text:
Linux Guide

Getting started

 * /Introduction/
 * /Distributions/ (more detail)
 * /Getting Linux/

Installing Linux

 * Basic
 * Dual-booting
 * Advanced

Using Linux

 * /How Linux Works/
 * Logging into Linux
 * Using the shell (console)
 * More Linux commands
 * /Desktop environments/
 * /Getting Help/
 * Getting out of Freezes
 * /Installing software/

Managing Linux

 * /Tools/
 * /Runlevels/
 * /Operating modes/
 * /System administration/
 * /Network administration/
 * /Modules/
 * /Security/
 * /Monitoring/
 * /Reset a forgotten root password/

Programming on Linux

 * /Programming tools/
 * Book about X Window Programming

Applications of Linux

 * Use Audacity to make MP3s
 * Burn a CD or DVD
 * /LDAP authentication in Linux/
 * /Installing SugarCRM On Linux/
 * Using SSH
 * /PlayStation 3/
 * /Linux and Bluetooth/
 * /Run an Android emulator/

Business

 * /Enterprise Linux/

Specific tips/fun stuff
}}
 * Virtual Network Computing (VNC) can be used to access your computer from anywhere if it's connected to the Internet and you know its IP address (use ifconfig). vnc-java can automatically create a webpage with a Java applet that eliminates the need for a VNC client.  Try using x11-vnc
 * for remote X you can also use simply X with xhost as X is a network protocol, or you can do X forwarding with ssh.
 * WINE will often run your old Windows programs very well. It's hit and miss, but often more complex, graphics-heavy applications will work better than specifically integrated Windows apps.
 * There are a number of unique, nicely-made open source games that run under Linux:
 * Battle for Wesnoth (turn-based strategy game with elements from RPGs) http://www.wesnoth.org
 * Blob Wars (platform shoot-em-up)
 * Celestia (not really a game, but a very detailed astronomical program that can take you anywhere in the solar system and beyond) https://celestiaproject.space
 * Enigma (marble-rolling puzzle game) http://www.nongnu.org/enigma
 * GnuGo (one of the better Go AIs available, use ccGo or JaGo or cGoban for a user interface) http://www.gnu.org/software/gnugo/gnugo.html
 * Frozen Bubble (similar to Bust-a-Move) http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
 * Kobo Deluxe (4-way scrolling shoot-em-up) http://olofson.net/kobodl/links.html
 * Orbit (simple 3D space combat simulator) http://www.head-crash.com/orbit/
 * Rocks'n'Diamonds (Boulderdash clone plus a couple other games, too) http://www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/
 * Tux: A Quest For Herring http://tuxaqfh.sourceforge.net/
 * Extreme Tux Racer (sliding down the mountains and catching herring at over 100 km/h) http://www.extremetuxracer.com/
 * Nexuiz (A Unreal Tournament like first person shooter) http://www.nexuiz.com
 * Warsow (A competitive quake3 like first person shooter) http://www.warsow.net
 * Yakuake, a drop-down console, a la Quake's in-game console.

title: Linux Guide


text:
Guitar/Alternate Tunings

Many guitar players use alternate tunings, which differ from standard tuning. The use of alternate tunings (non-standard tunings) are found throughout the history of the classical guitar and are a major factor in the playing of blues slide guitar. Many alternate tunings involve downtuning ("dropping") strings.

Dropped D (DADGBE)
The most common alternate tuning is the dropped D (or "drop D") tuning. The lower E string is tuned down to a D. This tuning allows one to play power chords on the fourth, fifth and sixth strings with only one finger, and of course allows for lower bass notes. Used commonly in heavy metal, but also in nearly every other form of guitar music.

Waylon Jennings used this frequently, even dropping to D with the use of a scruggs banjo tuner on his famous telecaster in the middle of a song.

Drop C tuning CGCFAD
This progressive tuning is used in metal but often used by bands who stick with 6 string guitars to achieve an extra deep tone. Bands such as CydeDish, Deftones, System of a Down, KSE, August Burns Red and As I Lay Dying.

Drop B (BF#BEG#C#)
Alternatively, you can tune to BF#BEG#C#, if you are looking for a deep heavy hitting sound. This tuning is mostly used by nu-metal bands like Slipknot, August Burns Red, many deathcore bands, and some death metal bands.

Drop A (AEADF#B)
Alternatively, you can tune to AEADF#B, if you are looking for a deep heavy hitting sound. This tuning is mostly used by nu-metal bands like Slipknot, August Burns Red, many deathcore bands, and some death metal bands.

Double dropped D (DADGBD)
Similar to Dropped D above, for this tuning just drop both 'E' strings a full tone. Neil Young often tunes his guitars this way.

Regular tunings

Among alternative guitar-tunings, regular tunings have equal musical-intervals between the paired notes of their successive open-strings. Regular tunings simplify the learning of the fretboard of the guitar and of chords by beginning students. Regular tunings also facilitate improvisation by advanced guitarists.

Guitar tunings assign pitches to the open strings of guitars. Tunings can be described by the particular pitches that are denoted by notes in Western music. By convention, the notes are ordered from lowest to highest. The standard tuning defines the string pitches as E, A, D, G, B, and E. Between the open-strings of the standard tuning are three perfect-fourths (E-A, A-D, D-G), then the major third G-B, and the fourth perfect-fourth B-E.

In contrast, regular tunings have constant intervals between their successive open-strings:
 * 4 semitones (major third): Major-thirds tuning,
 * 5 semitones (perfect fourth): All-fourths tuning,
 * 6 semitones (augmented fourth, tritone, or diminished fifth): Augmented-fourths tuning,
 * 7 semitones (perfect fifth): All-fifths tuning

For the regular tunings, chords may be moved diagonally around the fretboard, indeed vertically for the repetitive regular tunings (minor thirds, major thirds, and augmented fourths). Regular tunings thus appeal to new guitarists and also to jazz-guitarists, whose improvisation is simplified. On the other hand, some conventional chords are easier to play in standard tuning than in regular tuning.

Major thirds tuning
[[Image:First and second inversions of C-major chord on six-string guitar with major-thirds tuning.png|right|thumb|alt=The C major chord and its first and second inversions. In the first inversion, the C note has been raised 3 strings on the same fret. In the second inversion, both the C note and the E note have been raised 3 strings on the same fret.|Chords are inverted by shifting notes three strings on the same fret.

Major-thirds tuning was introduced by jazz-guitarist Ralph Patt in 1964. All of the intervals between its successive open strings are major thirds; in contrast, the standard guitar-tuning has one major-third amid four perfect-fourths.

Major-thirds tuning reduces the extensions of the little and index fingers ("hand stretching"). Major and minor chords are played on two successive frets, and so require only two fingers; other chords—seconds, fourths, sevenths, and ninths—are played on three successive frets. For each regular tuning, chord patterns may be moved around the fretboard, a property that simplifies beginners' learning of chords and that simplifies advanced players' improvisation. In contrast, chords cannot be shifted around the fretboard in the standard tuning E-A-D-G-B-E, which requires four chord-shapes for the major chords. There are separate chord-forms for chords having their root note on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth strings. Major-thirds tuning repeats its octave after every two strings, which again simplifies the learning of chords and improvisation; Chord inversion is especially simple in major-thirds tuning. Chords are inverted simply by raising one or two notes three strings. The raised notes are played with the same finger as the original notes.

All fourths tuning

 * E-A-d-g-c'-f'

This tuning is like that of the lowest four strings in standard tuning. Consequently, of all the regular tunings, it is the closest approximation to standard tuning, and thus it best allows the transfer of a knowledge of chords from standard tuning to a regular tuning. Jazz musician Stanley Jordan plays guitar in all-fourths tuning; he has stated that all-fourths tuning "simplifies the fingerboard, making it logical". Contemporary players are also moving to fourths tuning, noted players include Alex Hutchings and Tom Quayle.

 * Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-B-E

A less commonly used version of fourths tuning is retaining the regular tuning on the first and second strings (E and B) and lowering the other strings by a semitone. This version can make playing classical pieces more accessible.

New Standard Tuning (CGDAEG)

The tuning, invented and introduced by Robert Fripp of King Crimson, is: C(6th) - G(5th) - D(4th) - A(3rd) - E(2nd) - G(1st).

Basically this tuning is efficient because it utilizes the tuning that is common is a cello (CGDA), violin, and mandolin (both GDAE), in which it is in fifth, from a low C. The second string is a fourth up from the B to an E, and the first string is a minor third up from the E to a G.

Since the lowest five strings are tuned in fifths, typical fingerings for chords and scales used on the violin, cello, and mandolin are applicable here. The minor third between the top strings allow denser chords in the high range of the scale, and easier access to some elementary chord tones (typically the thirteenth for chords with the root note on the sixth string, and the ninth and flat ninth for chords with the root note on the fifth string, see chord). NST has a greater range than the Old Standard Tuning, approximately a perfect fifth (a major third lower and a minor third higher).

