Phonological Features of Yuan Colloquial Chinese as Seen in Rashid al-Din's History of China

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-40
Author(s):  
Zhongwei Shen
Keyword(s):  
Proper Names ◽  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Phonetic Transcription ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
Phonological Categories ◽  
History Of ◽  
Phonological Contrasts ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Phonological System

Rashid al-Din (1247-1318)'s History of China, written in Persian, contains the names of the dynasties, and of kings and emperors, from prehistoric legends up to the Yuan dynasty. The phonetic transcription of these proper names is an important piece of information for us to understand the Chinese phonology of the Yuan dynasty. in order to correctly understand the phonological features of old Mandarin the possible phonological contrasts that can be represented in the Persian script are examined. it is shown that the Persian transcriptions did not create new letters for Chinese sounds. Thus all the phonological categories of Chinese are only represented by the available Persian letters. After analyzing these transcriptions, this article shows that although many phonological distinctions of old Mandarin are not very well represented in this material, there are enough phonological features to identify the underlying phonological system, which is unambiguously Mandarin.

Wang Guowei and the Establishment of Chinese Drama in the Modern Canon of Classical Literature

T oung Pao ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-201
Author(s):  
Regina Llamas
Keyword(s):  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Universal Standard

AbstractThis essay examines the process by which Wang Guowei placed Chinese dramatic history into the modern Chinese literary canon. It explores how Wang formed his ideas on literature, drawing on Western aesthetics to explain, through the notions of leisure and play, the impetus for art creation, and on the Chinese notions of the genesis of literature to explain the psychology of literary creation. In order to establish the literary value of Chinese drama, Wang applied these ideas to the first playwrights of the Yuan dynasty, arguing that theirs was a literature created under the right aesthetic and creative circumstances, and that it embodied the value of "naturalness" which he considered a universal standard for good literature. By producing a scholarly critical history of the origins and nature of Chinese drama, Wang placed drama on a par with other literary genres of past dynasties, thus giving it a renewed status and creating at the same time a new discipline of research. Drama had now become an established literary genre.

scholarly journals Conditions For The Formation Of Ming Romans

2020 ◽  
Vol 02 (10) ◽  
pp. 440-444
Author(s):  
Samida Toshmukhammedovna Mustafaeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Ming Dynasty ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Literature ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Folk Poetry ◽  
Artistic Skill

The Ming period is recognized as a period that introduced a new genre to Chinese literature, especially Chinese prose. During this period, novels from the masterpieces of Chinese literature saw the light of day. They are a valuable source for the study of Chinese literary language, as well as providing valuable information on the plot, historical facts, and the Darwin. In particular, the novel "Three Kingdoms", created in the Ming period, has a large volume and a plot rich in sharp turns, the events of the novel are based on the collapse of the Eastern Khanate, in general, various contradictions in public administration, political, military and foreign relations. The diversity in the author’s depiction of contradictions and struggles, the uniqueness in the depiction of each event, demonstrates the writer’s unparalleled artistic skill. In contrast to the "Three Kingdoms", the plot of “Water Margins” is based on the peasant uprisings and struggles; the play depicts the emergence, development and decline of the peasant uprising. The play praises a number of rebellious heroes, most of the protagonists of the work are extremely vivid, and their character is clearly described. The influence of the successful creation of the novels “Three Kingdoms” and “Water Margins” on the creation of historical and heroic novels of the next period is incomparable. The first phase of the Ming period was a turning point in the history of literature. With the end of the Yuan Dynasty (元朝 Yuán cháo 1206-1368) and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, no other significant works were created during this period, except for two major novels, the Three Kingdoms (《三国演义》) and the River Basins (《水浒传》). It was not until 1465 that there was a renewal in drama and folk poetry.

scholarly journals The Eastern Sea Route as Depicted in a Chinese Historical Geographical Description of Foreign Lands of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) Daoyi zhilüe (“A Brief Description of the Island Barbarians”, 1349/1350): Chapters 1–4, Translation with Commentary

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 1145-1165
Author(s):  
Ilia S. Kolnin
Keyword(s):  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Similar Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Penghu Islands ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty

This article is the first in the series of planned publications with translations of separate chapters from a Chinese historical-geographical description of foreign lands Daoyi zhilüe (“A Brief Description of Island Barbarians”, 1349/1350) written during the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). The first four chapters of the treatise which describe policies on the eastern sea route from China are included in this work. The article offers the first translation of these chapters into Russian, accompanied by detailed historical commentary. Apart from that, in the research part of the article the author has briefly analyzed the order of the chapters in the treatise and compared it with the previous sources of similar nature. The translations are an important source for studying various aspects of the history of the Penghu islands, Taiwan and the Philippines in the 14th century AD.

scholarly journals Medieval Mirrors from the Collection of Altai State Museum of Local Lore.

