1 The Origins of Our Translation and Its Title
This book was conceived during the spring term of academic year 2010â2011 when I taught my graduate seminar on âQuestions of Language, Writing, and Linguistic Thought in the History of the âChinese Character Cultural Sphere
In hindsight, this was a foolhardy undertaking: the contents of the book are quite technical and complex, demanding deep expertise in East Asian intellectual and religious history; the early history of Buddhism and written language in China, Japan and Korea; East Asian historical linguistics; the history of reading and writing across the sinographic sphere; Sinitic poetry and its reception throughout the same region; etc. Thus, Professor Kin was entirely justified in his initially skeptical reaction to my proposal to proceed with an English translation of the book, and the inherent difficulty of the book goes a long way toward explaining why it has taken ten years to complete.
All translations require translators to make difficult decisions about word choice and terminology, but this project has been especially challenging because of the relative dearth of English-language publications treating these phenomena in a broadly comparative way, and because of the concomitant lack of a well-established and agreed upon terminology.2 Professor Kinâs book was published with the Japanese title Kanbun to higashi Ajia: Kundoku no bunkaken, one possible translation of which would be âClassical Chinese and East Asia: The Cultural Sphere of Reading by Gloss.â That is, J. kanbun
But we have chosen to give the title a number of slightly different twists in English and have opted instead for âLiterary Sinitic and East Asia: A Cultural Sphere of Vernacular Reading.â The reasons are as follows. First of all, âLiterary Sinitic.â Rationales for the term âLiterary Siniticâ in preference to âClassical Chineseâ or âLiterary Chineseâ can be found in Mair (1994 and 2004), where the reasons given are primarily linguistic and philological. That is, Mair uses âSiniticâ as a precise and politically neutral rendering of hanyu
Thus, we use âLiterary Siniticâ to refer to what is called kanbun in Japanese, hanmun in Korean, and hán vÄn in Vietnamese, and to what in modern Mandarin Chinese is typically called wenyan(wen)
It can be objected that the term âSiniticâ indexes âChinaâ just as much as the term âChineseâ does, and etymologically speaking, this is true. Our point is not to deny the centrality of China, Chinese civilization or Chinese writing in the development of literacy, writing and literature in the regions encompassed by the Sinographic Cosmopolis.6 But the term âSiniticâ does nonetheless take us all at least one cautious step back from the unfortunate imprecision of âChinese.â It can also be objected that many of the texts composed in what we are calling âLiterary Siniticâ are less than âliteraryâ or bellelettristic and/or are infused with vernacular elements (whether Sinitic or otherwise), but here the point is that the authors of texts written in what is variously called wenyan(wen), hanmun, kanbun or hán vÄn were nonetheless striving to write in Literary Sinitic. And anybody, whether a speaker of a variety of Vernacular Sinitic or not, was capable of writing substandard Literary Sinitic. âLiterary Siniticâ comes with all the imprecision of these equivalents in Mandarin, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese, but we need a blanket term for the entire region that avoids the term âChinese.â7
Now let us turn to the term kundoku and problems with its translation. Perhaps the most fundamental problem with the termâboth in much modern Japanese research about the phenomenon and in most of the research in non-Japanese languages that carry over the term intact from Japanese as a kind of technical termâis its lack of precision. That is, when researchers, Japanese or otherwise, write about âkundoku,â it is not always clear whether they are talking about text- or sentence-level (kanbun) kundoku, or about word- or character- (sinographic) level kunâyomi: âkundokuâ typically does duty for both of these across a wide swath of research. A more linguistically fine-tuned approach to kundoku-type reading practices, therefore, would need to answer a number of questions, starting with: Is the practice restricted to individual graphs or words, or does it apply to longer texts? Are written glosses involved, and if so, what kinds? Is a knowledge of the source language required, and if so, on what levels and to what extent? Do these reading practices involve translation? Etc.8
An additional problem with using the term âkundokuâ untranslated is that it rather unjustly privileges Japanese as somehow the unique or originary case for these sorts of reading practices, a conceit that Kin BunkyÅâs book dispels once and for all. With these caveats in mind, then, let us turn to the question of how to render âkundokuâ in English. Lurie (2011: 5) describes kundoku-type reading practices as âreading by gloss,â and Whitman (2011: 1) similarly uses âglossingâ â⦠in a somewhat extended sense to refer to a process where a text in one language is prepared (annotated, marked) to be read in anotherâ (Whitman 2011: 1). Kin BunkyÅ himself adopts a very liberal attitude as to what counts as kundoku, but in any case we render âkundoku
Finally, the question of the uniqueness of East Asian vernacular reading techniques in the history of world writing. To Professor Kinâs eternal credit, his book shatters the all-too-common conceit among many speakers and scholars of Japanese that kundoku is and always has been somehow unique to Japan. Instead, Professor Kin not only demonstrates a wide range of vernacular reading phenomena attested in earlier periods of Korean (building on the pioneering work of Nam PâunghyÅn and Kobayashi Yoshinori, among others) and Old Uighur (based on the equally pioneering publications of ShÅgaito Masahiro), but also stretches the notion of âvernacular reading/kundokuâ to include Khitan and Vietnamese, as well as textual genres like zhijie
But when Professor Kin writes in Chapter 1 that âExcept for the case of reading Literary Sinitic via kundoku in Japan, there are no examples, at least in todayâs world, of reading a foreign language text by adding marks to change word order and thereby convert the text into oneâs native language,â his qualifications of âat least in todayâs worldâ and âby adding marksâ are important ones, and readers are left potentially with the impression that vernacular readingâeven if confined today to Japanâwas nonetheless a phenomenon unique to the sinographic sphere. Moreover, readers are left to ponder whether vernacular reading was possible without adding marks. But there are indeed parallel vernacular and/or glossed reading phenomena attested elsewhere in the world: King (2007) and Whitman (2011) reference some of the glossed reading techniques from medieval Europe,9 and there are fascinating parallels from multiple languages of the ancient Middle East. Thus, our English-language sub-title reads, âA Cultural Sphere of Vernacular Reading â¦â rather than âThe Cultural Sphere â¦â so as to encourage thinking about other such cultural spheres in world history.
2 Ancient Middle Eastern Parallels to East Asian Vernacular Reading Phenomena
Although Professor Kin must have been well aware of the ancient Middle Eastern parallels to kundoku, he makes no mention of them in his book. To have done so would no doubt have complicated the work even further, but the typological and terminological parallels between ancient Middle Eastern vernacular reading phenomena and those in the sinographic sphere deserve closer attention, if for no other reason perhaps than to help us sharpen our appreciation of the similarities and differences between the two. As an additional attempt at clarifying the gamut of attested cases of vernacular reading techniques around the world along with some of the terminology that has been proposed to describe it, the pages below summarize some of the key research to date on kundoku-type phenomena in the (mostly ancient) Middle East, although I cannot pretend to any authoritative expertise in this area.
