Vernacular Chinese-Character Manuscripts from East and Southeast Asia

David Holm

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9783111382326
• eBook ISBN:
  9783111383095
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: Literature

This collection brings together studies on vernacular manuscripts in regional Chinese dialects such as Cantonese and Hokkien (South Fujian dialect), those of non-Han peoples in China and Southeast Asia such as the Zhuang and Yao, and a vernacular character manuscript in Vietnamese. Across this wide range, the focus is on manuscripts written in regional and vernacular adaptations of the Chinese script. Three chapters on Yao manuscripts each focus on a different aspect of their use in local society or on collections of Yao manuscripts in overseas collections; there are three chapters on Zhuang and related Tai languages; two studies on Hokkien; one on the Cantonese script in contemporary Hong Kong; and one on a Buddhist manuscript with Vietnamese ch? nôm commentary from a temple in Bangkok. Detailed descriptions of traditional paper manufacture in the villages are given for both the Yao and the Zhuang, as well as paper analysis used to date a Vietnamese manuscript. Coverage includes information about the physicality of the manuscripts investigated and the vernacular Chinese scripts in which they are written, but also a wealth of information about their use and significance in local society. This collection will be of interest to scholars and students interested in the philological analysis of East and Southeast Asian character scripts and manuscript traditions, but also the broader social contexts of manuscript use in traditional and modern society.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sinoperipheral Writing and Early Written Hokkien: Reflections and Hypotheses
• A Glimpse of Sibilant Shift in Early Modern Spanish in Seventeenth-century Manuscripts through the Lens of Hokkien Sinographs
• Hong Kong’s Written Cantonese Language and Its Twelve Basic Principles
• A Manuscript of a Sino-Nôm version of the Fo shuo tian di ba yang jing 佛説天地八陽經 preserved in the Library of Kyoto University
• Collections of Yao Manuscripts in Western Institutions
• Kim Mun Letters: An Introduction to Yao Primary Sources
• On the Lanten Methods to Fetch the Hon or Living Force of the Original Rice
• Manuscripts of the Traditional Zhuang Song Text ‘Song of the Brigands’
• Traditional Paper-making in the Zhuang Villages of Southwest China
• Modes of Transmission in Tày, Nùng and Zhuang Manuscript Cultures
• List of contributors
• Indices