China, empire of living symbols / Cecilia Lindqvist ; translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate ; foreword by Michael Loewe.

Translation of: Tecknens rike.
Title in Chinese: Hanzi yuanliu 漢字源流
"A Merloyd Lawrence book."
Published simultaneously by Harvill in London, with title: China, empire of the written symbol.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 411-416) and index.

Oracle bones and bronzes -- Man, mankind -- Water and mountains -- Wild animals -- Domestic animals -- Carts, roads, and boats -- Farming -- Wine and jars -- Hemp and silk -- Bamboo and trees -- Roofs and houses -- Books and musical instruments -- Numbers and other abstract characters -- Meaning and sound -- Empire of living symbols -- Character stroke count.

Tongsu gushi 通俗故事 bound with Qianziwen 千字文.

JapSin I, 58 A
Two texts, forty-seven folios with Arabic numbers, bound together in one volume.

The cover bears a Latin inscription: “Est Liber exercitiorum alicujus S.J. patris qui primo anno didicit linguam sinicam monstrat laborem intensissimum et methodum illius temporis. I. Lingua vulgaris per historiuntulas. II. 1000 caracteres pueris addiscendi cum notulis Latinis P. S.J."

Source: Albert Chan, S.J., Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, p. 112. [Go to Tongsu gushi 通俗故事. [Jap-Sin I, 58 A 1]

-----------------------------------------------

JapSin I, 58 A 2
Qianziwen 千字文.
By Zhou Xingsi 周興嗣.
Handwriting by Lin Guoning 林國寧.
White paper, twenty-two folios (Arabic numbers 26–47). Published by the Sanshan jingshe 三山精舍 (Fujian), in 1579 (Wanli 7).

The Latin inscription on the cover reads: “1000 characteres pueris addiscendi cum not. latinis (ms. et impressus).”

There are four columns in each half folio and six characters in each column. The number of the folio is given in the middle of the folio. On folio 26 the title in Chinese is given, followed by the ranks and names of the author and the calligrapher. At the end of the last folio the date and publisher are indicated, followed by two wood block seals: 致吾草堂 and 迪功郎印.
The calligraphy is ordinary and the book is meant for school boys. Romanization is given in ink for every character, together with meanings in Latin. Occasionally some annotations in Chinese are given in red. It was probably used as a text book for missioners.
For the Qianziwen, see Jap-Sin I, 167 (Siti Qianziwen).

Source: Albert Chan, S.J., Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 113-114.

Local access Digital Archives ARSI Jap-Sin I-IV folder [JS-I-58a]
Online at ARSI via Internet Archive.

Sinography : the borrowing and adaptation of the Chinese script / by Zev Handel.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Chinese writing -- Korean -- Vietnamese -- Japanese -- Comparative analysis -- Other languages: Zhuang, Khitan, Jurchen -- Beyond the sinographosphere: Sumerian and Akkadian -- Conclusion: script adaptation, linguistic typology, and cognitive universals.

"In the more than 3,000 years since its invention, the Chinese script has been adapted many times to write languages other than Chinese, including Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Zhuang. In Sinography: Cross-linguistic Perspectives of the Borrowing and Adaptation of the Chinese Script, Zev Handel provides a comprehensive analysis of how the structural features of these languages constrained and motivated methods of script adaptation. This comparative study reveals the universal principles at work in the borrowing of logographic scripts. By analyzing and explaining these principles, Handel advances our understanding of how early writing systems have functioned and spread, providing a new framework that can be applied to the history of scripts beyond East Asia, such as Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform."-- Provided by publisher.

Local access dig.pdf. [Handel-Sinography.pdf]

JapSin I, 167
Siti qianzi wen 四體千字文.
Standard and grass script by Zhang Jie [sic.] 張楷 (1670–1744), seal (篆) and clerk (隸) style characters by Xu Dachun 徐大椿 (1693–1771).
Chinese bamboo paper in one volume.
No date or place of publication.

The cover bears an Italian and a Latin inscription: “Alla libreria de’ Signori convit | tori del Colegio di Voghera . . . | il P. Celestino Spelta min. Réf. in Cina miss(ionar)iõ ap(osto)lico | dona. Paganus. Liber classicus 1000 caracterum = ABC. Sine valore.”

Cf. Paul Pelliot, “Le Ts’ien tsieu wen ou ‘Livre des mille mots’” in T’oung Pao XXIV (1926), pp. 179–214, 293; J.P. Abel Rémusat, Essai sur la langue et la littérature chinoise (Paris, 1811); Zhao Yi 趙翼 (1724–1814), Gaiyu congkao 陔餘叢考, juan 22 (Shanghai, 1957), pp. 436–437.
Source: Albert Chan, S.J., Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 223-224.