Original
Translation (from the book)
The
right-most character shown for p'o (above) is
of course a valid character, but not
for the Wade-Giles callout shown just below it. This character
translates to 'gushing', which is po without
the tone-mark punctuation. I believe this is not
the character that Hobson called for.
Though
my resource is based on older in-depth Chinese etymology
teachings, this is just as easily confirmed with the present day
references.
Under the Wade-Giles
system, there are 13 different characters for p'o
(punctuated) and at least 44 different characters for po
(unpunctuated) adding to the confusion. Though Hobson called it out
correctly, it's very obvious that an error was made in the choice of
the character.
That
simple tone mark in p'o being missed in the
match up didn't seem too serious at the time. At least not to the
English speaking world. Even without the tone mark, the word and it's
pronunciation was still po, same look, same
sound, with little attention being given to the mysterious associated
Chinese character. But the worlds of Wade-Giles and
Pinyin were about to collide, and collide they did.
During the massive Chinese
romanization project to convert to Pinyin, with so many different
characters being identified to the same word, the weight of the
character itself took precedence if there was question. The difficulty
and error-rate that the older Wade-Giles system offered, validated the
character being the final deciding factor. Especially if, as in this
case, the meaning of the character was not clear.
Conversion
Table
Wade-Giles |
Pinyin |
p'o
|
po
|
po
|
bo
|
The tone mark was dropped,
making the correct p'o lost forever when Pinyin came into play. The
simple error propagated, now becoming a second and more serious error. The character previously (and incorrectly)
identified as po, became bo.
Hence the birth of su-ni-bo,
a name starting to show up in literature as being that of imported
cobalt during the Yuan and Ming dynasties.
So the origin of the
mystery word is based on an error which, though small at the time, was
further propagated with the changeover to Pinyin. Though I have my own
idea, it would be presumptuous of me to guess at what Hobson's intended
character for p'o was. We'll never know for
sure. But obviously not the (po)
given.
In the Preface of his book,
he thanks his many colleagues at the Louvre and the Victoria and Albert
Museums, naming those that contributed, including the checking of the
Chinese characters. This tells me Hobson himself made no
mistake. The fact that there was not a single Chinese person on the
list might explain the error.
It is a bit confusing. It
helps to have a good understanding of the now obsolete
Wade-Giles system. Luckily I'm more comfortable in that world.
I guess that kind of makes me obsolete as well.
|