Scales across two strings in NST also line up nicely into coherent tetrachords or four-note patterns that have a visually rational relationship (whole and half-tone relationships have a remarkable symmetry that can be easier to learn than the OST whose intervals from 6 to 1 have the (inconsistent) major third thrown in the middle of the scale.

Open A (EAC#EAE)
Alternatively you could tune the guitar to EAC#AC#E

"Slide" Open A (EAEAC#E)
This tuning is identical to Open G tuning but with every string raised one step, or two frets

Open C (CGCGCE)
Used notably by Devin Townsend in his bands Strapping Young Lad and Devin Townsend Project.

Open D (DADF#AD)
Open D, like all open tunings, produces a major chord (in this case, D major) when all strings are strummed. Drop the sixth, first, and second strings down two semitones, and the third string one semitone. It is also called "DAD-fad" after its notes.

Uses the same chord shapes as Open E but is easier on a guitar neck as the strings are detuned lessening the tension.

Open D is a common tuning for folk, blues, and slide guitar. A variation of this tuning is open d minor. Open D minor is tuned DADFAD, meaning the only change is that the F# is tuned down to an F.

Chord shapes
Here are some handy chord shapes: G/D: (020120) Em7/D: (022120)

Open E (EBEG#BE)
Used by Cat Stevens and a popular choice for slide guitarists. Strumming in the open position yields a Emajor chord. You can easily play any chord by barring across the neck at different fret positions. This does however have some disadvantages; mainly that it is slightly more difficult to play minor chords. Some artists overcome this by tuning to EBEGBE. This allows both minor and major chords to be played easily. Because tightening the strings more than is intended can break the strings or put unneeded stress on the neck, many players opt to tune in Open D and put a capo on the second fret; the result is the same.

Open C6 (CACGCE)
This tuning is rarely used. It has been used by Jimmy Page on "Bron-Yr-Aur", "Friends", and "Poor Tom". J. M. Smig uses this tuning on "Fingers In The Forest".

Open G (DGDGBD)
This is sometimes referred to as "Spanish Tuning", popular with slide guitarists. Tune the 1st and 6th strings down to D, and the 5th string to G.

Keith Richards uses this tuning extensively after 1968. (See Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women, Start Me Up) He also removes the 6th string (low E in standard tuning) because the root of the chord is on the 5th string in Open G.

DADGAD
DADGAD (pronounced as a word: "DAD-gad"), one of the most versatile tunings, is named after the tuning of its strings. The sixth, second, and first strings are dropped two semitones to D, A, and D. Strumming all the strings open forms a Dsus4 chord; fretting the second fret of the third string (or muting the third string) produces a D5 chord, or D power chord. Most songs for DADGAD are in D major, or in G major with a capo at the fifth fret. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin played Kashmir in this tuning.

DADADD
This is essentially one huge power chord. Each string neatly divides the scale in half and it is easy to make simple patterns then repeat them anywhere on the fretboard.

Standard E-flat (EbAbDbGbBbeb)
In this tuning, each string is tuned down a half step, or one fret. This is a popular tuning throughout the history of blues and rock, and many modern bands perform with it. Stevie Ray Vaughn frequently used this tuning with heavier strings to get a full, rich tone.

Standard D (DGCFAD)
Made popular by death metal band Death. Commonly used in metal today.

Standard C (CFBbEbGC)

Used by John Petrucci on 3 songs from Dream Theater’s Train Of Thought.

Apprendre la guitare/Accordage

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Guitar/Alternate Tunings


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Talk:Guitar/Alternate Tunings

Copy Museweb?
Maybe it's perfectly okay to copy Alternate Tuning Guide for Contemporary Folk Music and place it under the GFDL? Well, I'm gonna ask the author now... Akagu 17:49, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Nice to see other people starting to work on this book. :) I'd prefer not to let editing get out of hand because I'm still trying to stabilize the layout and structure of the book...but I don't mind, and of course I have no control over it even if I did. ;)

I wouldn't just copy a source here...I think something like that might belong more in Wikipedia, but I'm not sure. Parts of sources might be a different story.

--Furrykef 18:39, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Fb
I'm trying to find an Fb on my piano that I can tune to... Any ideas? (Idea: Fb=E)

 * You should be tuning to F#, not Fb, for Drop B tuning. Fb is the same a E and E# is the same as F, so if you're tuning to E(Fb), that's actually the 5th of a Drop A tuning(Nile is a good example of this.) So remember, tune to F#, not Fb, that'll set you back a full step on all strings. Now if you tune the 5th string to F and tune other strings to it to the 4th interval, you'll get C Standard tuning(Black Dahlia Murder uses this tuning.) Got any questions about tuning, holla back at skogenburzum@yahoo.com

Alright, I give up.
I've been trying fruitlessly to insert the table I fabricated into the article, but it seems to want to put the text where I direct it to place it, but shove the table way down below the external links. I'd be grateful if anyone can make the software understand that the two go together. Also, sorry for the inconvenience I've caused; don't kill me, I am only a noob. I'll post the table directly below this message. Thanks.

Tuning Dictionary
For your convenience, here are several tunings in a sortable table. For the sake of this table, the accidentals (sharps and flats) will be represented as sharps only.

Thanks Wirey (discuss • contribs) 05:44, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

File display
What's causing the image not to be displayed: ? I literally copy and pasted from the article. Hyacinth (discuss • contribs) 05:45, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Guitar/Alternate Tunings


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Cookbook talk:Chapati

This recipe was featured on the main Cookbook page from April 18, 2004 - April 28, 2004.
 * Hmmm I forgot to check to see if this had been featured before featuring it today (April 28, 2008). Someone can revert or change the feature if they like. Wikidsoup (talk) 18:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

How round was my roti?
Every Indian woman I've ever known (and some men) have said that achievement of a perfectly round roti is part of every domestic goddess's repertoire.

Someone might want to add the to this page that chapati is also a staple of many East African diets. It is undoubtedly part of the Southeast Asian influence on this area of East Africa because of the slave trade that extended through this corridor, but it has become a very common part of the diet there as well. There are many women who derive their income from "chai and chapati" trades out of their homes or out of small shacks alongside the road. Many a village in Tanzania has at least a couple of mamas whom everyone knows they can get chapati throughout the day. It is called chapati in the Swahili language as well. I think this would be an appropriate inclusion in the article, but do not know how to add it myself. -jl

So I am Indian and most certainly a chapati is not the same thing as a roti. To the best of my knowledge, chapatis are more common in Western India, in the Maharashtra-Gujarat-Karnataka region (this is where I am from), while rotis are common in North India and Pakistan. The preparation methods of chapatis and rotis differ and so does their taste. I will post recipes asap, but in the mean time, if someone else has them, please post! - Sarang (my email is my name at media.mit.edu)

title: Cookbook talk:Chapati


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User:AdamRimon

לטיוטות שלי

title: User:AdamRimon


text:
User:AdamRimon/drafts

ספר לימוד HTML

title: User:AdamRimon/drafts


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User:AdamRimon/drafts/HTML

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''זהו החומר הראשון בויקיספר! זה ספר ללימוד HTML לכל מי שרוצה!'''

title: User:AdamRimon/drafts/HTML


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Organic Chemistry/Introduction to reactions/Hydroboration

Hydroboration basics
By reacting an alkene with borane, a useful reaction intermediate called an organoborane can be formed. An organoborane can be oxidized to form a terminal alcohol, or it can be protonated to form an alkane.

(Basic examples of reduction and protonolysis here)

History
Hydroboration reactions were developed by Herbert C. Brown during his research at Purdue University. It earned him the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (along with Georg Wittig) because of the practical applications to synthesis, namely pharmaceuticals.

Formation of borane reagents
Borane is not stable, it must be generated in situ from a borohydride salt (eg NaBH4) at the time of organoborane formation. Diborane exists in equilibrium with borane.

Formation of diborane (and borane) from sodium borohydride

Hydroboration/Protonolysis
After one has formed an organoborane, it can be be reacted with an organic acid to obtain an alkane. The two hydrogens are added with syn stereospecificity

Hydroboration/Oxidation
Organoboranes can be oxidized in a basic peroxide solution to form alcohols. The alcohol that is formed is the opposite product that would be formed by oxymercuration or hydration. The hydrogen and hydroxide groups add syn to each other.

Regiochemistry of products
Boration reactions generate anti-Markovnikov products because hydrogen adds second as a hydride nucleophile. (In most other reactions, hydrogen usually adds first as an electrophile.) The borane adds first, which is an honor usually reserved for the strongly electrophilic proton.