2.1 Allography, Garshuni, and Garshunography
One of the first terms one encounters in the scholarly literature about vernacular reading and cases where a âforeignâ writing system is used to write a vernacular is âallography,â built on Greek allo- âotherâ plus graphé ârepresentation by means of lines; drawing; writing.â French scholar Chatonnet (2015: 16) defines âallographieâ as âcases where a language with its own writing system is written down deliberatelyâand in precise and limited contextsâusing another writing system borrowed from a different tradition.â10 Mengozzi (2010: 297) notes that the term âGarshuni,â used originally to refer to Arabic texts written in Syriac script, has also been used to label cases whereby the East-Syriac script was used to write languages like Armenian, Kurdish, Malayalam, Persian, or Turkish, and Kiraz (2014: 65) goes so far as to propose that all such cases where âa community makes a deliberate choiceâ to write in another script different from their own be designated as âgarshunographyâ rather than âallography,â which latter term he deems inappropriate because of its established linguistic usage to designate (ortho)graphic variation. At any rate, âallographyâ is clearly not relevant to East Asian vernacular reading practices, because while different East Asian linguistic communities may have deliberately chosen to deploy sinographs and Literary Sinitic, they nonetheless had no âchoice,â because they had no indigenous writing system prior to contact with sinography. Chinese writing was the only game in town, as it were, at least for Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese in ancient times.
2.2 Alloglottography
An etymologically similar term to âallographyâ is âalloglottography,â defined by Coulmas (1996: 8) as âthe practice of using one language in writing and another in reading, known from situations of restricted literacy.â On the very next page, Coulmas refers to Japanese kundoku kanbun (âChinese texts read in the kundoku methodâ) as an example of alloglottography, but this is not entirely congruent with the original use of the term. The term âalloglottographyâ was coined by Ilya Gershevitch (1979) in his famous paper on the use of Elamite in Achaemenid chanceries, where he showed on the basis of a detailed analysis of the great inscription of Darius on Mount Behistun that Achaemenid Elamite was a medium for transmitting texts that were conceived and dictated in Old Iranian languages, to be read out and understood as Old Iranian texts. In a restatement of the phenomenon, Rubio (2007: 33) defines alloglottography as â⦠writing a text in a language different from the language in which it is intended to be read â¦,â and writes with respect to Darius: âThis means that the Great King uttered the words in Old Persian, but the scribes wrote them down in Elamite and read them back to him (as the inscription says) in Old Persianâ (ibid.: 39).
In a footnote to his original article, Gershevitch describes how he also entertained using the terms âxenography,â âdisglottography,â or âdysglottographyâ for the same phenomenon, but goes on to clarify that âthe essence of what I mean is not that an alien (âxenoâ) âgraphyâ is used, but that an alien âglottaâ is used for the âgraphyâ of oneâs own âglotta.ââ In their recent discussion of Sumerograms and Akkadograms in Hittite and the terminology used to describe them, Kudrinski and Yakubovich (2016: 56) bemoan the âhighly poetic styleâ of Gershevitchâs original exposition and his failure to offer up a more formal definition of alloglottography, preferring instead the definition in Langslow (2002: 44â45): âthe use of one language (L1) to represent an utterance in another language (L2) [â¦] in such a way that the original utterance in L2 can be accurately and unambiguously recovered from the document in L1.â11 Under such a formal definition, Japanese kanbun kundoku would indeed qualify as a form of alloglottography, but the question remains as to what formal devices, say, the Achaemenid scribes used to make possible the unambiguous recovery of Old Persian from the written Elamite text.
2.3 From Ideography to Logography to Heterography and Heterograms
Just as the notion of âideogramâ and âideographyâ has come in for sustained criticism in discussions of Chinese writing in recent decades (see Unger 1990 and 2004 for discussion and relevant bibliography), the same terms have been used in the scholarly literature on cuneiform writing in ancient Mesopotamia, but have come under scrutiny since at least Gelb (1963: 35), who criticized the use of âideogramâ in that field. Kudrinski and Yakubovich (2016: 54) argue strongly for the use of âlogogramâ in cuneiform studies, and note that this term is now âubiquitous in contemporary Hittitological literature.â But as a cover term for the various types of logogram found in ancient Middle Eastern writing systems, they suggest âheterogram.â And if those of us working in the sinographic sphere were to follow the example of our colleagues in cuneiform studies, we should probably be referring to âChinese charactersâ not as âsinographsâ but as âsino-grams,â a term in fact used by Haruta SeirÅ, a Japanese specialist in Middle Iranian languages (see Haruta 2006).
How, then, can we define âheterogram?â Kiraz (2014: 68) gives the following definition: âA heterogram is a word (or morpheme) that is spelled exactly as it would be spelled in its source language, but is intended to be read in the target language ⦠(This is not to be confused with alloglottography where the entire text is written in one language but read in another.)â Putting to one side the phonographic and alphabetic bias of Kirazâs appeal to âspelling,â which is clearly not relevant to sinographs, under such a definition âheterographyâ would be the unaltered use of graphic representations of morphemes or words from language A to write words or morphemes in language B. This still begs the question of how such heterograms are to be read or vocalized in language B, but in any case the term âheterographyâ as used in ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform studies and Middle Iranian studies is quite different from the definition given in Coulmas (1996: 202): âa differentiation in spelling which distinguishes different meanings of homophonous words or phrase.â Examples of this Coulmasian heterography as the antonym of homograph(y) would be the differentiation (âdifferent writingâ = hetero-graphy) of English right, rite, write, and wright (Kiraz 2014: 68), whereas examples from English approximating kundoku-type heterography would be the different readings of â2â in â20 = twenty,â â20ies = twenties,â â2 = twoâ and â2nd = secondâ or of âXâ in âXmas = Christmas and âXing = crossingâ (from Busse 2013: 92).12
2.4 Ancient Middle Eastern Parallels with East Asia
Parallels between ancient Middle Eastern heterography and Japanese vernacular reading practices were noted already more than 150 years ago by French Orientalist and Japanologist Léon de Rosny (1837â1914). In a letter to Assyriologist Julius Oppert (1825â1905) published in Revue Orientale, Léon de Rosny (1864: 269) pointed out two parallels between âAnarianâ (Sumerian) cuneiform and the use of Chinese writing in Japan: âthe polyphony of certain signsâ and the use of âphonetic complements alongside certain ideograms for recall of the corresponding word in the spoken language.â For Rosny (ibid.: 271), the fact that both Anarian cuneiform and Japanese writing are âa mixture of ideographic signs and phonetic signsâ and that ideographic signs, whether in Assyrian or Japanese, âexpress neither a letter nor any sound, but an ideaâan abstraction created by the sound by which this idea is rendered in thus and such language,â counted as a âremarkable coincidence.â âBut,â explains Rosny, after a survey of sumerograms and sinographs for âheart,â âhand,â and âsurveyed field,â ânothing in these signs brought to mind how one said the words âheart,â âhand,â and âsurveyed fieldâ in China or Babylonââhence the need to develop phonetic complements. He goes on to point out that this feature of âChinese ideographic writingâ had led to the point where âthe Japanese, the Cochinchinese [Vietnamese], Koreans, Cantonese, and Fujianese were able to adopt it âwithout having to renounce their national language.â13
It should come as no surprise that some of the first twentieth-century scholars to pick up again on these similarities were Japanese. An early case in point is KÅno (1980), and Japanese scholars of writing in the ancient Middle East still hark back to this paper and the parallels noted there. KÅno wrote:
We [Japanese] not only use two different kinds of scripts [Chinese kanji logograms and Japanese kana syllabograms] side by side, but also read kanji in an extremely complex way using not only their on [Chinese(-like)] values but also their kun [Japanese] values. This practice is similar to that of the Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform, which was borrowed from Sumerians. Such a practice thus seems too old-looking for the second half of the twentieth century, and its complexity is unparalleled today. We struggle with this complexity day by day, but this struggle provides us with golden opportunities for contemplating the essence of writing.
