The Ottoman Empire is often presented as a space in which a myriad of people using different languages coexisted. However, scholars have often taken multilingualism in the Ottoman world for granted and, despite some valuable exceptions, they have rarely ventured to study it. Likewise, they have often focused on the multiplicity of the languages spoken in the Ottoman Empire rather than the people who spoke, wrote, and interacted with each other in these languages. This paper proposes to analyse how multilingual Ottoman translators defined their expertise by virtue of their knowledge of languages that their audiences did not necessarily know. As a case study, it focuses on a joint translation of Aristotle through Ioannis Kottounios’ commentary by a Greek-speaking Muslim and a Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christian in the eighteenth century. Drawing on the oft-cited metaphor of the tower of Babel, the essay engages with a discussion of transculturality in the Ottoman world of translation as expertise. Next, it explores how, if at all, these translators staged their expertise. It then analyses how their performing and staging of expertise was received by their primary audiences. Finally, it contextualises this collaboration among the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Muslim intellectuals who used sources written in Greek and Latin but produced works on ancient Greek history, philosophy and science in what the Ottomans called the elsine-i selâse, ‘the three languages,’ consisting of Turkish, Arabic and Persian.
Indo-Iranian languages and literature, Literature (General)
Cormac Anderson, Matthew Scarborough, Lechosław Jocz
et al.
Abstract The Indo-European Cognate Relationships (IE-CoR) dataset is an open-access relational dataset showing how related, inherited words (‘cognates’) pattern across 160 languages of the Indo-European family. IE-CoR is intended as a benchmark dataset for computational research into the evolution of the Indo-European languages. It is structured around 170 reference meanings in core lexicon, and contains 25731 lexeme entries, analysed into 4981 cognate sets. Novel, dedicated structures are used to code all known cases of horizontal transfer. All 13 main documented clades of Indo-European, and their main subclades, are well represented. Time calibration data for each language are also included, as are relevant geographical and social metadata. Data collection was performed by an expert consortium of 89 linguists drawing on 355 cited sources. The dataset is extendable to further languages and meanings and follows the Cross-Linguistic Data Format (CLDF) protocols for linguistic data. It is designed to be interoperable with other cross-linguistic datasets and catalogues, and provides a reference framework for similar initiatives for other language families.
Aiming at encouraging young talents to become dedicated surgeon–scientists in the field of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, an “Oriental Rising Star Award” was established at the 32nd annual meeting of the Asian Society for Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery (“ASCVTS 2024”) which was held in Wuhan, China, on May 23–26, 2024. The winner of the First Prize was Dr. Yuanjia Zhu from Stanford University, USA. Following the conclusion of the “ASCVTS 2024,” Professor Song Wan, Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the “ASCVTS 2024,” conducted an interview with Dr. Zhu. Their conversation is presented below.
The oriental armyworm, <i>Mythimna separata</i> (Walker), an important migratory pest of maize and wheat, is posing a severe threat to maize production in Asian countries. As source areas of spring–summer emigratory populations, the control of <i>M. separata</i> in southwestern China is of great significance for East Asian maize production. To assess the toxicity of Bt maize against the pest, bioassays of Bt-(Cry1Ab+Vip3Aa) maize (event DBN3601T), Bt-Cry1Ab maize (event DBN9936), and Bt-Vip3Aa maize (event DBN9501) were conducted in Yunnan province of southwest China. There were significant differences in insecticidal activity between the three Bt maize events, and DBN3601T presented the highest insecticidal role. The results also indicated that the insecticidal effect of various Bt maize tissues took an order in leaf > kernel > silk, which is highly consistent with the expression amounts of Bt insecticidal protein in leaf (69.69 ± 1.18 μg/g), kernel (11.69 ± 0.75 μg/g), and silk (7.32 ± 0.31 μg/g). In field trials, all larval population densities, plant damage rates, and leaf damage levels of DBN3601T maize were significantly lower than the conventional maize. This research indicated that the DBN3601T event had a high control efficiency against <i>M. separata</i> and could be deployed in southwest China for the management of <i>M. separata</i>.
This article provides an overview of the development of the therapeutic text corpus in the Ashurbanipal Library. It explores the editorial steps taken to produce new standard editions of the therapeutic texts for the Library through a systematic investigation of the layout and format of tablets with pharmaceutical remedies as well as the colophon types used in the corpus. To facilitate the study of the available source material, the texts are divided into four groups. The classification is based on ductus and the different colophons used in the Ashurbanipal Library, yielding four groups: the ‘Babylonian group’, ‘mixed group’, ‘q-group’, and ‘dedicatory group’. As argued here, the tablets in these four groups represent different stages of the editing process.