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User:Vuara/The most comprehensive C-E dictionary

Chinese Character Genealogy - An Etymological Chinese-English Dictionary: Zhongwen Zipu (Rick Harbaugh's excellent and immensely useful Chinese character etymology dictionary. Learning the interconnections between characters is the best way to really get to know the characters. You can search by Pinyin, Zhuyin (BoPoMoFo), Radical (just as in a traditional dictionary), stroke count, English, and root pictographs. Includes over 4000 characters. Also has hyperlinked online text for reading. Requires Chinese system with traditional Chinese font. )
 * http://zhongwen.com/

Richwin Chinese System Software for Windows (Richwin is perhaps the best Chinese system for Windows PCs. A special, inexpensive Internet version is your fastest solution to viewing all Chinese, Japanese, and Korean documents on the Web. Also includes an instant on-line dictionary. )
 * http://www.richwinusa.com/

DynaLab Chinese Fonts (DynaLab is the maker of the best Chinese fonts for PC and Mac)
 * http://www.dynalab.com/font.htm

ABC Interactive Chinese - The best self-study and tutorial program incorporating hundreds of lessons from commonly used Chinese textbooks (in oversea Chinese schools) with the display of Zhuyin symbols, Pinyin romanization, and traditional and simplified characters. Interactive Chinese is easy! $99 for 145 Lessons!
 * http://www.chinese-software.com/abcinteractive.html

The Xinhua Zidian has been popular for years as the best small, inexpensive, Chinese-only dictionary around. Indeed, no Chinese family could be without one, and an estimated 380 million copies are in print. Now this new edition, featuring the Chinese text from the 1998 revisions plus a full English translation, is sure to be as popular with students. Arranged alphabetically by Hanyu Pinyin, and including both simplified and traditional characters, the Zhuyin Fuhao (bopomofo) system of Taiwan, many appendices and tables, and with a durable binding and cover. But the real bonus to users of this dictionary is the original Chinese text. This is not just a Chinese-English dictionary, but having the Chinese text enables you to see the corresponding Chinese definition, a great enhancement to learning accurate, contemporary language. A must-have reference for students and scholars!
 * http://www.worldlanguage.com/Products/100988.htm

Mandarin Chinese Dictionary: Chinese-English Fred Fangyu Wang Our Price $29.95 Format: Book Page Count: 688 Dimensions: 5 3/8 x 8 1/2 Compact and structure-oriented, this Chinese-English dictionary is part of a two-volume set developed for elementary students of Chinese. Along with its companion volume, an English-Chinese dictionary, this reference was devised for use in high schools and colleges to facilitate both comprehension and reproduction of the Chinese language. Compiled by an expert lexicographer, these dictionaries draw upon the best traditions in Chinese- and English-language learning, with particular emphasis on syntactic structure, functional elements such as particles, and idiomatic expressions. Students can rely on these meticulously prepared and scholastically sound volumes as friendly guides along the well-trodden roads of language instruction. Unabridged republication of the edition originally published by Seton Hall University Press, South Orange, New Jersey, 1967. English-Chinese edition also available; product number 42478-2.
 * http://store.doverpublications.com/0486424774.html

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Best Chinese Names (B217) Unlike names in other languages, Chinese names are made up of individual characters, used singly or strung together. Best Chinese Names aims to help English-speakers select good Chinese names by providing various methods of choosing names. For instance, names may be chosen to express the parents' expectations for the future of the child, to commemorate a significant event, or to mark the time of the baby's birth. The names, thus chosen, fit the character of the individual, sound pleasing, and are easier to remember. This book provides hundreds of names, with sections for both male and female babies, suggestions on methods of naming a baby, and a list of English names compatible with Chinese names. Useful not only for new parents but also teachers and students who need to select Chinese names. By Liu Xiaoyan, Paperback, English, 200 Pages, 6x 8.25 Our price: US$16.95
 * http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/books/aboutchina/culture/B217

Or you can look at Name Your Baby in Chinese, by Lin Shan, 1988 Heian International, Inc., 1815 West 205th St #301, Torrance, CA 90501 (Tel 310-782-6268); ISBN 0-89346-304-3
 * http://www.pshrink.com/chinadopt/NameYourBaby.html

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Analysis of Chinese Characters (BLP052) This text is far and away the most useful analysis of characters for beginners and intermediate students containing 1,000 of the most important Chinese characters analyzed according to primitives, phonetics, and historical development. The traditional method offers mnemonic aid to students studying both Chinese and Japanese characters. By G.D. Wilder & J. H. Ingram, English, Paperback, 365 Pages, 5.25 x 8.5 Our price: US$14.95
 * http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BLP052

What's in a Chinese Character (BLP005) This fascinating book uses cartoons by Tan Huay Peng to illustrate the origin and development of more than 700 common Chinese characters to their present form. The historical background of the script is given, as well as information on the type of stroke, stroke sequence, and Pinyin pronunciation. Days, months and numbers in Chinese are also provided in the Appendix, making this book invaluable to anyone starting to learn Chinese. Each character is explained in Pinyin and English and includes examples of how to use it. The explanations of the origins of Chinese characters are in English and Chinese. Here is a review from one of our customers Elizabeth Yu: "To many beginning and even advanced students of Chinese, deciphering characters is a deep mystery. This lighthearted reference will help to eliminate much of that mystery. The origins of 369 commonly used characters are explained through anecdotes and comical illustrations. I have used some examples from book for teaching my first year Chinese high school students. It is a welcome break from the usual textbook. The book uses English, simplified characters and pinyin. Stroke sequences of each character are shown. Examples of more ways to use each character are also given. This is useful supplement for students of Chinese at all levels." By Tan Huay Peng, Paperback, 185 Pages, 7.25 x 10.25 Our price: US$19.95
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250 Essential Chinese Characters for Everyday Use: Vol 1 (BLP050) Whether you live in China or are a student of the language, even simple tasks like finding an address, buying a train ticket, or banking can be difficult to accomplish if you can’t read Chinese characters. 250 Essential Chinese Characters for Everyday Use is the perfect primer for anyone who needs to recognize common Chinese characters. Each character is presented in both its simplified and traditional form, along with notes on pronunciation and meaning. Vocabulary reviews, practice exercises, and quizzes guide you through a course of self-study where each lesson builds on the previous one. Configuration and stroke order are clearly shown, along with tips for forming characters correctly. A grid of practice squares for each character helps the user build confidence in writing Chinese. All compounds are listed in an alphabetical index at the end of the book for ready reference. By Philip Yungkin Lee, Paperback, Simplified Chinese Characters, English and Pinyin, 338 Pages, 8.25 x 11 Our price: US$19.95
 * http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BLP050

Making Out In Chinese (BLD004) What do one billion people say when they are hanging out, making out, or just shooting the breeze? No longer do you have to sound awkward or embarrassed when in a situation that wasn’t covered in the classroom. “Making out In Chinese” has been especially written to teach you what all the regular Chinese textbooks don’t. In no time, you’ll master everything from friendly chitchat to cuddly courtship remarks, from gentle put-downs to violent verbal abuse (not for the faint at heart!). This is a book certain to bring you to a new level of fluency in conversational Chinese. By Ray Daniels, Paperback, English, English, Pinyin, 88 pages, 4.5 x 7.2 This product is currently out of Stock Our price: US$8.95
 * http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BLD004

3000 Chinese Character Dictionary (BLD009) This dictionary includes over 14,000 phrases and idioms in both traditional and simplified Chinese characters. It uses both Pinyin and Mandarin Phonetic Symbols and contains five indices, Pinyin, Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, radicals, frequency, and stroke numbers of the traditional Chinese characters. It provides English definitions for each character and phrase and enables one to recognize 99% of the characters published in most Chinese media. Paperback, 5.25" x 7", 802 Pages Our price: US$35.95
 * http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BLD009

New Slang of China (BLD003) This dictionary of New Slang of China contains nearly 1300 entries of the most popular and widely used slang that has emerged in recent years. It includes spoken language, colloquial expressions, jargon, argot, cant, influential and representative dialects and local expressions. Among them are many newly created words, old words with new definitions and foreign words. Through this dictionary you can learn more new and popular words used by common people, enlarge vocabulary, master word usage and expressions and make your conversation more interesting and appealing. Each slang is explained with Pinyin, Chinese characters and English, as well as examples how to use the slang. Xiaoning says this is, “A great book for anyone who wants to learn the real Chinese daily spoken language… recommended for anyone who travels in China and wants to speak Chinese as the Chinese do!” Here is a review from one of our customers Elizabeth Yu: "While studying Chinese as a young college student in New York City it was always a chore to memorize vocabulary words and grammar, yet it was great fun to learn slang. Slang as a colloquial spoken language is vividly flavored with local color. It is informal, direct and often humorous. It is pleasing to see that some of the most recent Chinese slang has now been compiled into a book. Understanding these phrases and expressions will enable you to more fully savor the richness and excellence of the Chinese language and culture.The words in this reference book are arranged alphabetically in pinyin. Following each word or words is a sentence in simplified Chinese characters and English showing how the words are used in everyday language. Whether you are planning a trip to China or would just like to enrich your own knowledge of Chinese this is a useful book to have." By Shujuan Li, Ligang Yan, Paperback, 357 Pages, 5.5 x 8 Our price: US$16.95
 * http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BLD003

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the most comprehensive Chinese to English dictionary around to the new ABC Comprehensive Dictionary, edited by John Defrancis and the new Chinese to English Dictionary by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press.

