Well, I can’t guarantee that you can buy them in Taiwan, but I certainly did. Seriously, try the bookstores around Taida. My favorite is in a basement, entered next to the Wanko on Roosevelt, across from the Taipower building. I think the entrance advertises a used book store that also sells LPs. The mainland import bookstore is further down the little hallway there. Once you get there, you have to look a bit – they’ll tell you they don’t have things that they actually do, like in almost any store inTaiwan – but the selection of mainland imports is excellent. Great one-volume 詞海, all kinds of philosophy texts, etc. And, of course, my favorite dictionaries. (I thought I had some pictures around here somewhere of the store’s approximate location, but I can’t find 'em. Hmph.)
My second-favorite mainland import bookstore is across from the Family Mart that is in the alleys behind the Ding Guagua on the corner of Roosevelt and Xinsheng. It’s bigger than the one in the basement, but more flashy – more coffee-table books and crap like 誠品 carries.
Finally, there’s a tiny but nice mainland import store right across the alley from the 誠品 at Xinsheng and Roosevelt. It’s small but nice. They never had either of my favorite dictionaries, though. Go to the basement store first.
The ones on Chongqing are, in my experience, mostly just bad retreads of each other. Sanmin is okay, but by the end, the only one on Chongqing I was actually interested in was Tianlong. (Excellent selection of computer books in both English and Chinese.)
Because most people don’t think Confucius is sagacious. They think he’s a boring old blowhard who ‘thinks too much’.
焉 isn’t really a pronoun, it’s a fusion of 於 (general preposition) and an obscure word probably pronounced ?an that was used in lots of different combinations. I am using ? here to represent an IPA character I don’t know how to otherwise write; it means a (glottal?) stop. (Did you know that pre-classical Chinese has morphology? Another example is 與, which is a fusion of 也 and 呼, meaning “…isn’t it?”) ?an was, I think, a kind of pronoun, but I don’t remember. I also don’t remember what other words it combined to make. (I so wish I still had my notes from Dr. Coblin’s class… Can you help, Chris?) But anyway, 焉 isn’t just a pronoun, it’s a combination of pronoun and preposition – “unto him/it/her/etc.”, as long as you’re clear that it includes the “unto”.
Again, I wish I had my notes. I think that 我 was usually either collective (“us”) or possessive (“my”/“our”) in Classical, while 吾 was the basic “I”. I think 我 might also have been an object pronoun…? Again, I wish I had my notes from Dr. Coblin’s class. Anyway, the differences were along those lines.
Well, Dr. Coblin didn’t mention that character, which probably means that that isn’t it. He was nothing if not fastidious and careful, and he usually let us in on all his theories and the major theories of Chinese phonology. It’s entirely possible that 俺 is just too phonetically dissimilar from the phantom ?an to be it. But my memory may very well be faulty.
Doesn’t 俺 mean “I” as opposed to being a general pronoun? I’ve only really encountered it as the kanji for the Japanese boku, I think.
No. 或 also means ‘someone’ in the classical language.
I haven’t seen the new Princeton series. Absent of them, I think Gregory Chiang’s Language of the Dragon vols 1 & 2 are good (if you can read the modern language) and Pulleyblank’s Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar is very good.
In addition to 三民 there are other series for the classics, from publishers such as 世一，五南，and others.
High school (as well elementary school and middle school) textbooks can be found in abundance at 台灣書局，on one end of 書店街，though actually it’s up another street just a tad.
Kids editions of the classics are fun, too. I have some of those listed at gregbosco.tripod.com/chinesebooksf.html scroll down the left hand menu till under 中文 you find 兒童書‧
I’ll have to check out the various dictionary recommendations next time I’m in Taiwan. Thanks.
I think it would be nice for folks to type in traditional characters. It takes no effort. You can use Pinyin.
If you’re really interested in delving into archaic Chinese grammar (from the Eastern Han and before), you could always audit the 古漢語語法 class at NTU. I’m taking it now, and although it’s a little boring at times, you’ll learn alot. If you read modern Chinese well, then I’d suggest checking out a book called 漢語文言語法 by 劉景農. It’s probably the best introduction out there on classical Chinese grammar, with lots of comparisons to modern Chinese. It was originally published in the mainland in 1958, but it has a traditional character version published by 中華書局 in Taiwan.
It was originally published in the mainland in 1958, but there was a reprint in Taiwan in traditional characters a few years back, so you should still be able to buy it. If you want to order it, just go to Eslite and give them the title and author and they can tell you if it’s still available. It’s a thin book so shouldn’t be expensive. I got the only copy from the NTU library, so looking there won’t do much good. :s
I finally got the Princeton University Press text book series on classical Chinese. The only thing I was impressed with was that they had explanations in both modern Chinese and English; however, the selection of texts was almost identical to the selections in Michael Fuller’s “An Introduction to Literary Chinese,” and I think his explanations are much more thorough (although quite technical). Fuller’s book only has the explanations in English, though, and doesn’t give an English translation for the texts. However, there are exercises to help make sure you understand the grammar structures, and he goes on to even more advanced texts than the Princeton series. So, after reviewing both, I still prefer Michael Fuller’s book.
And one more thing about the Princeton books, they come with four supplements (which will be published for the first time this month! I ordered them from Amazon and they should be here soon…!!!)
One of the supplements focuses on grammar. I hope that explains when to use 吾 and when to use 我 etc…
I’ll post when the package comes in!
Anyway, the first three Princeton books are by no means the complete package.
