Language Log

New book in the Cambridge Elements Series
Yuanfei Wang and Victor H. Mair
Early Globalism and Chinese Literature
Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2026 

The entire book, richly illustrated in color, is available open access online.

Summary

Exploring 'early globalism and Chinese literature' through the lens of 'literary diffusion,' this Element analyzes two primary forms. The first is Buddhist literary diffusion, whose revolutionary impact on Chinese language and literature is illustrated through scriptural translation, transformation texts, and 'journey to the West' stories. The second, facilitated diffusion, engages with the maritime world, traced through the seafaring journey of Cinderella stories and the totalizing worldview in literature on Zheng He's voyages. The authors contend that early global literary diffusion left a lasting imprint on Chinese language, literature, and culture.

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-eighty-first issue:

“Relations Between Greece and Central Asia in Antiquity: An Examination of the Written Sources” (pdf) by Yu Taishan.

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-ninth issue:

“Zhenzhu’s Deputy: Loyalty and Filiality in The Compass of Islam,” by Jonathan N. Lipman.
(free pdf)

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-eighth issue:

“A Study of Dunhuang Manuscript S.2614V, Mahāmaudgalyāyana Rescuing His Mother from the Underworld: Revisions and Textual Transmission,” by Ryu Takai.

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-sixth issue:

“The Many Voices of Silence: The Diverse Theories of the Ineffable Dao in the Zhuangzi,” by Ming SUN.

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-fifth issue:

“How Oppenheimer Mistook Time for Death at Trinity (the A-bomb Test Site) and How the Bhagavad Gītā, Read Properly, Resonates with the Block Universe of Einstein,” by Conal Boyce.

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-seventh issue:

“The Baghdad Battery: Experimental Verification of a 2,000-Year-Old Device Capable of Driving Visible and Useful Electrochemical Reactions at over 1.4 Volts,” by Alexander Bazes.

As has often been mentioned on Language Log, Dunhuang is a desert oasis town at the far western end of the Gansu / Hexi Corridor.  This is where the fabled Silk Road splits to head north and south around the vast Tarim Basin (filled with the extremely hot [summer] / cold [winter] / arid) Taklakamakan Desert.  Site of the Mogao Grottoes (hundreds of richly decorated medieval Buddhist caves), one of which (no. 17) housed tens of thousands of manuscripts that were sealed away more than a millennium ago.  Among them were the earliest written Sinitic vernacular narratives that I worked on for the first twenty years of my Sinological and Buddhological career (see the last three items of the "Selected readings" below).

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-fourth issue:

“Buddhism among the Sogdians: A Re-Evaluation,” by Todd Gibson.

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-third issue:

“Correspondences between Old Chinese and Proto-Celtic Words,” by Julie Lee Wei

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-second issue:

“The Japanese and Their Language: How the Japanese Made Their Language and It Made Them,” by Samuel Robert Ramsey.

PROLOGUE

Travel the length and breadth of Japan, across the more than 6,800 islands in the archipelago, and anywhere you go, from the Tokyo megalopolis to the most remote and isolated village, every person you meet will immediately understand and speak Nihongo—Japanese. The accents you hear might vary from place to place. There will be odd and unexplained words and pronunciations peculiar to each of these places. But not one person among the more than 126 million citizens of Japan will have any trouble at all understanding the standard language as it’s normally spoken.

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-sixty-ninth issue:

“The Pazyryk Vehicles: New Data and Reconstructions, a Preliminary Report,” by Victor A. Novozhenov, Kyrym Altynbekov, and Elena V. Stepanova. (free pdf)

New book by Luke Waring:

Writing and Materiality in Ancient China:  The Textual Culture of the Mawangdui Tombs (Columbia University Press, December 2025)