My first question is this: Does the Chinese to English Dictionary by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press contain both simplified and traditional characters? and my second question is: Does it also have documentation/explanations of characters and usage in English?

If anyone has any experience with this dictionary I would really appreciate any help you can give me.

Thanks all,

Bo Han

I use the Chinese to English Dictionary by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press (1993 edition, and I think it is one of the most comprehensive existing Chinese-English dictionary. Its 3 indexes (pinyin, radicals, strokes' number) contain both traditional and simplified characters, and it clearly points out in which cases the exact traditional character equivalent is. It is one of the best, even though one can always find an expression not included in the dictionary (perhaps the are more recent edition than the one I have) Yinyue Mike

Joined: 25 Jan 2004 Posts: 10

Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2004 12:54 pm   Post subject: Best Dictionary

If this Shanghai Jiaotong Univ. Press dictionary is the one I'm thinking of (two volumes?) it is a very good dictionary, but I might have to vote for the DeFrances dictionary. The new comprehensive dictionary has a huge number of entries (180,000 or something) and the layout makes it easily the fastest way to look up a word for an English speaker -- especially in listening if you're not sure which character it is under. It has the traditional characters in the back as well as under the single character entries (but be careful--it only includes those characters that occur in isolation, it's truly a "word" dictionary, not a character dictionary as well). The former dictionary seemed to have a good number of Chinese government organization names, etc., and does give the meaning of each characters regardless of usage. I seem to remember that both dictionaries just use simplified characters in the main body but both reference traditional characters in the back. I may be confusing the first dictionary, though! Hope this helps!

Mike

kentsuarez

Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 15 Location: Taibei (Donghu) Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 6:04 pm   Post subject: Re: Best Dictionary

Yinyue Mike wrote: I seem to remember that both dictionaries just use simplified characters in the main body but both reference traditional characters in the back. I may be confusing the first dictionary, though!

The new ABC Comprehensive has traditional characters not only in the rear index and at single character entries, but also at compounds, so that unlike the original ABC, you can now tell which fu4 is in chong2fu4 (versus the one in hui1fu4). Very nice, highly recommended book. +++

The Starter Oxford Chinese Dictionary by Boping Yuan (Editor), Sally Church (Editor)

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Spotlight Reviews

9 of 9

Good Start Starter, December 28, 2002 Reviewer: professordavid (see more about me) from Zionsville, IN USA This is a handy companion for the beginning of Chinese study. It includes common words, has large type (very important to me), and lots of cross references and "topical" digressions (languages, dates, special words, etc. referenced with citations). It also has a nice measure word section (some are included with nouns, but not always). It also contains both American and British options in word uses.

What I don't like. It ONLY has simplified characters (I would like the traditional ones included also with a primary citation). Harbaugh's book focuses on traditional ones but has both; the bigger Oxford (Manser, 2nd Ed.) has both. It does not have a pronunciation guide which, as a beginner, would be helpful to remind us (constrain us?). Some common words are not in there (who's judgement call?). And, some examples would be helpful where the primary citation includes precedent words. For example, look up "qi" and be able to find "tianqi".

On balance: good overwhelm the bad. After all, it's only about $12-15. As other reviewers have commented, "You need several dictionaries anyway." Do I use it all the time. Absolutely. It's also more fun than the bigger Oxford (Manser). But if Oxford could see clear to include "my" downsides, I'd be much happier.

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Great for beginners, June 11, 2001 Reviewer: rhywun from Astoria, NY United States This dictionary is exactly what the beginning student of Mandarin Chinese needs. It's specifically targeted at English speakers who are just beginning to study Chinese. To that end, the size of the vocabulary is limited to just what you need as a beginner; there are numerous detailed usage and grammar notes throughout the dictionary; almost every entry has example phrases or sentences; all Chinese is given in both Pinyin and characters; and perhaps best of all - it's extremely clear, well-designed, and easy to read. My only complaint is that there is no index of traditional characters (all characters are simplified)...but that doesn't really detract from the quality of this dictionary.

Very Good Basic Dictionary, April 16, 2004 Reviewer: seanezm from Norwalk, CT United States I'm very satisfied - I can find every word I need a definition for. The typographic style (colors, bold, etc.)is a pleasure to use. I recommend highly.

3 of 3

Very good Beginner Dictionary, August 25, 2003 Reviewer: markf1 (see more about me) from Union City, CA United States A very good English/Mandarin Chinese dictionary. I would give it five stars if it was more complete. The dictionary is missing a lot of words.

PROs The best layout I have found for Mandarin/English dictionary Clear Large Type (somewhere around 10 to 12 point font size) Chinese Characters are easy to read

CONs Very basic vocabulary, and is missing a number of important words

0 of 6

Terrible, content is extremely limited., June 22, 2003 Reviewer: A reader from United States I know this is a "starter" dictionary, but I wouldn't recommend it even for beginners. There are very, very few entries. If you are studying the simplified characters, get your self a copy of the "Ying Han Cidian" by Beijing Languages Institue.

13 of 13

Wish I Had It a Year Ago, June 9, 2003 Reviewer: Cathy Sahu (see more about me) from Southern California I've just completed my first two semesters studying Mandarin and they would have been a lot easier if I had had this dictionary from the beginning. Everyone says how easy Mandarin grammar is and that may be true relative to other languages (and relative to learning Chinese characters!), but you still need to learn quite a bit of Mandarin grammar before you can start formulating sentences. I always felt very uncomfortable doing my homework (translation from English to Chinese) because I didn't know whether I was using the grammar properly or not and had no way of checking. I was worried about accidentally getting into bad grammatical habits without even knowing it, because my textbook (Integrated Chinese) has really very little usage information and neither did the dictionaries I had on hand.

Once I got "The Starter Oxford Dictionary," however, homework became so much easier and I no longer feel insecure about sentence formulation. The emphasis in this dictionary is on usage, so instead of having tons and tons of words (which you can get from a regular dictionary), it has a fewer number of words with their usages very clearly explained and illustrated. For example: the entry for the English word "can": "Oxford Starter" divides "can" into three subcategories: "to have the possibility" (translated as neng); "to know how to" (hui); "to be allowed to" (keyi). The "neng" entry then gives two illustrative sentences "Can he come?/Ta neng lia ma?" and "Where can I buy stamps?/Wo zai nar neng maidao youpiao?" The "hui" subcategory has three such illustrative sentences and the "keyi" has four. There are also two warnings on translating "can," one for "hui" and one for "keyi": "Note that when talking about the ability to speak a language, whether or not "can" is used in English, "hui" is required in Chinese" and "Note that to negate, you have to use "bu neng" rather than "bu keyi."

Odds are, if you're studying Chinese, you're a bibiophile, too, so probably you don't need a lot of convincing to buy yet another Chinese dictionary. But in praise of this work I have to say that, if I could have only one book to help me learn elementary Mandarin, this would be it.

(Note: "The Oxford Started Chinese" does use only simplified characters. However, I am learning with traditional and found it wasn't that difficult to figure out what the traditional equivalents were, especially since the entries are organized by pinyin. It would be nice to have a traditional edition but I still wholeheartedly recommend the simplified.)

TWO thumbs up!, June 8, 2003 Reviewer: A reader from Australia I'm in my 2nd year of learning Chinese at university and would have to be one of the 'weaker' students. I originally bought the Concise Chinese Dictionary because it was listed on the text book list. I bought this dictionary a week ago and am LOVING it! I have my exam in a week and I am confident about using this dictionary in it becaues of it's excellent layout. My one gripe is that it is missing the word "discount" and the dicount concept...

Two thumbs up for this dictionary!

3 of 3

Great beginners reference, especially for self-study., May 31, 2003 Reviewer: ed-word (see more about me) from El Paso, Texas United States Don't let the fact that this is a beginner's dictionary lead you to believe that it is wimpy and overly simplstic. You will indeed need several dictionarys anyway if you are going to undertake a study of Chinese; the beginner, especially those who are attempting self-study, can do no better than starting here. If you are a tourist going to China this is the one dictionary you want; its small, cheap, easy to use, and concentrates on commonly used words and expressions.

The dictionary is bi-directional with the Chinese entries arranged alphabeticaly in pinyin romanization accompaied by the simplified Chinese character equivalents that have been used in mainland China for the past 50 years. There are brief sections on grammar, the use of tones in spoken Mandarin, radical and character indices, and lots of explanatory notes regarding usage.

As you continue your study of Chinese you will eventually outgrow this dictionary. Be that as it may there are some tools one uses more than others and the beginning student of Chinese will turn to this starter dictionary more often than whatever else is likely to be present in his or her toolbox.

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Highly Recommended!!, November 27, 2002 Reviewer: Walter Reade (see more about me) from Appleton, WI United States As a "beginning" student of Chinese for a few years now, I have gone through a large number of Chinese language resources. This is one that I would unhesitatingly recommend to anyone.

The dictionary is at the right level for beginning students. The entries are limited to the most commonly used words. This is a major advantage for those who like to learn vocabulary by browsing a dictionary -- you are sure to be learning useful words (as opposed to specialty or infrequently used words). There have been only a few times where I have look for a word that wasn't included in this dictionary. I expect that the casual learner of Chinese will not outgrow this dictionary for at least a year or two.