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-242
Author(s):  
Seregin N. ◽  
◽  
Narudtseva E. ◽  
Chistyakova A. ◽  
Radovsky S. ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
State University ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Rare Type ◽  
State Museum ◽  
Small Collection ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty

The article presents the characteristic of medieval metal mirrors in the collection of the Altai State Museum of Local Lore (Barnaul). The analysis of three items (two fragments and one complete product) has been carried out. The authors reviewed the history of the formation of this small collection, and also provided a detailed description of each mirror. It has been established that the find from the Kirillovka-V complex is a part of an eight-bladed artifact, which, judging by the recorded characteristics, is an original Chinese mirror of the late Tang time. The fragment discovered during the excavations of the Khoroshonok-I necropolis has no analogies in the sites of North and Central Asia. The dating of both designated objects is determined by the last centuries of the 1st millennium AD. The third mirror was made during the Yuan Dynasty and belongs to a very rare type of product. The analysis of the considered group of objects from the Altai State Museum of Local Lore collection demonstrates a significant informational potential for further study of metal mirrors from museum collections, some of which have not yet been published and are not included in the context of modern research. Keywords: metal mirrors, Middle Ages, museum, Altai, archaeological sites, China, chronology Acknowledgements: The study was carried out within the framework of the state assignment of the Altai State University, project No. 748715Ф.99.1. ББ97АА00002 “The Turkic-Mongolian World of the “Great Altai”: Unity and Diversity in History and Modernity”.

scholarly journals Yuan time metal mirror from the collection of the Altai State Museum of Local Lore

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-49
Author(s):  
N.N. Seregin ◽  
E.A. Narudtseva ◽  
A.N. Chistyakova ◽  
S.S. Radovsky
Keyword(s):  
Tang Dynasty ◽  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
State Museum ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Tang Dynasty ◽  
Image Shape ◽  
State Archives ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty

This article is concerned with the Chinese metal mirror, which, as it has been found during the study, has been stored for a long time in the collection of the Altai State Museum of Local Lore, but as yet has not attracted the attention of specialists and has not been introduced into scientific discourse. A special research has been required to determine the time and circumstances of its arrival to the museum, which involved working with the documentation of the Altai State Museum of Local Lore, stored both within the institute and in the State Archives of the Altai Territory. It has been concluded, that the mirror represents an occasional find and it came to the mu-seum in the first quarter of the 20th century from the Yenisei Province (currently, the southwestern part of Kras-noyarsk District. The article presents a detailed morphological characteristic of this artifact. The basis of the com-position in the ornamented part of the mirror is a stylized image of a single dragon. Its mouth is trying to grasp the holder, which symbolizes the “fire pearl”. The analysis of the specialised literature and catalogues showed that in Chinese mirrors such composition appeared only during the Tang Dynasty (618–907) and continued to exist dur-ing the Song Period (907–1279). It has been determined that the composition presented on such objects was reproduced for several centuries (Jin, Liao, and Yuan Dynasties), undergoing transformations associated with stylistic nuances (details of the image, shape of mirror, presence or absence of inscriptions) and size and quality of the objects. Based on the obtained data, the mirror from the Altai State Museum of Local Lore has been attrib-uted to the Yuan dynasty period. There are almost no analogies to such objects in Northern and Central Asia, despite the significant number of mirrors of the Mongolian time stored in collections of Siberian museums. There-fore, it seems possible to acknowledge the rarity of these very specimens; the fragmentarity of their distribution could possibly be explained by peculiarities of the history of specific craft centers that have yet to be investigated.

In Search of Pure Sound: Sanqu Songs, Genre Aesthetics, and Translation Tactics

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-202
Author(s):  
Patricia Sieber ◽  
Mario De Grandis ◽  
Ke Wang ◽  
Hui Yao ◽  
Jingying Gao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Short History ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Short Essays

