A Pictographic Naxi Origin Myth from Southwest China
An Annotated Translation
9789087284275
416 pages
Amsterdam University Press
Overview
1.This is the most comprehensive translation of a Naxi text in English to appear for over half a century. By presenting a historically important translation manuscript for both the history of missionary translation in China and for Dutch sinology, this book allows modern audiences a chance to access the unique, semi-oral ritual tradition of the Naxi via detailed annotations. 2. The Naxi source manuscript, presented in high quality images, will be complemented by digital reconstructions of each section of the text, with each graph numbered to allow readers a fuller understanding of how such semi-oral texts are read, making it the first reader of the Naxi script to be produced in English. 3. Back-translation and comparative research has allowed for the recreation of an approximation of the original early twentieth century reading given to the original translator Elise Scharten by a Naxi ritual specialist.
Author Bio
Duncan Poupard is Assistant Professor in Translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is author of Translation/Re-creation: Southwest Chinese Naxi Manuscripts in the West (Routledge, 2021), and has published widely on the Naxi people and their script. See for example "With the power of their forefathers: Kinship between early Tibetan ritualists and the Naxi dongba of southwest China", Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines, October 2020, and "Translation as Logocentric Imperialism", Translation Studies 13:1 (2019).