I found the format of the dictionary extremely uncluttered and user friendly. In addition to the standard word and definition, entries also include very useful notes of clarification. For example, after the character for hui4 ("to be able to") there a note explaining that this character can also be pronounced as kuai4 with a different meaning.

Another resource I have been extremely pleased with and highly recommend is, "Chinese Character Flashcards 888." Good luck in your studies!!

2 of 2

When do we get the extended ?, November 26, 2002 Reviewer: maotouying (see more about me) from Athens, GA United States I only have one hope... that Oxford brings the extended version of its dictionary in the same wonderful format ! I understand this would make the dictionary big and ponderous... I don't care ! This is by far the best format I have ever seen on a Chinese dictionary !

But now with TRADITIONAL characters as well!!, May 26, 2002 Reviewer: W. R. Kelly from Providence, RI United States This is a great little, general-use, beginning dictionary. But beware, for those of us learning traditional chinese characters first, you'll need something more, as this book uses ONLY SIMPLIFIED CHARACTERS--and they don't actually tell you that anywhere. You have to discover it on your own.

I hope they will put out another edition in traditional characters soon. Or else add to the current book both trad. chars. AND simplified ones when the forms vary.

5 of 5

Bogus Review ?, May 2, 2002 Reviewer: McGeorge from Beijing Like the first three reviewers, I rate this dictionary the best BASIC dictionary there is. Mr Bernard Kornowicz's comments are perfect (I also totally endorse his comments about the "miserable Concise Oxford Dictionary", which is supposed to be a companion, more advanced dictionary, but is mediocre). Rated by fitness for purpose, this is the best there is for serious, beginning/intermediate level learners. What a pity that a perfect star rating was spoiled by "Volleyballbrian", with a sloppy review which overlooks the fact that good intermediate dictionaries HAVE to be selective on the number of words. I have the feeling that the "Vbb review" is sabotage from a competitor !

10 of 10

Extremely helpful...long overdue., February 28, 2002 Reviewer: A reader from PARIS France This Dictionary has been so well-conceived that I felt obliged to take the time to compliment the authors on a work well done. This particular edition is a God-send to any English speaker struggling to obtain an intermediate level in Mandarin Chinese. The entries were carefully chosen so as not to weigh the dictionary down with uncommon words. As far as the typeset is concerned...the Chinese characters are printed LARGE and CLEAR so readers don't go blind trying to differentiate characters with several strokes. Chinese will never be easy to learn as it states on the cover, but at least this dictionary gives us a chance!

1 of 6

Decent start book, but better out there, February 21, 2002 Reviewer: volleyballbrian (see more about me) from Galveston, TX United States This is a decent starting book. I enjoyed the small section on the 4 tones of Chinese and basic structure. The lookup section for both english and chinese was very easy to use, but the words included is EXTREMELY limited. If you are serious about learning Chinese, this book is not a good choice, buy a better dictionary such as the Concise english-chinese chinese-english dictionary ..., much better dictionary. If you are looking for something easy to use and read and only look up very common words, this would be OK.

1 of 4

Barely Enough for Even Beginners, December 4, 2001 Reviewer: A reader from Washington, DC United States This is physically a very nicely put together book, with very readable type, attractive layout and design, and sturdy paper. Nevertheless, this is an altogether inadequate dictionary, even for beginners. There simply aren't enough words provided in this book. You are likely to become as frustrated as I was, after purchasing this book, to time and again fail to find definitions for commonplace words from day-to-day conversation. Until Oxford drops the "starter" concept and doubles or triples the listings in this volume, don't waste your time or money. Get an unabridged Chinese dictionary, even if you are a beginner. I wish now that I had.

0 of 3

more starter than dictionary, November 3, 2001 Reviewer: shazan from Cambridge, MA this is a good aid to language study for beginners, but it's not really a dictionary in the normal sense. perhaps 'learner's vocabulary guide' would have been a better title. when reading any but the simplest of texts you will find it insufficient.

2 of 6

Good but I think should include traditonal characters, June 26, 2001 Reviewer: Eduardo Morales (see more about me) from MIAMI, FLORIDA USA It is good but somehow limited in scope, I wish it had also traditional characters. However each entry is colorful and very well explained. It is a must for beginners.

7 of 8

Great dictionary for beginners, April 11, 2001 Reviewer: Stacie (see more about me) from Kentucky In addition to the definitions, it has a section on writing characters, counting/money, a section on measure words, and much more. It gives everything a beginner needs. I would strongly recommend it to anyone just starting Mandarin Chinese,

3 of 3

great choice for learners, April 9, 2001 Reviewer: A reader from Beverly Hills, CA USA I am in the third quarter of a first-year Mandarin class, and about a third of the class has bought this dictionary. I suspect the rest of my classmates will soon follow. It's easy to read and contains extremely useful explanations of usage and grammatical points, making it a wonderful adjunct to our textbook. You will need another more comprehensive dictionary for vocabulary purposes, but I haven't seen a better dictionary for first and second year students. Buy it!

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Oxford finally gets it right!, March 11, 2001 Reviewer: Bernard Kornowicz (see more about me) from Newington, Connecticut USA This is the best Chinese/English dictionary I've found so far. It's a beginner's dictionary, but hopefully Oxford University Press will learn from this one and apply the same quality standards to their more extensive, but miserably formatted and somewhat inaccurate "Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary". This dictionary is very easy to read. The lookup words are in large, blue print. Multiple definitions are bulleted and numerically categorized by noun, adverb, etc. Word definitions also contain the Chinese characters and examples of usage. There are radical and character indices, rules for writing characters, and a section on measure words. The English to Chinese section also contains the measure words in the definitions, as well as British and U.S. English spellings if there is a difference. There are also many language usage tips throughout the dictionary.


text:
User:Vuara/The Rosetta stone

Call number 493.1 SOL Author Solé, Robert. Title The Rosetta stone : [the story of the decoding of hieroglyphics] / Robert Solé and Dominique Valbelle ; translated by Steven Rendall. Publication info New York : Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002, c2001. Physical descrip 184 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. ; 22 cm. General Note Translation of: Pierre de Rosette. Bibliography note Includes bibliographical references and index. Title subject Rosetta stone. Subject term Egyptian language--Writing, Hieroglyphic. Subject term Hieroglyphics. Added author Valbelle, Dominique. DBCN (Sirsi) AEG-1737 ISBN 1568582269 (alk. paper) Read a chapter or excerpt Read publisher's blurb Author Biography Robert Sole is a novelist, writer and journalist of Egyptian origin Dominique Valbelle is Director of the Institut de papyrologie et d'egyptologie at the University of Lille III and President of the French Egyptological Society. She is the author of many works in her field Steven Rendall, the translator, is Professor Emeritus of Romance Languages at the University of Oregon. He now lives in France, where he translates from French and German Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. Summary In July 1799, a French officer serving in Napoleons Egyptian expedition unearthed a granite block bearing text in three different scripts Greek, demotic Egyptian, and hieroglyphics. Following the discovery, a remarkable competition ensued for possession of the stone as well as for decoding its inscription. Using all the elements of a detective thriller, the authors, a well-known novelist and a leading Egyptologist, tell the story of international intrigue surrounding the intellectual quest to crack the stones code the key to reading ancient Egyptian texts for the first time in 14 centuries. Also included are reproductions of the stone and its inscriptions as well as portraits of the key figures involved in its translation. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Table of Contents List of Illustrations vi   Acknowledgements vii 1 Fort Julien 1 2 The thirty-first session 6 3 Sacred signs and symbols 14 4 With the point of a compass 24 5 The spoils of war 29 6 King George's gift 37 7 Description, for want of something better 42 8 Akerblad's 'alphabet' 46 9 Champollion goes to work 53 10 Signed 'ABCD' 63 11 Three related scripts 72 12 The letter to M. Dacier 78 13 Ideas and sounds 87 14 A science is born 96 15 Deciphers by the hundreds 101 16 The magic of a script 108 17 The fate of a stone 118 Appendices i The Memphis Decree 127 ii Other bilingual stelae 135 iii Thomas Young's intuitions 139 iv Champollion's lecture 147 Chronology 156 Notes 160 Bibliography 172 Index of names 180 Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. Review Holdings Woodcroft Branch Copies  Material  Location 493.1 SOL 1 Book General collection

Excerpt Copyright © 1999 Editions du Seuil.

Chapter One

Fort Julien

Archaeology? That was last thing on the minds of the French soldiers occupying northern Egypt in July 1799! Thousands of Ottoman invaders had just landed at Abukir — that accursed place where the preceding year Napoleon's fleet had been cut to pieces by the English. They had no difficulty in taking the fort over which the French tricolour flew. The burning question was what their next target would be: Alexandria or Rosetta?

