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Huayiyiyu
The Huáyí yìyǔ () refers to a series of vocabularies produced by Ming and Qing dynasty Chinese administration for the study of foreign languages. They are a precious source of phonological information, both for the study of Chinese pronunciation and for the study of the languages in question. Categorization The relevant works of the huáyí yìyǔ fall into four categories: A Sino-Mongolian vocabulary compiled by Huo Yuanjie (火源潔), 2. Vocabularies that were compiled and re-edited in the Siyiguan (四夷館). 3. Vocabularies prepared by the Huitongguan (會同館). 4. Qing dynasty vocabularies. Languages covered in the Siyiguan The languages covered by works in the second class include: * 韃靼 Mongolian * 女直 Jurchen * 西番 “ Western Barbarians” (Tibetans of the Kham region) * 西天 languages of India * 回回 Persian, * 高昌 Uighur * 百夷 Daic languages * 緬甸 Burmese * 八百 Babai (Lanna) * and 暹羅 Siamese. Tatsuo Nishida published a boo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentaglot Dictionary
The ''Pentaglot Dictionary'' (Chinese: 御製五體清文鑑, ''Yuzhi Wuti Qing Wenjian''; the term 清文, ''Qingwen'', "Qing language", was another name for the Manchu language in Chinese), also known as the ''Manchu Polyglot Dictionary'', was a dictionary of major imperial languages compiled in the late Qianlong era of the Qing dynasty (also said to be compiled in 1794). The work contains Manchu lexemes and their translations into various administrative languages such as Tibetan, Mongolian, post-classical or vernacular Chagatai (Eastern Turki, now known as Modern Uyghur since 1921) and Chinese. Title The literal meaning of the Chinese title 《御製五體清文鑑》 ''Yù zhì wǔ tǐ Qīng wén jiàn'' is "Imperially-Published Five-Script Textual Mirror of Qing", which corresponds to mnc, m=, v=han-i araha sunja hacin-i hergen kamciha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, a=han-i araha sunja haqin-i hergen kamqiha manju gisun-i buleku bithe, "dictionary of Manchu words written by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The Malay Language
Malay was first used in the first millennia known as Old Malay, a part of the Austronesian language family. Over a period of two millennia, Malay has undergone various stages of development that derived from different layers of foreign influences through international trade, religious expansion, colonisation and developments of new socio-political trends. The oldest form of Malay is descended from the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the earliest Austronesian settlers in Southeast Asia. This form would later evolve into Old Malay when Indian cultures and religions began penetrating the region, most probably using the Kawi and Rencong scripts, some linguistic researchers say. Old Malay contained some terms that exist today, but are unintelligible to modern speakers, while the modern language is already largely recognisable in written Classical Malay of 1303 CE. Malay evolved extensively into Classical Malay through the gradual influx of numerous elements of Arabic and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Korean
Middle Korean is the period in the history of the Korean language succeeding Old Korean and yielding in 1600 to the Modern period. The boundary between the Old and Middle periods is traditionally identified with the establishment of Goryeo in 918, but some scholars have argued for the time of the Mongol invasions of Korea (mid-13th century). Middle Korean is often divided into Early and Late periods corresponding to Goryeo (until 1392) and Joseon respectively. It is difficult to extract linguistic information from texts of the Early period, which are written using adaptations of Chinese characters. The situation was transformed in 1446 by the introduction of the Hangul alphabet, so that Late Middle Korean provides the pivotal data for the history of Korean. Sources Until the late 19th century, most formal writing in Korea, including government documents, scholarship and much literature, was written in Classical Chinese. Before the 15th century, the little writing in Korean was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pearl In The Palm
The ''Pearl in the Palm'' or the ''Timely Pearl'' ( Tangut: ; ) is a bilingual glossary between the Chinese and Tangut languages. It survives as a single complete copy of a 12th-century woodblock printed book that was discovered in the Tangut city of Kharakhoto. In addition, a single page from a different copy of the same edition of the ''Pearl in the Palm'' was found at the Northern Mogao Caves in 1989. The book transcribes the pronunciation of Chinese words into Tangut characters, and the pronunciation of Tangut characters into Chinese characters, and so is a very important source for Tangut historical phonology, and was the primary source before the publication of monolingual Tangut dictionaries. Discovery In 1909, the Russian explorer Pyotr Kozlov unearthed a number of texts and artefacts in Ejin Banner, Inner Mongolia, including the ''Pearl in the Palm'' and transported them back to St. Petersburg, Russia. There, Aleksei Ivanovich Ivanov, professor at Saint Petersburg S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cham Language
Cham (Cham: ꨌꩌ) is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Austronesian family, spoken by the Chams of Southeast Asia. It is spoken primarily in the territory of the former Kingdom of Champa, which spanned modern Southern Vietnam, as well as in Cambodia by a significant population which descends from refugees that fled during the decline and fall of Champa. The Western variety is spoken by 220,000 people in Cambodia and 25,000 people in Vietnam. As for the Eastern variety, there are about 73,000 speakers in Vietnam, for a total of approximately 320,000 speakers. Cham belongs to the Chamic languages, which are spoken in parts of mainland Southeast Asia, North Sumatra and on the island of Hainan. Cham is the oldest-attested Austronesian language, with the Đông Yên Châu inscription being verifiably dated to the late 4th century AD. Phonology The Cham language dialects each have 21 consonants and 9 vowels. Consonants * in Western Cham is heard as a velar fricative . In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vietnamese Language