Quoted from Ikeda 2007: 1
Haruta (2006: 172) specifically refers to âheterographic writing systemsâ as âkun-reading systems,â while Ikeda (2007) and Ikeda (2013) both make explicit comparisons between Japanese kundoku and early Akkadian cuneiform.14 Based on his comparison, Ikeda (2007: 9) outlines the following typology of what he calls âkunogenesisâ:
Monographic and monosyllabic (e.g. <2> for the syllable /tu/ as in âta2â);
Monographic and polysyllabic (e.g. <0> for the syllables /zero/ as in â0xâ);
Polygraphic and monosyllabic (e.g. <10> for the syllables /ten/ as in â10derâ);
Polygraphic and polysyllabic (e.g. <40> for the syllables /forti/ as in â40fyâ).
Ikeda (2007: n. 15) goes on to note that âpartial kun ⦠can also be segmental, but segmental kunogenesis has been excluded from the discussion, because it is attested neither in early Japanese nor in early Akkadian.â This is an unfortunate omission, because as Professor Kinâs discussion of Silla hyangga and hyangchâal orthography in the book translated here shows, Old Korean had precisely this kind of segmental kun readings.
Another observer was certainly Russian linguist Igor Mikhailovich Diakonoff. In his reminiscences of an exchange of ideas with Diakonoff about his (then) forthcoming paper on alloglottography, Ilya Gershevitch (1982: 99) cites a letter from Diakonoff in which the latter writes: âHowever, the Aramaic-Iranian system is not unique in grammatological history, cf. Akkadian with its Sumerograms and Akkadograms, or Korean and Japanese with their Chinese pictographic spellings.â15 Two years later, Miguel Civil, in his study of âbilingualism in logographically written languagesâ with a focus on Sumerian in Ebla, begins his article with a foray into Old Japanese so as to emphasize the point that âthe language in which a text is written is not necessarily the language in which the same text is readâ (1984: 75â76). Unfortunately, he muddles language and script and his example is the ManâyÅshÅ«, where there can be no doubt that the poems are in Japanese, and that the language of writing and reading were the same.16 In any case, the parallels between Japanese kundoku (albeit focusing primarily on word-level kunâyomi) and ancient Middle Eastern heterography have been remarked upon in passing for some years now, but remain insufficiently studied.
2.5 Aramaic mfÄraÅ¡, Middle Persian uzvÄriÅ¡n
2.5.1 Aramaic mfÄraÅ¡
The oldest descriptions of how ancient Middle Eastern alloglottography or vernacular reading might have worked in practice are both fascinating and instructive for the student of vernacular reading practices in the sinographic sphere. The oldest such records pertain to Achaemenid times and a stash of letters in Aramaic, some on papyrus and some on leather, that survives from the correspondence of an Achaemenid prince called ArÅ¡Äma concerning his landholdings in Egypt. As de Blois describes it, âThese include one letter from a person with a Persian name to ArÅ¡Äma, and several from ArÅ¡Äma to various persons in Egypt, some of whom had Persian, some Egyptian names. The question inevitably arises why two Persians, one of them a member of the royal family, the other an official of the Persian administration in Egypt, should communicate with one another not in their own native tongue, nor even in a language spoken in Egypt, but in Aramaic. The only plausible answer is that the sender dictated his message in Persian, a scribe translated it ad hoc and wrote it down into Aramaic, and that a second scribe retranslated it ex tempore into Persian â¦â (de Blois 2007: 1194). This notion of an Achaemenid scribe reading off in Persian (or some other language) a text written in Aramaic was famously imagined by Polotsky (1932: 273), who suggested that Achaemenid chancery practices were predicated on the twinned assumptions of a) monolingualism in writing practice and b) multilingualism of the scribe. The texts produced were translated directly âvom Blatt wegâ (âoff the sheet; impromptuâ) in the language of the addressee. Sundermann (1985: 105) elaborates that this form of ex tempore translation of the Aramaic text into Persian was referred to in Aramaic as mpÄraÅ¡ [sic], a term meaning something like âinterpret.â Moreover, ââ[R]eadingâ for the otherwise illiterate Persian aristocrats consisted of consulting their literate servants, as the Old Persian word pati-psa- for âreadâ suggests; according to I. Gershevitch, this must have meant âask for the return of, and re-citing, words previously spoken and/or heard.ââ Greenfield (2008: 707â708) provides more details on the practice and related terms:
⦠the document was dictated by the king or by an official to the scribe, who then wrote the text in Aramaic; the addresseeâs scribe read the letter in the recipientâs native tongue. It is clear, from various internal indications, that the sepÄ«ru âscribeâ combined in his function the tasks of both secretary and translator. Although most recipients would be Persian, the missive might be received by a Lydian, a Greek, a Choresmian or a resident of Gandhara. The use of many Old Persian terms in these texts facilitated their being understood. This mode of reading is what is meant by the term mÄphÄrash in Ezra 4.18, the equivalent of Iranian uzvÄriÅ¡n. The reading of these texts aloud is referred to in Ezra 4.18, Esther 6.1 and Darius, Behistun 70.
Let us pursue now this last reference to Ezra 4.18. The King James Bible reads, âThe letter which ye sent unto us hath been plainly read before meâ while the New International Version reads, âThe letter you sent us has been read and translated in my presence.â17 Numerous other English translations exist. The context is a series of petitions to different Achaemenid kings from Jewish and Samaritan leaders in Palestine, and the replies of the kings; the language and style are similar to the ArÅ¡Äma letters found in Egypt. âOne of these is a letter from Artaxerxes I to the Samaritan, beginning (after the greeting) with the words (Ezra 4.18) âthe letter which you sent to us was read before me mfÄraÅ¡.â The meaning of mfÄraÅ¡ was long forgotten (the Septuagint, for example, leaves it without translation), but it has plausibly been argued (Schaeder 1930: 1â14; Polotsky 1932), that it means âinterpreted, translatedâ or more precisely âtranslated ex temporeââ (de Blois 2007: 1195). With respect to this word mfÄraÅ¡, F.F. Bruce (1950: 52) writes that it âwas actually employed as a technical term in the diplomatic service of the Persian Empire to denote the procedure when an official read an Aramaic document straight off in the vernacular language of the particular province concerned.â
2.5.2 Middle Persian uzvÄriÅ¡n
The system of mfÄraÅ¡ seen above was called uzvÄriÅ¡n in Pahlavi, and a description of it survives in Arabic by An-Nadim in his Fihrist (10th century CE), where he quotes the following account by Ibn al-Muqaffaâ (8th century CE):
They also have an alphabet, called zuvÄriÅ¡n [sic],18 which they can write with the letters together or separatedâthere are some 1000 wordsâfor the purpose of distinguishing words with more than one meaning [in Pahlavi script]. For example, if one wants to write [Persian] gÅÅ¡tâwhich in Arabic is lahm [âmeatâ]â, then one writes BSRʾ [actually BSLYʾ = Aramaic bisrÄ], but reads it gÅÅ¡tâ¦. If one wants to write [Persian] nÄnâwhich in Arabic is khubz (âbreadâ)â, then one writes [Aramaic] lahmÄ, but reads nÄn â¦; and so on in all cases, except for cases when a substitute is not necessary: then they write like they speak.19
An-Nadimâs account is unclear as to whether uzvÄriÅ¡n referred to the individual heterograms or to the practice of heterography itself, but Skalmowski (2004: 295) goes on to explain that uzvÄriÅ¡n almost certainly means âexplanation/ interpretationâ and adds: âAn important argument for accepting this meaning is the fact that the term uzvÄriÅ¡n was used by Zoroastrians in post-Sasanian times as an equivalent of Arabic tafsÄ«r âcommentaryââ¦â In this context, the ancient Korean practice of sÅktok kugyÅl
Modern-day scholars have sometimes referred to these Aramaeograms in Middle Persian as âmasks.â Here is a description from de Blois (2007: 1195):
⦠the quasi-Aramaic graphemes are masks for Middle Persian words, which are interspersed with phonetically (or pseudo-phonetically) spelt Persian words and with purely Persian grammatical elements attached to the quasi-Aramaic words. Thus, the Sasanian royal title âking of kingsâ is written MLKâN MLKâ. Although this clearly involves the Aramaic word malkÄ [king] the phrase is not Aramaic. Instead, it stands for Middle Persian Å¡Äh-Än Å¡Äh; MLKâ is merely an âideogramâ for Å¡Äh, while âN is a âphoneticâ spelling of the Persian plural suffix Än.
