#classicalchinese — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #classicalchinese, aggregated by home.social.
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This morning’s translation exercises included a guy panicking about being promoted to Prime Minister of Imperial China and submitting his resignation three times in one week (all refused).
Looking it up, this guy served under five consecutive emperors, kept trying to quit but no-one would let him, pretended to have a gross foot disease to get out of awkward meetings, and collected cool rocks and sticks. Autism game respects autism game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niu_Sengru
pictured: an attempt to capture how my sketchy ali express ink shines in the sun
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This morning’s translation exercises included a guy panicking about being promoted to Prime Minister of Imperial China and submitting his resignation three times in one week (all refused).
Looking it up, this guy served under five consecutive emperors, kept trying to quit but no-one would let him, pretended to have a gross foot disease to get out of awkward meetings, and collected cool rocks and sticks. Autism game respects autism game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niu_Sengru
pictured: an attempt to capture how my sketchy ali express ink shines in the sun
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I like to rag on Confucius for being so “kids these days!” so here’s a fair and balanced quotation of his better side:
The Master said: “Everyone is respectable from birth. Why do you assume that those who are young now will not surpass our current standards? Being forty or fifty and having nothing to show for it — that’s what’s unrespectable.”
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I like to rag on Confucius for being so “kids these days!” so here’s a fair and balanced quotation of his better side:
The Master said: “Everyone is respectable from birth. Why do you assume that those who are young now will not surpass our current standards? Being forty or fifty and having nothing to show for it — that’s what’s unrespectable.”
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Today on ancient diplomacy:
The King of Han said (to another ruler): “You and I have both been ordered to submit to King Huai and swear an oath of brotherhood with each other. Okay! My dad is your dad, bro! And your dad seems like he’d make for a GREAT stew. I hope you’ll save me a bowl.”
(from the Book of Han)
In a case of “cultural assumptions are hard”, the textbook author glossed 北面 as “facing north” which is obvious at the reading level expected for this book, but didn’t think to explain that this is an idiom for submitting as vassal — I had to infer this from how Confucius described someone he admired as being ready to “face south”, that is, assume the throne.
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Today on ancient diplomacy:
The King of Han said (to another ruler): “You and I have both been ordered to submit to King Huai and swear an oath of brotherhood with each other. Okay! My dad is your dad, bro! And your dad seems like he’d make for a GREAT stew. I hope you’ll save me a bowl.”
(from the Book of Han)
In a case of “cultural assumptions are hard”, the textbook author glossed 北面 as “facing north” which is obvious at the reading level expected for this book, but didn’t think to explain that this is an idiom for submitting as vassal — I had to infer this from how Confucius described someone he admired as being ready to “face south”, that is, assume the throne.
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I have clarified any and all confusions you may have had about ancient Chinese political thought in one convenient chart.
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I have clarified any and all confusions you may have had about ancient Chinese political thought in one convenient chart.
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wiktionary language tags:
Modern Chinese: This account can communicate in Chinese.
Middle Chinese: This user can converse in Medieval Han.
Classical Chinese: Milord doth have literary ambitions.
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wiktionary language tags:
Modern Chinese: This account can communicate in Chinese.
Middle Chinese: This user can converse in Medieval Han.
Classical Chinese: Milord doth have literary ambitions.
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“I could do that before breakfast” turns out to be a Boast Most Ancient.
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“I could do that before breakfast” turns out to be a Boast Most Ancient.
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for a little more context for non-hanzi-havers:
"Traditional" refers to the formally correct way to write a given Chinese character for roughly the last 2000 years.
"Simplified" is a script reform implemented in Mainland China several decades ago, which replaces some of these forms with shorthand widely used in practice, or forms that replace a phonetic hint element that no longer makes sense in modern Mandarin with a more intuitive one.
This change does not affect anywhere near every character. The top 10 characters in my Classical dataset were identical across both modes. Many changes are trivial systematic ones, such as replacing all 訁 with 讠 simply because it's faster and easier to write and less visual clutter.
There are still millions of people who use Traditional as their everyday script, most notably in Taiwan and Hong Kong. However, the number of people who were educated in Simplified now outnumber them by an order of magnitude. All my printed copies of Classical texts are in Simplified, even though they were obviously originally written in Traditional (or one of its precursor forms).