Oriental languages and literatures, Asian. Oriental
Gaddi music videos have millions of YouTube views and Gaddi singers are prominent among Himachal Pradesh’s folk music artists. The Gaddi community is connected in popular imagery to the mountains and known as transhumant agropastoralists who rear sheep and goats. A characteristic of Gaddi singers present online is their activity offline—cultural programs, concerts, and religious rituals. Gaddi vernacular music, online and offline, promotes a version of their cultural identity that is tied to their pastoral heritage. Digitalization has lowered barriers to music production and consumption and, thus, enlarged the possibilities of artistic representations. The YouTube videos produced are highly professional. Their presentations of cultural heritage coincide with a rapid transformation of Gaddi lifestyles in everyday life. The connection between digital Gaddi music and cultural heritage is part of a broader development in productions of regional music in India. In the digital era, regional identities are being reaffirmed, not devalued, by producers and consumers with an increasingly cosmopolitan outlook.
This Introduction provides the first exhaustive overview of the range of ethnographic and historical research on Gaddis. Beginning with late 19th-century colonial efforts to pin down, in a manner characteristic of the period, the elusive structure of Gaddi society, we trace the trajectory of research in numerous Gaddi communities in western Himachal Pradesh over the last seventy years. We highlight several areas of substantial research at the intersection of politics, religion, gender and economy, and how these shape contemporary disputes about cultural identity. These disputes can be best summarized as the question: ‘Who counts as a Gaddi?’ Of course, the historic identity of Gaddis as the preeminent sheep and goat herding pastoralists of the region looms large, even as transhumant pastoralism itself declines, for herein lies the ideological roots of contemporary social divisions and exclusion. We also highlight how the diversity of ethnographic vantage points brought together in this Special Issue help to dispel lingering assumptions of Gaddi cultural and political uniformity across the region, as each in different ways illuminates the connections between Gaddis, their neighbors, and the state.
A B M Sarowar. Alam, Sakib Ahmed, Kazi Zenifar. Azmiri
et al.
Analysis of long-term datasets on bird populations can be used to answer ecological and management questions that are useful for conservation. Tanguar Haor (9500 ha) is one of the major freshwater wetlands in Bangladesh and supports a large number of migratory and resident waterbirds. Because of its unique ecological and economic values, it is arguably the most notable wetland in the floodplains of northeast Bangladesh and in the region. This Ramsar site supports globally important populations of threatened waterbirds, such as the Baer’s Pochard Aythya baeri, Common Pochard Aythya ferina, Falcated Duck Mareca falcata, Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca, Oriental Darter Anhinga melanogaster, and Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa. Considering the international significance of this site, knowledge gaps on waterbird population trends, and key ecological factors, we conducted waterbird census between 2008 and 2021 to identify priority sites for conservation, population trends of resident and migratory waterbirds, and environmental factors that influence their abundances. We recorded a total of 69 species of waterbirds (maximum count of 166,788 individuals in 2013) and assessed population trends of 47 species. Of these, peak counts of 15 species exceeded the 1% threshold of their Asian-Australian Flyway population estimates. Most species (59%) showed a declining trend, including the critically endangered Baer’s Pochard and the vulnerable Common Pochard, and 16 species (41%) showed an increasing trend. Based on the abundance and species diversity, we have identified Chotainna beel and Lechuamara beel as conservation priority sites within the Haor complex and discuss key threats to these areas. We also offer evidence that adjusting water-level management to annual rainfall patterns could be a useful intervention for waterbird management. Involving local communities in conservation efforts by creating bird sanctuaries within the Haor complex will strengthen waterbird conservation in the country and along the East Asian-Australian Flyway.
AbstractPatterns of opium production and distribution shifted immensely over the course of the twentieth century, with output falling by three-quarters, almost nine-tenths of which now takes place in Afghanistan. Supporters of drug prohibition trumpet the success of this long-term decline and hail the withdrawal of the four largest opium producers—India, China, Iran, and the Ottoman empire—from the non-medical market, but this seemingly linear trend conceals numerous deviations of historic significance. Among the most notable and little known is Turkey's prolonged resistance to international restrictions on the narcotics trade and the efforts of state and non-state networks to substitute Turkish opium for the diminishing supply of once-dominant Indian exports to a still opium-hungry China in the first half of the twentieth century. This article uses neglected League of Nations and Turkish government sources alongside international newspapers and diplomatic reports to demonstrate the extent of connections forged by state and non-state actors between Turkey and East Asia, expanding on recent research on trans-Asian connections in commerce and political thought.
The present work is a continuation of two previously published articles in which the biography of Zhao Rugua 趙汝适 (1170-1231), the author of Zhufan zhi 諸蕃志 (Records of Foreign Peoples; 1225) an important historical geographical source about the foreign lands during the Song dynasty (960-1279), was studied through the usage of the text of his funeral epitaph as well as other historical sources. They also included the translation of the text of inscription into Russian and English [1; 2]. The goal of this article is to deepen the study of Zhao Ruguas funeral epitaph by researching the material features of the source, analyzing the structure of the text and comparing it with other similar sources of Medieval China. In contrast with the previous works the inscription in this article is analyzed both as a textual source and as an object of material culture which enables to understand the context of the creation of the source as well as the extent of detalization of the deceaseds biography.
