th century Chinese manuscript of the Analects of Confucius #論語 -- may be the oldest surviving non-archaeological manuscript of the text asahi.com/articles/ASN9V…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 27 September 2020 at 13:20
Miniature stele from a relic pagoda in Hebei erected by Master Zhènghuì (d. 1116), dated 25th day of the 6th month of the 2nd year of the Tiānqìng era (1112). 大遼國飛狐縣白石山兩朝讖主二帝門師傅菩薩三聚凈戒太尉正慧大師特於峯頂建舍利塔...時天慶二年壬辰歲六月丙戌朔二十五日丙時建
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 27 September 2020 at 21:18
Bird box sculpture at Farnham Heath
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 September 2020 at 12:51
On a similar vein, all Han children in China should learn one of Uyghur, Mongolian, Tibetan, Zhuang, or Manchu (or some other minority language where available) twitter.com/DrFrancisYoung…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 September 2020 at 17:29
Yay, let's all work hard to build Archeology with Chinese Characteristics, Chinese Style, and Chinese Flair! 努力建设中国特色、中国风格、中国气派的考古学 xinhuanet.com/english/2020-0… (kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 October 2020 at 17:35
Western Xia colour-painted clay statues of a seated bodhisattva from the Lǜchéng 緑城 site in Inner Mongolia (left: Inner Mongolia Museum; right: Xixia Museum)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 October 2020 at 21:52
estimated to be worth $300m *by the scroll's owner* (spoiler, it is certainly not worth $300m) twitter.com/TheArtNewspape…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 October 2020 at 11:05
The above are my own photos from behind glass. This is the photo on the Inner Mongolia Museum website (which is broken so image does not display) nmgbwy.com/lsww/1479.jhtml
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 8 October 2020 at 23:07
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 12 October 2020 at 13:18
Sure, totally ignore Tangut Buddhist studies, why don't you?! twitter.com/cmalcolmkeatin
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 14:41
I've spent three days (so far) writing a footnote about a single Tangut character (𘋻). I feel that I need to write a monograph about every character in the Tangut text I am trying to translate (rather unsuccessfully) in order to justify my translation choices ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 15:57
The Chinese Invasion! They are Coming! (1873) schilbantiquarian.com/product/1873-c…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 16:00
... and after three days all I've done is prove to myself that the character means exactly the same as the English gloss in Lǐ Fànwén' Tangut-Chinese dictionary, but I still don't understand it what it means in the text I am translating ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 16:41
... which is kinda to be expected given that the gist of the text (a preface to a pedagogical text) is that Tangut is really hard to learn to read and write ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 16:49
"Roger Fuckebythenavele" — An early fourteenth-century use of the F-word in Cheshire, 1310–11 by Paul Booth ("the earliest instance of the word with this usage so far found") academia.edu/28222733/An_ea…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 17:40
And now I've just realized that Prof. Lin Ying-chin wrote a 16-page monograph on the meaning of this very character 𘋻 which makes my last three days of research and footnotation a little redundant ! academia.edu/37045318/The_P…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 17:45
(even worse, it was published in a festschrift for Prof. Kychanov which I contributed to and have on my bookshelf next to me, so I should have known to have looked at Prof. Lin's article first!)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 20 October 2020 at 11:13
"fairy bridge" 過仙橋 or "fairy cave" 過仙洞 — a hole between two adjacent brick tombs for a husband and wife, to allow their spirits to commune, found in Song dynasty (960–1279) tombs in Southern China. This example is from N. Song tomb in Níngxiāng Húnán kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 20 October 2020 at 11:20
Another Northern Song example from Húnán of husband and wife brick tombs linked together by a "fairy bridge", this one with a brown-glazed pot placed inside. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 30 October 2020 at 16:46
If he thinks their Latin is bad, just wait till he sees the Tangut translations I'm currently struggling with ... twitter.com/j_t_palmer/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 14:14
These are some of a number of scattered fragments of a manuscript document in Tangut script recording court cases from the Guazhou Department of Military Supervision (瓜州監軍司審判案). 1/thread twitter.com/ihptaiwan/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 14:25
This manuscript survives in a dozen or so fragments held at Academia Sinica in Taipei, at the National Library of China, National Museum of China, and Beijing University in Beijing, and at Ryukoku University in Kyoto (Ryukoku University fragment shown). 2/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 14:36
It is not known for certain where and when the manuscript was discovered, but it was most likely part of a cache of Tangut Buddhist texts discovered at Língwǔ (寧夏靈武縣) in 1917. The manuscript was apparently broken into pieces and dispersed among various collectors ... 3/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 14:45
... the National Museum of Chinese History acquired one piece in 1963, and Beijing University bought three pieces for ¥20 at about the same time. Five pieces in the possession of Luó Fúchéng 羅福成 (1885–1960) are now missing. 4/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 15:16
The back of the document was later reused for writing (in a somewhat neater and easier to read hand) the Tangut translation of Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (六祖壇經). This enables us to arrange the surviving fragments of the Guazhou records in their correct order. 5/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 15:25
The largest piece in the Fu Ssu-nien Library of Academia Sinica gives the office "Guazhou Department of Military Supervision" 𗽝𗉔𘒏𗧼𗅂 (瓜州監軍司) in two places. 6/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 15:33
And one of the small pieces in the Academia Sinica collection gives the incomplete date 𘀗𗙀𗅲𗯿𗂧𗴴𗍫[𗤒] = 天賜禮盛國慶二[年] = 2nd [year] of the 'Heaven Bestows Flourishing Rites and Country at Peace' era ('Celebrates' in the Chinese version of the era name). 7/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 16:08
Seven other pieces also have dates for this era (天賜禮盛國慶): 12th month of the 1st year (2), 1st month of the 2nd year (1), 2nd month of the 2nd year (1), 6th month of the 2nd year (2), and 7th month of the 2nd year (1). Nat. Mus. fragment dated 7th month of 2nd year shown. 8/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 16:19
So we can be fairly confident in dating the writing of this document to between the 12th month of the 1st year and 7th month of the 2nd year of the Heaven Bestows Flourishing Rites and Country at Peace (天賜禮盛國慶) era. However, the precise date of this era is uncertain ... 9/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 16:25
... as all known examples of dates with this era (in both Chinese and Tangut) are uncalibrated (against either the corresponding Song or Liao eras, or by reference to the system of cyclical years) ... 10/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 16:33
The start of the 天賜禮盛國慶 era is traditionally put at 1070 and lasting five years, but more recently it has been put at 1069 and lasting six years, so the 12th month of the 1st year may be either January/February 1070 or January 1071 in the Julian calendar. 11/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 22:49