Here are those top 10 most common characters across Analects + Mencius + Zuo Zhuan, which do not differ between modes:
之 "of", "go", "this", "his/hers/their"
子 "child" (extremely common name and title element)
曰 "say" (different from 日 "sun"!)
也 roughly "is, yes" (modern "also")
不 "not"
以: "by"
而 "and, but"
公 roughly "sir" (a title)
其 "him/her/it/that"
人 "person" -
for a little more context for non-hanzi-havers:
"Traditional" refers to the formally correct way to write a given Chinese character for roughly the last 2000 years.
"Simplified" is a script reform implemented in Mainland China several decades ago, which replaces some of these forms with shorthand widely used in practice, or forms that replace a phonetic hint element that no longer makes sense in modern Mandarin with a more intuitive one.
This change does not affect anywhere near every character. The top 10 characters in my Classical dataset were identical across both modes. Many changes are trivial systematic ones, such as replacing all 訁 with 讠 simply because it's faster and easier to write and less visual clutter.
There are still millions of people who use Traditional as their everyday script, most notably in Taiwan and Hong Kong. However, the number of people who were educated in Simplified now outnumber them by an order of magnitude. All my printed copies of Classical texts are in Simplified, even though they were obviously originally written in Traditional (or one of its precursor forms).
Here are those top 10 most common characters across Analects + Mencius + Zuo Zhuan, which do not differ between modes:
之 "of", "go", "this", "his/hers/their"
子 "child" (extremely common name and title element)
曰 "say" (different from 日 "sun"!)
也 roughly "is, yes" (modern "also")
不 "not"
以: "by"
而 "and, but"
公 roughly "sir" (a title)
其 "him/her/it/that"
人 "person" -
I have made a Traditional vs Simplified cheat sheet sorted by character frequency in core Classical Chinese texts (as opposed to modern books).
https://xn--hmr.net/classicalchinese/tradsimpcheatsheet/
My favorite simplification is 義 to 义, "justice". Absolutely iconic abstract icon.
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I have made a Traditional vs Simplified cheat sheet sorted by character frequency in core Classical Chinese texts (as opposed to modern books).
https://xn--hmr.net/classicalchinese/tradsimpcheatsheet/
My favorite simplification is 義 to 义, "justice". Absolutely iconic abstract icon.
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Useless Facts, Badly Drawn #507: Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den.
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#poetry #tonguetwisters #comics #literature #china #classicalchinese #language #webcomics #funfacts #facts #uselessfactsbadlydrawn -
Useless Facts, Badly Drawn #507: Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den.
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#poetry #tonguetwisters #comics #literature #china #classicalchinese #language #webcomics #funfacts #facts #uselessfactsbadlydrawn -
犬之初，性本善；不必习，狗乃善。
When doggies are born, they are naturally good; they don't even practice, they're really that good. – lost verse of the Three Character Classic
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犬之初，性本善；不必习，狗乃善。
When doggies are born, they are naturally good; they don't even practice, they're really that good. – lost verse of the Three Character Classic
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犬守夜鸡司晨
苟不学曷为人
蚕吐丝蜂酿蜜
人不学不如物As dogs guard the evening,
As birds hail the morning,
A soul without knowledge
Had best heed this warning:
As silk comes from silkworms,
As honey from bees,
An ignorant person
Is lower than these.A verse of the Three Character Classic, an educational poem for ancient Chinese children, rhyming translation by me.
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犬守夜鸡司晨
苟不学曷为人
蚕吐丝蜂酿蜜
人不学不如物As dogs guard the evening,
As birds hail the morning,
A soul without knowledge
Had best heed this warning:
As silk comes from silkworms,
As honey from bees,
An ignorant person
Is lower than these.A verse of the Three Character Classic, an educational poem for ancient Chinese children, rhyming translation by me.
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okay, my attempt at rendering a very interesting but also very uhh fraught verse of Three Character Classic:
蔡文姬能辨琴
谢道韫能咏吟
彼女子且聪敏
尔男子当自警Miss Wenji was our wisest muse,
Miss Daoyun mastered rhyme;
Yes, girls can have such talents too!