In contrast to Alexandria, which looked like a large, dusty village, Rosetta was an attractive and prosperous city. Situated on the west branch of the Nile, a few kilometres from the Mediterranean, it was green throughout the year. It was full of banana, orange, fig and date trees, and had an abundant supply of pigeons and milk. Europeans thought it the most pleasant city in Egypt.

North of Rosetta, fortifications were being hurriedly built to resist a possible Ottoman assault. ‘I expect to be attacked at any time,’ the local commander wrote to Napoleon on 18 July. ‘I am vigilant and I hope the enemy will not take Fort Julien as easily as he took the fort at Abukir.’

‘Fort Julien’ was the Borg Rashid (the tower of Rosetta), a dilapidated fortress built in the fifteenth century by the sultan Qait Bey. The French renamed it in memory of one of Napoleon's aides-de-camp, Adjutant-General Julien (spelled ‘Jullien’ in some military documents), who had been killed nearby, along with his escort, the previous July.

Located in a palm grove on the east bank of the Nile, Borg Rashid was too far inland to control the entrance from the sea. However, from the fort an observer with the appropriate equipment could survey the whole breadth of the river's mouth, as well as the opposite bank. On taking it, the French found ruined walls eighty metres on a side, with four movable turrets in which not even an ‘eight-pound cannon could be mounted’. On the ramparts connecting the turrets, the crenellations were uncovered. The tower keep at the centre of the fortress contained a small mosque and two cisterns. Until more significant modifications could be made, they had hastily to adapt the turreted bastions and construct a terreplein bordering the ramparts. Living quarters, a hospital, ovens, guard units and ammunition dumps were set up, ‘sheltered from bombs’. The establishment of this line of defence was entrusted to d'Hautpol, the leader of a battalion of engineers, assisted by Lieutenant Bouchard. History was to forget the former and immortalize the latter, by associating him with one of the most exciting scientific adventures of all time.

An officer-scientist

During the second week of July, while clearing away debris in part of Borg Rashid, Bouchard and his men found a block of dark-coloured stone about one metre in height. One of its sides, highly polished, bore thousands of small marks inscribed in three different scripts: the text on top was in hieroglyphs, the one on the bottom in Greek, and between the two were characters that could not be identified.

There was no reason for hieroglyphs to be found in an Arab fortress. Could the fortress have been built on the side of an ancient monument? Geographers were to declare this impossible, for in antiquity this region was covered by the waters of the Nile, which encroached much further on the dry land. All indications were that the stone had been erected elsewhere and brought to the site centuries later to be reused for other purposes. Later on, it would be proven that, like many of the decorated blocks used in the city's residences, it came from one of the temples in Sais, on the same branch of the river.

Who was the first to see the Stone in the July heat? A soldier? An engineer? An Egyptian manual labourer? Who first cried out in surprise and realized that this might be a treasure? The official report attributes the discovery to Pierre François Xavier Bouchard, and there is no reason to doubt that this loyal and conscientious officer, who was then twenty-eight years of age and had always served the Republic much better than it ever served him, was the first European to set eyes on the Rosetta Stone. After all, Bouchard was a ‘scientist’: when the French first landed in Egypt a year earlier, he had belonged not to the army but to the Commission of Arts and Sciences, that is, to the group of some 160 civilians Napoleon had recruited to accompany his expedition. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone — by chance, in an improbable place and at an inappropriate moment — was at least made by a ‘scientist’ ...

The son of a carpenter, Bouchard was born on 29 April 1771 in Orgelet, a small village in the Jura mountains. After completing his studies in Besançon, he was conscripted into the army, assigned to a company of grenadiers, and sent to the front in Champagne and Belgium. At twenty-three, this tall, dark man from the Jura, found himself in a new branch of the army: the aérostiers, an observational balloon corps that had performed with distinction in the battle of Fleurus. He soon became the assistant head of the aerostatic school established in Meudon under the direction of a brilliant inventor, Nicolas Jacques Conté, to whom we owe the artificial pencil lead. The two men were both wounded in a laboratory accident that left Bouchard with severely impaired vision in one eye.

In 1796, even though he had passed the age limit, the son of the Orgelet carpenter was admitted to the recently established École polytechnique. Less than two years later, he decided, along with other students and several professors, to follow General Bonaparte on a lengthy expedition whose goal was kept secret. It was to be Egypt ... Bouchard took his final examination in Cairo and joined the engineering corps. He was not assigned to Rosetta until June 1799, a few weeks before the discovery of the famous Stone.

Three versions of the same text

The Stone was dusted off and sheltered, so that it could be closely examined. It weighed 720 kilos, and was 114 centimetres high, 72 centimetres wide and 27 centimetres thick on average. Its upper part was missing, as well as the lower right corner.

Although the Frenchmen then in Rosetta were unable to make anything of the first two inscriptions, they could read the Greek. They determined that it was a rather obscure expression of homage to a certain Ptolemy, written on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of his coronation. So far, nothing earth-shattering. It would interest only a historian of ancient Egypt ... But the last sentence excited them: ‘This decree shall be inscribed on stelae of hard rock, in sacred characters, both native and Greek, and they shall be erected in each of the temples of the first, second and third category, next to the image of the king living eternally.’ The stela contained the same text written in three different scripts! This opened a stunning perspective — starting from the Greek, wouldn't it be possible to decipher the hieroglyphics, which no one had been able to read for fourteen centuries? The importance of the ‘stone with three inscriptions’ seems to have been immediately perceived. A fine example of scientific intuition, even as the roar of battle could be heard close by.

What role should we attribute to Michel-Ange Lancret, who was assigned to the region around Rosetta? This twenty-five year old engineer, who had studied architecture before turning to mathematics, was in the first class to graduate from the École polytechnique. He had just been elected to the Institut d'Égypte created by Napoleon on the model of the Institut national. Lancret was a brilliant young man, but he lacked Bouchard's training in archaeology: he was simply one of the young ‘scientists’ who were open-minded and able to move beyond their own disciplines to take a passionate interest in something new. A year earlier, at the first session of the Institut d'Égypte, the mathematician Gaspard Monge, who presided over this scientific academy, had encouraged his colleagues to open their eyes and devote themselves ‘to the study of ancient monuments, to explaining these mysterious signs, these granite pages on which an enigmatic history is inscribed.’

It was Lancret who wrote a letter informing members of the Institute of the discovery of the stela, while Bouchard was entrusted with transporting it up the Nile by boat and bringing it to the capital. The Frenchmen in Cairo thus learned at the same time of the existence of the Rosetta Stone and of Napoleon's crushing defeat of the Ottomans at Abukir on 25 July. Both were good news — and news of great importance.

title: User:Vuara/The Rosetta stone


text:
User:Vuara/Decoding Egyptian hieroglyphs

Call number 493.18242 MCD Author McDermott, Bridget. Title Decoding Egyptian hieroglyphs : how to read the secret language of the pharaohs / Bridget McDermott ; foreword by Joann Fletcher. Publication info San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 2001. Physical descrip 171 p. : col ill. ; 24 cm. Bibliography note Includes bibliographical references (p. 171) and index. Subject term Egyptian language--Writing, Hieroglyphic. DBCN (Sirsi) AED-5639 ISBN 0811832252 (pbk.) Read a chapter or excerpt Author Biography Bridget McDermott is at work on her doctoral thesis on the ancient Egyptian military, and is also a media consultant on Egyptian archaeology. She lives in England Joann Fletcher, Ph.D., is director of the NILE educational organization, as well as a frequent university lecturer. She divides her time between Egypt and her home in England Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. Summary The French linguist who decoded the Rosetta Stone took 14 years to do so; amateur translators would find the task much simpler with Decoding Egyptian Hieroglyphs: How to Read the Secret Language of the Pharaohs by British doctoral student Bridget McDermott. For instance: "a water pot on a human leg, a bread loaf and a flesh sign together" means "meat." The colorful text, a marriage between coffee-table picture book and high school language workbook, offers photographs of ancient inscriptions with sidebars clarifying their meaning as well as pronunciation and grammar guides, magic spells, maps, mythology and basic Egyptian history. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Table of Contents Foreword Dr Joann Fletcher 6 Chapter 1 First Steps 8 Discovery and Decipherment 10 The Rosetta Stone 11 The History of the Language 12 The Scribal Legacy 14 The Role of the Scribe 15 How Hieroglyphs Work 18 The Arrangement of Signs 19 Spelling and Pronunciation 20 The Alphabet 22 Determinatives 24 Chapter 2 Origins of the Signs 26 Signs from Nature 28 On the Banks of the Nile 28 Bodies Human and Divine 30 The Animal World 34 Hosts of the Air 36 Reeds and Flowers 38 The Divine Elements of Life 41 Life on Earth 44 Dwellings of Men and Gods 45 The Harvest of the Fields 50 Eating and Drinking 53 Recreation and Sport 56 Chapter 3 The Sacred Art Of Writing 58 The Magical Dimension 60 Worship of the Gods 60 The Art of Magic 64 Tomb Inscriptions 66 Reading a Tomb Inscription 68 The Pyramid Texts 70 Coffin Texts 72 The Book of the Dead 74 How to Read Objects 76 Statues 76 Jewelry 78 Weapons of War 80 The Power of Names 82 The King's Titles 82 Gods and Goddesses 86 Reading a Temple Inscription 90 Chapter 4 Realms of Meaning 92 A Healthy Life 94 The Body Beautiful 94 The Healing Arts 96 Death and the Afterlife 98 Relationships 104 Generations 104 Expressing Emotions 106 Love and Family Life 108 Trades and Skills 110 Mining 111 Servants of the Gods 112 Servants of the State 115 A Life of Work 118 Soldiers 120 Weapons and War 122 The Force of Egypt 122 Military Records 124 Egypt and Beyond 126 The Black Land 126 The Forty-Two Nomes 128 Sacred Sites 130 Peoples Beyond the Black Land 134 Calculation and Measurement 138 Time 138 The Seasons of the Year 140 Mathematics 142 Celestial Worlds 144 Creation Myths 145 Day and Night 146 The Waters of Heaven 148 Chapter 5 Reference File 150 The Grammar of Hieroglyphs 152 Sample Translations 160 Sign Index 166 Index 172 Acknowledgments 176 Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Review The French linguist who decoded the Rosetta Stone took 14 years to do so; amateur translators would find the task much simpler with Decoding Egyptian Hieroglyphs: How to Read the Secret Language of the Pharaohs by British doctoral student Bridget McDermott. For instance: "a water pot on a human read more... Appeared in: Library Journal, Nov 01, 2002 (c) Copyright 2003, Cahners Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Holdings Stanley A. Milner Library Copies  Material  Location 493.18242 MCD 1 Book Checked Out