At 1070/1071, this document may be the earliest known dated piece of Tangut writing, about 15 years before the earliest dated Tangut inscription at Dunhuang (1085), and about 25 years before the date of the famous Liangzhou Stele inscription (1094). 12/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 23:05
The Tangut script was invented c.1036, but there are no very early surviving examples of Tangut writing. I suppose that it may have taken a generation for fluent script users to emerge, and for Tangut script to become normalized enough to be used for recording court cases. 13/end
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 1 November 2020 at 11:12
If you are interested in learning more about the details of the "Guazhou Process" manuscript fragments, then this article (西夏文草书《瓜州审案记录》叙录) by 王惠民 is a good introduction dhyj.net.cn/html/2016/zata…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 November 2020 at 11:25
And if you are interested in the Buddhist text written on the back of this document then "The Fragments of the Tangut Translation of the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch Preserved in the Fu Ssu-nien Library" by Kirill Solonin is what you want www2.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/file/2907psRKs…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 November 2020 at 13:12
This is the scale reproduction/reconstruction that they recently built for tourists about 15 km from the real Khara-khoto. twitter.com/thesilkroad/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 1 November 2020 at 15:41
The real Heicheng Ruins (as visited by me in August 2016) twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 November 2020 at 11:01
The first thing I do almost every morning is add one or two more unencoded hanzi/kanji to my BabelStone Han PUA font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html twitter.com/dmnefkt/status…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 3 November 2020 at 11:43
In the last 106 days I've added 404 unencoded characters, which is almost an average of 4 a day. This is not a good thing, as my aim is to shrink the size of my font over time not grow it ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 3 November 2020 at 11:56
... despite helping to get ~1,800 unencoded hanzi/kanji encoded in CJK Ext. G (Unicode 13, March 2020), and nearly 1,000 scheduled for Ext. H (Unicode 15 ?), the tide of unencoded characters is as relentless and overwhelming as ever.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 November 2020 at 14:43
Alla Sizova discusses the "Collection of Precious Dhāraṇīs with the Emperor's Postscript" in corresponding Chinese, Tangut and Tibetan woodblock editions from Khara-Khoto, printed c. 1149 on @oxfordpodcasts. podcasts.ox.ac.uk/first-tibetan-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 5 November 2020 at 19:50
Zorin and Sizova's study (in Russian) of the Tibetan edition of this text twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 10 November 2020 at 18:47
"the Chinese character for the word 'ball' combines the ideograms of 'hair' and 'leather'" — or does it? twitter.com/SmithsonianMag…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 November 2020 at 14:22
Today's addition to my Tangut library is Prof. Kychanov's 2006 Tangut-Russian-English-Chinese Dictionary, with many thanks to @cosmicore
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 12 November 2020 at 17:46
For some reason I never posted a picture of my copy of the Tangut-Chinese Dictionary (夏漢字典) compiled by Lǐ Fànwén 李範文 (2nd ed., 2008) which I got in February 2009.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 17 November 2020 at 20:29
We're up to 92,856 in Unicode now, and still growing... twitter.com/sudasana/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:12
An epitaph dated 747 (天寶六年) with text brushed by famed Tang dynasty calligrapher Yán Zhēnqīng 颜真卿 (709–785) has been found during excavation of three tombs for a high status Tang family at XīXián New Area (西咸新區) between Xī'ān and Xiányáng. news.changsha.cn/xctt/html/1101…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:21
This is the first time that a sample of Yán Zhēnqīng's calligrapher has been found in an archaeological context. At the time he was at the start of his political and calligraphic career, and had been appointed Vice Magistrate of Cháng'ān (長安縣尉) the previous year.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:34
This is one of four epitaphs found in three tombs belonging to the Yuán 元 family: a) tomb of Yuán Dàqiān 元大謙 and his wife Luó Wǎnshùn 羅婉順 (buried together in 747); b) tomb of their 3rd son Yuán Bùqì 元不器; and c) tomb of their nephew Yuán Zìjué 元自覺.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:47
The epitaph brushed by Yán Zhēnqīng was for Luó Wǎnshùn 羅婉順 (d. 746), a member of the Xianbei (鮮卑) people. Her husband, Yuán Dàqiān 元大謙 was himself a descendant of the Northern Wei Xianbei aristocrat Tuòbá Zūn 拓跋遵 (d. 407). Some finds from the three tombs pictured.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 21:18
"The Story of Shunzi 舜子 in Old Uyghur" by Kitsudō Kōichi and Imre Galambos (three fragments at the Turfanforschung) academia.edu/44535893/The_S…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 November 2020 at 23:15
Chinese character (unencoded) perhaps derived from Tibetan ༀ twitter.com/sarasvati635/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 November 2020 at 17:44
Here is the entire book bookinlife.net/book-280387-vi… (page=44 for this character)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 25 November 2020 at 21:42
As I discussed a few months ago, the Musée Guimet in Paris has a Western Xia bronze official seal, published as an appendix to the edition of the Tangut Lotus Sutra (2018). The appendix also records five bronze passes (牌子 páizi) held at the Guimet twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 25 November 2020 at 22:13
MG17617 is a bronze waist paizi inscribed 𗪒𗽷𘒩𗭻 "stay indoors and await orders" (Chinese 内宿待命) on one side, and the name of the holder, 𗼨𗆟・𗃞𗗿𘏨 (Chinese 嵬名・小犬寶) on the other side. He has the royal family name, and his given name means "Precious Puppy Dog".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 25 November 2020 at 23:31
MG17618 is another bronze waist paizi inscribed 𗪒𗽷𘒩𗭻 "stay indoors and await orders" (Chinese 内宿待命), this one engraved with the name 𗰰・𗹏𗘦𘀄 (Chinese 紀・那征吉). 𗹏𗘦 [ndon¹ ndźɪn¹] "drive out evil" is one of the most common Tangut personal name elements.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 10:41
MG17619 is a pear-shaped bronze paizi inscribed 𗬳𗓑𘒩𗭻 "guard the exterior and await orders" (Chinese 防守待命) on one side, and the name of the holder, 𘈫・𗹏𗘦𗵒 (Chinese 武・那征金) on the other side (his name includes "driving out evil" again).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 10:49
This is the second most common form of Western Xia paizi, and its large round shape contrasts with the smaller rectangular paizi for inside use. Here is another example from the National Museum of China en.chnmuseum.cn/collections_57…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 10:55
And here is another example of the 𗬳𗓑𘒩𗭻 "guard the exterior and await orders" (防守待命) paizi at the National Museum of China which I photographed in 2011. It shows the side engraved with the holder's name: 𗣆𘀄･𘏨𘎧 (千玉･寶訛)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 17:05
MG17620 has a long Buddhist inscription on one side (𘜶𗣼𗾟|𘍑𘉋□𘜶𘄡|𗕑𗪉𗢳𘟛□|𗅉𗏹□□|𘍑□□) and is plain on the other side. It is not a paizi in the strict sense, and in the Musée Guimet book it is categorized as a probable fake ("疑爲贋品"), but I'm not convinced.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 17:11