They beat boys all the time!full names Cai Wenji (or Cai Yan) and Xie Daoyun if you want to look them up. I say "fraught" because the most literal interpretation is more like "Even girls can pull it off, so you boys better watch out [or you'll be embarrassed when your sister outdoes you]"
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okay, my attempt at rendering a very interesting but also very uhh fraught verse of Three Character Classic:
蔡文姬能辨琴
谢道韫能咏吟
彼女子且聪敏
尔男子当自警Miss Wenji was our wisest muse,
Miss Daoyun mastered rhyme;
Yes, girls can have such talents too!
They beat boys all the time!full names Cai Wenji (or Cai Yan) and Xie Daoyun if you want to look them up. I say "fraught" because the most literal interpretation is more like "Even girls can pull it off, so you boys better watch out [or you'll be embarrassed when your sister outdoes you]"
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A second poetic translation in one day? The medication must be working:
苏老泉二十七
始发愤读书籍
彼既老犹悔迟
尔小生宜早思Old Scholar Su was half through life
When he resolved to learn;
And he regretted all those years
That he allowed to burn.
Start reading now while you're yet young
And you'll exceed his reach;
Spend wisely every day and year
And learn what it can teach.A verse of Three Character Classic, an educational poem for ancient Chinese children, rhyming translation by me. It's referencing the story of Su Xun, who did not get crackin' until he was 27, but was a highly respected scholar by the end of his life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Xun
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A second poetic translation in one day? The medication must be working:
苏老泉二十七
始发愤读书籍
彼既老犹悔迟
尔小生宜早思Old Scholar Su was half through life
When he resolved to learn;
And he regretted all those years
That he allowed to burn.
Start reading now while you're yet young
And you'll exceed his reach;
Spend wisely every day and year
And learn what it can teach.A verse of Three Character Classic, an educational poem for ancient Chinese children, rhyming translation by me. It's referencing the story of Su Xun, who did not get crackin' until he was 27, but was a highly respected scholar by the end of his life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Xun
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如囊萤如映雪
家虽贫学不辍
如负薪如挂角
身虽劳犹苦卓Read by the glow of fireflies,
Read by the sheen of snow;
No child is too poor to learn,
To study hard, and grow.
While gathering the firewood,
While tending herds in fields;
When work is hard, read further still
And reap the harvest's yields.A verse of the Three Character Classic, an educational poem for ancient Chinese children, rhyming translation by me.
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如囊萤如映雪
家虽贫学不辍
如负薪如挂角
身虽劳犹苦卓Read by the glow of fireflies,
Read by the sheen of snow;
No child is too poor to learn,
To study hard, and grow.
While gathering the firewood,
While tending herds in fields;
When work is hard, read further still
And reap the harvest's yields.A verse of the Three Character Classic, an educational poem for ancient Chinese children, rhyming translation by me.
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“Confucius Gets Rekt By A Child,” a blatantly apocryphal anecdote but I do love glimpses into ancient childhood:
Once, they say, while Confucius was traveling with his disciples, they came across some children building a big sand castle right in the middle of the road. The children all scattered when they saw the oncoming carriage, except for one: Xiang Tuo, the smartest little boy in the world.
The driver hurriedly stopped the carriage and demanded to know why this little boy would not get out of the way. Xiang Tuo answered: “You approach my moats! Now tell me, do carriages go around castles, or are castles supposed to get out of the way of carriages?”
After getting a good look at the “castle,” Confucius chuckled. “Oh, what a clever child! I see you are wiser than most, so how about a little wager, some honest fun between young and old. I pose a riddle, you pose a riddle, the winner becomes the teacher and the loser becomes the disciple.”
“It’s a deal!”
Confucius asked: “How many stars are in the sky, how many grains grow upon the earth, how many hairs are in your eyebrows?”
Xiang Tuo answered “One skyful of stars, one cropsful of grains, one faceful of hairs. Now, sir, riddle me this: what water has no fish? What fire has no smoke? What tree has no leaf, and what flower has no stem?”
Confucius answered: “Every river, lake and sea has fish. All firewood gives off smoke when it burns. Whoever has seen a tree with no leaves, or a flower with no stem?”
Beaming, Xiang Tuo explained: “There’s no fish in a well. There’s no smoke coming off a firefly. Dead trees don’t have leaves! And snowflakes (‘snow flowers’) don’t have stems.”
Confucius conceded that the child was now his teacher, but Xiang Tuo asked if he could wash his hands off first before all this teaching stuff.
