01.15.10
Posted in Books, Translation at 12:00 am by Paweł
Previous installments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 , 8
[Paweł has now completed the draft translation of the entire book (there will be 22 installments in all), and now the two of us are meticulously going through the translation, word by word, exhaustively investigating every possibility where there is anything strange about the text. This particular installment proved to be the most challenging so far, especially near the end where we made some interesting discoveries. Enjoy! --RA] Read the rest of this entry »
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12.04.09
Posted in Books, Translation at 11:09 pm by Paweł
Previous installments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Read the rest of this entry »
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11.05.09
Posted in Books, Translation at 11:01 pm by Paweł
Previous installments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
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10.07.09
Posted in Books, Translation at 9:21 pm by Paweł
Previous installments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Read the rest of this entry »
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09.29.09
Posted in Books, Translation at 9:58 am by Paweł
Previous installments: 1, 2, 3, 4.
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09.28.09
Posted in Chinese characters, Food at 10:46 am by Randy Alexander
In the fifth installment of The Book of the Nisan Shaman there is a word “caise” mentioned as being a kind of food that is prepared for Sergudai Fiyanggo’s funeral. Pawel looked up the word in P. Schmidt, “Chinesische Elemente im Mandschu. Mit Wörterverzeichnis” in: Asia Major volume 7, 1932, and found a strange Chinese character. He referred me to the entry in the dictionary:
I couldn’t find that character anywhere, and neither could several people I asked, so I sent the entry to Victor Mair. After several days of hunting, he finally tracked it down. He says that when he finally spotted it in Hanyu Da Zidian, 5.3164, he “laughed / sobbed bitterly / mournfully”. The following is a guest post by Victor Mair: Read the rest of this entry »
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09.07.09
Posted in Books, Translation at 11:07 pm by Paweł
Previous installments: 1, 2, 3.
geli gisureki seci angga juwame muterakv, jain jabufi gisureme banjinarakv oho
geli [more]
gisureki seci [(he) wanted to say]
angga [mouth]
juwame muterakv [couldn't open]
jain [joint of the jaws] dict. form: jayan
jabufi [stiffened and]
gisureme [speaking, words]
banjinarakv oho [didn't appear]
He wanted to say something more, but he couldn’t open his mouth. His jaws stiffened and no more words appeared. Read the rest of this entry »
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08.21.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:26 am by Randy Alexander
I posted this in response to a query on the American Dialect Society mailing list (ADS-L), and am cross-posting it here because it is more relevant here than there. Someone had asked about a strange Chinglish translation: smallpox for 天花灯 (tiānhuādēng). The answer to that is easy enough, and James Harbeck answered it there: the same characters are used for ceiling (天花板) and smallpox (天花). Another poster, Douglas G. Wilson, then asked the more difficult question of why they are so named.
As I was looking for something else in some Manchu-related materials I serendipitously found the answer to this question. Read the rest of this entry »
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07.26.09
Posted in Books, Translation at 9:15 pm by Paweł
This is the third installment of The Book of the Nisan Shaman (Nixan saman-i bithe). You can find the previous parts here: part 01, part 02. Thanks to Randy for correcting my English. All suggestions kindly welcomed.
Geren aba i urse morin be dabkiyame yaburengge, hvdun hahi ofi dartai endende gebungge aba abalara alin de isinafi.
geren [each]
aba-i urse [ hunters], aba-i [hunt] gen, urse [people]
morin-be [horses] acc
dabkiyame [whipping] dict. form: dabkime
yaburengge [riding]
hvdun [fast, quick]
hahi ofi [increased (the speed) rapidly]
dartai endende [at the moment, suddenly] dict. form: andande
gebungge [famous]
aba [hunt]
abalara [hunters]
alin-de [mountain]
isinafi [reached]
All the hunters rode fast whipping their horses to increase their speed, and in no time they reached the mountain, which is famous among hunters. Read the rest of this entry »
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07.15.09
Posted in Books, Translation at 12:04 am by Paweł
Here is the second part of Nixan saman-i bithe (the first part is here), and, at the same time, my first installment as an official author of the blog. After discussion with Randy I decided to change some things. I minimalized grammatical explanations and gave more accurate glosses, similarly to what Randy did in his installment on Möllendorff.
And here is a couple of links:
Here you can find complete digital version of the manuscript, written by a Manchu called Dekdengge for Prof. Grebenshchikov in Vladivostok in 1913. Uploaded by Bucin (ambula baniha, Bucin agu!)
Here is full text in romanization with Japanese glosses.
For those who can read Russian, here is a Russian translation. Read the rest of this entry »
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