I’m not much of a linguist … my research is in the literary field. However, I do have certain required classes in classical Chinese grammar, paleography, philology, etc. I’m writing a paper on classical Chinese (pre-Qin period) interrogative sentences this semester. When it’s finished, I’ll post it on my website and you can take a look at it.
As for a lot of your questions, there are TONS of books and articles on the subject of classical Chinese grammar. You can do a search on Google Taiwan by inputing 古代漢語 and come up with tons of results there. There are also lots and lots of books on the subject at the NTU library and I’m sure many, many more at Academia Sinica. You should check it out. Something to keep in mind, though, as you’re trying to figure out different usages (such as the different forms of the pronoun “I”), a lot of these things depend on when a text was written … for example, grammar in a very old book like the “Book of Records” (Shu jing) is quite different from something “newer” like the “Records of the Historian” (Shi ji), or even things like “Intrigues of the Warring States” (Zhanguo ce) or “Guoyu.” Classical Chinese grammar was extremely maleable, and even moreso after around the Eastern Han when you get a lot of local dialect influences being introduced. You can even see some of that beginning in the “Records of the Historian.” You’d be even more baffled by trying to read “Songs of the South” (Chu ci), which isn’t even “Chinese” (it was the language of the Chu culture in southern China, and the grammar and usage is very different from “standard” classical Chinese). There are many parts of that that are still under intense debate as to what they mean.
I’d pay Legge and Waley the highest compliments I could give any scholar: when they’re wrong, they’re wrong for a reason. (I think that’s quite an achievement, since often translators are wrong for no apparent reason other than ignorance.) Legge is usually following some traditional commentary. Those commentaries are often wrong, and I wouldn’t hand someone Legge as their primary translation, but I’d always consult Legge on a really tricky passage, because sometimes he gets them right. Waley is more original, but if he’s wrong, I almost always find a reason for it, even if I don’t agree with that reason.
Watson doesn’t seem to me to be translating from the Chinese. He’s translating from Japanese translations of the Chinese. Those translations are often quite good, but he’d be better working from the originals, and sometimes he just “nods.”
For a good overview of translations of and translation issues in the Mengzi (Mencius), may I recommend David S. Nivison, “On Translating Mencius” in The Ways of Confucianism?
“an” is a morphological “construct.” It doesn’t have a character and never did. It is also used to make up 然 (如 + an). 焉 can also be used as an interrogative particle (疑問語氣詞), depending on context. Even 哉 which is often seen as an exclamatory particle (感嘆語氣詞) can also function as an interrogative particle. Classical chinese, as I mentioned before, is extremely maleable. It’s difficult to give anything a distinct definition.
The Japanese versions aren’t always that bad … the most frequently used version of the “Records of the Historian” (史記) was compiled by a Japanese guy and is the edition most used by academics (史記會注考證). My problem with Watson’s translation of the Shi Ji is mostly that he left out some important pieces (like 孟嘗君), and he barely has any footnotes. I believe Indiana University or somewhere else is doing a new translation of the Shi Ji in seven volumes (they’re only up to the first two or three now though). I took a quick look and there are tons of footnotes, including Chinese characters. I’d also love to see a good, complete, footnoted translation of the “Records of the Han” (漢書). I think the problem with Watson is that his audience is more “general readers” than “academics,” because his style doesn’t conform to academic standards (at least today’s standards). With that said, I have found his translation of the Shi Ji helpful on a few difficult passages, although in some of the few footnotes he has, his interpretations are sometimes quite off. One example I can think of off the top of my head is in the 佞倖列傳 when he says that Sima Qian messed up by saying that Li Yannian had an affair with one of the emperor’s wives (or concubines), when actually Sima Qian was probably right. Watson chose to use Ban Gu’s version of the story which is pretty impossible.
Oh, I agree. I didn’t mean to suggest that they were bad, just that translating from Japanese translations instead of the original Chinese (as Watson seems to do) is bad.
Yep. It is IUP, and three volumes seem to be out. Editor is William H. Nienhauser, Jr.
Yeah, I don’t mean to suggest that one should never consult Watson on anything. But I find his translations of selections from the Mozi, Xunzi and Hanfeizi merely workmanlike. (His Zhuangzi/Chuang Tzu is arguably better.)
They’re not always “translations.” Many are preserved in the original. Many books that disappeared or were destroyed in China have turned up in Japan. I’ve come across quite a few in my research (a lot of “pornographic” novels were destroyed by the Neo-Confucian intellectual inquisitions, but since the Japanese love that kind of stuff, they made sure it was saved for posterity )
He’s the guy who edited the “Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature”. Very helpful book, although it could use an update. I don’t know him, but have met some of his colleagues. IU has some excellent Chinese scholars.
Shit, and I was gonna get his translation of Mozi … unless you can recommend someone else’s. The second section of my qualifying exams are on Mozi research, and there are a few passages I want to cross-check with the English translation.
Well, I didn’t say Watson’s was an awful translation of the Mozi. Just “workmanlike.” Y.P. Mei’s translation covers lots of passages not in Watson, although it’s not a great translation either. P.J. Ivanhoe’s translation in Ivanhoe and Van Norden, eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy is very good, but it’s only selections. I’m sure you know about Graham’s work, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science (but I’m guessing your exams are more on earlier Mohism). Scott Lowe’s Mo Tzu’s Religious Blueprint for a Chinese Utopia is a secondary work that is worth at least a glance.
You wouldn’t happen to know of an English translation of 〈廉頗藺相如列傳〉 (史記‧卷八十一) somewhere out there? It’s not in Watson’s translation, and I’m kind of in a bind with a few passages. I can’t even find any good Chinese interpretations on it on Google … seems to be one that no one really seems to care much about. :s
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