I will post a link to some photographs later, but for the moment, I'll put this on the Forum.
Grave #1 - joint grave of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother.
1. Place of origin.
On the grave, it is written (from left to right) "仰山". As explained elsewhere, I thought initially that this was "仰"-mountain, but the internet and Ong give "山仰".
I found from the dictionary that 仰 = "to face upwards", so, perhaps the name means "the upper side of the mountain" or "village facing up to the mountain", hence the order 山仰.
Anyone care to comment?
2. Deceased wife 妣淑枝林氏.
The character 枝 is slightly unclear and looks like it might also be校. However, her name was written "Seok Kee" in the informal Malaysian spelling [siok ki in TLPA/POJ], so I tend towards 枝.
Is this valid?
3. Sons' names.
a. Kok4 Leong5 = <?> 良
The character is very unclear. I have a whole lot of male relatives on my mother's side who are called "Kok"-something, and they are all 國, but on this grave inscription it doesn't look very much like 國. It looks a lot more like 可 or 司. (On the other hand, perhaps the vertical stroke on the far left and the horizontal stroke on the bottom have worn away.)
Is there a character resembling 可 or 司 which might be pronounced "kok4"?
b. Khim5 Beng5 = 琹銘
The character 琹 (qin2) is reasonably clear. The on-line dictionary http://www.mdbg.net/ states that it is a "variant of 琴 guqin or zither". The Chinese Etymology site http://www.chineseetymology.org/ knows of the character, but doesn't give any other information other than that it is an existing character. It does have some variants under 琴 where the lower half slightly resembles a 木. This is the link: http://www.chineseetymology.org/Charact ... =Etymology
The character 銘 (ming2) = "inscription; to engrave" is also reasonably clear.
My only question on this one is that "zither inscription" seems a rather odd name!
c. Swee Seng5 = 瑞生
These two characters are reasonably clear, and I just wanted to check that "Swee Seng" [sui seng] could quite likely be written like this. What is the (non-sandhi) tone of "sui" in this case?
4. Daughters' names.
a. Cheng1 Lui2 = 清 <?>
The "lui2" looks like it might have a 礻on the left side, but this is VERY unclear. The rest of the character is also very unclear.
Which possible characters might be pronounced "lui2" and have an "auspicious meaning" and be "nicely combined with 清"?
b. Cheng1 Tee2 [ti] = 清 <?>
The "ti" is unclear, but looks like a very simple character: 己 or 已 or 巴.
Again, which possible character might be pronounced "ti1" and have an "auspicious meaning", be "nicely combined with 清", and look something like 己 or 已 or 巴?
5. Grandsons' names.
a. Cheng<tone unknown> Hock = <?>福
The "cheng" character is very unclear. Presumably, it isn't the same character as his aunts' 清, because that is much more a girl's name. What are the possibilities for a boy?
b. Kim1 Keat4 = 金吉
These characters are reasonably clear. I'd just like to check that 吉 would be a very likely character for someone named Ah Keat [a kiat4]. This is of course a VERY common name for boys in Penang. I have quite a lot of cousins and schoolmates called this.
6. Inscription on the base of the grave.
The characters are (from left to right) 禄夀福. The engraved character for 壽 looks even simpler in the top and centre portion than the variant 夀.
My questions are:
a. Should this be read from right to left (福壽禄) or from left to right (禄壽福)?
b. I always thought the conventional order was neither of these, but 福禄壽? This is always how it was said in my family.
============================================================
Grave #2 - the mother of the man buried in grave #1 above.
7. 光緒戊寅年孟冬
a. 光緒
光 (guang1) = light; scenery; honour, glory; polite formulation; to glorify, bring honour to; smooth, glossy, polished; all gone, used up, nothing left; bare, naked.
緒 (xu4) = the beginning of a matter; thread ends, remnants; mental or emotional state; task, cause, undertaking.
I can't find the 詞語 "光緒" in the dictionary. Does it mean "date of birth" or "date of death"?