It similar to another large round rimless so-called paizi held at the National museum of China (copy at Xixia Museum shown) which has a Buddhist inscription on the front (𗍏𗓚𘄽𗢈□) and a plain back. I suspect these are both hanging mirrors rather than paizi.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 18:28
MG17621 is also not really a paizi, and is also suspected of being a fake. Not only is the calligraphy suspect, especially the miswriting of 𘜶 "big", but the date in the middle 𘜶𗣼𘉋𗤒 (大德八年) "8th year of Dade" does not exist (Dade only lasted 5 years from 1135 to 1139).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 27 November 2020 at 00:15
And if you are interested, I have just published a catalogue of Western Xia paizi with Tangut inscriptions, which I hope to expand and improve over time babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2020/11/t…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:45
For anyone worried about the lack of "exotic" scripts in Unicode, here is a list of the 154 scripts in the Unicode Standard as of 2020:
Arabic (1991)
Armenian (1991)
Bengali (1991)
Bopomofo (1991)
Coptic (1991/2005)
Cyrillic (1991)
Devanagari (1991)
Georgian (1991)
Greek (1991)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:46
Gujarati (1991)
Gurmukhi (1991)
Hangul (1991)
Hebrew (1991)
Hiragana (1991)
Kannada (1991)
Katakana (1991)
Lao (1991)
Latin (1991)
Malayalam (1991)
Oriya (1991)
Tamil (1991)
Telugu (1991)
Thai (1991)
Tibetan (1991/1996)
Han (1992)
Braille (1999)
Canadian Aboriginal (1999)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:47
Cherokee (1999)
Ethiopic (1999)
Khmer (1999)
Mongolian (1999)
Myanmar (1999)
Ogham (1999)
Runic (1999)
Sinhala (1999)
Syriac (1999)
Thaana (1999)
Yi (1999)
Deseret (2001)
Gothic (2001)
Old Italic (2001)
Buhid (2002)
Hanunoo (2002)
Tagalog (2002)
Tagbanwa (2002)
Cypriot (2003)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:48
Limbu (2003)
Linear B (2003)
Osmanya (2003)
Shavian (2003)
Tai Le (2003)
Ugaritic (2003)
Buginese (2005)
Glagolitic (2005)
Kharoshthi (2005)
New Tai Lue (2005)
Old Persian (2005)
Syloti Nagri (2005)
Tifinagh (2005)
Balinese (2006)
Cuneiform (2006)
N'Ko (2006)
Phags-pa (2006)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:49
Phoenician (2006)
Carian (2008)
Cham (2008)
Kayah Li (2008)
Lepcha (2008)
Lycian (2008)
Lydian (2008)
Ol Chiki (2008)
Rejang (2008)
Saurashtra (2008)
Sundanese (2008)
Vai (2008)
Avestan (2009)
Bamum (2009)
Egyptian Hieroglyphs (2009)
Imperial Aramaic (2009)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:49
Inscriptional Pahlavi (2009)
Inscriptional Parthian (2009)
Javanese (2009)
Kaithi (2009)
Lisu (2009)
Meetei Mayek (2009)
Old South Arabian (2009)
Old Turkic (2009)
Samaritan (2009)
Tai Tham (2009)
Tai Viet (2009)
Batak (2010)
Brahmi (2010)
Mandaic (2010)
Chakma (2012)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:50
Meroitic Cursive (2012)
Meroitic Hieroglyphs (2012)
Miao (2012)
Sharada (2012)
Sora Sompeng (2012)
Takri (2012)
Bassa Vah (2014)
Caucasian Albanian (2014)
Duployan (2014)
Elbasan (2014)
Grantha (2014)
Khojki (2014)
Khudawadi (2014)
Linear A (2014)
Mahajani (2014)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:51
Manichaean (2014)
Mende Kikakui (2014)
Modi (2014)
Mro (2014)
Nabataean (2014)
Old North Arabian (2014)
Old Permic (2014)
Pahawh Hmong (2014)
Palmyrene (2014)
Pau Cin Hau (2014)
Psalter Pahlavi (2014)
Siddham (2014)
Tirhuta (2014)
Warang Citi (2014)
Ahom (2015)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:52
Anatolian Hieroglyphs (2015)
Hatran (2015)
Multani (2015)
Old Hungarian (2015)
SignWriting (2015)
Adlam (2016)
Bhaiksuki (2016)
Marchen (2016)
Newa (2016)
Osage (2016)
Tangut (2016)
Masaram Gondi (2017)
Nüshu (2017)
Soyombo (2017)
Zanabazar Square (2017)
Dogra (2018)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:53
Gunjala Gondi (2018)
Hanifi Rohingya (2018)
Makasar (2018)
Medefaidrin (2018)
Old Sogdian (2018)
Sogdian (2018)
Elymaic (2019)
Nandinagari (2019)
Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong (2019)
Wancho (2019)
Chorasmian (2020)
Dives Akuru (2020)
Khitan Small Script (2020)
Yezidi (2020)
...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 19:03
And the Unicode Consortium does not just wave a magic wand to add support for all these scripts. It takes a huge amount of hard work over many years by many experts from around the world to get them added to the Standard. And we're still working on it!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 19:48
In the last 10 years (since Unicode 6.0), Unicode has added a total of 36,563 new characters, of which fewer than 1,500 were encoded specifically as emoji. So in the grand scheme of things, emoji are not so important.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 19:56
And if it does sometimes seem that Unicode prioritises adding fun new emoji, that may just be because emoji don't need the years of detailed research and expert review that are required for characters which are used for writing real languages.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 22:42
Obviously the lost Rising Tone volume of the Tangut dictionary Sea of Writing 𘝞𗗚 (the level tone volume is almost completely preserved) twitter.com/Robin_C_Dougla…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 December 2020 at 17:20
Thanks to the encouragement of General Secretary Xi Jinping, a Yuan dynasty gold paizi with tiger ornamentation and an inscription in Phags-pa Mongolian was found near the Yellow River at Xiuma in Qinghai province this summer (秀麻元代八思巴蒙古文金虎符). epaper.gmw.cn/gmrb/html/2020…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 1 December 2020 at 17:30
The Mongolian inscription in Phags-pa script is identical to that on the Minusinsk and Nyuki paizi discovered in the 19th century and now held at the Hermitage Museum. But the Qinghai paizi differs in that it seems to be held in a framework sitting on a tiger.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 1 December 2020 at 17:39
Side A:
ꡏꡡꡃ ꡁ
ꡊꡠꡃ ꡘꡞ ꡗꡞꡋ ꡁꡟ ꡅꡟꡋ ꡊꡟꡘ
ꡢꡖꡋ ꡋꡦ ꡘꡦ ꡢꡟ ꡉꡟꡢ ꡉꡗꡞ
mong kha
deng ri yin khu chun dur
qa·n nė rė qu thuq thayi
By the strength of eternal Heaven. Let the name of the emperor be sacred.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 1 December 2020 at 17:40
Side B:
ꡎꡡꡙ ꡉꡟ ꡢꡗꡞ ꡁꡦꡋ ꡝꡦꡟ ꡙꡟ ꡎꡟ
ꡚꡞ ꡘꡦ ꡂꡟ ꡝꡙ ꡊ ꡢꡟ ꡝꡦꡟ ꡁꡟ ꡂꡟ
bol thu qayi khėn 'ėu lu bu
shi rė gu 'al da qu 'ėu khu gu
He who has no respect shall be guilty and die.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 December 2020 at 15:55
"I have included an image of the printed form of the incantation because many of these characters do not exist within modern computerized Chinese character sets." twitter.com/edwardW2/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 4 December 2020 at 15:56
A couple of the characters are unclear, but at least these are still missing from Unicode: ⿰口淨, ⿰口順, ⿰口壘, ⿰口霆, ⿰口役.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 6 December 2020 at 18:08
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 December 2020 at 15:19
BabelStone Han v. 13.0.9 with 2,184 additional CJK unified ideographs and 511 additional PUA characters is now available babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 December 2020 at 23:25
I needed to make a second release today of BabelStone Han PUA for this beauty! twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 11 December 2020 at 23:48
Just for fun ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 12 December 2020 at 14:32
Other interesting unencoded characters in Davis and Silsby's 1911 "Chinese-English pocket dictionary" pointed out to me by @LowRisingTone include ⿰魚脚 for "turtle", ⿱蛇魚 for "eel" and ⿳高𠆢土 for "pagoda".
