Languages, scripts, and Chinese texts in East Asia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Francis Kornicki
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
East Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Chinese Script ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
The Common ◽  
Chinese Texts ◽  
Common Era

This book is a wide-ranging study of vernacularization in East Asia, and for this purpose East Asia includes not only China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam but also other societies that no longer exist, such as the Tangut and Khitan empires. It takes the reader from the early centuries of the Common Era, when the Chinese script was the only form of writing and Chinese Buddhist, Confucian, and medical texts spread throughout East Asia, through the centuries when vernacular scripts evolved, right up to the end of the nineteenth century when nationalism created new roles for vernacular languages and vernacular scripts. Through an examination of oral approaches to Chinese texts, it shows how highly valued Chinese texts came to be read through the prism of the vernaculars and ultimately to be translated. This long process has some parallels with vernacularization in Europe, but a crucial difference is that literary Chinese was, unlike Latin, not a spoken language. As a consequence, people who spoke different East Asian vernaculars had no means of communicating in speech, but they could communicate silently by means of written conversation in literary Chinese; a further consequence is that within each society Chinese texts assumed vernacular garb: in classes and lectures, Chinese texts were read and declaimed in the vernaculars. What happened in the nineteenth century and why are there still so many different scripts in East Asia? How and why were Chinese texts dethroned and what replaced them? These are some of the questions addressed in this book.

Book Roads and Routes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Francis Kornicki
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Important Case ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Opium War ◽  
Chinese Texts

Chinese texts travelled in extraordinary quantities to distant parts of East Asia, and this chapter charts the movements of books. Most of the movement was centripetal, from China to neighbouring societies, and rather than being foisted on neighbouring societies Chinese books were instead actively sought and taken home by envoys, monks, and other travellers. The flow of books continued right up to the middle of the nineteenth century, when Chinese accounts of the Opium War and of the power of Western countries reached Japan and Korea. Small numbers of books were taken from neighbouring societies to China or to other neighbouring societies, the most important case being the seizure of many books from Korea by the Japanese forces which invaded the Korean peninsula in the last decade of the sixteenth century. For the most part, though, East Asian societies apart from China were receivers rather than transmitters.

The Oral Dimension

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Francis Kornicki
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Chinese Origin ◽  
Chinese Texts

This chapter first examines the oral dimension of the dissemination of Sinitic texts in East Asia. Although a few individuals who had spent many years in China or who were of Chinese origin were able to read Chinese texts in some form of Chinese pronunciation, this was not the case even for most members of the elites, for few spent much time in China. In most societies, conventional pronunciations developed for Chinese characters and these conformed to local phonologies. The first stage of vernacularization, therefore, was in the oral domain. Conversely, however, since there was no common spoken language like Latin, opportunities for intellectual exchange with people from other societies were limited. The remainder of this chapter, therefore, examines the limited extent to which interpreters were trained and other people learned spoken foreign languages. The chapter concludes with an examination of brush conversation, a written substitute for oral conversation.

Sinitic in a Global Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Francis Kornicki
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
The Common

This chapter focuses on the language rupture in East Asia, that is to say, the loss of the common written language known as literary Chinese or Sinitic. The gradual replacement of the cosmopolitan language Sinitic by the written vernaculars was a process similar in some ways to the replacement of Latin and Sanskrit by the European and South Asian vernaculars, as argued by Sheldon Pollock. However, Sinitic was not a spoken language, so the oral dimension of vernacularization cannot be ignored. Charles Ferguson’s notion of diglossia has been much discussed, but the problem in the context of East Asia is that the only spoken languages were the vernaculars and that Sinitic was capable of being read in any dialect of Chinese as well as in the vernaculars used in neighbouring societies.

‘Furiously Mad’: Vagrancy Law and a Sub-Group of the Disorderly Poor

Rural History ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
AUDREY ECCLES
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
The Public ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

Abstract:Madness has been a social problem from time immemorial. Wealthy lunatics were made royal wards so that their estates would be looked after, and the common law very early admitted madness and idiocy as conditions justifying the exemption of the sufferer from punishments for crime. But the vast majority of lunatics have never been either criminal or wealthy, and many wandered about begging, unwelcome in any settled community. Finally, in the eighteenth century, the law made some attempt to determine a course of action which would protect the public and theoretically also the lunatic. This legislation and its application in practice to protect the public, contain the lunatic, and deal with the nuisance caused by those ‘disordered in their senses’, form the subject of this article. Much has been written about the development of psychiatry, mainly from contemporary medical texts, and about the treatment of lunatics in institutions, chiefly from nineteenth-century sources, but much remains to be discovered from archival sources about the practicalities of dealing with lunatics at parish level, particularly how they were defined as lunatics, who made such decisions, and how they were treated in homes and workhouses.

Primers, Medical Texts, and Other Works

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Francis Kornicki
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Forensic Medicine ◽  
Tang Dynasty ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
The West ◽  
Conduct Books ◽  
Chinese Pharmacopoeia ◽  
Vernacular Fiction

This chapter follows on from Chapters 8 and 9, which were devoted to Buddhist and Confucian texts, and applies a similar analysis to a variety of other texts with a focus on those that were subjected to a process of vernacularization. The first genre discussed is that of primers, which initially existed solely to teach the young the elements of Sinitic. Second, medical texts are examined in some depth, for the botanic and linguistic diversity of East Asia necessitated the production of glossaries giving the local names for plants appearing in Chinese pharmacopoeia and later the development of local pharmacopoeia based on locally available plants. Third, conduct books for women are taken up, for the different expectations of women in East Asian societies made Chinese imports unsuitable. Subsequently, a Tang-dynasty manual of statecraft, a manual of forensic medicine, Chinese vernacular fiction, and books about the West are discussed.