Alton C. Byers, Elizabeth Byers, Milan Shrestha
et al.
Around 2003, the highly valuable medicinal fungi Ophiocordyceps sinensis (Nepali: yartsa gunbu) began to be commercially harvested in the remote Barun valley of the Makalu-Barun National Park and Buffer Zone, eastern Nepal. Since then, an estimated 3,000 collectors per year have visited the valley each harvesting season, placing new pressures upon its subalpine and alpine landscapes. A review of the yartsa gunbu literature suggested that its harvesting throughout highland India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China has brought important economic benefits, but that it has often been accompanied by a corresponding increase in negative environmental impacts such as alpine shrub destruction, wildlife poaching, and improper garbage disposal. Adverse social impacts reported have included an increase in violence, occasional murder, and the erosion of traditional values. In an attempt to determine if similar phenomena were occurring within the Barun valley, east Nepal, we conducted a month-long study of yartsa gunbu harvesting practices between May and June of 2016. Unlike other regions of the Himalaya, we found that violence and social unrest due to harvesting competition were unheard of in the Barun, which we link to the (a) lower market value of yartsa gunbu harvested there when compared to other regions, and (b) the recognized role of yartsa gunbu as a supplemental and livelihood diversifying income generation opportunity instead of a sole source of new income. Since its collection and sale were legalized by the Government of Nepal in 2001, the concurrent development of locally responsive yartsa gunbu harvesting policies and practices can also be linked to the general absence of environmental disturbance that we found.
This article explores the complexities of accomplishing potency, nüpa (nus pa), within a Tibetan healing, rejuvenation, and longevity ritual practice known as ‘medicinal accomplishment,’ mendrup (sman sgrub). The study is based on the observation and examination of the Light-Swirled Mendrup performed in the Tibetan exile Bonpo community in Nepal in 2012. The mendrup represents a meditative sādhana practice, which involves the production and consecration of ritual materia medica derived from the Tibetan medical Sowa Rigpa tradition as well as Buddhist tantric heritage. The article analyzes the generation of potency based on spatiality within the mendrup ritual—the potency of the ritual itself and of its main substance, the consecrated ritual materia medica referred to as ‘mendrup medicine.’ It argues that within its cosmological scheme, the mendrup ritual follows a spatial pattern of categorization of substances that impacts their potency based on their pharmacological properties and effects. This categorization reflects the ritual’s categorization of diseases. The ritual incorporates various spheres of knowledge into its notions of potency, such as medicine, pharmacy, and botany. The organizational cosmological scheme of the ritual, with its central mandala comprising the five directions and the five fundamental elements, structures the space of the ritual, and also its consecrated medicines. The scheme structures and generates the potency of the ‘mendrup medicine’ substance. Other aspects co-create the potency: the deities invoked, the acting religious figures and their blessings, suitable medicinal ingredients used, the right ‘fermenting agent,’ the depth of meditation of the performers, proper empowerment practices, and the time and space of the rite. This study shows that it is also the allocation of specific substances into particular spatial arrangements that makes them potent, especially in relation to the whole of the ritual space. The Bonpo Light-Swirled Mendrup creates this structure of potency through its fivefold mandalic scheme typical of tantric ritual.
Nightclubs flourished in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the late 1930s when it became a nightlife destination. To Chinese Americans, however, San Francisco nightclubs became a new site at the time for them to re-explore their identities. For some, visiting these nightclubs became a way for them to escape from traditional Chinese values. For others, it became a way to satisfy Western stereotypes of Chinese culture. Lisa See’s <i>China Dolls</i> (2015) describes three young oriental women from various backgrounds that become dancers at the popular Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco in the late 1930s. Through the three girls’ precarious careers and personal conflicts, Lisa See proposes the San Francisco nightclub as both a site for them to articulate their new identities beyond their restricted spheres and a site for them to perform the expected stereotypical Asian images from Western perspectives. It was, at that time, a struggle for the emergence of modern Chinese women but particularly a paradox for Chinese-American women. The space of the Chinese-American nightclub, which is exotic, erotic, but stereotypical, represents contradictions in the Chinese-American identity. Through studying Lisa See’s novel along with other autobiographies of the Chinese American dancing girls, I argue that San Francisco nightclubs, as represented in Lisa See’s novel, embody the paradox of Chinese American identities as shown in the outfits of Chinese American chorus girls—modest cheongsams outside and sexy, burlesque costumes underneath.
History of scholarship and learning. The humanities