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 12 December 2020 at 23:27
Another surprisingly unencoded character: ⿺鼠飛 = bat
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 12 December 2020 at 23:51
This one is more subtle
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 13 December 2020 at 00:47
⿰黑白 black + white = grey/ashen is another obvious one which you think should exist but isn't (yet) in Unicode.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 13 December 2020 at 00:52
But I think this (⿱⿰術攵魚) must just be a bizarre mistake for 鱉
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 16 December 2020 at 16:20
* before, during, and after twitter.com/stbridelibrary…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 16 December 2020 at 17:13
Ironically they were going to name 🫀 as simply HEART (anagram of EARTH ♁) until I complained and they changed the name to ANATOMICAL HEART unicode.org/L2/L2019/19273… twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 16 December 2020 at 21:24
Pottery sherds decorated all over with galloping horses from the remains of Xianbei 鮮卑 dwellings (c. 2nd/3rd century) excavated between August and October 2020 at the Xiao Huhegele (小呼和格勒) site in Horqin Left Middle Banner of Inner Mongolia kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 December 2020 at 13:04
7 brick tombs dating from Eastern Han to Tang dynasties were recently excavated at Lanshan County in Hunan. Two of the tombs, dating to E. Han and Sui, have date-imprinted bricks:
Han (left): 本初元年 Běnchū 1 [146]
Sui (right): 大業四年 Dàyè 4 [608]
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 December 2020 at 13:11
This follows on from the 2019 season when 47 tombs were excavated, several with Tang dynasty date-imprinted bricks twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 December 2020 at 15:57
Potential migration route of the Tanguts from their homeland (in modern Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan), in "Tangut as a West Gyalrongic language" by Yunfan Lai, @minus273cn, Jesse P. Gates, and Guillaume Jacques degruyter.tools/document/doi/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 19 December 2020 at 00:02
Spectral imaging of Mogaoku Cave 465 reveals the Sanskrit "Ye dharmā hetu" dhāraṇī stamped on paper as part of a consecration ritual for the ceiling paintings (dated as late Tangut or Yuan) nature.com/articles/s4159…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 19 December 2020 at 00:06
Transcription and palaeographic analysis of Sanskrit text static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 30 December 2020 at 14:27
A stone utensil engraved "made in the 3rd year of the Guānghé era (180 AD)" [of the Han dynasty] 光和三年造 is evidence that an imperial tomb site at Luòyáng is the Xuānlíng 宣陵 mausoleum of Emperor Huán of Eastern Han 漢桓帝 (reigned 146–168). kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 31 December 2020 at 14:31
My most treasured book acquisition this year was a rather nice copy of Edward Thwaites' 1698 edition of the Anglo-Saxon Heptateuch.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 31 December 2020 at 14:33
The Anglo-Saxon text is set in the "Pica Saxon" typeface cut for Franciscus Junius (1591–1677) in about 1655. After his death the Junius type was inherited by Oxford University, and it was used by the university press for typesetting Anglo-Saxon up to the end of the 18th century.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 31 December 2020 at 14:46
This edition of the Anglo-Saxon Heptateuch (the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges) translated by Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham, is based on Bodleian Library MS. Laud Misc. 509 medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manusc…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 31 December 2020 at 14:57
Another manuscript of Ælfric's translation (missing Judges) that is held at the British Library (Cotton MS Claudius B IV) is richly illustrated in colour throughout, and is available online bl.uk/manuscripts/Fu…
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 January 2021 at 21:52
They are not playing a game of dice babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2009/05/l… twitter.com/peterfrankopan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 January 2021 at 21:57
And the two players are wrongly positioned in the reconstructed scene (as is typically the case): they should face each other across the blank throwing board, with the actual liùbó 六博 board off to the side, as depicted in Han picture bricks babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2009/07/l…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 January 2021 at 19:52
A Sui dynasty (581-618) burial with an intricately carved marble bed coffin has recently been excavated at Anyang in Henan. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 January 2021 at 19:59
Some of the coloured sculptures and engravings of Buddhist figures and fantastical animals on the marble bed coffin.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 January 2021 at 20:07
A stone epitaph in the tomb informs us that the sleepers on this marble bed were an official called Qū Qìng 麴慶 (not otherwise known to history) and his wife, buried in the 10th year of the Kāihuáng era (590 CE).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 4 January 2021 at 20:20
Pottery figurines from the tomb
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 January 2021 at 20:28
Other finds from the tomb china.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202101/04/WS…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 January 2021 at 10:59
... played on a Go board twitter.com/mizabitha/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 January 2021 at 13:02
Four brick tombs for the famous Eastern Wu (Three Kingdoms) general Dīng Fèng 丁奉 (d. 271) and his family have been excavated in Nanjing at Mùfǔshān 幕府山 overlooking the Yangtze River kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 21 January 2021 at 13:12
Tomb M3 was identified as the joint tomb for Dīng Fèng 丁奉 and his wife (died 271 and 251 respectively) because of the presence of four brick land purchase certificates 砖地券 which give the names and dates.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 January 2021 at 13:18
The tombs have all been robbed, so there are no major finds, although a number of small items were overlooked by the tomb robbers
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 January 2021 at 15:35
In celebration of the Feast of St Agnes on this 21st day of the 21st year of the 21st century, here is an early 13th century painting of Saints Eugenia, Agnes, and Maria on the north wall of St Peter's Church at Farnborough in Hampshire babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 January 2021 at 12:11
The 9th-century Old Turkic book of divinations, Irk Bitig (𐰃𐰺𐰴 𐰋𐰃𐱅𐰃𐰏), comprises 65 divinations, each headed by three groups of between one and four circles representing the omen (𐰃𐰺𐰴) that is the subject of the divination (Omens 38 [3-1-4] and 39 [2-2-4] shown) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 January 2021 at 12:17
The circles represent the pips on a four-sided dice made from a rectangular piece of wood. This is just such a dice, which was found recently at an archeological site at Bügür (Luntai) County in Xinjiang (卓尔库特古城) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 January 2021 at 15:10
Busy morning in the snow!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 24 January 2021 at 15:24
Snow cat!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 January 2021 at 17:39
My favourite snow cows in the field behind our house
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 January 2021 at 14:15
"This device is necessary for such men of accompt as being diseased in marching in strange places and like to finde but homely lodging at night, ... I have sett doune this device which is as sufficient and soft as any fether bed can bee." twitter.com/RareYaleLaw/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 1 February 2021 at 09:51
The seal with a picture of a camel 🐫 has an inscription in Tibetan running along the bottom and right side which has been read as: དབོན་འ་ཞ་རྗེ་རྟགས dbon a zha rje rtags "seal of the nephew King A-zha". twitter.com/xujnx/status/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 1 February 2021 at 10:08
This is the seal (the final word, read as རྟགས rtags, looks to me like རྟག་ཏ rtag ta, perhaps equivalent to རྟགས་དམ rtags dam 'seal') kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 1 February 2021 at 10:15
The seal comes from an 8th-century royal tomb in Dulan, Qinghai (都兰热水2018血渭一号墓) which has been under excavation since 2018 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 February 2021 at 17:28
The 2nd with this title, but there have been almost annual Tangut workshops since 2013, so this is the 6th European meeting of Tangutologists after London (April 2013), Cambridge (September 2014), Hamburg (December 2015), London (February 2017), and Arras/Paris (November 2018). twitter.com/taichungpui/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 February 2021 at 18:51
I have attended four of these meetings (2013, 2014, 2015, 2018). I think that the only person to have attended all the Tangut meetings is @Romain_Tangoute who is co-organizing tomorrow's virtual meeting.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 February 2021 at 15:48
Noto Serif Tangut v. 2.168 with newly redesigned glyphs by Yang Xicheng 杨翕丞 supporting Unicode 13.0 additions and anticipated Unicode 14.0 glyph corrections has now been released github.com/googlefonts/no…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 February 2021 at 16:44
I've just updated my Today's Date in Tangut page so that you can specify the Tangut font and size babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Tangu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 17:55
This has been doing the rounds on twitter, and as many of the characters shown are rather familiar I thought I would check and see which are or are not available in BabelStone Han ... twitter.com/KhongBah_FISH/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 17:57
Row 1: 一三火木山川十日口二人
The very first hanzi/kanji that everyone learns as a toddler
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 17:59
Row 2: 長馬滴斥備臓鬱糖窒凸誕酬緻楷卍農鳥
Row 3: 嬬宍豁窪乍衵噺鯵犲罟礬癬孒夙嚠爨渠
Varying in complexity and strangeness, but all present in the basic CJK Unified Ideographs block, so nothing very unusual about any of these.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:03
Row 4: 厯怘沜獐甗瘒旾魗鼪鬜恧浘囙䠖孌
A little more obscure, but still all in the basic CJK Unified Ideographs block, except for one Ext. A character (䠖) which embarrassingly is not in the current release of BabelStone Han
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:22
Row 5: 鿗𦮙㐃𢎥𣻣鿦〇𰻞㔔〇〇𫟉鿚〇㔿𫝂𰍧𬻀𠁼㫄𫧇
Starting to get more interesting. Only 3 of these are from the basic CJK block, and they are Unicode 10.0 additions for Slavonic Christian transcription (鿗 represents Jesus). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_c…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:25
Of the other Row 5 characters, there are 4 from Ext-A, 4 from Ext. B, 2 from Ext. D, 1 from Ext. E, 1 from Ext. F, and 2 from Ext. G (all available in BabelStone Han).