From context it should be the date of death, because it is the only date given. In most of the graves I've looked at, either both the date of birth and death are present (Christian graves) or, if only one date is present, it's the date of death. This makes sense to me, but I would like to have it confirmed by readers of the Forum, because "light" + "beginning" or "light" + "thread ends / remnants" could imply either.
b. 孟冬
孟 (meng4) = the first month of a season; the eldest among brothers.
冬 (dong1) = winter.
孟冬 = first month of winter. A person well versed in Chinese who examined the photograph told me that this was the 10th lunar month.
This is presumably deduced from months 1, 2, 3 being Spring; 4, 5, 6 being Summer; 7, 8, 9 being Autumn; and 10, 11, 12 being Winter. Could someone confirm this?
What is the character for the "middle of the month" (months 2, 5, 8, and 11), and for "end of the month" (months 3, 6, 9, 12)?
8. The name of the daughter of the deceased - 陳嬌蓮.
Is 嬌 pronounced "kiau" or "kio" (or perhaps even "khiau" or "khio"). What is the tone? I can't find it in my Barclay, but characters with 喬 as a phonetic seem to be pronounced like this, for example: 驕, 僑 (kiau5), 矯 (kiau2), 撟 (kiau7), 橋 (kio5), 轎 (kio7).
Thanks in advance,
Sim
More grave inscriptions
PS
Just for the sake of clarity: I don't need help with any of the other characters posted here.
If I did, I would have asked about them in the posting above.
Just so that I don't waste readers' time explaining things to me that I already understand. (But of course, if anything strikes a reader as particularly interesting or worthy of comment, please do post that).
Cheers,
Sim.
If I did, I would have asked about them in the posting above.
Just so that I don't waste readers' time explaining things to me that I already understand. (But of course, if anything strikes a reader as particularly interesting or worthy of comment, please do post that).
Cheers,
Sim.
光绪 is the second last king of china,they use it to refer to the year.We use it to find out which year some minnan books like 十五音 were written.
I think you should know that hanzi were written from left to right a century ago even in Malaysia.I have no time to find out the story about it. It is 福禄寿。山仰 is also written as 山仔。Give me some time to find out from people over there.
For the last question just buy the book I mentioned
I think you should know that hanzi were written from left to right a century ago even in Malaysia.I have no time to find out the story about it. It is 福禄寿。山仰 is also written as 山仔。Give me some time to find out from people over there.
For the last question just buy the book I mentioned
Last edited by ong on Sat Feb 16, 2008 12:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
The link Ong provided last time ( http://xm.dmw.gov.cn/onews.asp?id=487 ) says:Grave #1 - joint grave of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother.
1. Place of origin.
On the grave, it is written (from left to right) "仰山". As explained elsewhere, I thought initially that this was "仰"-mountain, but the internet and Ong give "山仰".
I found from the dictionary that 仰 = "to face upwards", so, perhaps the name means "the upper side of the mountain" or "village facing up to the mountain", hence the order 山仰.
Anyone care to comment?
山仰自然村 在海滄鎮政府駐地北0.8公里、漳嵩公路南側。
屬囷瑤村委會。聚落呈梯形。有2村民小組、130戶、574人（其中非農業人口1人）。
飄落呈階梯形建在山丘之間，故名。
以農為主，耕地面積452畝，產稻穀、花生、甘薯、蔬菜等淡水養殖。海新公路經村東。
"The 山仰 natural village is located 0.8 km north of 海滄 township on south side of the 漳嵩 highway.
It is under the jurisdiction of the 囷瑤 village committee. The settlement is arranged in a staircase pattern.
There are two groups of villagers, 130 households, 574 inhabitants (with 1 person not in the farming industry).
The settlement, arranged in a staircase pattern, was constructed between hills, hence its name.
Its mainstay is agriculture, with 452 acres of agricultural land, producing rice, peanuts, sweet potatoes, vegetables, etc. as well as freshwater farming. The 海新 highway passes through the east side of the village."
Yes, it's should be 枝. The second stroke in 又 sometimes starts with an extra hook like ㄟ.2. Deceased wife 妣淑枝林氏.
The character 枝 is slightly unclear and looks like it might also be校. However, her name was written "Seok Kee" in the informal Malaysian spelling [siok ki in TLPA/POJ], so I tend towards 枝.
