Middle Vernacular Sinitic culture
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Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-fifty-third issue: "Speaking and Writing: Studies in Vernacular Aspects of Middle Period Chinese Culture" (pdf), edited by Victor H. Mair (August, 2024).
Foreword
The three papers in this collection were written for my seminar on Middle Vernacular Sinitic (MVS). They cover a wide variety of topics, from epistolary style to social mores, to philosophy and religion. They reveal how a vernacular ethos informs the thought and life of men and women from different social classes and distinguishes them from those who adhere to a more strictly classical outlook. Although they are on quite dissimilar subjects, this trio of papers harmonize in their delineation of the implications of vernacularity for belief and perception. Taken together, they compel one to consider seriously what causes some people to tilt more to the vernacular side and others to cling to classicism. While the authors of these papers do not aim to arrive at a common conclusion on the meaning of the vernacular-classical divide, the readers who probe beneath the surface of all three papers will undoubtedly find facets that refract and reflect themes that bind them into a unified body of inquiry.
In the first paper, Jack Lu examines an enigma that has long puzzled historians of art, since the individual who is generally considered to be the greatest calligrapher in Chinese history, Wang Xizhi (fourth c.), is also famous for having written countless notes and letters in vernacular language. Not only are the notes and letters in vernacular, they are also often about the most mundane of subjects, such as the minor ailments of himself, his family members, and friends. Lu plumbs Wang’s motives for this seemingly bizarre behavior and explains how it makes a certain kind of sense.
Xinyan Chen, in the second paper, delves into the elusive notion of yuàn 媛, which started out more than two thousand years ago with the meaning of “beautiful woman,” developed during the early middle ages into the idea of a woman who is both beautiful and admirable, but somehow during the modern period has taken on the rather negative nuance of a privileged, pampered woman. Chen focuses particularly on yuàn 媛 as portrayed in A New Account of Tales of the World (Shishuo xinyu 世說新語), a remarkable work of social anecdotes and commentary of the second-fourth centuries that was compiled and edited during the first half of the fifth century and is conspicuous for the large proportion of vernacular usages it has for that period.
The third paper, by Ming Sun, is about the core Chan / Zen concept of the negation of language, particularly written language. Of course, this presents a contradiction in terms, since the Chan masters who promoted this doctrine could not but talk and write about it. Sun investigates ineffability from a range of standpoints: philosophical, religious, literary, and so forth. Early on in the paper, the author introduces us to some of the means Chan masters adopted for dealing with the problem language in a system of thought that was skeptical of the efficacy of language in arriving at truth: Chan poetry (chanshi 禪詩), public cases (gong’an 公案), recorded sayings (yulu 語錄), incisive dialogue (jifeng 機鋒), beating and shouting (banghe 棒喝), and even silence.
Coming to grips with exquisite mundanity, virtuous beauty, and ultimate truth— all within the realm of linguistic vernacularity—ensures that readers of this collection will come away from it with the gray matter between their ears buzzing.
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All issues of Sino-Platonic Papers are available in full for no charge.
To view our catalog, visit http://www.sino-platonic.org/
Selected readings
- "The linguistic origins and affiliations of Zen" (11/13/21
- "The esthetics of East Asian writing" (4/7/12)
- "All-purpose word for 'glamorous woman'" (10/16/21)
Philip Taylor said,
August 19, 2024 @ 10:11 am
May I ask « Why "Middle Vernacular Sinitic" » ? It seems to me (and of course I may well be mistaken) that "Middle" qualifies "Sinitic" rather than "Vernacular", in which case would not the more natural formulation be "Vernacular Middle Sinitic" ?
M. Paul Shore said,
August 19, 2024 @ 11:38 am
I hadn’t been aware that such more-than-fragmentary records of Vernacular Sinitic existed for the medieval and ancient periods. It’s nice to know that they do.
Regarding Wang Xizhi’s above-mentioned behavior, it reminds me of two modern Western figures who kept seemingly unnecessary day-to-day written records of their own health conditions: the Canadian classical musician Glenn Gould (1932-1982), and the American audio engineer and entrepreneur Paul Klipsch (1904-2002).
He Zhang said,
August 21, 2024 @ 2:58 pm
It is interesting to see a study on word 媛。
A story to share. My 小名/乳名（small name or baby name) is 媛媛 yuan2 yuan2。My maternal grandfather, however, called me yuan4 yuan4, when I first met him when I was 9 years old. It sounded weird even for my intellectual mother. She asked him why he used the fourth tone, and he answered that the word meant "female officer" 女官名，should pronounce with the fourth tone; it also meant a beautiful woman, with second tone. Anyway, my mother later checked a dictionary and found my grandfather was right! I also checked the word my own when I was old enough, and indeed found the word 1, 古时女官名。2，美女。
However, after I read this article, I tried to find the interpretation of "female official," but could not find it anywhere. I do not remember the dictionary my mother and I consulted with. Maybe I remembered wrong? But it is stuck with me all my life for about 60 years (after 9 of course).
Victor Mair said,
August 21, 2024 @ 9:42 pm
Interesting, Zhang He!
Reminds me of a girl's name I wrote about here:
"Recognizing half of a character and half of a word" (5/2/21)
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=50891
where 菡 alternates between 4th tone hàn (canonical) and 2nd tone hán (common, usual) pronunciation.
Victor Mair said,
August 22, 2024 @ 6:30 am
From He Zhang:
To pronounce people’s name in a wrong tone is a common problem. Only the elementary school teacher pronounces someone’s name correctly the first time, could the person’s name be called correctly in school at least. Similarly for English, you would have to explain your name each time you introduce yourself to anybody, like “My name is Anne with an E”.
Victor Mair said,
August 22, 2024 @ 6:32 am
@He Zhang:
I know someone who always introduces herself thus: "Robin, like the bird".
Zhang He said,
August 22, 2024 @ 11:19 am
Thank you, VM!
I’d like to play a little game. People on this thread should be able to pronounce this phrase correctly, I believe.
南无阿弥陀佛
Philip Taylor said,
August 22, 2024 @ 2:32 pm
He Zhang — I routinely give my name as "Philip Taylor (one 'l' in 'Philip')", and the name of my wife's hotel as "The Westberry Hotel ('berry' as in 'fruit', not as in 'graveyard')".
Victor Mair said,
August 22, 2024 @ 6:35 pm
From Zihan Guo:
I think pronouncing 媛 as yuan4 might relate more to accent than a mispronunciation.
Victor Mair said,
August 22, 2024 @ 6:43 pm
@Zhang He
南无阿弥陀佛
I want to play a joke by saying how many not very highly educated and Buddhologically illiterate Chinese mispronounce and misinterpret just the first two characters of that phrase: "In the south there is no Amitabha Buddha".
He Zhang said,
August 23, 2024 @ 2:15 pm
@VM
The reason I mentioned 南无阿弥陀佛 na2 mo2 e1 mi2 tuo1 fo2, was that I found Paul Copp gives pinyin "nan wu" for 南无 at least four times in his book The Body Incantation … . (By the way, is he in this circle of linguists?) The book is very well researched study, but I wondered why he gave that kind of pinyin. In his interpretation, though, he was right in saying that the words came from Sanskrit namo.
Anyway, I suspect that because of the wrong pronunciation (not really wrong if one separates namo into nam and o, which could become 南 nan and 无 u ），Copp missed something very interesting and important in his studies of dharani mandalas. I will reveal it in future.