As Haruta (2013: 781) notes, scholars today typically transliterate heterograms like these with CAPS (a convention I have followed with sinographs in the translation of Professor Kinâs book). Another account, from Skjaervø (1996: 517â520):
They still wrote Aramaic words, however, but these became mere symbols (sometimes called âSemitic masksâ) for the corresponding Iranian words ⦠Thus they would write mlkâ for Parth., MPers. Å¡Äh, Sogd. ÉxÅ¡ÄwanÄ âking.â These Semitic âmasksâ were until recently called âideograms,â but today heterogram or Aramaogram is the more common term.
2.6 The Parallels
What, then, are the parallels between cuneiform or Middle Persian heterography and East Asian vernacular reading? To give but a simple example, the Sumerian sign LUGAL was used to designate âkingâ in Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite texts (Kudrinski and Yakubovich 2016: 53). A parallel would be the use of the sinograph
2.7 The Differences
One of the greatest differences between the ancient Middle East and the sinographic sphereâat least insofar as ancient Korea and Japan are concernedâconcerns the sociolinguistic environment in which writing arose. Most accounts of heterography in the ancient Middle East are predicated on the assumptions that multiple languages were in contact and furthermore that multiple writing systems of heterogeneous origins were in use. Thus, scholars of ancient Mesopotamia and Middle Persian frequently appeal to language contact and language shift models to explain changes in scribal practices. For example, Kudrinski and Yakubovich (2016: 58) write of âthe mismatch between the shift from language A to language B in oral communication and the preservation of A in writing in the same community, which is accompanied by the imperfect learning of the written variety of A by the speakers of B.â For them, both alloglottography and heterographic spellings âimply the ongoing or completed native language shift in a particular epigraphic community,â but âthe former predates the language shift in writing, whereas the second must follow itâ (ibid.). But the optimism of Yakubovich (2008: 205) about the prospects of contact linguistics for providing solutions to questions of the development of alloglottography and heterography in the ancient Middle East do not carry over to ancient Japan and Korea, where sinographyâwriting in âsinogramsââwas the only form of writing ever known in the region in the earliest period. Moreover, although we can certainly imagine some form of multilingualism in ancient times on the Korean Peninsula, it was nothing remotely as robust as the multilingualism of the ancient Middle East, and certainly bilingualism in any local peninsular language with any form of spoken Sinitic would have been extremely limited, both in terms of population and in terms of duration. And even by then the gulf between spoken Sinitic and written/Literary Sinitic was significant.
Another difference concerns vernacular readings (âkunâ readings) vs. indigenized or domesticated autochthono-xenic readings (to coin a monstrous termâi.e., readings of logograms corresponding to Sino-Japanese âonâ readings of sinographs in Japanese). That is, whereas scholars of Akkadian, Hittite, and Middle Persian have been consumed with unraveling the secrets of heterography in their region and revealing the ways in which these were used to âmaskâ local/vernacular (as opposed to, say, original Sumerian or Aramaic) words and morphemes, and whereas even Japanese experts in the languages of the ancient Middle East have similarly focused on the parallels between Japanese kundoku (or at least word-level kunâyomi) and Middle Eastern heterography, few scholars seem to dwell on the processes by which heterograms, or even entire repertoires of them, are domesticated as loanwords, giving rise in the sinographic sphere to Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, Sino-Uighur, and Sino-Vietnamese systems of Sino-Xenic vocalizations for sinographs. So when a scholar of Middle Iranian transcribes Aramaeograms in CAPS, the assumption today seems to be that the heterograms were all read in, say, vernacular Pahlavi. When we do the same with a Literary Sinitic text from ancient Japan equipped with reading glosses, we sometimes do not know whether Japanese readers at the time would have read the sinographs in a Sino-Japanese pronunciation or in the vernacular, but we do know that both options were available. In the case of Middle Persian, a debate has raged for some decades as to whether the Aramaic elements in the texts are genuine loanwords and part of the lexicon, a position held by Lentz (1975) and Skalmowski (2004), but rejected already in Salemann (1895) and Schaeder (1930). The problem is that there is a pointed lack of Aramaic loanwords in New Persian, a direct descendant of Middle Persian, as well as in the Armenian, Syrian, and Greek sources dependent on Middle Persian. Additionally, in cases where parallel versions of the same passage or text exist in both heterographic and âphoneticâ writing, the latter sorts of texts show no Aramaisms.22
The only vaguely similar case I have seen of development of a kind of âonâ (Aramaeo-Persian?) reading is that of modern-day Zoroastrians in India, who âcame to be convinced that both the Middle Persian and the Aramaic morphemes in Pahlavi religious texts were to be phonetically pronouncedâ some thousand years after the texts were written (Yakubovich 2008: 206). In essence, in a case like this where the heterograms are alphabetically (or at least abjadically or consonantally) rendered, this is a kind of reading pronunciation on steroids and still quite different from the Sino-Xenic systems that arose in East Asia on the basis of Middle Chinese and which, paradoxically, may have helped anchor and solidify the vernaculars against assimilation to Chinese (see ItÅ 2013 and 2014 for argumentation along these lines).
Ikeda and Yamada (2017: 162) outline other, more technical, differences between ancient Middle Eastern heterography and Japanese kundoku: âFirst, Akkadian phonograms are generally polyphonic, while Japanese phonograms are not. Second, in the Japanese text, you could easily tell the difference between the logograms and the phonograms ⦠Moreover, phonograms cannot be used as logograms, and vice versa. In the Akkadian writing system, on the other hand, most characters can be used both as a logogram and as a phonogram. Finally, phonetic complements are obligatory in todayâs Japanese orthography, while they are optional in Akkadian. However, these particular traits of the Japanese writing system did not exist in its early stage, that is, in the eighth century CE.â Much the same can be said, mutatis mutandis, about ancient Korean kugyÅl.
3 From Heterography to Heterolexia?
The terms âheterogramâ and âheterography,â while versatile and useful enough, seemingly for both ancient Middle Eastern and sinographic contexts, are nonetheless not perfect. Kudrinski and Yakubovich present strong arguments for âheterogramâ over other terms used in the past for cuneiform studies, but as Skjaervø (1995: 302â303) has noted, confusion or lack of clarity around the origin and function of heterograms in Iranian texts as opposed to their function in Aramaic texts is a perennial problem, and I would add that this needs to be guarded against when studying other languages and scripts too. Kudrinski and Yakubovich (2016: 55) offer up a reformatted definition of âheterogramâ as follows:
⦠a sign or combination of signs that reproduce in writing a segment of A as a part of a text composed in B where A and B are two distinct languages and one can reasonably assume that the segment in question did not exist in the spoken language B.