Excerpt

Copyright © 2001 Bridget McDermott.

Terms of Use

Chapter One

DISCOVERY & DECIPHERMENT

In 1799 a French officer at Fort Julien in el-Rashîd in Egypt uncovered a granitic rock carved with three scripts: hieroglyphs, demotic or popular Egyptian, and ancient Greek. The slab was the key to deciphering hieroglyphs.

THE ROSETTA STONE

The officer was a member of a French expeditionary force to Egypt, and copies of the inscription on the slab — later called the Rosetta Stone after European versions of el- Rashîd — were sent to Paris. By examining the Greek text on the slab, scholars saw that the carving commemorated the coronation of Ptolemy V and had been commissioned by priests of Memphis in 196BCE. But it was years before the fourteen lines of Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered.

Jean-François Champollion, a precocious French linguist, obtained a copy of the Rosetta Stone inscription in 1808 when he was only eighteen. Fluent in ancient Greek, he compared the hieroglyphs in oval enclosures — which were believed to contain royal names — to the royal names listed in the Greek section of the inscription. Other scholars had identified Ptolemy in Greek and Egyptian. Champollion assumed that the name should be read alphabetically and that each hieroglyph represented a separate letter, and by reading from right to left established the name p-t-o-l-m-y-s. He was able to draw up a small alphabet.

When he saw a copy of an inscription containing the name Cleopatra, he made a longer sign list that enabled him to read names on other monuments. He realized that hieroglyphs used signs that represented both sounds and ideas and he examined the grammar of the language, making his findings public in 1822.

THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE

Around 3000BCE developments in trade brought about crosscultural relationships between Egypt, Mesopotamia and neighbouring countries. The Sumerians of Mesopotamia had developed a system of writing that used pictograms or picture signs and for many years scholars believed that this system was the basis of Egyptian writing. Recent excavations at Abydos, however, have revealed that Egypt had used a pictorial language several hundred years before Mesopotamia.

The oldest surviving examples of written Egyptian date from c.3250BCE. At first the pictorial script was used primarily to record royal possessions but by the Old Kingdom (2625-2130BCE) the script appeared mainly in religious or commemorative inscriptions on palaces, temples and tombs, on statues, coffins and sarcophagi and on amulets and jewelry. For this reason the Greeks who ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great in 323BCE called the writing "hieroglyphics" from the Greek words hieros (meaning "sacred") and gluphe ("carving"). Hieroglyphic writing was in use for more than 3,000 years from the fourth millennium BCE to the fourth century of the Christian era, when — in a Roman-dominated Egypt — it faded into obscurity. The latest known inscriptions in hieroglyphs date from 24 August 394CE and were discovered on the island of Philae in the River Nile in southern Egypt, where a temple to the goddess Isis was still in use in the sixth century CE.

Hieroglyphic signs were written in columns and rows and read from right to left, from left to right or from top to bottom — but never from bottom to top (see page 19). A simplified form of hieroglyphic writing probably first appeared shortly after the introduction of the original hieroglyphs. In the Old Kingdom this simplified form was used for secular administrative papyri as well as for temple accounts and religious texts. In the Greco-Roman period (332BCE-CE395), however, it was used only by priests and in religious contexts — the Greeks named it "hieratic", from hieratikos ("priestly"). Scribes wrote hieratic in columns and rows; in rows it read from right to left.

A more rapid form of writing — best described as a shorthand used for administrative documents — first appeared in 724-712BCE and continued in use until the late Roman period (fourth century CE). The Egyptians identified it by a phrase meaning "writing of documents", but it is widely known as "demotic" from the Greek demotikos ("popular"), because it was used in secular writing.

A fourth form of written Egyptian was Coptic. This was written in the Greek alphabet but retained seven characters from the ancient Egyptian language. While earlier forms of Egyptian used only consonants in their alphabets (see pages 22-23), Coptic used vowels as well and has helped scholars reconstruct the vowel sounds of hieroglyphic writing. The earliest Coptic texts, which date from the first and second centuries CE, were Egyptian magical writings. The name comes from the Greek Aiguptia, "Egypt". After the Arab conquest of Egypt in 640-642CE, Arabic largely replaced Coptic in Egypt.

The language of Egypt is divided by historians into Old, Middle and Late Egyptian. Old Egyptian is dated to 3180-2240BCE and was used in official, funerary and biographical inscriptions. Middle Egyptian (2240-1990BCE) was developed in literary compositions of the Middle Kingdom and continued in use well into the Eighteenth Dynasty (1539-1292BCE). Because it is grammatically consistent, Middle Egyptian is the best place to start when learning to read hieroglyphs. Late Egyptian, dating to 1573-715BCE, is found in official documents, inscriptions and letters.

THE SCRIBAL LEGACY

In ancient Egypt, those able to read or write the elaborate hieroglyphic script were held in great esteem, and often became prominent figures in the religious, military or political realms. Literacy was limited to members of the élite. Highly trained scribes used hieroglyphs to facilitate the administration of the state and to document political and religious events.

THE ROLE OF THE SCRIBE

From the age of seven, boys from Egypt's upper classes attended school at temple, where they practised their writing on ostraca (fragments of pottery or limestone) or on wooden writing boards that were coated with gypsum. Pupils probably also learned words and phrases by heart by chanting them. Boys are also known to have studied literary compositions including stories and wisdom texts.

It is thought that Egyptian further education began between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, when students were expected to embark on an apprenticeship. Among the many trades open to educated young men, the military and scribal professions were particularly highly regarded. Those who chose to become scribes enjoyed promising prospects — qualified scribes could expect to graduate to prestigious administrative positions in a range of sectors. Military scribes were responsible for recruiting and organizing the army and its supplies. Some scribes acted as architects, while others designed the plans for decorating royal tombs and temples with hieroglyphs and pictures, and supervised the artists and craftsmen who carried the plans out.

Individual scribes, even if they came from relatively humble backgrounds, were sometimes promoted to positions of high office. Imhotep, the scribe and architect of the step pyramid at Saqqara, was even worshipped as a god after his death, as was another famous scribe, Amenhotep son of Hapu (see page 17).

The ancient Egyptians revered literacy, and even élite men who were not scribes sometimes commissioned statues of themselves kneeling crosslegged on the ground in the pose that characterized the profession. The scribe is usually depicted with rolls of writing material stretched across his knees. The Egyptians wrote on bone, clay, ivory, linen, metal and vellum, but ostraca and papyrus were more widely used. Scribes selected small rectangular sections or rolls of papyrus, which were several metres in length. Egyptian books, in the form of scrolls, were usually stored in boxes or jars.

The hieroglyphic word for "scribe" ?? ss/sesh (see pages 20-23 for transliteration and pronunciation of hieroglyphs) starts with an image of the scribal palette and tools; the determinative sign (see page 24) is a kneeling male figure that represents a scribe at work. The scribal palette consisted of black and red inks that were used to distinguish between sections of text. The black pigment was derived from carbon, while the red was extracted from two types of iron oxide and ochre. Both pigments were moulded into small cakes which were mixed with gum and water. Pens and brushes were crafted from the firm, straight stems of reeds or from slivers of wood which were bruised at one end until the fibres separated and formed bristles. The word "to write" ?? ss/sesh is almost identical to the word for "scribe", and was pronounced in the same way. It shows the scribal palette and pen followed by the image of a sealed papyrus roll.

