These essays have been written over the years as part of my
'extra-mural' studies of the Chinese language and culture.
August, 2002 What is 道
?: Some comments on Translation
September, 2003 Some Thoughts on Translating Modern Chinese Poetry
May, 2005 The Origins of Xiqu, or Chinese opera
October, 2005 The Genesis of the Chinese Novel
May, 2006 What is the Chinese Garden?
August, 2006 The Appreciation of a Chinese Garden
October, 2007 The Translation of Classical
Chinese Poetry
The following tables are based on the Unicode Consortium's Unihan Database
Revision 5.0.0 (7 July 2006).
Unified CJK
ideographs [5.8MB], sorted by most common pinyin pronunciation,
showing the characters with their Mandarin and Tang (if available)
pronunciations. Where there is more than one Mandarin pronunciation,
they are ordered by frequency of use. [The Tang pronunciations
are derived from or consistent with _T'ang Poetic Vocabulary_ by
Hugh M. Stimson, Far Eastern Publications, Yale Univ. 1976.]
Same as above, but displaying only those characters with a defined
Tang pronunciation [1.5MB].
In both tables, each line consists of the character, its Unicode
code value, its pinyin pronunciation(s) (using digits to represent
tones). These are followed by one or more Tang dynasty pronunciations
if they exist in the Stimson monograph. Note that a missing Tang
pronunciation means only that the particular character was not analysed
by Stimson. [It does not mean that the particular character did
not exist in Tang times, nor that the Tang pronunciation was the same
as current pronunciation.] The tones of the Tang pronunciation are
represented by a grave accent for the departing tone, a caron accent
for the rising tone, and no accent for the level or entering tones.
The entering tones are distinguished by a final ending in k, t or p.
The asterisk preceding some of the Tang pronunciations indicates that
the particular pronunciation occurs at least four times in the texts
analysed by Stimson.
These are the collected translations of a selection of Tang dynasty
jintishi
('recent style' poems) from the famous poet
Du Fu.
For each poem, the original traditional chinese text is provided, along with
pinyin representation, the original Tang pronunciation of the last
character of each line (to determine the rhyme), and the original tone
of each character, where L represents the level tone, and the three
deflected tones, namely rising, departing and entering, are represented
by r, d, and e respectively. This is then followed by as many
translations as I have been able to find. Note that some URL
references are no longer valid. (Corrections, particularly the
names of those translators named as anonymous or unknown, and/or further
contributions are welcome to Ray.Brownrigg@ecs.vuw.ac.nz.)
WangYue "Gazing at Taishan" which is not strictly
jintishi but is
gushi.
- 30 translations
YueYe "Moonlit Night" - 48 translations
ChunWang "Spring Outlook" - 56
translations
TianMoHuaiLiBai "Thinking of Li
Bai at the Tip of the Sky" - 17 translations
YueYeYiSheDi "Thinking of My Brothers
on a Moonlit Night" - 30 translations
KeZhi "An Unexpected Guest" - 25
translations
ChunYeXiYu "Welcome Rain on a Spring Night"
- 28 translations
WenGuanJunShouHeNanHeBei "On
Hearing Government Troops Recapture Henan and Hebei" - 28 translations
LvYeShuHuai "Night Thoughts While
Traveling" - 43 translations
DengGao "Climbing High" - 48 translations
JiangNanFengLiGuiNian "Meeting
Li Guinian South of the River" - 25 translations
Following is a list of the sources of all the translations contained
above.
Bibliography of sources of
translations
Finally, here are my translations of the Du Fu poems analysed above.
My Translations