But here we see another confusionâthat between language and script, and in any case, we also run up against the problem seen above of assumptions of multilingualism, language contact, and multiple scribal traditions that do not pertain to the ancient sinographic sphere. Kudrinski and Yakubovich themselves concede that âUnfortunately, the practice of writing Hittite without resorting to Sumero- and Akkadograms appears to be non-existentâ (another difference from, say, Heian period Japanese, where Japanese could be written without recourse to sinographs, though the hiragana and katakana syllabograms derive from manâyÅgana and thus ultimately from sinographs, and texts were rarely, if ever, 100% in syllabograms), making it difficult to find parallel test cases. But when they claim in defense of the term âheterogramâ that its etymology âdoes not impose a reference to the way one reads specific textsâ (2016: 55), this seems to me to capture the essence of our terminological conundrum.
Because philologists and scholars of writing and its history have been so consumed with writing and writing systems, all our terms are weighted toward -grams, -graphs, and âgraphies. With all this graphological heavy lifting we risk losing sight of the act of reading and of the many and varied ways to read in complex logographic writing systems. In the case of âsinogramsâ in East Asia (even in the case of Sinitic languages themselves), the more interesting question is always, âhow were they read?â At the risk of clogging up our terminological repertoire further, I would suggest something like âheterolexiaâ (by analogy with âdyslexia,â even though etymologically this word is unorthodox) as a counterpoint to âheterographyâ and as a partial synonym for âvernacular reading.â
4 Editorial Conventions
4.1 Romanization
For Japanese, we use Revised Hepburn. The object particle
4.2 Citations
Like most Japanese works of this nature, Professor Kinâs original book does not give page numbers for citations. Wherever possible, we have endeavoured to provide these.
4.3 Sinographs and Footnotes
Following the conventions in Handel (2019), sinographs are rendered in PMingLiU (Proportional Ming Light Unicode) when the context is Chinese, in MS Mincho when the context is Japanese, and in Batang when the context is Korean. In contexts that span more than one civilization, PMingLiU is used. The editor has operated with the assumption that, all things being equal, readers need access to both sinographs and the originals of literary texts cited and translated; this we have provided in the footnotes. Thus, unless otherwise noted, all of the footnotes in the translation have been supplied or enhanced by the editor.
5 And Finally, about the Author: Kin BunkyÅ a.k.a. Kim MunâgyÅng
Professor Kin BunkyÅ
Professor Kin is a world-renowned scholar in the field of Chinese literature; with his rare erudition in all three of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean literary traditions, he is uniquely qualified to write on the history of vernacular reading in the sinographic sphere. His research contributions since the 1970s have touched many different fields, including: Cantonese folk lyrics (Inaba, Kin, and Watanabe 1995); translations into Japanese and studies of Jin Yongâs highly popular martial arts fiction (Jin Yong 1999; Kin 2010d); studies of Classical Chinese fiction (Kin 2002c); annotated editions of medieval Koreaâs two most popular manuals of spoken Chinese that Professor Kin has led with an international team of scholars (Kin et al. 2002 on the NogÅltae
But as the partial but nonetheless extensive listing of Professor Kinâs publications at the end of this preface shows, Professor Kinâs greatest love has been Chinese drama, and Yuan dynasty drama in particular. One of his very first publications was a long article on Yuan dynasty playwright Bai Renfu
More than any other work, Professor Kin has dedicated more than two decades to Dong Jieyuanâs Xixiangji zhugongdiao, beginning with his monograph in 1998 (Kin 1998b), and extending to the articles on style and linguistic artistry in the play in Kin (2010e) and Kin (2011h), and his lone publication in English on the elapse of time and seasons in the play (Kin 2005b, 2006, in two different versions and venues). His article on the illustrations in the Hongzhi edition of the Xixiangji (Kin 2014g) continues his longstanding interest in the broader theme of the Story of the Western Wing.
In addition to these solo-authored projects on Yuan dynasty (and later) Chinese drama, Professor Kin has also worked tirelessly with Japanese and Chinese colleagues to uncover, edit, and publish numerous Yuan playsâespecially rare editions held in Japan. Akamatsu, Inoue, and Kin (2007) and Akamatsu, Kin, and Komatsu (2011) are one representative series; Li and Kin (2004) is an in-depth study and annotated edition of Handan meng ji
In sum, Professor Kin, through his research expertise in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and his deep experience with a wide variety of sinographic texts infused with âvernacularâ elements (be they Chinese, Japanese, or Korean), is the ideal scholar to have undertaken a book like this. The enormity of his topic and the erudition it requires can be judged from the more recent volume edited by Nakamura Shunsaku on virtually the same topic (Nakamura 2014), which required an authorial team of twenty-one scholars to cover much the same ground. I sincerely hope our translation will spur more interest in and galvanize more comparative research on vernacular reading phenomena in East Asia and beyond. And I also hope this preface will encourage more colleagues to explore the many other contributions of Professor Kin, which deserve so richly to be appreciated more widely outside of East Asia.
Ross King
Vancouver, British Columbia
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Works Cited (II): Partial Listing of Works by Kin BunkyÅ
Akamatsu Norihiko 赤æ¾ç´å½¦, Inoue Taizan äºä¸æ³°å±±, and Kin BunkyÅ. 2007. Genkan zatsugeki no kenkyuÌ. Sandatsusaku ä¸å¥ªæ§ Kieifuæ°£è±å¸ Saishokumu西è夢 TantoÌkai [Studies in Yuan-Period Drama Texts. Sanduoshuo, Qi Ying Bu, Xishu Meng, Dandao Hui]. TÅkyÅ: KyuÌko Shoin.
Akamatsu Norihiko 赤æ¾ç´å½¦, Kin BunkyÅ, and Komatsu Ken. 2011. Genkan zatsugeki no kenkyuÌ 2. HenâyaroÌ è²¶å¤é , Kaishisuiä»åæ¨ [Studies in Yuan-Period Drama Texts. Bian Yelang, Jie Zhitui]. TÅkyÅ: KyuÌko Shoin.
Huang Shizhong é»ä»å¿ , Qiao Xiuyan å¬ç§å²©, Kin BunkyÅ, et al. (editors). 2006â. Riben suocang xijian Zhongguo xiqu wenxian congkan [Compendium of Rare Chinese Drama Texts Held in Japan]. 18 vols. Guilin: Guangxi Chifan Daxue Chubanshe.
Inaba Akiko 稻èæå, Kin BunkyoÌ, and Watanabe KoÌji 渡辺浩å¸, compilers. 1995. Mokugyosho mokuroku æ¨éæ¸ç®é: Kanton sesshoÌ bungaku kenkyuÌ: [The Muyushu Mulu: A Study of Cantonese Folk Lyrics Books]. TÅkyÅ: KoÌbun Shuppan.
Jin Yong é庸. 1999. ShachoÌ eiyuÌden [Eagle-Shooting Heroes]. 5 vols. Translated by Okazaki Yumi 岡å´ç±ç¾ and Kin BunkyÅ. TÅkyÅ: Tokuma Shoten.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1976. âHaku Jinpo ç½ä»ç« no bungakuâ [Literature of Bai Renfu]. ChÅ«goku bungakuhÅ 26: 1â43.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1980. âShÅsetsu âRi Wa Denâ æå¨å³ no gekika: âKyokukÅ chiâ æ²æ±æ± to âShÅ«ju kiâ ç¹è¥¦è¨â [The Dramatization of the Novella âLi Wa zhuan:â âQujiang Pondâ and âThe Embroidered Jacketâ]. ChÅ«goku bungakuhÅ 32: 74â115.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1988. âKanji bunkaken no kundoku genshÅâ [The Phenomenon of Vernacular Reading in the Chinese Character Cultural Sphere]. In Wakan hikaku bungaku kenkyÅ« no shomondai, edited by Wakan hikaku bungakkai, 175â204. Wakan hikaku bungaku sÅsho 8. TÅkyÅ: KyÅ«ko Shoin.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1989. âTaiwan gendaiha bungaku no kishu Wang Wenxing o yomuâ [Reading the Standard-Bearer of Taiwanese Modernist Literature, Wang Wenxing]. Geibun kenkyÅ« 54: 236â265.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1993. Sangokushi no sekai [The World of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms]. TÅkyÅ: ToÌhoÌ Shoten.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1994a. âKanji bunkaken no moji to seikatsuâ [Script and Daily Life in the Sinographic Sphere]. Shigaku 63, no. 3: 73(293)â79(299).