Is this valid?
It's most likely 國.3. Sons' names.
a. Kok4 Leong5 = <?> 良
The character is very unclear. I have a whole lot of male relatives on my mother's side who are called "Kok"-something, and they are all 國, but on this grave inscription it doesn't look very much like 國. It looks a lot more like 可 or 司. (On the other hand, perhaps the vertical stroke on the far left and the horizontal stroke on the bottom have worn away.)
Is there a character resembling 可 or 司 which might be pronounced "kok4"?
It sounds poetic to me--- the 琴 is rich in symbolic value.b. Khim5 Beng5 = 琹銘
The character 琹 (qin2) is reasonably clear. The on-line dictionary http://www.mdbg.net/ states that it is a "variant of 琴 guqin or zither". The Chinese Etymology site http://www.chineseetymology.org/ knows of the character, but doesn't give any other information other than that it is an existing character. It does have some variants under 琴 where the lower half slightly resembles a 木. This is the link: http://www.chineseetymology.org/Charact ... =Etymology
The character 銘 (ming2) = "inscription; to engrave" is also reasonably clear.
My only question on this one is that "zither inscription" seems a rather odd name!
Yes; sui7. 生 should be tone 1.c. Swee Seng5 = 瑞生
These two characters are reasonably clear, and I just wanted to check that "Swee Seng" [sui seng] could quite likely be written like this. What is the (non-sandhi) tone of "sui" in this case?
Two possibilities for lui2: 蕊 and 蕾.4. Daughters' names.
a. Cheng1 Lui2 = 清 <?>
The "lui2" looks like it might have a 礻on the left side, but this is VERY unclear. The rest of the character is also very unclear.
Which possible characters might be pronounced "lui2" and have an "auspicious meaning" and be "nicely combined with 清"?
Might it be 弟 (ti7)?b. Cheng1 Tee2 [ti] = 清 <?>
The "ti" is unclear, but looks like a very simple character: 己 or 已 or 巴.
Again, which possible character might be pronounced "ti1" and have an "auspicious meaning", be "nicely combined with 清", and look something like 己 or 已 or 巴?
Or perhaps 池 (ti5)?
I think it's probably 清. 清 is also commonly used in guys' names.5. Grandsons' names.
a. Cheng<tone unknown> Hock = <?>福
The "cheng" character is very unclear. Presumably, it isn't the same character as his aunts' 清, because that is much more a girl's name. What are the possibilities for a boy?
Other possibilities:
If it is an aspirated ch, then 清 and 青 are possible.
If it is an unasiprated ch, then 正, 政, and 貞 are possible.
Yes.b. Kim1 Keat4 = 金吉
These characters are reasonably clear. I'd just like to check that 吉 would be a very likely character for someone named Ah Keat [a kiat4]. This is of course a VERY common name for boys in Penang. I have quite a lot of cousins and schoolmates called this.
Right-to-left.6. Inscription on the base of the grave.
The characters are (from left to right) 禄夀福. The engraved character for 壽 looks even simpler in the top and centre portion than the variant 夀.
My questions are:
a. Should this be read from right to left (福壽禄) or from left to right (禄壽福)?
Yes, that seems to be the most common ordering.b. I always thought the conventional order was neither of these, but 福禄壽? This is always how it was said in my family.
光緒 is the era name of a 清 dynasty emperor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxu ) ("Year 戊寅 during the reign of Emperor 光緒").============================================================
Grave #2 - the mother of the man buried in grave #1 above.
7. 光緒戊寅年孟冬
a. 光緒
光 (guang1) = light; scenery; honour, glory; polite formulation; to glorify, bring honour to; smooth, glossy, polished; all gone, used up, nothing left; bare, naked.
緒 (xu4) = the beginning of a matter; thread ends, remnants; mental or emotional state; task, cause, undertaking.
I can't find the 詞語 "光緒" in the dictionary. Does it mean "date of birth" or "date of death"?
From context it should be the date of death, because it is the only date given. In most of the graves I've looked at, either both the date of birth and death are present (Christian graves) or, if only one date is present, it's the date of death. This makes sense to me, but I would like to have it confirmed by readers of the Forum, because "light" + "beginning" or "light" + "thread ends / remnants" could imply either.
