Among my favourite Japan-made kanji is 辷 (⿺辶一) for sube(ru), 'to glide, slide' (more commonly written as 滑る): A sliding stroke 一 over a 辶 representing motion, very evocative 🤩

*Correction: It's 4 strokes in HK too. It's 3 strokes only in Taiwan!

This is among the first usages of the transcription 'Peking' for the Chinese capital, from Martino Martini and Joan Blaeu's Novus Atlas Sinensis (1655). 'Peking' is quite an accurate representation of the pronunciation in the era's prestige Nanjing Mandarin . 1/

I a lot of Mandarin varieties, you can say 1. jīnrge 今兒個 (today), 2. míngrge 明兒個 (tomorrow), 3. zuórge 昨兒個 (yesterday) (etc.), and I think that's beautiful😍

Japan's highest mountain 富士山 is known as Fuji-san in Japanese, but historically/poetically, Fuji-no-yama was also common, as in Kobayashi Issa's (1763-1828) emblematic poem: "Snail / bit by bit ascend! / Mount Fuji" (transl. Kern). 🐌🗻

There are always fun little details in Chinese characters. Many will be surprised that the top part of 育 (充, 流) is written with 3 strokes (𠫓) in Taiwan and HK, but 4 strokes everywhere else - such divergences have long histories of course 😀

Fascinated by this photo of a late Daqing bycicle shop in Peking (1900-1912) 🤩

The numeral "1" is usually written with the simplest possible Chinese character: 一. But in Warring States texts, there were some more super complex characters for 1, namely ⿱羽能 and 𫜢（⿰鼠一）. Why? Read Wolfgang Behr's mindblowing article 🤯 www.degruyterbrill.com/de/document/...

Conceptualizing ‘One’ (一): Working Towards Unity?

Der Artikel Conceptualizing ‘One’ (一): Working Towards Unity? wurde am 1. Mai 2026 in der Zeitschrift Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques (Band 80, Heft 1) veröffentlicht.

degruyterbrill.com

OTOH Wolfgang Behr has a cool article on his Academia.edu page about mentions of translation in ancient texts, “‘To Translate’ is ‘To Exchange’ 譯者言易也 — Linguistic Diversity and the Terms for Translation in Ancient China,” that might be more helpful as a source of inspiration or point of comparison.

Arabic script used to write 4 different language (sub)families: 1) Sinitic (Xiao'erjing for Mandarin Chinese); 2) Mongolic (Mogholi - Afghanistan); 3) Austronesian (Cham - Vietnam); 4. Tibetic (Balti - Pakistan)

Up to the early 20th century, Spain was often yclept GREAT LUZON in Sinitic languages: Tōa-lū-sòng / Daai6leoi5sung3 大呂宋. A case of the colonial power being called after the colony, not the other way round😁

Bì 弼 is quite a cute character, innit? The word means 'to assist' - Chinese history aficionados might now it because it appeared in the name of the Privy Council instated at the very end of the Daqing Empire, the 'Court for Assisting with Virtue' (Bideyuan 弼德院) /

The term xingqi 星期 ('star period') has been used to mean '7-day week' in Chinese since the 1890s. Before that, it was used as a poetical term for the Qixi 七夕 festival (plus, it also came to mean 'wedding day'). The locus classicus is Wang Bo's 王勃 (650-676) Qixi fu 七夕賦:

‘Last, not least’ used to be more common than ‘last, but not least’ in German - going back to Shakespeare’s King Lear. Since the 1970s, the but-less form has declined: I guess read ppl less Shakespeare and more contemporary English…

I'm excited to share that I have started a new position as Associate Professor at Tohoku University.

傘 ('umbrella, parasol') is a fun pictograph. Among the many variants, there are some 'boring' phono-semantic compounds (繖、 𢄻、 𧝠), and a whole slew of funky ways to write the pictograph 😄

Andreas Guder 顾安达 顧安達@aguder.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Nr.2202 伞 (trad. 傘) /sǎn/ „Schirm, Baldachin“, der bildlich noch erkennbar ist. Da Schirme das Regenwasser teilen bzw. verstreuen, gehen manche Quellen von einer Verwandtschaft mit Nr.866 散 /sàn/ „trennen, auseinandergehen; ausstreuen“ aus. #chinesisch

Cartoon about the Russian Constitution of 1906: "When a crab sheds his shell (Absolutism) he retires into hiding ... as soon as he has grown a new one he returns."

A new gem in our collection: a remarkable 1571 copy of Plantin’s Humanae salutis monumenta. Because text, borders and plates were printed separately, no two copies are alike. This one is beautifully bound in an exceptional French fanfare binding. #earlymodern #bookhistory #rarebooks 💙📚📜

Cartoon about the Russian Constitution of 1906: "When a crab sheds his shell (Absolutism) he retires into hiding ... as soon as he has grown a new one he returns."

'Turkey today: A barely breathing sick man country'. Chinese reproduction of a Western cartoon on the Ottoman Empire, 1920. From Rudolf Wagner's essay on 'China "asleep" and "awakening" '

The most common Chinese term for Chinatown is ‘Tang people street,’ 唐人街 hong3ngin3gai4/tong4jan4gaai1, but there is another interesting term: 華埠 va3feu5/waa4fau6 (‘Chinese city’), which can still be seen in various places.

I love the Chinese translation of ‘government’ in Victoria China Town’s ‘Government Street’: 加富門 Gaa1fu3mun4/Ga1fu1mon3, WEALTH INCREASING GATE (or maybe even CANADA WEALTH PORTE?). The phono-semantic match also has a lovely Yue/Canto flavour to it 😁😁

Yeay, excited that my chapter on the afterlives of the Greek War of Independence in Asia has been published 🤩

Delighted that the third volume of our trilogy with Ivan Sablin exploring the origins of modern forms of government has seen the light of the world: From Empire to Federation in Eurasia Ideas and Practices of Diversity Management. Editing this trilogy was great fun! 😁

Just discovered the newly launched ANTE website on global legal history--looking forward to learning lots here!

Egas Moniz Bandeira ᠡᡤᠠᠰ ᠮᠣᠨᠢᠰ ᠪᠠᠨᡩ᠋ᠠᠶᠢᠷᠠ@egasmb.bsky.social · 8mo ago

My amazing colleagues Lena Foljanty and Zülâl Muslu have launched a new blog on global legal history, "Areas, norms, time entangled" (ant-e). I have had the honour of coordinating the first colloquy with posts about the Balkans, Thailand, and Ethiopia. Have fun reading! ante-blog.univie.ac.at

友達の本は一次資料をめっちゃ使ってます

The terrible colleague at UNIL using my name has published a new paper again.👀 I don’t particularly enjoy reading it, nor do I think that it will interest anyone. All errors are solely her responsibility, not mine. www.academia.edu/164750402/Th... glorisunglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/u...

📖 New book chapter "A kingdom 'one and indivisible'. A (non-)history of political decentralization in Thailand" by DIJ's David M. Malitz www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi... In: From Empire to Federation in Eurasia @routledgebooks.bsky.social, eds. Ivan Sablin & @egasmb.bsky.social

Barhebraeus in the 13th century on Uyghur script being adapted for Mongolian:

Adam Bremer-McCollum@acbm.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Thanks a lot! And that's basically right: an Aramaic script gets adapted for Sogdian, which gets adapted for Uyghur script, which gets adapted for Mongolian, which gets adapted for Manchu!

祝逐家馬新年快樂，馬年大吉！😁