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1994b. âKÅkÅrokuåè¡é² to NijÅ«shi KÅäºååå saironâ [Reconsideration of the Xiaoxing lu and the Ershisi xiao]. Geibun kenkyÅ« 65: 269â328.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1995. ââÅ ShÅkun Henbun çæåè®æ kÅâ [Study of the âWang Zhaojun Bianwenâ]. ChÅ«goku bungakuhÅ 50: 81â96.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1997. âChÅ«goku minkan bungaku to shinwa densetsu kenkyÅ«: TonkÅbon âZenkan RyÅ«ke Taishiden (hen) åæ¼¢å家太åä¼(å¤)â o rei to shiteâ [Chinese Popular Literature and Mythological Studies: The Case of Dunhuang âQian Han Liu Jia Tai-zi zhuan (bian)â]. Shigaku 66, no. 4: 119â135.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1998a. âChÅ«goku mokurokugakushijÅ ni okeru Shibu no igi: RikuchÅ ki mokuroku no saikentÅâ [Significance of the Shibu åé¨ in the History of Chinese Bibliography: A Reconsideration of the Six Dynasties Catalogues]. ShidÅ bunko ronshÅ« 33: 171â206.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1998b. ToÌ kaigen seishoÌki shokyuÌchoÌ kenkyuÌ [Study of Dong Jieyuanâs Xixiangji zhugongdiao]. TÅkyÅ: KyuÌko Shoin.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 1999. âNijÅ«shi kÅ ni tsuiteâ [Concerning the Twenty- Four Paragons of Filial Piety]. Tokushima daigaku kokugo kokubungaku 12: 1â8.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2002a. âMindai Banreki nenkan no sanjin山人 no katsudÅâ [Activities of the Shanren in the Wanli Era of the Ming]. TÅyÅshi kenkyÅ« 61, no. 2: 257â277.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2002b. âHigashi Ajia ni okeru taishi junan setsuwa to Åken shinwaâ [Tales of Crown Prince Hardships in East Asia and Myths of Kingship]. Jinbun gakuhÅ 86: 213â223.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2002c. âWanming xiaoshuo, leishu zuojia TÅ Shibaku éå¿æ¼ shengping chutanâ [Preliminary Study of the Life of Deng Zhimo: A Late Ming Author of Fiction and Encyclopedias]. In Mingdai xiaoshuo mianmianguan: Mingdai xiaoshuo guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwenji [Aspects of Ming Fiction: Proceedings of an International Academic Conference on Ming Dynasty Fiction], edited by Kow Mei-Kao è¾ç¾é« and Huang Lin é»é, 318â329. Shanghai: Xuelin Chubanshe.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2004a. âGenkyoku chÅ« no ChÅ Bekko å¼µæå¤ ni tsuiteâ [Character Zhang Biegu in Yuan Dramas]. Geibun kenkyÅ« 87: 162â184.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2004b. âGenkyoku no joseizÅâ [Image of Women in Yuan Drama]. ChÅ«goku 21 20: 69â86.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2005a. Sangokushi no sekai: Gokan sangoku jidai [World of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Three Kingdoms Period of the Late Han]. TÅkyÅ: KoÌdansha.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2005b. âElapse of Time and Seasons in Dong Jieyuan Xixiangji.â Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 63: 1â27. See also Kin (2006).
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2006. âElapse of time and seasons in Dongjieyuan Xixiangji.â In Love, hatred, and other passions: questions and themes on emotions in Chinese civilization, edited by Paolo Santangelo and Donatella Guida, 229â240. Leiden & Boston: Brill.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2008. âTonkÅ henbun no buntaiâ [Literary Style in Dunhuang Bianwen Transformation Texts]. TÅhÅ gakuhÅ 72: 243â265.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2010a. âButten kanâyaku no kundoku oyobi bukkyÅ bungaku ni ataeta eikyÅâ [Kundoku in Chinese Translations of Buddhist Sutras and its Influence on Buddhist Literature]. BukkyÅ bungaku 34: 175â182.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2010b. â17 segi huban Han-Il kan Åi mugi milsu sagÅn e taehaesÅâ [Concerning a Case of Arms Smuggling between Korea and Japan in the Late 17th Century]. KojÅn kwa haesÅk 8: 249â273.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2010c. âKanbun bunkaken no teishÅâ [In Defense of the Literary Sinitic Cultural Sphere]. In Kanbun bunkaken no setsuwa sekai [World of Setsuwa in the Literary Sinitic Cultural Sphere], edited by Komine Kazuaki å°å³¯åæ, 12â26. ChÅ«sei bungaku to Rinsetsu shogaku, vol. I. TÅkyÅ: Chikurinsha.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2010d. âJin Yong no bukyÅ shÅsetsu to tÅdai ChÅ«goku shakaishugi bunkaâ [Martial Arts Fiction of Jin Yong and the Culture of Contemporary Chinese Socialism]. In ChÅ«goku shakaishugi no kenkyÅ« [Research on Chinese Socialism], edited by Yoshikawa Yoshihiro, 245â263. Kyoto: KyÅto Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku KenkyÅ«jo.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2010e. âDong Jieyuan Xixiangji zhugongdiao no kÅsei to gengo hyÅgen ni tsuiteâ [Some Remarks Concerning the Composition, Style and Language of Dong Jieyuanâs Xixiangji zhugongdiao]. TÅhÅ gakuhÅ 85: 339â362.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2011a. âGengo shigen to shite no kanji · kanbunâ [Sinographs and Literary Sinitic as Linguistic Resource]. Bungaku 12, no. 3: 39â51.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2011b. âKan-Nichi no kanbun kundoku (shakudoku) to kanâyaku butten oyobi sono gengokan to sekaikanâ [Worldviews and Language Ideologies of Japanese and Korean Vernacular Reading Practices and Literary Sinitic Translations of the Buddhist Canon]. Inmun kwahak 94: 19â38.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2011c. âNik-Kan kanji ã»kanbun kyÅiku no hikakuâ [Comparison of Japanese and Korean Education in Sinographs and Literary Sinitic]. Kanji kanbun kyÅiku 53: 9â16.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2011d. Samgukchi uÌi segye: yoÌksa uÌi imyoÌn uÌl poda [World of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Inside Historical Story]. Translated by Song WanboÌm, Sin HyoÌnsuÌng, and ChoÌn SoÌnggon. Seoul: SoÌnggyunâgwan Taehakkyo Châulpâanbu.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2011e. âXihu zai ZhongRiHan: Lütan fengjing zhuanyi zai dongya wenxue zhong de yiyiâ [West Lake in China, Japan, and Korea: A Brief Discussion of the Landscape Transfer and its Significance in East Asian Literature]. In Dongya wenhua yixiang zhi xingsu æ±äºæåæ象ä¹å½¢å¡ [Shaping of Imagery in East Asian Culture], edited by Shi Shouqian ç³å®è¬ and Liao Zhaoheng å»è亨 , 141â166. Taipei: Yunchen Wenhua.