The remaining four are unencoded characters (shown as 〇), but all are present in the BabelStone Han PUA.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:44
Row 6: 𢆂𫐞𪜀𫗄〇𱁬𫉕𰍡𰀀𬚩𫡃𭖈〇𫦿𫂲〇𫋩𫩿𰣻𪠹𫌥𬼄
Stranger and stranger. One unencoded character in BabelStone Han PUA (F6A8), and two complex characters which are probably unencoded but I cannot recognise.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:44
The remaining Row 6 characters are all in the SIP and TIP: 1 Ext. B, 8 Ext. C, 4 Ext. E. 2 Ext. F, and 4 Ext. G (BabelStone Han is missing 1 Ext. B and 6 Ext. C characters)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:55
Row 7: 〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇
These are all unencoded characters, the first 18 of which have been proposed for encoding as part of WS2017, which will probably hit the shelves as Ext. H in Unicode 15.0 unicode.org/L2/L2021/21023…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 19:02
10 of the 18 WS2017 characters in Row 7 are G-source Sawndip usage characters, and ten are V-source Chữ Nôm characters (⿱仍女 is both).
Although BabelStone Han includes PUA glyphs for some 1,500 WS2017 characters, it does not yet include any of the 18 shown in Row 7.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 19:06
The final two Row 7 characters (⿰何雷 and ⿱晚飯) are unknown to me and not yet in my font. The meaning of 2nd one is obvious, but I'm not sure about the first one.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 19:16
Row 8: 〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇
The final row finds us back on more comfortable ground. All are unencoded characters, but half of them are hybrid kanj-kana-romaji-hangul characters that are present in BabelStone Han PUA. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 19:47
At least one of the remaining nine Row 8 characters is a Sawndip character used for writing Zhuang. But I leave it as an exercise for my learned readers to identify the others.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 February 2021 at 13:00
Some hanzi/kanji are not easy to find in a dictionary. 㔿 (which you may have seen in yesterday's thread) is one of the worst. I couldn't remember it's reading and it took me half an hour of searching before I found it hidden under Kangxi radical 26 卩 in the Unicode charts!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 March 2021 at 15:10
First draft of CJK Ext. H posted at appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg56… -- expected to be included in Unicode 15.0 in 2022 (code points are not yet stable!)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 March 2021 at 15:15
My draft Ext. H font currently covers 1,306 of the 4,205 characters
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 March 2021 at 01:00
I'm pleased to note that the two unencoded characters in this image (hyen and khya) are both included in CJK Ext. H coming to Unicode 15.0 next year. twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 6 March 2021 at 00:41
Let's play "Spot the CJK Extension H character" ... anyone? twitter.com/incunabula/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 March 2021 at 17:48
I was thinking of ⿰礻兾 in the date (1st year of Jǐngdìng era = 1260 AD) which looks like a vulgar simplification of 𬓝 (⿰礻翼) which is presumably a variant of 禩 sì which is a variant of 祀 sì meaning 'year'. But the Ext. H character (T13-3A21) is slightly different.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 16:06
New release of BabelStone Han (babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html) with 1,028 additional characters. I have added 5,169 CJK unified ideographs and 1,520 PUA characters to the font since the first release for Unicode 13.0 in November 2019.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 16:12
BabelStone Han now covers 45,745 of the 92,856 CJK unified ideographs defined in Unicode version 13.0, which is only 683 short of 50%. I should be able to exceed 50% by the time Unicode 14.0 is released in September this year ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 16:22
... but then another ~4,200 characters will be added to Unicode 15.0 next year as CJK Extension H, which will continue to keep me busy!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 March 2021 at 17:17
The fourth in David Helliwell's series of blog posts on the Yǒnglè Dàdiǎn 永樂大典 serica.blog/2021/03/18/yon… discusses the two volumes that were sold at auction in Paris last year.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 31 March 2021 at 10:53
A huge nine-sided well (4.5m wide and 9m deep) with 38 layers of wooden supporting beams, dating to the late Warring States to early Western Han (over 2,000 years bp), has been excavated at Yángquán in Shānxī. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 31 March 2021 at 10:55
The well is located 570m north of the northern wall of the Warring States site at Píngtǎnnǎo (平坦堖戰國古城遺址).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 31 March 2021 at 11:21
A bronze yǎn 甗 vessel from Tomb M3 at the Běibái'é burial site at Yuánqū county in Shānxī has a short inscription (虢季為匽姬媵甗 永寶用享) which indicates that it was made as part of the dowry for a marriage between the states of Guo 虢 and Yan 燕. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 12 April 2021 at 12:26
My complete set of 《古本戲曲叢刊四集》[17函180册] (中華書局, 1958年) and four parts of 《古本戲曲叢刊九集》[8函42册] (中華書局, 1964年) which were given to me by the late lamented Prof. Hugh Stimson (1931–2011) when I was at Yale University in the mid 1990s ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 12 April 2021 at 12:43
... now all packaged up and ready to go to its new home at the Institut für Sinologie - LMU München !
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 12 April 2021 at 12:52
The 4th series of early Chinese drama was edited by Zhèng Zhènduó 鄭振鐸 (1898–1958) who tragically died in a plane crash just before publication. His draft for a preface hurriedly written the day before he boarded the ill-fated airplane is reproduced in the first fascicle.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 April 2021 at 13:52
I'm down-sizing my library, and am looking for new homes for a number of my Chinese books. If you're interested in anything then please email me. babelstone.co.uk/Books/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 18 April 2021 at 15:57
Spring walk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 25 April 2021 at 13:03
This "seal" with the Tangut character 𗡞 'thousand' used to be in the collection of Luó Zhènyù 羅振玉 (1866–1940) but is now lost. 1/2
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 25 April 2021 at 13:11
2/2 Recently a similar piece with the character 𘊝 'hundred' was reported to have been unearthed in Kyrgyzstan (zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…). This and the 'thousand' piece are obviously not seals (the characters are not mirrored). Maybe gaming counters?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 May 2021 at 00:38
Mt. Wutai probably does not refer to the famous sacred mountain in Shanxi, but to a Buddhist temple complex with the same name which was built by the Tangut emperors in the Helan mountains, close to the Western Xia capital (modern Yinchuan) ... twitter.com/women_1000/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 May 2021 at 00:49
On these two Qing dynasty versions of the Western Xia Topographic Map (西夏地形圖) the "Temple of Mt. Wutai" (五臺山寺 = 𗉨𗔕𘑗𘜸) is clearly marked in the Helan mountains (賀蘭山 = 𗲡𗝢𘑗)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 13:03
Submissions for IRG Working Set 2021 #WS2021 are now available appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg56…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 13:04
WS2021 is targetted to become CJK Ext. I in about 5 years from now (WS2015 = Ext. G in 2020; WS2017 = Ext. H in 2022)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 13:13
There are 4,952 submitted characters from seven IRG member bodies:
China: 1,223
ROK: 191
SAT: 383
TCA: 1,000
UK: 1,000
UTC: 153
Vietnam: 1,002
Preliminary IDS data: babelstone.co.uk/CJK/IDS_2021_R…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 14:01
Preliminary analysis suggests that there are a total of 4,850 separate characters in the combined WS2021 submissions babelstone.co.uk/CJK/IDS_2021.T…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 14:17
Over a quarter of the characters in WS2021 (at least 1,294 of 4,850 characters) are already available in my BabelStone Han PUA font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 15:34
I have already found about 50 duplicates of existing encoded characters or Ext. H characters (China ~31, SAT ~16), which brings the total count down to about 4,800.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 13 May 2021 at 12:05
The tombs of the Ming dynasty Prince Zhū Zhīyáng 朱知烊 (晉端王, 1489–1533) and his wives have been excavated near Taiyuan in Shanxi kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210… (entrance to the tomb of the prince's beloved concubine Madam Yuàn 院氏 shown)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 May 2021 at 16:31
