Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T07:54:15.037Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Translucent insights: a look at Proto-Sino-Tibetan through Gordon H. Luce's Comparative word-list1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

James A. Matisoff
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The great South-East Asian linguist and epigrapher, Gordon H. Luce, devoted many decades of his long life to the decipherment and analysis of the inscriptions of Old Burma. He had long intended to draw on the unparalleled wealth of materials in his files to produce a comparative lexicon of ‘prestandard Old Burmese’ (OB). As Professor Henderson explains in her moving introduction, Luce's advancing years and failing eyesight caused A comparative word-list of Old Burmese, Chinese and Tibetan (CWL) to be less ambitious in scope or polished in format than Luce would have wished. Even so, the CWL is a mine of fascinating comparative material, not only for OB, where Luce's first-hand expertise was second to none, but also for Archaic Chinese (AC) and Written Tibetan (WT), where he had to rely for his data on Karlgren's reconstructions and Jäschke's dictionary.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , October 1983 , pp. 462 - 476
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

G. H. Luce: A comparative word-list of Old Burmese, Chinese and Tibetan, xi, 88 pp. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1981. £3.

References

REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS

Anonymous c. 1941. Rhyming dictionary of Written Burmess. [Compiled under the supervision of Benedict, Paul K.. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, III, 1, 1977, 1–93.]Google Scholar
Benedict, Paul K. 1972. Sino-Tibetan: a conspectus. Contributiong editor, James A. Matisoff. (Princeton-Cambridge Studies in Chiness Linguistics, II.) Cambridge: University Press. (STC)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robbins, Burling. 1967. ‘Proto-Lolo-Burmese’, IJAL, XXXIII, 2, Part II. [Issued simultaneously as Indiana Publications in Anthropology and Lingustics, 43. The Hague: Mouton and Co.]Google Scholar
Fai-kao, Chou. ‘Archaic Chinese and Sino-Tibetan’ [in Chinese], Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, V, 1: 159–237Google Scholar
Giles, Herbert A. 1912. A Chinese-English dictionary. (2nd ed.) 2vols. London: B. QuaritchGoogle Scholar
Karlgren, GSR v., 1957.Google Scholar
Hanson, Ola. 1906. A dictionary of the Kachin language. Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press. [Reprinted by Baptist Board of Publications, Rangoon, 1954.]Google Scholar
Jäschke, H. A. 1881. A tibetan-English dictionary. London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner and Co. [Reprinted by Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London, 1958.]Google Scholar
Adoniram, Judson. Judson's Burmese-English dictionary: revised and enlarged by R. C. Stevenson and F. H. Eveleth. [1855.] Rangoon. [Reprinted by Baptist Board of Publications, Rangoon, 1966.]Google Scholar
Bernhard, Karlgren. 1923. Analytic dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner. (AD)Google Scholar
Bernhard, Karlgren. 1957. Grammata serica recensa. (Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities [Stockholm], 29: 211–367.) (GSR)Google Scholar
Maran, LaRaw. (In prep.) A dictionary of Modern Spoken Jingpho. [1441 pp. MS.]Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1972. The Loloish tonal split revisited. (Research Monograph 7.) Berkeley: Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies, University of California. (TSR)Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1972(a). ‘Tangkhul Naga and comparative Tibeto-Burman’, Tonan Azia kenkya, X, 2: 1–13Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1973. The grammar of Lahu. (University of California Publications in Linguistics, vol. 75.) Berkeley, etc.: University of California PressGoogle Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1976. ‘Austro-Thai and Sino-Tibetan: an examination of boby-part contact relationships’, in Hashimoto, Mantaro J (ed.), Genetic relationship, diffusion, and typological similarities of East and Southeast Asian language. (Proceedings of the first Japan-U.S. Joint Seminar on East and South East Asian Linguistics, Shizuoka, Japan, July 1976.) Tokyo: Japanese Society for the Promotion of ScienceGoogle Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1978 Variational semantics in Tibeto-Burman. (Occasional Publications of the Wolfenden Society on Tibeto-Burman Linguistics, vol, VI.) Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. (VSTB)Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1978(a). Mpi and Lolo-burmese microlinguistics. (Monumenta Serindica, 4.) Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. [36 pp.]Google Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1979. ‘Problems and Progress in Lolo-Burmese: Quo Vadimus?’, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, IV, 2: 11–43. (QV)Google Scholar
Matisoff, QV v., 1979.Google Scholar
Walter, Simon. 1975. ‘Tibetan initial clusters of nosal and R’, Asia Major, XIX, 2: 246–51 STC v. Benedict, 1972Google Scholar
Graham, Thurgood. 1981. Notes on the origins of Burmese creaky tone. (Monumenta Serindica, 9.) Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Afica. [94pp.]Google Scholar
Matisoff, TSR v., 1972.Google Scholar
Matisoff, VSTB v., 1978.Google Scholar
Wolfenden, Stuart N. 1929. Oulines of Tibeto-Burman linguistic morphology. London: Royal Asiatic SocietyGoogle Scholar