光緒戊寅年 is 1878; it could have also been written as 光緒四年 ("The fourth year of the reign of Emperor 光緒").
That is correct. The order is 孟-, 仲-, 季-.b. 孟冬
孟 (meng4) = the first month of a season; the eldest among brothers.
冬 (dong1) = winter.
孟冬 = first month of winter. A person well versed in Chinese who examined the photograph told me that this was the 10th lunar month.
This is presumably deduced from months 1, 2, 3 being Spring; 4, 5, 6 being Summer; 7, 8, 9 being Autumn; and 10, 11, 12 being Winter. Could someone confirm this?
What is the character for the "middle of the month" (months 2, 5, 8, and 11), and for "end of the month" (months 3, 6, 9, 12)?
It is kiau1.8. The name of the daughter of the deceased - 陳嬌蓮.
Is 嬌 pronounced "kiau" or "kio" (or perhaps even "khiau" or "khio"). What is the tone? I can't find it in my Barclay, but characters with 喬 as a phonetic seem to be pronounced like this, for example: 驕, 僑 (kiau5), 矯 (kiau2), 撟 (kiau7), 橋 (kio5), 轎 (kio7).
Thanks
Hi duaaagiii,
Thanks ever so much! Sorry about not posting the pics on the net yet. I don't have a provider or website, so a friend of mine has agreed to host the pics for me on his site. Unfortunately, he's been very busy this past week and this weekend, so I haven't been able to do anything about the pics. Hopefully he'll have some time mid-week, this coming week. The full analysis of the "Marriage Scroll", which you helped me with will go on there too.
It's not that I ignored Ong's posting on the village, but (as you may imagine) a whole page of Chinese is pretty overwhelming with my present capabilities, so I can't really get that much information from them. Thank you for providing the additional info on shan1 yang3 for me.
To demonstrate: at the moment, I'm working on a 13-line newspaper article about my maternal grandfather. He died in the early-70's, and a small little article appeared about him in 1995 in the Sin Chew Jit Poh (xing1 zhou1 ri4 bao4 - I can't write hanzi in this internet cafe) - 20 years after his death! Apparently, it reminisces about him, saying what a great guy he was. It took me about 3-4 hours to just get the hanzi of the article (scanned from a newspaper clipping) into an MS-Word document (looking up each character one by one, by radical/stroke-count). After that, I put the multitudinous meanings of each hanzi next to the relevant hanzi, then I look up possible ci2yu3 and list their meaning(s). Then I try to make sense of whole phrases or sentences. Each step is quite an effort!
I think it will be about 10-20 hours work in total, before I understand a 13-line article! (But very challenging and "fun", in its own way).
How I envy anyone who was taught to read and write Chinese in their youth!
Thanks again,
Sim.
(P.S. I look forward to sharing the pics with you and other readers on the net).
Thanks ever so much! Sorry about not posting the pics on the net yet. I don't have a provider or website, so a friend of mine has agreed to host the pics for me on his site. Unfortunately, he's been very busy this past week and this weekend, so I haven't been able to do anything about the pics. Hopefully he'll have some time mid-week, this coming week. The full analysis of the "Marriage Scroll", which you helped me with will go on there too.
It's not that I ignored Ong's posting on the village, but (as you may imagine) a whole page of Chinese is pretty overwhelming with my present capabilities, so I can't really get that much information from them. Thank you for providing the additional info on shan1 yang3 for me.
To demonstrate: at the moment, I'm working on a 13-line newspaper article about my maternal grandfather. He died in the early-70's, and a small little article appeared about him in 1995 in the Sin Chew Jit Poh (xing1 zhou1 ri4 bao4 - I can't write hanzi in this internet cafe) - 20 years after his death! Apparently, it reminisces about him, saying what a great guy he was. It took me about 3-4 hours to just get the hanzi of the article (scanned from a newspaper clipping) into an MS-Word document (looking up each character one by one, by radical/stroke-count). After that, I put the multitudinous meanings of each hanzi next to the relevant hanzi, then I look up possible ci2yu3 and list their meaning(s). Then I try to make sense of whole phrases or sentences. Each step is quite an effort!