Vietnamese ( vi, tiếng Việt, links=no) is an Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic language originating from Vietnam where it is the national language, national and official language. Vietnamese is spoken natively by over 70 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined. It is the native language of the Vietnamese people, Vietnamese (Kinh) people, as well as a second language, second language or First language, first language for List of ethnic groups in Vietnam, other ethnic groups in Vietnam. As a result of overseas Vietnamese, emigration, Vietnamese speakers are also found in other parts of Southeast Asia, East Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia (continent), Australia. Vietnamese has also been officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic. Like many other languages in Southeast Asia and East Asia, Vietnamese is an analytic language with phonemic tone (linguistics), tone. It has head-initial directionali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Middle Japanese
was a stage of the Japanese language following Early Middle Japanese and preceding Early Modern Japanese. It was a period of transition in which the language shed many of its archaic features and became closer to its modern form. The period spanned roughly 500 years from the 12th century to the 16th century and is customarily divided into Early and Late periods. Politically, the first half of Late Middle Japanese was the end of the Heian period, known as ''Insei'' and the Kamakura period. The second half of Late Middle Japanese was the Muromachi period. Background The late 12th century was a time of transition from the aristocratic society of nobles in the Heian period to the feudal society of the warrior class. Accompanying that change, the political center moved with the establishment of various shogunates in the east. Various new Buddhist movements began and literacy increased because of their spread. In the mid-16th century, Portuguese Christian missionaries arrived in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ryukyuan Languages
The , also Lewchewan or Luchuan (), are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Along with the Japanese language and the Hachijō language, they make up the Japonic language family. Although Japanese is spoken in the Ryukyu Islands, the Ryukyu and Japanese languages are not mutually intelligible. It is not known how many speakers of these languages remain, but language shift toward the use of Standard Japanese and dialects like Okinawan Japanese has resulted in these languages becoming endangered language, endangered; Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, UNESCO labels four of the languages "definitely endangered" and two others "severely endangered". Overview Phonologically, the Ryukyuan languages have some cross-linguistically unusual features. Southern Ryukyuan languages have a number of syllabic consonants, including unvoiced syllabic fricatives (e.g. Ōgami Miyako language, Miyako 'breast'). Glottal consonant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Mongol
Middle Mongol or Middle Mongolian, was a Mongolic koiné language spoken in the Mongol Empire. Originating from Genghis Khan's home region of Northeastern Mongolia, it diversified into several Mongolic languages after the collapse of the empire. In comparison to Modern Mongolian, it is known to have had no long vowels, different vowel harmony and verbal systems and a slightly different case system. Definition and historical predecessors Middle Mongol is close to Proto-Mongolic, the ancestor language of the modern Mongolic languages, which would to set at the time when Genghis Khan united a number of tribes under his command and formed the Khamag Mongol. The term "Middle Mongol" is somewhat misleading, as what would generally by language naming rules be termed "Old Mongolian" in this terminology is actually Proto-Mongolic. The existence of another ("old") Mongol clan federation in Mongolia during the 12th century is historical, but there is no language material from this period. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jurchen Language
Jurchen language ( zh, t=女真語, p=Nǚzhēn yǔ) was the Tungusic language of the Jurchen people of eastern Manchuria, the rulers of the Jin dynasty in northern China of the 12th and 13th centuries. It is ancestral to the Manchu language. In 1635 Hong Taiji renamed the Jurchen ethnicity and language to "Manchu". Writing A writing system for Jurchen language was developed in 1119 by Wanyan Xiyin. A number of books were translated into Jurchen, but none have survived, even in fragments. Surviving samples of Jurchen writing are quite scarce. One of the most important extant texts in Jurchen is the inscription on the back of "the Jin Victory Memorial Stele" ( zh, t=大金得勝陀頌碑, p=Dà jīn déshèngtuó sòngbēi, labels=no), which was erected in 1185, during the reign of Emperor Shizong. It is apparently an abbreviated translation of the Chinese text on the front of the stele.Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Stephen H. West, ''China Under Jurchen Rule: Essays on Chin Intell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Thai Language
Kam Mueang ( nod, , กำเมือง) or Northern Thai language ( th, ภาษาไทยถิ่นเหนือ) is the language of the Northern Thai people of Lanna, Thailand. It is a Southwestern Tai language that is closely related to Lao. Kam Mueang has approximately six million speakers, most of whom live in the native Northern Thailand, with a smaller community of Lanna speakers in northwestern Laos. Speakers of this language generally consider the name "Tai Yuan" to be pejorative. They refer to themselves as ' (, คน เมือง, – literally "people of Mueang" meaning "city dwellers"), Lanna, or Northern Thai. The language is also sometimes referred to as ' (พายัพ, ), "Northwestern (speech)". The term Yuan is still sometimes used for Northern Thai's distinctive Tai Tham alphabet, which is closely related to the old Tai Lue alphabet and the Lao religious alphabets. The use of the ', as the traditional alphabet is known, is now largely lim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Burmese
Middle Burmese was a form of the Burmese language spoken from the 16th century to the 18th century. Its beginning roughly corresponds with the rise of the Taungoo Dynasty and its transition to Modern Burmese with the beginning of the Konbaung Dynasty. Its transition to Burmese language, Modern Burmese occurred in the 18th century. Middle Burmese is characterized by stabilization of Burmese orthography and steady evolution of the Burmese phonology, which accelerated during the transition from Middle Burmese to Modern Burmese. The transition from Old Burmese to Middle Burmese included phonological changes (e.g., mergers of Minimal pair, sound pairs that were distinct in Old Burmese) as well as accompanying changes in the underlying orthography. The transition between Middle Burmese and Modern Burmese was dominated by substantial changes in pronunciation, more so than that between Old Burmese and Middle Burmese. However, many features of Middle Burmese have been preserved in the lite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