The IRG #WS2021 review tool by @henryfhchan is now up and running hc.jsecs.org/irg/ws2021/app/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 May 2021 at 18:44
U+4748 䝈 is an unholy alliance between the correct glyph form (⿰豕厄) with a Taiwan source and a corrupt glyph form (⿰豕卮) with a China source. Currently no way of transcribing the two 漢語大字典 entries shown with a single font. It is a bad unification.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2
Friday, 21 May 2021 at 14:55
Left: U+2B8D9 and U+2B8DA from Unicode 8.0 to Unicode 12.1 (2015-2019)
Right: U+2B8D9 and U+2B8DA in Unicode 13.0 (2020), font silently changed by Vietnam
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 21 May 2021 at 15:25
Unfortunately not an isolated incident. There are at least a dozen Vietnam characters which were silently corrected between Unicode versions 10 and 11 or between versions 11 and 12. But this is a particularly egregious and destabilizing change.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 22 May 2021 at 11:02
Notice how the two characters are still indexed as "人 9.12" (i.e. 人 radical with 12 residual strokes) even though neither character includes a 人 component any longer, and the total stroke count has been reduced by two.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 22 May 2021 at 11:08
Another example, U+2C0B8, showing Unicode 12.1 form on the left and Unicode 13.0 form on the right, but the residual stroke count is the same even though the new version has one stroke more.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 23 May 2021 at 16:31
I have 58 issues of the journal Wénwù 文物 Cultural Relics covering 2005-2009 (missing 2005-11 and 2007-12) looking for a new home. If interested please contact me.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 May 2021 at 18:54
The latest release of my BabelStone Han font finally hits the 50% milestone with coverage of 46,512 of the 92,856 CJK unified ideographs included in Unicode 13.0. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 May 2021 at 19:14
With ~4,200 characters being added as CJK Extension H in Unicode 15.0, and up to 4,800 characters in Extension I a few years later it will be a struggle just to maintain 50%
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 at 11:45
Excavations have started at the site of the State of Song (1046-286 BCE) capital at Shangqiu in Henan (商丘宋国故城) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210… Archaeologists hope to not only reveal the outlines of the Song city, but also uncover evidence of Shang or even pre-Shang settlements.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 16:56
Yesterday Vladimir Belyaev presented a report at the XXI All-Russian Numismatic Conference on two groups of bronze coin-like charms with possible Khitan Large Script inscriptions which were separately found in Kyrgyzstan in the autumn of 2020.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 16:59
В.А. Беляев и С.В. Сидорович «Недавние находки амулетов с легендой большим киданьским письмом» (to be published in pp. 110–112 of the proceedings of the conference) tvermuzeum.ru/news/xxi-vsero…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 17:12
In October 2020 a group of ten bronze charms were found in a mountainous area of Kyrgyzstan, all with the same obverse inscription of 7 characters, and two with an inscription of 5 characters on the reverse.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 17:21
A bronze charm with the same obverse legend, but missing a large chunk, was previously found in the Namangan region of Uzbekistan in April 2004 zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 17:25
And a complete but less clear example, with some small differences in the legend, was discovered in the Altay Prefecture of northern Xinjiang zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 17:47
It is probable that all these pieces were issued by the Qara Khitai (aka Western Liao) regime which ruled over this area of Central Asia from 1124 to 1218, and the legend is written in the Khitan Large Script.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 19:06
The inscription on the obverse is not entirely clear, but the five characters of the reverse inscription can be identified as Khitan Large Script with reasonable certainty. I hope to discuss the inscriptions in detail in a future babelstone blog post.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 19:19
Also found in autumn 2020 in a mountainous area of Kyrgyzstan, near Bishkek, was a group of 8 bronze coin-like charms with the same four-character inscription on the reverse. The characters may be Khitan Large Script, but they are not so easy to identify.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 28 May 2021 at 14:40
The stone epitaph in Chinese for Murong Zhi 慕容智 (d. 691), 3rd son of last khan of the Tuyuhun 吐谷渾 kingdom, has an inscription on its edge in an unknown script, possibly the first known example of the written Tuyuhun language! m.weibo.cn/status/4641792…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 28 May 2021 at 14:42
The well-preserved tomb of Murong Zhi 慕容智 was discovered in Gansu on 25 September 2019 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 28 May 2021 at 14:45
This is the stone cover for the epitaph, inscribed "大周故慕容府君墓誌" = "Tomb epitaph for the deceased Lord Murong of the Great Zhou" (Great Zhou refers to the short-lived Zhou dynasty 690–705 established by Empress Wu Zetian).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 28 May 2021 at 15:16
According to Alexander Vovin the Tuyuhun language is a Para-Mongolic language related to Mongolian and Khitan, and so there may be a relationship between the script seen on Murong Zhi's epitaph and the Khitan Large Script.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 May 2021 at 11:44
慶祝建設東亞新秩序 twitter.com/tongbingxue/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 30 May 2021 at 17:01
I've now created a rough font for the supposed Tuyuhun characters on the side of the epitaph for Murong Zhi (650–691) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Tuyuhun.…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 1 June 2021 at 22:35
For more information on the Tuyuhun please read the excellent study by @EscherJulia on the epitaphs for two Tang princesses who married into the Tuyuhun royal family, Princesses Honghua and Jincheng, mother and sister-in-law respectively of Murong Zhi zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/1816…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 June 2021 at 15:09
Can anyone fill in the blanks?
夏□□等无
□□□龍樹
菩薩偈
若自口經誦
本分名誦百
洛叉經者
大乘起信論
□□□ twitter.com/NMnewdelhi/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 June 2021 at 20:12
Final reading thanks to @bryandaniellowe @xwen0113 @schrift_sprache
真如彼等无
[别]異故龍樹
[菩]薩偈云
若自口經誦
本分名誦百
洛叉經者
大乘起信論
立義中
*彼 is an error for 平 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 11:58
The epitaph for the Tuyuhun prince Mùróng Zhì 慕容智 (650–691) discovered in his tomb in Gansu which was excavated in 2019
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:04
Transcription:
大周故雲麾將軍守左玉鈐衛大將軍員外置喜王慕
容府君墓誌銘並序 王諱智字哲陰山人拔勤豆
可汗第三子也原夫圓穹寫象珠昴為夷落之墟方
礴凝形玉塞列藩維之固其有守中外沐淳和貴詩
書踐仁義則王家之生常矣廓青海凈湟川率荒陬
1/4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:05
欵缶朔則主家之積習矣故能爪牙上國跨躡邊亭
控長河以為防居盤石而作固靈源茂緒可略言焉
祖麗杜吐渾可汗父諾曷鉢尚大長公主駙馬都尉
跋勤豆可汗王以龜組榮班魚軒懿戚出楤戎律敷
德化以調人入奉 皇猷耿忠貞而事□主有□制
2/4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:11
曰慕容智鮮山貴族昂城豪望材略有聞宜加戎職
可左領軍將軍俄加雲麾將軍守左玉鈐衛大將軍
望重邊亭譽隆藩邦西園清夜敬愛忘疲東閣芳晨言
談莫倦誠可長隆顯秩永奉 宸居豈謂齊桓之痾
先侵骨髓晉景之瘵已入膏肓𠀑𥠢二𠡦三囝二𡆠
(天授二年三月二日)
3/4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:11
薨於靈府之官舍春秋卌有二即其𠡦九囝五𡆠󠄁遷
葬於大可汗陵禮也上懸烏兔下臨城闕草露朝清
松風夜發泣峴山之淚隋悲隴水之聲咽嗚哀哉乃
為銘曰 丹烏迅速白兔蒼茫兩楹流奠二鑒經殃
崩城慟哭變竹悲傷一銘翠琰埊久𠀑長
(地久天長)
4/4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:18
The epitaph uses the Wǔ Zétiān complified forms of the characters 天, 授, 年, 月, 日, and 地, but the form for 天 is very different from the 'standard' Zétiān character used above, and does not seem to be in Unicode.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:20
The Zétiān character for 年 is also rather different to the standard form (similar to U+E5E8 in BabelStone Han PUA), and the characters for 日 and 月 should be circled rather than 𡆠󠄁 and 囝 used above.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:21
All in all it seems to be impossible to correctly transcribe inscriptions using Zétiān characters with Unicode at present, which is very disappointing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:22
See this thread for the Chinese epitaph inscription for Mùróng Zhì 慕容智 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:41
The circled 乙 form for 日 has recently been proposed for encoding hc.jsecs.org/irg/ws2021/app…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 23:44
The epitaph for his mother, Princess Hónghuà (弘化公主), has 𠦚 for 年, and 𠥱 for 月
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 22 June 2021 at 09:15
You can share a Coke with China, Taiwan or Hong Kong, but not with Tibet or Xinjiang, although you can with "Tibet & Xinjiang" us.coca-cola.com/store/personal…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 22 June 2021 at 09:27
