My entire career as a Sinologist has been based on the study of archeologically recovered materials. I'm talking particularly about the medieval Dunhuang manuscripts, but also the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Tarim mummies and their associated artifacts. It's no wonder, therefore, that I have featured the importance of archeology for the study of […]
Below is a guest post by Corey Miller: In the third volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, la duchesse de Guermantes mentions she fortunately doesn’t know any Jews. It’s the middle of the Dreyfus Affair at the end of the nineteenth century. She goes on to mention some tedious ladies who put the […]
James Millward sent in a very interesting and important communication (copied in full below) touching upon the ethnic composition of what has now become the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) a thousand and more years ago, especially its Turkic and Proto-Turkic components, together with its proto-Mongolic and para-Mongolic congeners. Since it is of crucial significance […]
"A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth." AHDEL But not always a woman: Men rarely practice midwifery for cultural and historical reasons. In ancient Greece, midwives were required by law to have given birth themselves, which prevented men from joining their ranks. In 17th century Europe, some barber surgeons, […]
If I were a cruciverbalist, I might use that as a clue for "hammock", though it didn't turn up here: https://www.wordplays.com/crossword-solver/sailor%27s-bed nor here: http://crosswordtracker.com/clue/sailors-bed/ but it was first here: https://crossword-solver.io/clue/sailor%27s-bed/ With somer a-comin' — though spryng has barely sprung, at least not in these parts — it's time to drag out our dusty, trusty hammocks […]
"Newly coined word 'rini' demeans children: rights watchdog", by Park Han-na, The Korea Herald (May 4, 2022) Popular internet slang words derived from the Korean word “eorini,” which means children, may promote negative stereotypes and discrimination against children, the country’s human rights watchdog said Tuesday. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea urged related government […]
[This is a guest post by Penglin Wang] The great difficulties we have with trying to study Xiongnu language persist from trying to glean Xiongnu words, especially the glossed ones, in early Chinese sources for comparison in order to know what linguistic affiliation it seems to have in the central Eurasian region. Since these […]
A comment to this post: "Accents you expect to hear" (4/6/22): From Rob: I was born and brought up in Zambia, a then-British colony. My (mainly) British parents made it clear that I was not to speak like a "jaapie", although that was the natural accent to use with my friends. It's a name, but […]
During the early part of my career, one of the most stunning academic papers I read was this: Roy Andrew Miller, "Pleiades Perceived: MUL.MUL to Subaru", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 108.1 (January-March, 1988), 1-25. "Pleiades Perceived" was the presidential address delivered March 24, 1987 at the American Oriental Society's 197th Annual Meeting in […]
There is a clear resemblance between the Sumerian and the Chinese glyphs for "beer", both of which depict a jug with a pointed bottom and an extended narrow neck (here, here). It's interesting that the oracle bone forms (second half of second millennium BC) for 酒 all have the three drops of water as a […]
In this age of typing on computers and other digital devices, when we daily input thousands upon thousands of words, we are often amazed at the number and types of mistakes we make. Many of them are simple and straightforward, as when our fingers stumblingly hit the wrong keys by sheer accident. People who type […]
From Miffy Zhang Linfei: I went to Chicago over the weekend, and look what I found in a small European vintage shop named P.O.S.H.
Figuring out the etymologies of words has always been one of my favorite things in life, almost as much as eating flavorful food. All the way back in second grade of primary school, my Mom gave me a Merriam-Webster dictionary, and I treasured it above all my other belongings because of its etymological notes. Much […]