Abstract This article consists of an introduction by Patricia Sieber and six short essays on translation approaches together with actual translations of sanqu songs by Mario De Grandis, Ke Wang, Hui Yao, Jingying Gao and Ian McNally, Xu Yichun, and Jenn Marie Nunes. The introduction provides a short history of the translation of sanqu songs into English, followed by a reflection on which distinctive features of the genre beg for attention in the translation process. In particular, it argues that the different sonic features of sanqu merit close consideration, the loss of the notational contours of the original tunes notwithstanding. Rather than bemoaning the absence of the underlying music, it suggests that, in keeping with Walter Benjamin's vision of the “task of the translator,” translation into another language can be an opportunity to reinvent that musicality in different ways. The six short essays that follow consider sanqu songs from the corpus of diasporic writers from the Yuan dynasty, with a view toward enriching the repertoire of translation strategies for sanqu in terms of musicality and other salient features of the genre. The six essays discuss, respectively, pronouns, rhyme, punctuation, language registers, allusion, and citational practice. In contextualizing such strategies theoretically and illustrating them with examples, the short essays seek to contribute more broadly to the theory and practice of the literary translation of Chinese poetic forms.

scholarly journals The last Legal Code of the Yuan Empire: History and Text

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 635-661
Author(s):  
Sergey V. Sidorovich
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Eastern Asia ◽  
Chinese Tradition ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Legal Code ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty

From the jural point of view, the Yuan era (1271–1368) can be considered as one of the most interesting in the history of Eastern Asia. This is partly because at that time the Chinese tradition was enriched by a foreign influence. However, very few sources on the Yuan legal system have survived, and even those which did survive are usually far from being complete. The article introduces the recently discovered part of the Zhi-zheng tiao-ge code published in 1346 at the very end of the Yuan Empire. The author lists the testimonia, which mention this document. He also offers the analysis of legal documents mentioned there following the time of their issue. The introduced source is compared with legal codes of the previous years and suggests ways of their reconstruction. The final part of the article contains a brief description of the surviving chapters of the monument. The results of the analysis allow us to see in the Zhi-zheng tiao-ge code an important source on the legislation not only of the late Yuan but also on the Yuan dynasty as a whole.

scholarly journals Once Again on the Chronology of the As People’s Entry into Mongol Service

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 506-519
Author(s):  
Eduard V. Kaziev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Military Commanders ◽  
Official History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mongol Empire ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty

Research objectives: To ascertain the time and circumstances of the As people’s incorporation into the service of the Great Mongol Qa’ans. Research materials: Biographies of the As military commanders presented in the official History of the Yüan dynasty (the main source), the narratives of John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck, the chronicles of Vardan Areveltsi, Kirakos Gandzaketsi, and Grigor Aknertsi, Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of Chronicles, the Hypatian Codex, notes of Chinese officials Peng Da-ya and Xu Ting on the Mongols. Results and novelty of the research: The paper clarifies one aspect of the author’s previous research of the problem under consideration. It partially refutes a prior conclusion that the As entried into the Mongols’ military service only during the Western campaign. On the contrary, this paper substantiates the traditional assertion that the As joined Mongol service during the reign of Möngke Qa’an. Besides, it indicates that this argument finds its substantiation in the information found in the As military commanders’ biographies in the History of Yuan which are usually overlooked on this issue. The assumption is also put forward and argued that the enthronement of the rulers of Alania took place in the Caucasus, and they did not need to go to the capital of the Mongol Empire for this purpose. In addition, it is noted that in the related sources, analyzed by the author in both papers on this topic, there is no information that would allow for asserting or suggesting the possibility of the arrival of the As to serve in Mongolia and China after the beginning of the process of the actual division of the Empire into independent uluses following the death of Möngke Qa’an in 1259.

scholarly journals Art. XV.—Notes on the old Mongolian Capital of Shangtu.

1875 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. W. Bushell
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Character ◽  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
North West ◽  
Geographical Society ◽  
The North ◽  
Marco Polo ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty ◽  
The City ◽  
Great Wall

On February 9th, 1874, I read a paper before the Royal Geographical Society entitled, “Notes of a Journey outside the Great Wall of China,” made by the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor and myself in the autumn of 1872, including an account of a visit to the ruins of the city of Shangtu, the ancient northern capital of the Yuan Dynasty, described in such glowing terms by Marco Polo, who was there in the reign of its founder, the famous Kublai Khan. They are situate on the northern bank of the Lan-ho—the Shangtu River—about twenty-five miles to the north-west of Dolonnor, the populous city founded by the Emperor Kang-hi, as a trading mart between the Chinese and the Mongolian tribes. These ruins were identified by the existence of a marble memorial tablet, with an inscription of the reign of Kublai, in an ancient form of the Chinese character. A more detailed account of the history of the city so frequently referred to by mediaeval travellers, derived from Chinese and other sources, has been drawn up; and a plan of the ruins, with a facsimile and translation of the inscription, added, in the hope that it may prove of some interest to the Members of your Society.

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