Pinyin news

Chris recently wrote and asked for a list of texts in Pinyin. This site, of course, has at least a few things in Pinyin. Unfortunately, however, they can be a bit difficult to find. So having a list is indeed a good idea.

Here are some readings in Hanyu Pinyin:

• Dàshuǐ Guòhòu (”After the Flood”), by Zhāng Lìqīng. The story recalls a girlhood friend in China, not long after the end of the Second World War. This is also available in a version with an English translation given in parallel.
• Hànzì Bù Tèbié Biǎoyì, an essay, also by Zhang Liqing. (PDF — from Sino-Platonic Papers)
• Hūndì Dūndì (”Humpty Dumpty”), by Lewis Carroll, translated into Mandarin by Y.R. Chao and presented in Gwoyeu Romatzyh, Hanyu Pinyin, and English.
• Lā Tuǐ, by Táo Dàzú (Christopher L. Potter), a shaggy dog story
• Gùxiāng (故乡), a short story by Lǔ Xùn

Some song lyrics

• Wǔ Bǎi and China Blue
  • Làngrén qínggē
  • Nuówēi de sēnlín
  • Qiānguà
  • Láibují
• Jay Chou
  • Guāniú
• Faye Wong
  • Bù liú
  • Tiānkōng
  • Zhèngtuō
• Cuī Jiàn
  • Huāfáng gūniang
• And one song whose name and performer I can’t remember

I should probably figure out a way to incorporate this into the recommended readings section. One of the problems with this site is that it has grown much, much larger than I ever expected, which has resulted in some pages not fitting well within the structure I initially established for Pinyin Info. Over the years various additional readings have been added to the site, a few of which are even in Hanyu Pinyin. But since Pinyin Info’s recommended readings section is set up for books rather than essays, songs, etc., this will involve a rethinking of that page.

I very much hope people can help expand the list by providing links to readings elsewhere in Pinyin. But before listing something in the comments, please make sure it is in real Hanyu Pinyin (e.g., with word parsing instead of bro ken syl la bles, with tone marks instead of tone numbers, and with proper capitalization and punctuation). Alas, most texts that are supposedly in Pinyin do not follow those rules.

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Sino-Platonic Papers has rereleased for free its fifth volume of reviews, mainly of books about China and its history and languages (11.6 MB PDF).

Even if you have no particular interest in the specific works reviewed, I recommend at least browsing through this and all of the other volumes of reviews from Sino-Platonic Papers, as they often feature Victor Mair at his most direct and entertaining about a wide range of subjects.

Table of Contents:

• Review Article: The Present State and Future Prospects of Pre-Han Text Studies. A review of Michael Loewe, ed., Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. Reviewed by E. Bruce Brooks, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

N.B.: The following 29 reviews are by the editor of Sino-Platonic Papers.

• Roger T. Ames, Chan Sin-wai, and Mau-sang Ng, eds. Interpreting Culture through Translation: A Festschrift for D. C. Lau.
• Sau Y. Chan. Improvisation in a Ritual Context: The Music of Cantonese Opera.
• CHANG Xizhen. Beijing Tuhua [Pekingese Colloquial].
• CHANG/AIXINJUELUO Yingsheng [AISINGIORO *Yingsheng]. Beijing Tuhua zhong de Manyu [Manchurian in Pekingese Colloquial].
• BAI Gong and JIN Shan. Jing Wei’er: Toushi Beijingren de Yuyan ["Capital Flavor": A Perspective on the Language of the Pekingese].
• JIA Caizhu, comp. Beijinghua Erhua Cidian [Dictionary of Retroflex Final-r in Pekingese].
• Julia Ching and R. W .L. Guisso, eds. Sages and Sons: Mythology and Archaeology in Ancient China.
• FENG Zhiwei. Xiandai Hanzi he Jisuanji (Modern Chinese Characters and Electronic Computers).
• FENG Zhiwei. Zhongwen Xinxi Chuli yu Hanyu Yanjiu [Chinese Information Processing and Research on Sinitic].
• Andre Gunder Frank. The Centrality of Central Asia.
• HUANG Jungui. Hanzi yu Hanzi Paijian Fangfa [Sinographs and Methods for Ordering and Looking up Sinographs].
• W. J. F. Jenner. The Tyranny of History: The Roots of China’s Crisis.
• Adam T. Kessler. Empires Beyond the Great Wall: The Heritage of Genghis Khan.
• David R. McCraw. Du Fu’s Laments from the South.
• Michael Nylan, tr. and comm. The Canon of Supreme Mystery, by Yang Hsiung.
• R. P. Peerenboom. Law and Morality in Ancient China: The Silk Manuscripts of Huang-Lao.
• Henry G. Schwarz. An Uyghur-English Dictionary.
• Vitaly Shevoroshkin, ed. Dene-Sino-Caucasian Languages.
• Vitaly Shevoroshkin, ed. Nostratic, Dene-Caucasian, Austric and Amerind.
• Laurence G. Thompson, comp. Studies of Chinese Religion: A Comprehensive and Classified Bibliography of Publications in English, French, and German through 1970.
• Laurence G. Thompson, comp. Chinese Religion in Western Languages: A Comprehensive and Classified Bibliography of Publications in English, French, and German through 1980.
• Laurence G. Thompson, comp. Chinese Religion: Publications in Western Languages, 1981 through 1990.
• Aat Vervoorn. Men of the Cliffs and Caves: The Development of the Chinese Eremitic Tradition to the End of the Han Dynasty.
• WANG Jiting, ZHANG Shaoting, and WANG Suorong, comp. Changjian Wenyan Shumianyu [Frequently Encountered Literary Sinitic Expressions in Written Language].
• John Timothy Wixted. Japanese Scholars of China: A Bibliographical Handbook.
• YÜ Lung-yü, ed. Chung-Yin wen-hsüeh kuan-hsi yüan-liu [The Origin and Development of Sino-Indian Literary Relations].
• ZHANG Guangda and RONG Xinjiang. Yutian Shi Congkao [Collected Inquiries on the History of Khotan].
• ZHANG Yongyan, chief ed. Shishuo Xinxu Cidian [A Dictionary of A New Account of Tales of the World].
• Peter H. Rushton. The Jin Ping Mei and the Non-Linear Dimensions of the Traditional Chinese Novel.

• William H. Baxter, A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. Reviewed by Paul Rakita Goldin, Harvard University.
• JI Xianlin (aka Hiän-lin Dschi). Dunhuang Tulufan Tuhuoluoyu Yanjiu Daolun [A Guide to Tocharian Language Materials from Dunhuang and Turfan]. Reviewed by XU Wenkan, Hanyu Da Cidian editorial offices in Shanghai.
• GU Zhengmei. Guishuang Fojiao Zhengzhi Chuantong yu Dasheng Fojiao [The Political Tradition of Kushan Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism]. Reviewed by XU Wenkan, Hanyu Da Cidian editorial offices in Shanghai.

• W. South Coblin, University of Iowa. A Note on the Modern Readings of 土蕃.
• Rejoinder by the Editor.

• Announcement concerning the inauguration of a new series in Sino-Platonic Papers entitled “Bits and Pieces.”

This work also continues the discussion regarding the Chinese characters “土蕃” and Tibet.

This was first published in July 1994 as issue no. 46 of Sino-Platonic Papers.

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Google is reporting that in December 2007 Unicode became the most frequently used encoding on Web pages.

Just last December there was an interesting milestone on the web. For the first time, we found that Unicode was the most frequent encoding found on web pages, overtaking both ASCII and Western European encodings—and by coincidence, within 10 days of one another. What’s more impressive than simply overtaking them is the speed with which this happened.

Here’s Google’s graph:

I wish Big5, the encoding most used for Web pages in traditional Chinese characters, had been included in the graph. And I suspect that it’s only within the past ten years — perhaps even within the timeframe of the graph — that more Web pages have been encoded in GB (used for so-called simplified Chinese characters) than Big5. (GB is shown on the graph in green.)

Of course, many (most?) Web pages don’t declare any character encoding. This is especially bad when they contain characters beyond the bounds of ASCII, since those characters will often end up rendered as garbage on systems different than that of the creator of the Web page.

So … should I have a post focusing on Unicode without again berating the Unicode Consortium for its continuing unscientific, egregious, and unforgivable use of ideographic? I don’t think so.

source: Moving to Unicode 5.1, Official Google Blog, May 5, 2008

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