The Place of Nusantara in the Sanskritic Buddhist Cosmopolis

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-166
Author(s):  
Andrea Acri
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Malay Peninsula ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era

AbstractThis article synthesizes and links together evidence published thus far in secondary literature, in order to highlight the contribution of Nusantara to the genesis and circulation of various forms of Sanskritic Buddhism across Asia from the fifth to the fourteenth century. It places particular emphasis on its expansion via maritime routes. Archaeological vestiges and textual sources suggest that Nusantara was not a periphery, but played a constitutive, Asia-wide role as both a crossroads and terminus of Buddhist contacts since the early centuries of the Common Era. Sumatra, Java, and the Malay Peninsula hosted major centres of Buddhist worship and higher learning that were fully integrated into the trans-Asian maritime network of trade, diplomacy, and pilgrimage. Frequented by some of the most eminent Buddhist personalities of their times, who prompted doctrinal and cultic developments in South and East Asia, Nusantara may have exerted an influence on paradigms of Sanskritic Buddhism across Asia, rather than being a passive recipient of ideas and practices.

The ‘Po-ssῠ Pine Trees’

1960 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. W. Wolters
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Southern Ocean ◽  
East Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Asian Origin ◽  
Pine Resin ◽  
Pine Trees ◽  
Chinese Texts

In four Chinese texts almost certainly written before the middle of the sixth century a.d., of which two have been attributed to the Tsin period (265–420), there were references to two ‘Po-Ssῠ pine resins ’ to a ‘Po-Ssῠ resin’ subsequently likened to ‘pine resin’, and to a resin subsequently attributed to the ‘Po-Ssῠ’ and also likened to ‘pine resin’. They were ‘ju t'ou perfume ’, the ‘mo drug ’, ‘An-hsi perfume ’, and lung nao or ‘P'o-lü perfume ’. An-hsi perfume became the name for benjamin gum (Styrax benzoin Dryander) which, with lung nao or tree camphor (Dryobalanops aromatica Gaertn. f ), were in later times famous trade-products of northern Sumatra. To-day ju, the abbreviated form of ju t'ou, is identified with species of Pistacia (a mastic) or with frankincense (Boswellia spp.) and mo with myrrh (Commiphora spp.). These are products of Somaliland, the Middle East, and India. In the sixteenth century, however, and long before then, Chinese herbalists believed that ju and mo also came from South East Asia. The text which first mentioned ju in fact ascribed it to the ‘Southern Ocean Po-Ssῠ’, a definition indicating a South East Asian origin.

Resolving the Misunderstood Historical Order: A Korean Perspective on the Historical Tributary Order in East Asia

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-377
Author(s):  
Si Jin Oh
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
East Asia ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Normative Systems ◽  
Separate Treatment ◽  
Historical Relationship ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Normative Order

Abstract Regarding the historical East Asian order, previous studies appear to have emphasized Chinese and Japanese perspectives, and this academic phenomenon seems to have contributed to solidifying a misunderstanding. This study attempts to present a Korean perspective providing different points of view that challenge previous perspectives on the legal status of Korea in the nineteenth century. One of the critical misunderstandings about the historical relationship between China and Korea is that of vassalage. However, such an analogy is misleading. The East Asian international normative order, which was based on Li, is a particular order that requires a separate treatment. The nature of the tributary order would not necessarily impair sovereignty if it were possible to project and apply the classical international law of the nineteenth century. As the policy of Dongdoseogi represents, however, Korea once seemed to have preferred to maintain the two normative systems simultaneously.

scholarly journals The Many Scripts of the Chinese Scriptworld, the Epic of King Gesar, and World Literature

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen L. Thornber
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
World Literature ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Chinese Script ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
The Many

The idea of an East Asian cultural “bloc” united in no small part by the Chinese script has long been widely held; through the end of the Qing dynasty Chinese characters served as the scripta franca for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese intellectuals. Yet writing in East Asia has almost always involved more than Chinese characters and their offshoots. The purpose of this article is twofold. First is to introduce readers of world literature unfamiliar with East Asia to the wide variety of the region’s languages and scripts. The second objective is to demonstrate that when we associate writing in China only with Chinese characters, as often has been the case, we overlook some of the region’s, and the world’s, most significant works of world literature. These include the twelfth-century Epic of King Gesar, a living epic which at twenty-five times the size of the Iliad is the world’s longest.

European Influence in South-East Asia, c.1500–1630

1963 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-209
Author(s):  
D.K. Bassett
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
East Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Precise Definition ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Central Administration ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Commercial Organization ◽  
Better Than

The more precise definition of the European impact upon South-East Asian trade and society prior to the nineteenth century has become an important pre-occupation of historians of that region in recent years. The hypothesis of J.C. van Leur that “modern capitalism” took shape only after 1820 impelled him to suggest an equality or near-equality between Asian and European commercial organization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A corollary of this view was his negative assessment of the Portuguese achievement in South-East Asia, his refusal to accord them technical or organizational superiority except in a limited military sense, his insistence upon the small and unimportant Portuguese share of inter-Asian trade, and his denunciation of the Portuguese as little better than a band of condottieri who lacked an effective central administration.

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