HOW HIEROGLYPHS WORK

For centuries hieroglyphs were an unbreakable code because scholars were misled by the ancient Egyptians' use of symbols in writing. To break the code modern readers had to understand — as Jean-François Champollion did — that the symbols represent both sounds and ideas (see page 20). The first step of all, however, is to examine how scribes arranged the hieroglyphs.

THE ARRANGEMENT OF SIGNS

Ancient Egyptian scribes wrote hieroglyphs in both rows and columns with no spaces between the words. Inscriptions can be read from left to right or from right to left along a row and in a column from top to bottom.

When reading a row you can work out in which direction to read because signs containing humans, animals or birds always face toward the beginning of the inscription. For example, when the word for "drink" is written like this ?? it should be read from the left because the human figure and the bird are facing toward the left. If it is written in this way ?? it is read from the right.

When a row of hieroglyphs appears vertically reading should begin at the top, for hieroglyphs were never written from the bottom to the top of a column. Within a row if two signs are put together vertically — as the bird and the mouth sign are in "drink" — the upper one should be read first. The signs in "drink" should therefore be read in this order ?? (folded cloth) ?? (sparrow), ?? (mouth), ?? (reed), ?? (water ripples) and ?? (man).

The signs reproduced in this book are printed as we are accustomed to read English — in a straight line from left to right. However, scribes used hieroglyphs as part of the decorative scheme of the monument, tomb or other object on which they were writing, often arranging the signs in the way most pleasing to the eye. When carving an inscription on a monument, they would group the signs to fill the space available. Sometimes they repeated pieces of text in opposing directions for symmetrical effect.

SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION

Before Jean-François Champollion made his inspired breakthrough in the decoding of hieroglyphs (see page 11), scholars believed that all hieroglyphic symbols stood for concepts or things and that none was used to represent sounds in the way that the letters of the English alphabet are used. In fact hieroglyphic writing, as Champollion understood, combines ideograms (signs that represent ideas and things) and phonograms (signs that represent sounds).

Many signs depict recognizable creatures or things — for example, ?? (bull), ?? (horse) or ?? (child). Many depict stylized versions of the thing to which they refer, as in ?? (lotus pool), ?? (lotus flower) or ?? (palm branch stripped of leaves). Sometimes a sign is used as the word for the object it depicts. For instance, the word for "mouth" ?? consists of the mouth sign written with a single stroke that indicates, among other things, that this word refers to the thing that is represented. Similarly the words for "sun" ?? and "arm" ?? are written with the signs that represent those objects. More usually, however, hieroglyphic signs represent sounds in the Egyptian language — they are used as phonograms. Two picture signs representing different sounds can be put together to make a new word, which often has nothing to do with the things represented by the picture signs themselves. A hypothetical English equivalent usually quoted by scholars would be to write "belief" by combining the images of a bee and a tree's leaf: bee-leaf. If you were trying to decode this hypothetical English hieroglyph and expected the resulting word to relate to bees, leaves, honey or trees, you would be heading in entirely the wrong direction.

By careful comparison of the use of hieroglyphic signs in different contexts, scholars have identified specific signs with individual sounds. Where possible they have matched these sounds with the letters of the English alphabet. But some sounds in ancient Egyptian do not have exact equivalents in English and so cannot be represented using letters of the alphabet; in these cases scholars have developed a set of signs to represent the sounds (see pages 22-23). The translation of hieroglyphic pictures into sounds is called "transliteration". Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs did not represent vowel sounds (a,e,i,o,u) and so only consonants are used in transliteration.

In the word for "house" ?? the rectangle represents a house; the pronunciation of the word combined the consonant sounds p and r — and the sign is transliterated using those letters: pr. The word for "to go forth" ?? made the same sound combination. In this context the sign of the house works to represent the sound combination pr(i); the mouth sign reinforces this, because it represents the sound r; the sign for walking legs helps to distinguish between the house symbol used as an ideogram in ?? and the same symbol used as a phonogram in "to go forth" — the leg sign indicates that the word is to do with movement and is an example of a determinative (see page 24).

Scholars do not know for certain how the ancient Egyptians pronounced the words represented by hieroglyphs, but they have a good idea based on comparative research in Coptic (see page 13). As well as transliterating hieroglyphic signs into recognizable letters (but using only consonants), we can write out the word's probable pronunciation complete with vowel sounds. The word house ??, transliterated pr, was probably pronounced "pair". In this book the hieroglyphic words cited are followed firstly by the transliteration, then the pronunciation, thus: "house" ?? pr/pair; "mistress of the house" ?? ?? nbt-pr/nebet -pair; the ancient name for Egypt ("the black land") ?? ?? ?? kmt/Kemet.

THE ALPHABET

Ancient Egyptian used a standard alphabet of twenty-four "letters" each of which represented a single consonant. The letters are shown in the box below alongside their transliteration (see pages 20-21) — either a letter from the English alphabet or a transliteration sign devised by scholars — and their probable pronunciation.

The sounds represented by the transliteration signs given in the alphabet box below are as follows: 3 — glottal stop, similar to "thro'le" (for "throttle") in Cockney English; i — like "y"; ?? — guttural "ah" sound; h — emphatic "h"; h — similar to "ch" in Scottish "loch"; h — similar to "ch" in German "ich"; š — "sh" as in "shimmy"; k — "kw" like "q" in "queen"; t — similar to to "t" in "tube"; d -"dj" similar to "j" in "joker".

The language also used a number of signs that represented combinations of two consonants (these are known as "biliteral signs") or combinations of three consonants (known as "triliteral signs"). A list of biliteral signs and a selection of triliteral signs is given on pages 158-9 in the Reference File section at the end of this book.

DETERMINATIVES

Two English words can sound identical but have different meanings — for example, "pear" and "pair". In hieroglyphs, where no vowels were written, words commonly shared a spelling. The adjective ?? "old" and the noun ?? "praise" both read i3w/ah-oo. When words looked alike in this way, Egyptian scribes added what scholars call determinatives — ideograms used to determine or make clear the meaning. The determinative for ?? "old" is a stooping, elderly man while the determinative for "praise" is a figure raising hands in worship. Determinatives do not have a phonetic function — they represent no sound. Ideograms of a man ?? or parts of the male anatomy including the penis ?? and ?? were used to determine words with male aspects: for example, ?? s3/sar "son" and ?? h3y/hay "husband". Ideograms of a woman ?? were used to determine words with female aspects such as ?? mwt/moot "mother".

(Continues...) distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.


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User:Vuara/Hieroglyphic at EPL

"Egyptian language Writing, Hieroglyphic" search found 18 titles.

Book 493.18242 COL 2003 2003 How to read Egyptian hieroglyphs : a step-by-step guide to teach yourself Collier, Mark. Rev. ed. 2 copies on shelf at EPLMNA and EPLWMC   Where is EPLxxx? Book 493.1 SOL 2002 The Rosetta stone : [the story of the decoding of hieroglyphics] Solé, Robert. 1 copy on shelf at EPLWOO   Where is EPLxxx? Book J 920.9932 CHA RUM 2000 Seeker of knowledge : the man who deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs Rumford, James. 2 copies on shelf at EPLLON and EPLWMC   Where is EPLxxx?
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Book J 493.111 DON 1999 The mystery of the hieroglyphs : the story of the Rosetta Stone and the race to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs Donoughue, Carol. 9 copies on shelf at EPLMNA, EPLJPL, EPLLES, EPLLON, EPLWMC, and EPLWOO   Where is EPLxxx? Book J 493.1 GIB 1990 The riddle of the Rosetta Stone : key to ancient Egypt Giblin, James. 1st ed. 3 copies on shelf at EPLCPL, EPLJPL, and EPLMLW   Where is EPLxxx? Book 493.1 ROS 1989 Egyptian hieroglyphics : how to read and write them Rossini, S. (Stéphane) 1 copy on shelf at EPLIDY   Where is EPLxxx? Video Videocassette 490 BEF 1989 Before the alphabet [videorecording] Lanchester, Robert. 1 copy on shelf at EPLMNA   Where is EPLxxx? Book J 493.1KAT 1981 Hieroglyphs : the writings of ancient Egypt Katan, Norma Jean. 1st ed. 3 copies on shelf at EPLMNA, EPLIDY, and EPLWMC   Where is EPLxxx? Book 493.1 BUD 1978 An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary : with an index of English words, king list, and geographical list with indexes, list of hieroglyphic characters, Coptic and Semitic alphabets, etc Budge, E. A. Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis), Sir, 1857-1934. 2 copies on shelf at EPLMNA   Where is EPLxxx? Book J 398.22 SNE MAN 1977 How Djadja-em-ankh saved the day : a tale from Ancient Egypt Manniche, Lise. 1 copy on shelf at EPLMNA   Where is EPLxxx? Book J 417 SCO 1974 Hieroglyphs for fun : your own secret code language Scott, Henry Joseph, 1917- 2 copies on shelf at EPLMNA and EPLLES   Where is EPLxxx?
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title: User:Vuara/Hieroglyphic at EPL