Persophone Muslim population in China
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https://t.co/6qX4TK1llD
— Iskandar Ding (@iskdin) April 1, 2024
In 1405, the 5th karmapa of Tibet visited Emperor Yongle of China, upon the latter's invitation. A scroll of painting was produced to depict he event. The commemorative texts on the scroll are in five languages: Chinese, Hui (Persian), Uyghur, Tibetan, and… pic.twitter.com/SuX1rlv5Yg
N.B.: Persophone ("Persian-speaking"), which is very different from, and pronounced quite differently than, Persephone
- (Greek mythology) A minor deity, the queen of the Underworld/Hades, and goddess of the seasons and vegetation. Originally named Kore/Core, she is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter; and the wife of Hades. Her Roman counterpart is Proserpina.
- (astronomy) 399 Persephone, a main belt asteroid.
- (rare) A female given name from Ancient Greek.
- (science fiction) The tenth planet, orbiting beyond Pluto.
Selected readings
- "Ask Language Log: Syriac Christian tombstone inscription from Mongol period East Asia" (2/11/24) — also from Iskandar Ding
- "A Persian word in a Sinitic topolect" (3/10/20)
Scott de Brestian said,
April 2, 2024 @ 5:56 pm
I am curious about the description of Hui as Persian. Wikipedia claims that Hui is a Sinitic language, albeit with some Arabic/Persian phrases.
david said,
April 2, 2024 @ 7:54 pm
There is more from Iskandar at https://twitter.com/iskdin
ktschwarz said,
April 2, 2024 @ 9:45 pm
Scott, I think the tweet is saying that in 1405, the Hui people were still speaking Persian, but they were starting to shift to the local Sinitic language. That part isn't visible in the post here, you have to click on "Show more" to see the whole tweet, where Ding says that the grammar and vocabulary of the Persian text are evidence that the population was "in the process of linguistic assimilation". Maybe Prof. Mair can explain more about that.
David Marjanović said,
April 3, 2024 @ 9:30 am
Full text of the known-as-tweet:
I'm shown all this if I click on the embedded tweet (the embedded version ends in "Tibetan, and…"); but without an account on "the platform known as Twitter" there's no way of finding the post "below" unless somebody posts the URL.
TonyG said,
April 3, 2024 @ 9:45 am
What a beautiful scroll — I love those vertical scripts! Does anybody know where to find a higher-resolution version?