The Chinese Languagb in Qinghai

World Englishes, 2002

The research bibliography presented here is both a`preliminary' and`partial' bibliography. The core focus of the bibliography is on work published in English and available internationally, although, where possible, references have been made to relevant Chinese-language sources. Despite the obvious shortcomings, however, the authors hope that, given the general dearth of bibliographies of this kind, the following list of references will supplement the articles in the body of this special issue, and will serve as a useful entry point for scholars from a wide range of disciplines wishing to research the development of English studies in contemporary China. 1

Language in Society, 1989

The languages of China. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. Pp. vi + 340. This is a refreshing book. It is among other things an introduction to the Chinese language, written at a level that makes it appropriate for the educated general reader. The title will suggest some of the other things the book does. I believe it is the first of its kind to devote almost as much attention (137 out of 291 pages of the text proper) to languages of China that are not

ARCHIV ORIENTÁLNÍ, 2021

This chapter focuses on the two dozen words of Qing's own language that Joseph Orpen transmitted to us in his famous 1874 paper, 'A Glimpse into the Mythology of the Maluti Bushmen’, and which were obtained in the course of conversations where he attempted to elicit the meanings of the rock paintings around them. These few words are a slender body of evidence, yet still enough to confirm that Qing’s own language would have had close affinities with the handful of only mildly differentiated ǃUi dialects once spoken south and north of the Gariep. This validates approaches that make comparative reference to the archival ǀXam material. At the same time, they confirm the widespread and in some cases early uptake of loanwords from Khoekhoe sources. Lastly, the presence of a number of words that are rather ‘unKhoesan-like’, and really appear to be either Sotho or Nguni, if not in fact Phuthi, tells us that Qing’s forebears, like the speakers of the Orange Free State Seroa, must have been part of a rather intricate social nexus. The message of Qing’s own words appears to be that we might obtain a more complete understanding of the painted records on the rocks if we allow ourselves to imagine a more complex social setting as our starting point. In such a scenario, the speakers of ǃUi languages and their descendants would not be seen as uniquely authorised interpreters, with privileged access to and understanding of some supposedly pristine (even ‘primordial’) 'Bushman' cosmology, but rather as one among several groups of people who participated from the very outset in a regional dialogue of continually intersecting — and changing — social, economic and cultural relations.

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 86(1). 107—209, 2023

Simmons' lucid introduction to the volume summarizes some of the key conclusions that emerge from the chapters in a bulleted list (p. 10). This is especially helpful for the researcher who intends to read selectively rather than straight through the volume. He has also done a splendid job imposing uniformity of style and data presentation. Jerry Norman's Common Dialectal Chinese, rather than Middle Chinese, is used consistently as a point of comparison and Pīnyīn romanizations have tone marks throughout the book. While the contributions in the volume vary somewhat in quality and significance, each one provides something of interest and value. In assessing the impact of this volume on future scholarship into the history of Chinese language and its cultural manifestations, the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.