I think it will be about 10-20 hours work in total, before I understand a 13-line article! (But very challenging and "fun", in its own way).
How I envy anyone who was taught to read and write Chinese in their youth!
Thanks again,
Sim.
(P.S. I look forward to sharing the pics with you and other readers on the net).
Ong,
Sorry I missed thanking you for your response! I was in an internet cafe during the weekend when I looked at the Minnan Forum, and the screens there are rather small, so I actually didn't see that you had replied, and only saw duaaagiii's reply.
Thanks again for your 3 pieces of information - very useful to know about the "left-to-right" vs. "right-to-left" stuff.
Cheers,
Sim.
Sorry I missed thanking you for your response! I was in an internet cafe during the weekend when I looked at the Minnan Forum, and the screens there are rather small, so I actually didn't see that you had replied, and only saw duaaagiii's reply.
Thanks again for your 3 pieces of information - very useful to know about the "left-to-right" vs. "right-to-left" stuff.
Cheers,
Sim.
P.S. Ong & duaaagiii: 光緒
How embarassing... my favourite translation site http://www.mdbg.net gives:
"光绪 Guang1 xu4: reign name of penultimate Qing emperor Guangxu or Guang-hsu (1875-1908) [simplified characters] 光緒".
Often I do check this site for "combinations" / ci2-yu3, but I guess I must have forgotten to in this case. Sorry!
How embarassing... my favourite translation site http://www.mdbg.net gives:
"光绪 Guang1 xu4: reign name of penultimate Qing emperor Guangxu or Guang-hsu (1875-1908) [simplified characters] 光緒".
Often I do check this site for "combinations" / ci2-yu3, but I guess I must have forgotten to in this case. Sorry!
-
Andrew
I'm a Khek rather than a Hokkien, but I thought I'd post some of my pictures. Unfortunately I know very little about my family, other than that they came from Zengcheng in Guangdong, which is a big place.
My great-grandfather's gravestone in Balik Pulau
http://img408.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tombax2.jpg
The gravestone reads:
增邑 ／ 中華顯祖卅八世諱昌慶楊公大人之墓 ／ 民國拾四年乙丑仲春重修旦
plus the names of his descendants
I don't know the significance of the words 大人 or 重修旦
The family house in Balik Pulau
http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scanue9.jpg
The lintel inscription reads:
泗知 ／ 泰隆？／泰運芝蘭光甲第 ／ 隆情棠棣桭？？
I know 四知 is a motto of some of the Yang family. The rest I don't understand at all. Some of the characters are obscured.
My great-grandfather's gravestone in Balik Pulau
http://img408.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tombax2.jpg
The gravestone reads:
增邑 ／ 中華顯祖卅八世諱昌慶楊公大人之墓 ／ 民國拾四年乙丑仲春重修旦
plus the names of his descendants
I don't know the significance of the words 大人 or 重修旦
The family house in Balik Pulau
http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scanue9.jpg
The lintel inscription reads:
泗知 ／ 泰隆？／泰運芝蘭光甲第 ／ 隆情棠棣桭？？
I know 四知 is a motto of some of the Yang family. The rest I don't understand at all. Some of the characters are obscured.
大人 is an honorific like 公.增邑 ／ 中華顯祖卅八世諱昌慶楊公大人之墓 ／ 民國拾四年乙丑仲春重修旦
plus the names of his descendants
I don't know the significance of the words 大人 or 重修旦
The date is some time during the second lunar month of 1925.
旦 means dawn, but I don't know why it appears after 重修 and a space.
The character after 泰隆 is 園.The lintel inscription reads:
泗知 ／ 泰隆？／泰運芝蘭光甲第 ／ 隆情棠棣桭？？
The last three characters of the couplet are most likely 振家聲. The couplet was modified from the standard couplet (對聯) 「瑞日芝蘭光甲第．春風棠棣振家聲」 so that the two parts would start with 泰 and 隆.
A rough translation:
"May fortune shine on our home;
may our brothers bring glory to our family"
Something like that...