![Pearl in Palm page 14b](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Pearl_in_Palm_page_14b.png)
The ''Pearl in the Palm'' or the ''Timely Pearl'' (
Tangut: ; ) is a bilingual glossary between the
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
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
The Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 500 temples southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu p ...
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
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
, and was the primary source before the publication of monolingual Tangut dictionaries.
Discovery
In 1909, the Russian explorer
Pyotr Kozlov
Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov (russian: Пётр Кузьми́ч Козло́в; 3 October 1863 in Dukhovshchina – 26 September 1935 in Peterhof) was a Russian and Soviet traveller and explorer who continued the studies of Nikolai Przhevalsky in ...
unearthed a number of texts and artefacts in
Ejin Banner
Ejin or Ejina ( Mongolian: Эжэн-э қосиу ''Ejen-e qosiɣu''; ) is a banner in the far west of Inner Mongolia, China. It is under the administration of Alxa League and is the westernmost county-level division of Inner Mongolia, borderi ...
, Inner Mongolia, including the ''Pearl in the Palm'' and transported them back to
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, Russia. There,
Aleksei Ivanovich Ivanov
Aleksei Ivanovich Ivanov (russian: Алексе́й Ива́нович Ивано́в; ; 1878–1937) was a Russian Sinologist and Tangutologist.
Biography
Ivanov entered Saint Petersburg University in 1897, where he studied Chinese and Manchu. ...
, professor at
Saint Petersburg State University
Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...
, who was aware of its value, added them to his collection. It is now in the collection of the
in Saint Petersburg.
In 1912, Chinese scholars
Luo Zhenyu
Luo Zhenyu or Lo Chen-yü (August 8, 1866 – May 14, 1940), courtesy name Shuyun (叔蘊), was a Chinese classical scholar, philologist, epigrapher, antiquarian and Qing loyalist.
Biography
A native of Huai'an, Luo began to publish works o ...
and
Feng Ge Feng may refer to:
*Feng (surname), one of several Chinese surnames in Mandarin:
**Féng (surname) ( wikt:冯 féng 2nd tone "gallop"), very common Chinese surname
**Fèng (surname) ( wikt:鳳 fèng 4th tone "phoenix"), relatively common Chinese fa ...
visited Ivanov upon learning about the work in his possession, and were given access to nine pages, which they photocopied for study. In 1922 Luo Zhenyu met Ivanov again, in Tianjin. It was only then he would only have access to the full text, then ordered his son to make a full copy.
The Belgian scholar
Luc Kwanten
Luc Kwanten (8 January 1944 – 22 November 2021) was a Belgian sinologist, Tangutologist and literary agent.
Biography
Kwanten was born in Berlin on 8 January 1944, during the Second World War, to a Jewish mother who secretly observed her faith ...
visit to the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, and was able to photograph the whole of "The Pearl in the Palm". In 1982, the book finally saw the light of day when the photographed version was published in the United States.
Content and style
The original book consists of 37
xylograph
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...
folios in
concertina
A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front.
The ...
format. The preface is identical content written in both Chinese and Tangut. From the sentence "How can you mix with foreigners without learning foreign words, How can you be counted amongst the Han without learning Han words" (不學番言,則豈和番人之眾;不會漢語,則豈入漢人之數) it is clear that the book aimed to facilitate the Tanguts and the Chinese to learn each other's languages.
The book contains words 414 CPC, according to three powers are divided into nine categories: celestial bodies, celestial images, sky changes, terrestrial bodies, terrestrial images, terrestrial use, human body, human phase, human matters. One category is the most extensive content: personnel issues accounts for half of all the content.
Each entry contains four elements: from right to left, Tangut phonetics in Chinese, Tangut script, Chinese script, and Chinese phonetics in Tangut. The book is important in understanding and interpretation of the now dead Tangut language.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pearl In The Palm
Tangut texts
Chinese dictionaries
Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences