This is cause for rejoicing: "Meet the Malaysian on a mission to make Hokkien great again, amid Mandarin’s rising popularity in Southeast Asia" Linguist Sim Tze Wei has been accused of trying to divide the Chinese people, as there are those who see the use of other Chinese languages ‘as a sign of disunity […]
When I visited Samarkand about 35-40 years ago (before digital days), I ate some of these luscious, mythic peaches:
The other day, when we were discussing where Napa cabbage came from, Diana Shuheng Zhang mentioned to me that the Chinese word for "spinach", bōcài 菠菜, indicates that it came from Persia. She's usually right about such things, and she was in this case too: From earlier 波斯菜 (bōsīcài), from 波斯 (Bōsī, “Persia”) + 菜 […]
This is all over the Chinese internet: (source)
From Frank Clements: (source) Can you read it?
It's one of my favorite vegetables. Delicious prepared in so many different ways (in soups, stir fried, I even use it for salads). And it almost never goes bad — I can keep it in my frig for a month or more. Plus, it looks nice — aesthetically pleasing, with its exquisite shades of light […]
Since we've been having, and will continue to have, a series of posts on Zoroastrianism and related topics, this is a good opportunity to review a recent, substantial publication related to this subject: Barakatullo Ashurov, "Religions and Religious Space in Sogdian Culture: A View from Archaeological and Written Sources", Sino-Platonic Papers, 306 (December, 2020), 1-41. […]
[This is a guest post by Leanne Ogasawara] After reviewing David Hinton’s latest book, China Root, for the Asian Review of Books, a friend pointed me to this discussion at LL. I was so happy to see old friends (Hi Bathrobe!) and wanted to leave a comment. Sadly, because I was so late in the […]
How did he speak? What did he speak? When did he speak? There seems to be a lot of dissension, even among Iranists, concerning the basic facts of his life and times. For the founder of a major religion, little hard evidence is available concerning the man and his message. Of course, basic biographical data […]
The whole world knows about BLM (Black Lives Matter). Native speakers of English (at least American English — I can't vouch for other varieties) instinctively know what the innately idiomatic intransitive verb "matter" means in this construction. But, even for native speakers, it's not easy to define in one word. I suppose, in the expression […]
[This is a guest post by Chau Wu, with additions at the bottom by VHM and others] On the akinakes* (Scythian dagger / short sword) and Xiongnu (Hunnish) horse sacrifice Chinese historical records suggest that the akinakes, transliterated from Greek ἀκῑνάκης, may be endowed with spiritual significance in the eyes of ancient Chinese and Northern […]