Translation mine, based on the version found in a book about the Three Character Classic by Hu Yuanyuan. (There are many variations of the story.) Art by Wang Lumin
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“Confucius Gets Rekt By A Child,” a blatantly apocryphal anecdote but I do love glimpses into ancient childhood:
Once, they say, while Confucius was traveling with his disciples, they came across some children building a big sand castle right in the middle of the road. The children all scattered when they saw the oncoming carriage, except for one: Xiang Tuo, the smartest little boy in the world.
The driver hurriedly stopped the carriage and demanded to know why this little boy would not get out of the way. Xiang Tuo answered: “You approach my moats! Now tell me, do carriages go around castles, or are castles supposed to get out of the way of carriages?”
After getting a good look at the “castle,” Confucius chuckled. “Oh, what a clever child! I see you are wiser than most, so how about a little wager, some honest fun between young and old. I pose a riddle, you pose a riddle, the winner becomes the teacher and the loser becomes the disciple.”
“It’s a deal!”
Confucius asked: “How many stars are in the sky, how many grains grow upon the earth, how many hairs are in your eyebrows?”
Xiang Tuo answered “One skyful of stars, one cropsful of grains, one faceful of hairs. Now, sir, riddle me this: what water has no fish? What fire has no smoke? What tree has no leaf, and what flower has no stem?”
Confucius answered: “Every river, lake and sea has fish. All firewood gives off smoke when it burns. Whoever has seen a tree with no leaves, or a flower with no stem?”
Beaming, Xiang Tuo explained: “There’s no fish in a well. There’s no smoke coming off a firefly. Dead trees don’t have leaves! And snowflakes (‘snow flowers’) don’t have stems.”
Confucius conceded that the child was now his teacher, but Xiang Tuo asked if he could wash his hands off first before all this teaching stuff.
Translation mine, based on the version found in a book about the Three Character Classic by Hu Yuanyuan. (There are many variations of the story.) Art by Wang Lumin
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The perils of semantic drift over multiple millennia:
"古者，贵以德而贱用兵。"
The intended reading of this ~2100yo statement concerning how to deal with foreigners: "In ancient times, virtue was valued and use of force was despised."
What I first read, influenced by the everyday modern usage of the words:
"In ancient times, virtue was expensive and use of force was cheap."
Literally dead opposite implication!
(sentence is from first few paragraphs of Salt and Iron) #classicalchinese #translation
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The perils of semantic drift over multiple millennia:
"古者，贵以德而贱用兵。"
The intended reading of this ~2100yo statement concerning how to deal with foreigners: "In ancient times, virtue was valued and use of force was despised."
What I first read, influenced by the everyday modern usage of the words:
"In ancient times, virtue was expensive and use of force was cheap."
Literally dead opposite implication!
(sentence is from first few paragraphs of Salt and Iron) #classicalchinese #translation
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读史者考实录
通古今若亲目
口而诵心而惟
朝于斯夕于斯Read all of history, go through every shelf
Ancient to modern, and see for yourself;
Profess with your mouth, possess in your heart
From dawn until dusk, to learn every part.- a verse of Three Character Classic, an educational poem for ancient Chinese children, rhyming translation by me
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读史者考实录
通古今若亲目
口而诵心而惟
朝于斯夕于斯Read all of history, go through every shelf
Ancient to modern, and see for yourself;
Profess with your mouth, possess in your heart
From dawn until dusk, to learn every part.- a verse of Three Character Classic, an educational poem for ancient Chinese children, rhyming translation by me
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The Three Character Classic (a poem for ancient Chinese children to memorize important facts by rhyme) was expanded a few times over the centuries to add new dynasties. The last such addition is: “And then the Qing seized the Mandate and rebalanced the four corners of the earth. There, that’s all of history, you’re all caught up on the drama, the end.”
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The Three Character Classic (a poem for ancient Chinese children to memorize important facts by rhyme) was expanded a few times over the centuries to add new dynasties. The last such addition is: “And then the Qing seized the Mandate and rebalanced the four corners of the earth. There, that’s all of history, you’re all caught up on the drama, the end.”