You can't have "Free Tibet" but you can have "Free Tibet!" -- the guy in charge of censorship needs firing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 June 2021 at 19:24
Tile talisman from a Ming dynasty tomb of 1612:
勑令：神符随墓，亡者安寧
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 6 July 2021 at 16:23
The Mongolian version seems to be lost in translation ... twitter.com/JingzhouTao/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 July 2021 at 22:54
ΧΡΙ ⇒ XPI ⇒ ΧΠΙ twitter.com/Sonja_Drimmer/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 July 2021 at 08:52
𱁬 in the wild twitter.com/yamada_theta/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 July 2021 at 01:41
Two painted figures of mice on the lid of an ancient Egyptian limestone box from Tomb 67 at Abydos, inside of which are two compartments containing mummified mice (on display at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London) 🐁🐁
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 10 July 2021 at 01:42
Posted in response to Ancient Egyptian jerboa figurines twitter.com/AlisonFisk/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 July 2021 at 01:43
and Ancient Egyptian hedgehogs twitter.com/GrecianGirly/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 July 2021 at 09:47
I feel stupid for not knowing, but what's up with the V of MORIDVNVM ? twitter.com/HawkeJon/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 15 July 2021 at 10:08
Sorry for not being clear in my question. I mean why has the first V got a flourish on it?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 15 July 2021 at 10:54
Many thanks to everyone who explained that it is an apex sign marking a long vowel. The apex is normally written like a thin acute accent, so it would still be interesting to know what the model for the ligatured sideways-u form of the sign used on this inscription was.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 July 2021 at 11:11
Sorry, another ambiguous tweet! I meant what was the model for the form of V+apex used on the modern Amphitheatre Moridvnvm inscription? (the image of the Roman inscription from Nîmes in the previous tweet shows the typical slanted form of the apex sign)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 16 July 2021 at 11:11
Jurchen, Khitan Large Script, Khitan Small Script, Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 16 July 2021 at 14:30
Just look at the body language of Mr and Mrs Khitan -- turned away from each other, and refusing to even acknowledge the existence of the other!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 21 July 2021 at 19:56
#二简字 𰅊=量 𰋙=具 𰆊=部 twitter.com/tsmullaney/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 23 July 2021 at 23:36
Not Ogham, but I think a form of Cistercian numerals (unicode.org/L2/L2020/20290…). The 1st image can be read as 428, and the 3rd (T) as 11; the two examples on the 2nd image are less obvious (the small one could be 447). twitter.com/AlicjaBielak/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 July 2021 at 17:03
A pleasing addition to my Tangut library, Georges Morisse's "Contribution préliminaire à l’étude de l’écriture et de la langue Si-hia" (1904) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 26 July 2021 at 17:09
... in which he makes a ground-breaking study of the gold-inked manuscript of the Tangut translation of the Lotus Sutra that he had found in 1900 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 July 2021 at 17:16
This plate shows his decipherment of the first three pages of the first volume of the Tangut Lotus Sutra, which was enormously important in the early history of the decipherment of the Tangut script
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 July 2021 at 17:20
I finally managed to acquire a copy of Georges Morisses's seminal 1904 study of the Tangut Lotus Sutra twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 31 July 2021 at 10:50
Wow, Prof. Shǐ Jīnbō 史金波 is looking good at the age of 81 😅 twitter.com/Brill_Asian/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 August 2021 at 10:42
@LymingeDig Two years later twitter.com/DrFrancisYoung…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 August 2021 at 21:05
Note the 'x' rune in the 2nd column which is the same as the new Anglo-Saxon runic vowel letter used three times in the recently discovered Baconsthorpe runic inscription arild-hauge.com/PDF/Baconsthor… twitter.com/schrift_sprach…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 21 August 2021 at 21:20
ᚱᛖᛞ᛭ᛋᛖᚦᛖᚳᛁᚾᚾᛖᛒ᛭ᚨᚢᚦᚪᛋᚱᚢᚾ᛭ᚪᚹᚱᚪᛏ
(using ᛭ to represent the new rune)
redę se þe cuinne bęæu þas runę awrat
Read whoso may, Bēaw inscribed these runes.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 August 2021 at 21:22
This new Anglo-Saxon runic letter is also discussed by Gaby Waxenberger degruyter.com/document/doi/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 22 August 2021 at 00:16
ḥur lwātēh sabbar bēh ܚܘܪ ܠܘܬܗ ܣܒܪܘ ܒܗ
Look ye unto it and hope in it [the triumphal cross]
—— Pier Giorgio Borbone, "A “Nestorian” Mirror from Inner Mongolia" academia.edu/42689448/A_Nes… twitter.com/xujnx/status/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 24 August 2021 at 08:31
New nine-volume Dictionary of Tangut (covering secular texts) 《西夏文词典（世俗文献部分）》 by Hán Xiǎománg 韓小忙 just published. ISBN 978-7-5203-8011-9
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 1 September 2021 at 10:09
Two Eastern Jin (266–420) date-imprinted tomb bricks from the Huángnítáng tomb site (黄泥塘墓群) near Chēnzhōu in Húnán (kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…):
Yǒnghé 3 永和三年七月十日造 [347] (M8)
Yìxī 10 義熙十年 [414] (M9, no image available)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 September 2021 at 21:32
A 'sacred bronze tree' 青铜神树 which was discovered in the #3 sacrificial pit at Sānxīngduī 三星堆遗址3号祭祀坑 in March 2021 was lifted out on July 15 after 4 months of careful excavation weibo.com/tv/show/1034:4…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 September 2021 at 21:36
The tree appears to be very similar to a badly-damaged and incomplete bronze tree (2号青铜神) which was discovered in the #2 sacrificial pit at Sānxīngduī in 1986; it is even possible that they are parts of the same tree. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 September 2021 at 21:52
On 23 August four brick tombs dating to the late Liao dynasty (916–1125) were uncovered during housing construction at Gù'ān county in Héběi province (河北省固安县). kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 7 September 2021 at 21:57
A few murals were preserved in one of the tombs. In addition, a stone dharani pillar and [one or more] stone tomb epitaphs were also recovered from the tombs. (I am waiting for images and more information on the epitaphs and dharani pillar).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 8 September 2021 at 22:41
More pictures of the murals preserved in tomb M4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 September 2021 at 23:24
A picture of two octagonal stone dharani pillars (and several bases and covers) at the site. The shorter pillar on the left appears to have relief sculptures on four faces. The designation M2JC6 (2号墓6号经幢) painted on its base suggests that as many as six were found.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 10 September 2021 at 23:51
I like octagonal structures, so here are two large octagonal platforms from recent archaeological excavations in Mongolia (left, 7th century) and Heilongjiang in China (right, 12th century). I wonder what they were used for, and why the octagonal shape was chosen?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 10 September 2021 at 23:52
Octagonal platform on the left is at the Shiveet Ulaan archaeological complex in Bayan-Agt county, Bulgan province, Mongolia, perhaps constructed by the Uighur rulers of the Toquz Oghuz tribal confederation in 667-691 twitter.com/csen_nomads/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 10 September 2021 at 23:56
Octagonal platform on the right (5.8-5.9 metres in diameter) is from the Jin dynasty (1115-1234) Upper Capital 金上京 at Acheng in Heilongjiang kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 00:02
I've just released BabelStone Han version 14 covering 47,395 CJK unified ideographs, including the 9 additional CJK unified ideographs added in Unicode 14.0 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 19:42
I have just released BabelMap version 14 which now supports polychromatic glyphs with COLR/CPAL format fonts such as Microsoft's Segoe UI Emoji font (caveats discussed below) babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 20:19
Note that colour glyphs are only shown in the edit buffer when in "simple rendering" mode. The default mode uses standard Windows rendering (Uniscribe API) which does not support polychromatic glyphs.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 20:26
At present, colour emoji sequences are not supported in the edit buffer, e.g. 👩🏼❤️💋👨🏾 which comprises a sequence of ten code points (1F469 1F3FC 200D 2764 FE0F 200D 1F48B 200D 1F468 1F3FE) renders as a single b/w glyph by default, but as a sequence of unjoined glyphs in simple mode.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 20:30
The Emoji Lookup tool does support simple colour emoji sequences, such as "woman health worker" 👩🏽⚕️ which comprises a sequence of five code points (1F469 1F3FD 200D 2696 FE0F) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 20:31
... but at present does not correctly render some colour emoji sequences where the final glyph is created by complex substitution and positioning of multiple component glyphs in the font.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 September 2021 at 11:12
It is being discussed on a public mailing list hosted by the Unicode Consortium. The question of whether Klingon should be encoded is most definitely *not* being debated by the Unicode Consortium or the Unicode Technical Committee. #FakeNews twitter.com/Cor3ntin/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 17:20
Probably the most sensible suggestion for Japanese script reform that I have seen twitter.com/JPRidgeway/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 21:42
"horses' skulls were often laid in rows under choir stalls in churches" twitter.com/BungayMuseum/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 September 2021 at 18:56
Handwörterbuch des Altuigurischen [Concise Dictionary of Old Uyghur] by Jens Wilkens is available for free download univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/handle/3/isbn-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 12 October 2021 at 09:39
Another date-imprinted tomb brick, this one from an Eastern Han tomb excavated at Áoquánzhèn 敖泉镇 in Guìyáng 桂阳 county of Húnán kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20211…
Yǒngchū 4 永初四年九月 [110] (M3)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 12 October 2021 at 09:51
All the tombs in this thread are situated in the same area of southern Húnán. Áoquánzhèn 敖泉镇 is about 50km SW of Huángnítáng 黄泥塘 (previous tweet) and 70km NE of Tǎfēngzhèn 塔峰镇 (first tweet).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 12 October 2021 at 10:02
Is the use of date-imprinted tomb bricks a local tradition that lasted from Eastern Han through to the early Tang dynasty (bricks dated 永初四年 [110], 本初元年 [146], 永和三年 [347], 義熙十年 [414], 大業四年 608], 武德元年 [618], 貞觀元年 [627], 永昌元年 [689]) ?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 12 October 2021 at 10:03
I guess that date-imprinted tomb bricks must be found in Han~Tang tombs elsewhere in China, but all the recent archaeological reports mentioning them come from this one small area of Húnán.
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 4 January 2022 at 12:14
Latest news from the tomb of the Marquis of Haihun 海昏侯 (Liú Hè 劉賀, ephemeral Han emperor in 74 BCE) is the identification of an imperial edict written on 10 whole and 16 fragmentary wooden tablets in a lacquer box found in a side chamber 1/3 kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20211…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
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
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Friday, 25 February 2022 at 22:34
... and hànzì versions
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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.
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 15:48
View from the house
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 16:07
And this on p. 6 of the same book.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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, ...
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 26 May 2022 at 16:16
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 21:47
Some fascinating finds have been made
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 21:49
Bronze staff head with three women carrying water pots on their back
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 21:51
One of a set of bronze bells (编钟)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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…
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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?
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 29 August 2022 at 11:39
Prepared for being lifted news.haiwainet.cn/n/2022/0826/c3…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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…
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Saturday, 10 September 2022 at 15:31
Of course, colour rendering can be turned off if desired
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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.
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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...
tripitaka.cbeta.org/T10n0293_040
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Thursday, 27 October 2022 at 12:43
Closeups of the characters 樂 and 如
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Thursday, 27 October 2022 at 17:29
I never did get to Dunhuang, but the place in my secret heart was Khara-Khoto (黑水城), which I did manage to visit in August 2016 twitter.com/i/events/79780…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 1 December 2022 at 13:13
A store of 1.5 tonnes of Song dynasty (and some Tang dynasty) coins has been uncovered at Jiànhú County 建湖县 in Jiāngsū kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20221…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 2 December 2022 at 16:47
Arrived today, "A guide to the Tangut script and language" 西夏文字和语言研究导论 (上海古籍出版社, 2021年 ISBN 978-7-5732-0216-1) by Prof. Niè Hóngyīn 聂鸿音
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 January 2023 at 11:28
Сыгә бифон = 四个比方
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 23 January 2023 at 16:45
A very interesting discovery: fragments of five marble slips from a so-called 'jade book' 玉册 were recently unearthed from a Jin dynasty (1115–1234) archaeological site in Beijing kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20230…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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…
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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…
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 17:48
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 17:50
Close up view of the mural of showing the wéiqí board
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 17:52
The calligraphic inscriptions in Tomb M4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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)
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 3 April 2023 at 12:37
Drawing of the axe showing the design more clearly
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:23
So who can read Tangut manuscripts? ... hmm, sounds almost plausible
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Monday, 17 April 2023 at 12:50
The Tangut novel is written by Mimi the cat ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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…)
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Tuesday, 20 June 2023 at 23:13
A section of the scuplture being cleaned
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 1 July 2023 at 13:26
Tangut of course
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Wednesday, 12 July 2023 at 11:58
Download links:
twitter.com/CelPhineas/status/1678744984869040128
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Wednesday, 19 July 2023 at 21:03
This shows how the correspondence between the Tangut and Chinese versions
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
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
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 23 July 2023 at 18:45
There is very little information on cats in Tangut literature, other than the dictionary definition that 'cats are catchers of mice' (𗺱𗯹𗇋𘟂), and the strange equation of cats (𗉟𘁑 ꞏa¹ mbi̯oɯ¹) with '𗇟𗲾' khə² swen¹ which the modern dictionaries gloss as macaques or gibbons.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 23 July 2023 at 19:39
Cats occur in this recipe for plasters for post-moxibustion sores [IOM Inv. No. 2630]
𗸴𗇸𗩁𗐲𗳀，
𗴲𗇸𗔔𘁝𘏚，
𘌞𗸵𗐲𗳀𗆧，
𗈋𗇸𗫾𘍎𗁲。
In Springtime [use] willow catkins,
In Summertime [use] inside of bamboo,
In Autumn [use] new floss,
In Wintertime [use] rabbit hair.
1/2
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Previous in Thread | Next in Thread
Sunday, 23 July 2023 at 19:47
𘌽𗫂𗫾𘍎𗏜𗀔𗭮𘟔𗫂𘟂，
𘁑𗏜𗀔𗭮𘟔𘂆𘍳𘄽。
This is the soft down from the belly of a rabbit; soft down from the belly of a cat is especially good.
2/2
That's all I know about Tangut cats 🐈
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 23 July 2023 at 20:07
A final note. Tangut sources give two words for 'cat', both apparently derived from Chinese:
𗉟𘁑 ꞏa¹ mbi̯oɯ¹ from 阿貓 āmāo
𘁑𗄋 mbi̯oɯ¹ źi̯e¹ from 貓兒 māo'ér
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
Annual Archive Pages
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023