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2011f. âMindai Sanguozhi yanyi tekisuto no tokuchÅ: ChÅ«goku Kokka Toshokan zÅ nishu no TÅ Hinâin-bon Sanguozhi zhuan o rei to shiteâ [Characteristic Features of the Ming Dynasty Text of the Sanguozhi yanyi: Based on the Example of Two Tang Binyin 湯è³å°¹ Editions Held by the National Library of China]. In Higashi Ajia shoshigaku e no shÅtai [Invitation to East Asian Codicology], vol. 2, edited by Åsawa Akihiro 大澤é¡æµ©, 81â96. TÅkyÅ: TÅhÅ Shoten.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2011g. NoÌ to kyoÌgeki: Nit-ChuÌ hikaku engekiron [NÅ and Beijing Opera: Comparative Sino-Japanese Drama]. Kizugawa-shi: Kokusai KoÌtoÌ KenkyuÌjo.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2011h. âShilun Dong Jieyuan Xixiangji zhugongdiao zhi yuyan yishu fenggeâ [Concerning the Nature of the Linguistic Artistry of Dong Jieyuanâs Xixiangji zhugongdiao]. Guoji hanxue yanjiu tongxun 3: 91â107.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2012a. Ri Haku: HyÅhaku no shijin sono yume to genjitsu [Li Bai: The Dreams and Reality of a Wandering Poet]. TÅkyÅ: Iwanami Shoten.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2012b. âSanjin山人 to shite to no To Ho æç«â [Du Fu as a shanren]. ChÅ«goku bungakuhÅ 83: 141â159.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2012c. âShinhakken no ChÅsen dÅkatsuji-bon Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi ni tsuiteâ [Concerning a Newly Discovered Korean Copper Movable Type Edition of the Sanguozhi tongsu yanyi]. In Hayashida Shinnosuke æç°æ ä¹å© hakushi sanju kinen: Sangokushi ronshÅ« [Commemorative Volume in Honor of Dr. Hayashida Shinnosukeâs Eightieth Birthday: A Collection of Theses on the Sanguozhi], edited by Sangokushi gakkai, 369â386. TÅkyÅ: KyÅ«ko shoin.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2012d. Mito kÅmon manâyÅ« kÅ [Study of â漫éâ in Mito kÅmon]. TÅkyÅ: KoÌdansha.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2013a. âKÅrai jidai kango kyÅkasho Pak Tâongsa no seiritsu nendai ni tsuiteâ [Concerning the Dating of the Completion of the KoryÅ-era Textbook of Spoken Chinese, Pak Tâongsa]. Geibun (KeiÅ Gijuku Daigaku Bungakubu) 105: 63â75.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2013b. âSamgukchi wa tongasia Åi kukche kwanâgyeâ [The Sanguozhi and East Asian International Relations]. In Samgukchi Tongi chÅn Åi segye [World of the Sanguozhi, âDongyi zhuanâ], edited by KwÅn Inhan and Kim KyÅngho, 251â264. Seoul: SÅnggyunâgwan taehakkyo Châulpâanbu.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2013c. âNanbeichao weijing Fameijin jingæ³æ²ç¡ç¶ suojian ÅÄkya pai sansheng zhi Zhongguo zhi shuo shitanâ [Essay on the Claim Found in the Northern and Southern Dynasties Apocryphal Sutra, Fameijin jing, that ÅÄkyamuni Sent Three Sages to China]. In Wenxue jingdian de chuanbo yu quanshi [Spread and Interpretation of Literary Classics], edited by Lin Meiyi and Cai Yingjun, 183â202. Taipei: Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2013d. âTowards Comparative Research on âWritten Prayersâ (Yuanwen/ Ganmon) in China and Japan.â Acta Asiatica: Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern Culture 105: 3â14.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2014a. Sanguozhi de shijie: Hou Han, Sanguo shidai [World of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Three Kingdoms Period of the Late Han]. Translated by He Xiaoyi ä½ææ¯ and Liang Lei æ¢è¾. Guilin: Guangxi Shifan Daxue Chubanshe.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2014b. âHigashi Ajia no Mito KÅmon: NitchÅ«chÅ no tabisuru hÄ«rÅ no nazo o tokuâ [Mito KÅmon in East Asia: Unraveling the Mystery of a Traveling Hero in China, Japan and Korea]. Tagen bunka 3: 1â20.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2014c. âPyÅnhwa PisamunchâÅn sinang Åi Ilbon esÅ Åi suyong kwa tosi chÅnsÅlâ [Acceptance of the Legends of VaiÅravaá¹a in Japan and the Urban Myth]. Pulgyo hakpo 67: 118â137.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2014d. Genkan zatsugeki no kenkyuÌ 3. HanchoÌ keisho èå¼µé¶é» [Studies in Yuan-Period Drama Texts. Fan zhang jishu]. TÅkyÅ: KyuÌko Shoin.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2014e. âChÅsen enkÅshi ga mita ShinchÅ no engeki: Higashi Ajia no shiten karaâ [Qing Dynasty Drama as Seen by ChosÅn Embassies to China: From the Perspective of East Asia]. In ShinchoÌ kyuÌtei engeki bunka no kenkyuÌ [Study of the Culture of Court Theatre during the Qing Dynasty], edited by Isobe Akira, 595â612. TÅkyÅ: Bensei Shuppan.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2014f. âChaoxian yanxingshi yu tongxinshi suojian Zhongguo he Riben de hujuâ [Chinese and Japanese Drama as Seen by Korean Embassies to China and Japan]. In YÅnhaengsa wa tâongsinsa: yÅnhaeng, tâongsin sahaeng e kwanhan han-chung-il samguk Åi kukche wÅkâÅshop [ChosÅn Embassies to China and Japan: A Tri-national China-Japan-Korea Workshop on Embassies to China and Japan], edited by ChÅng Kwang and Fujimoto Yukio, 223â256, 436â464, 603â622 (in Chinese, Japanese and Korean). Seoul: Pangmunsa.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2014g. âHongzhi-ben Xixiangji no sashie ni tsuiteâ [Concerning the Illustrations in the Hongzhi Edition of the Xixiangji]. In ChÅ«goku koten bungaku to sÅga bunka [Chinese Classical Literature and the Culture of Illustration], edited by Takimoto Hiroyuki ç§æ¬å¼ä¹ and Åtsuka Hidetaka 大å¡ç§é«, 103â114. TÅkyÅ: Bensei Shuppan.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2015a. Fujitsuka Chikashi hakushi ihin tenjikai mokuroku, kaidai [Introductory Essay on and Catalogue of the Exhibition of the Nachlass of Dr. Fujitsuka Chikashi]. Kyoto: KyoÌdai Jinbun Kagaku KenkyuÌjo.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2015b. â18 · 19 seiki ChÅsen enkÅshi no Shin-ChÅ ni okeru kÅryÅ«: Fujitsuka Chikashi è¤å¡é° hakase ihin no shÅkai o tsÅ«jiteâ [Qing-ChosÅn Intercourse of ChosÅn Embassies to China in the 18th and 19th Centuries: Through an Introduction to the Nachlass of Dr. Fujitsuka Chikashi]. Nihon chÅ«goku gakkai 67: 180â191.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2015c. âShanren kao: Dongya jinshi zhishifenzi de lingyi xingtaiâ [Study of the shanren: Another Type of Modern East Asian Intellectual]. Zhongguo wenxue xuebao 6: 65â78.