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夫市之无虎明矣，然而三人言而成虎。
“That there are no tigers in the marketplace is a given, but if three people say ‘tiger!,’ then a tiger pops into existence” (in the mind of the listener) — Han Feizi’s version of the boy who cried wolf
my first-pass glossing is rather idiosyncratic — 夫 is “hwæt” and 矣 is (modern Mandarin) 了 because that’s easier and clearer than trying to map it to a specific English morpheme
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夫市之无虎明矣，然而三人言而成虎。
“That there are no tigers in the marketplace is a given, but if three people say ‘tiger!,’ then a tiger pops into existence” (in the mind of the listener) — Han Feizi’s version of the boy who cried wolf
my first-pass glossing is rather idiosyncratic — 夫 is “hwæt” and 矣 is (modern Mandarin) 了 because that’s easier and clearer than trying to map it to a specific English morpheme
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@0xabad1dea you very well pass what a good translation needs to be. My reference in that domain is Patrick Couton https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Couton
He has a really awesome talent to find the correct French image, the correct french similar sounding location, the correct slang. Exactly what you explain with your color and stars etc.
It's just amazing.And so Pratchett will remain one of the English author I prefer to read in my own mother tongue 🤷
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@0xabad1dea you very well pass what a good translation needs to be. My reference in that domain is Patrick Couton https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Couton
He has a really awesome talent to find the correct French image, the correct french similar sounding location, the correct slang. Exactly what you explain with your color and stars etc.
It's just amazing.And so Pratchett will remain one of the English author I prefer to read in my own mother tongue 🤷
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I wrote up my personal philosophy on translating ancient texts, as informed by being raised in a religious environment that had a very unhealthy relationship to its texts. https://xn--hmr.net/classicalchinese/translationphilosophy/
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I wrote up my personal philosophy on translating ancient texts, as informed by being raised in a religious environment that had a very unhealthy relationship to its texts. https://xn--hmr.net/classicalchinese/translationphilosophy/
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穷则独善其身， 达则兼济天下
When you are poor, take care of your soul; when you are rich, take care of the world. — Mengzi (Mencius)
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穷则独善其身， 达则兼济天下
When you are poor, take care of your soul; when you are rich, take care of the world. — Mengzi (Mencius)
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added to the New Living Internet Translations page, and fixed a missing cite on another entry. https://xn--hmr.net/classicalchinese/livinginternet/
also uh, fixed an embarrassing CSS issue, namely that the nice serif Chinese font was not loading because its filename was misspelled, but I didn't notice because my browser was successfully falling back on my desktop's installed version of the font :neodog_blush_hide:
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added to the New Living Internet Translations page, and fixed a missing cite on another entry. https://xn--hmr.net/classicalchinese/livinginternet/
also uh, fixed an embarrassing CSS issue, namely that the nice serif Chinese font was not loading because its filename was misspelled, but I didn't notice because my browser was successfully falling back on my desktop's installed version of the font :neodog_blush_hide:
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日出而作，日入而息 一 庄子
Sun’s out guns out, sun’s dead go the fuck to bed — ancient philosopher Zhuangzi’s profound wisdom for internet gremlins
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日出而作，日入而息 一 庄子
Sun’s out guns out, sun’s dead go the fuck to bed — ancient philosopher Zhuangzi’s profound wisdom for internet gremlins
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Two thousand year old #opsec advice:
Hoping that others will not hear is not the same as not speaking; hoping others won’t find out is not the same as not doing.
(from the Book of Han, a history book authored by a brother-sister pair)
#classicalchinese #fountainpen -
Two thousand year old #opsec advice:
Hoping that others will not hear is not the same as not speaking; hoping others won’t find out is not the same as not doing.
(from the Book of Han, a history book authored by a brother-sister pair)
#classicalchinese #fountainpen -
my decades of western cursive instinctively leak through into writing 有 with a big hook below the line like a ‘y’
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my decades of western cursive instinctively leak through into writing 有 with a big hook below the line like a ‘y’
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You see, my bed is where I usually sit while using my laptop, so Odin has successfully blockaded me into sitting down at my desk to get cracking on ye olde Classical
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You see, my bed is where I usually sit while using my laptop, so Odin has successfully blockaded me into sitting down at my desk to get cracking on ye olde Classical
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19th century western philosophers: Chinese philosophy is fundamentally unserious because their language doesn't even have the word "is"
me, having to Cope with Xunzi going on about is-ing the is-ness: :blobcattableflip:
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19th century western philosophers: Chinese philosophy is fundamentally unserious because their language doesn't even have the word "is"
me, having to Cope with Xunzi going on about is-ing the is-ness: :blobcattableflip: