The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Perhaps that easy test could help to clarify the dispute a little bit more. Or is that nonsense?

Not at all! I am working on it, please stay tuned...

Couldn't one then also take the two shortest ones?

That's easier. The shortest entry in the SBJ is recipe b3.4.093 (8 chars) in my files "bencao-fu.utf" and "bencao-fu.pys".

The shortest parag in the SPS is f112v.35 (one half-line, 6 words). It is a dubious case since it has no star nearby and the previous line is almost full-width. But it starts with a puff (p/f gallows). (I suspect that the Scribe wrote the text first, then drew the stars where he saw short lines. But, on this page at least, he missed the parag breaks when the tail line was nearly full-width. Twice -- on line 25 too.)

The next shortest parag would be f111v.1-1 (10 words); but it is part of the big block of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. where the parag breaks had to be just guessed, so we don't know its actual size.

Here are they:

<b3.4.093> 鼯鼠：主堕胎，令易产。
<b3.4.093> wú shǔ zhǔ duò tāi, lìng yì chǎn.
<b3.4.093> Flying squirrel: It is associated with miscarriage and makes childbirth easier.
<112v.35>  pChed.Shedain.qokaiin.okar.Chedy.CheCKhy

The 主 zhǔ here is a word by itself, meaning "mainly". It is not part of the compounds主治 "main use" that comprises 6 of the 7 occurrences of 主 in the big example of the paper.

The next two characters 堕胎 duò tāi mean "abortion".
The character 令 lìng  means "make".
The character 易 yì means "easy".
The character 产 chǎn means "birth".

These translations are from Google Translate and have various alternatives. But I suppose that a more literal translation would be "Flying squirrel: mainly [for] abortion, facilitates childbirth."

In Cantonese 主堕胎 would be read as "zyu2 do6 toi1".

The translation to Vietnamese would be "người chủ ra lệnh phá thai". But the translation of that to English gives "the Master ordered an abortion". Erm...

That SPS entry is shorter than the Chinese entry by 2 words. There is no daiin, but there is a dain and a kaiin at roughly the right place. But maybe the "mainly" was skipped and the entry says just "Flying squirrel: abortion, make childbrith easier". Or "Flying squirrel: cause abortion, facilitate childbrith". Or something like that...

One day we will know...

All the best, --stolfi