Kin BunkyÅ (Kim MunâgyÅng) éæ京. 2015d. âKanshi kara mita Fukuzawa Yukichi no jinseikanâ [Fukuzawa Yukichiâs View of Life, Based on his Sinitic Poetry]. Fukuzawa nenkan 42: 63â82.
Kin BunkyÅ and Chin Chaegyo (translators). 2013. 18 segi Ilbon chisigin ChosÅn Ål yÅtpoda: PâyÅngâurok [An 18th-Century Japanese Intellectualâs Glimpses of Korea: The HeigÅ«roku]. Seoul: SÅnggyunâgwan Taehakkyo Châulpâanbu.
Kin BunkyÅ, Gen Yukiko ç幸å, SatoÌ Haruhiko ä½è¤æ´å½¦, and ChÅng Kwang éå . 2002. RoÌkitsudai èä¹å¤§ : ChoÌsen chuÌsei no ChuÌgokugo kaiwa dokuhon [NogÅltae: A Chinese Language Conversation Chrestomathy from Medieval Korea]. TÅkyÅ: Heibonsha.
Kin BunkyÅ and Hamada Maya 濱ç°éº»ç¢. 2001. âNihon bÅmei go no Ko Ransei è¡èæ: Yasuda YojÅ«rÅ ä¿ç°èéé to no kankei o chÅ«shin niâ [Hu Lancheng after he Fled to Japan: With a Focus on his Relationship with Yasuda YojÅ«rÅ]. Mimei 19: 87â105.
Kin BunkyÅ and Takahashi Satoshi é«æ©æº. 2009. KeioÌ gijuku toshokan zoÌ âShiroÌ tanbo toÌ yonshu åéæ¢æ¯çå種 :â Genten to kaidai [Copy of Yang Silang Visits his Mother: Four Plays Held by KeioÌ Gijuku Library: Original Text and Bibliographic Essay]. [Sendai-shi]: Tokubetsu suishin kenkyuÌ shinchoÌ kyuÌtei engeki bunka no kenkyuÌhan.
Li Xiao ææ and Kin BunkyÅ. 2004. Handan meng ji é¯é²å¤¢è¨ jiaozhu [Annotated Edition of Handan meng ji]. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe.
Needless to say, the seminar and Korean Studies Laboratory Grant were inspired by the seminal works of Sheldon Pollock on questions of âcosmopolitan and vernacularâ and his call for more comparative work on and theorization of processes of vernacularization around the world (see Pollock 1998, 2000 and 2006). King (forthcoming) is a collection of essays engaging critically with Pollockâs ideas from the perspective of the Sinographic Cosmopolis.
But see Whitman et al. (2010) for a bold attempt at proposing an âinternational vocabularyâ for research in this field.
With thanks to Victor Mair (p.c.) for discussion on this section.
For a useful discussion of the history of the term hanmun and other designations for sinographs and Literary Sinitic in pre-twentieth century Korea, see Wells (2011: 19â32).
See Phan (2013: 1) for these terms. Ding (2015: 60) cites another Vietnamese term for sinographs, chữ nho 𡨸
See King (2015) for a defense of the term âSinographic Cosmopolisâ as well as further discussion of related terminological issues. King and Laffin (2020) also discuss these questions with reference to additional recent scholarship not cited here.
See Wixted (2018) for spirited complaints about the term âLiterary Siniticâ and a rehearsal of his ongoing advocacy of the term âSino-Japaneseâ to refer to kanbun and âSino-Koreanâ to refer to hanmun. His discussion of medieval Latinity is stimulating, but unpersuasive.
With thanks to Sven Osterkamp for assistance with this paragraph.
See, for example, Robinson (1973) for examples of word-order glossing in Latin texts from Anglo-Saxon England, and more recently Blom (2017), for a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of research on glossing practices in medieval Western Europe.
The original reads: âles cas où une langue qui dispose de sa propre écriture est notée intentionnellementâet dans des contextes précis et limitésâdans un autre système graphique, emprunté à une tradition différente.â
Shaked (2003: 121) makes a similar observation about the Aramaic version of the Behistun inscription, the Arsham documents, and some recently discovered documents on leather from fourth-century Afghanistan: âThe type of writing involved here is one in which a text written in one language so closely follows the style and sequence of words of a source text in a different language as to make it theoretically possible to transfer the text from the one language to the other according to fixed and rigid rules.â This is precisely the case with East Asian vernacular reading techniques like those in ancient Korea and Japan.
âApproximatingâ because whereas Kiraz couches his discussion in terms of a source language vs. target language, with numerals it is not necessarily clear what the source language would be. In this regard, examples like âe.g.â = âfor example,â âi.e.â for âthat isâ or â&â for âandâ are more apt, given the tie to a source language (Latin). In fact, the ampersand actually has two readings (âA & Bâ and â&c.â), where we see both a vernacular (English) and cosmopolitan reading (Latin), respectively, analogous to Japanese kun vs. on readings. With thanks to Sven Osterkamp and Scott Wells.
Twelve years later, Rosny (1876) revisits the âastonishing analogyâ between Japanese and cuneiform writing in more detail, addressing (among other questions): âideographic writing adopted by peoples speaking different languagesâ (cf. op.cit., 168, where he opines, âThese two systems of writing therefore have realized, to a certain extent, for the civilizations at the heart of which they were employed, a sort of universal writing.â); âCan an ideographic sign be read in multiple ways in the same language?â (he answers in the affirmative on the basis of Japanese, and urges his colleagues in cuneiform studies to open their minds to this possibility in their languages); âPhonetic writing drawn from ideographic signsâ (in which he cites the example of ManâyÅgana in Japanese); âSimultaneous deployment of ideographic and syllabic signsâ (discussing phonetic complements); and âPurely alphabetic writingâ (where he chides students of cuneiform for lacking the ability to imagine the intermingling of different kinds of written sign in one and the same writing system and urges them to attend to the Japanese case for comparative purposes).
Though here we should note that what is being talked about is more word-level kunâyomi than text-level (kanbun) kundoku. For their part, experts on languages that use cuneiform point out that too little in the way of extended texts has been found to address the extent to which text-level (kanbun) kundoku-type vernacular reading technologies might have existed in the ancient Near East.
The same wording surfaces in Russian in Diakonoff (1986: 5).
With thanks to Sven Osterkamp, who notes that the âdiacriticsâ or kunten marks that Civil references are not found in the ManâyÅshÅ« or its time of compilation.
Cited from
More precisely, âzwÄraÅ¡n,â i.e., zwʾrÅ¡n for uzwÄriÅ¡n. See Durkin-Meisterernst (2004).
My translation of the German version from Schaeder (1930: 4), as cited in Skalmowski (2004: 289), and adapted with help from Durkin-Meisterernst (2004).
Cf. also David Lurieâs comments on the way in which Japanese kundoku and medieval European gloss reading of Latin texts suggest a âcollapse of reading and translationâ (Lurie 2011: 360).
See Unger (2004) for an exposé of the âideographic mythâ and the widespread belief that sinographs carry pure, language-less meaning.
See Durkin-Meisterernst (2004), citing Humbach (1973: 121). Durkin-Meisterernst also cites the case of the Sogdian âTale of the Pearl-borerâ (from Henning [1945]), âof which two copies exist, one in Sogdian script, with the usual sprinkling of heterograms, and one in Manichean script without any,â as demonstrating the entirely graphic nature of the heterograms.