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[Chinese] Can someone decipher this? | ||
Tags: Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| LeH Diglot Newbie France Joined 5374 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 1 of 8 27 December 2014 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hello,
I need your help for reading those (probably) Chinese characters (see pictures below). We recently found this ivory stamp in my grandfather's stuff. The characters look Chinese but they might also be Vietnamese as this is probably a memento from the first Indochina War. Since it was passed on to me I wonder what it means. Please note that I do not speak nor read either of these languages. Any help would be hugely appreciated. 
The picture has been flipped horizontally to allow reading. 
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6295 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 2 of 8 28 December 2014 at 1:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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普記珍藏
普 universal, common, widespread 記 to record; a book; seal / chop ; sign / mark 珍藏 to treasure (e.g. a rare book or a work of art) Sorry, not sure what the first two characters would mean in this context. Someone's name, perhaps? This looks like a seal someone would place on a scroll painting or in a book. Edited by jimbo on 28 December 2014 at 1:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7224 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 3 of 8 28 December 2014 at 2:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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Correction: The first character is 晋 (晉); the first two characters are the name of a book originally published in
1786 (晋記： Records of the Jin Dynasty). It's likely that a book publisher used this stamp to decorate a much later (Late 19th century?) edition of the book. Edited by Cthulhu on 28 December 2014 at 2:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3672 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Japanese*, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin | Message 4 of 8 28 December 2014 at 2:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think 普記 is someone's name. I guess it is a name of a classic book and 珍藏
means collection, treasure, to collect (valuables) etc. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7224 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 5 of 8 28 December 2014 at 2:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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Alternative theory: The stamp belonged to someone with the improbable name of "Records of the Jin Dynasty" (Not
as ridiculous as it sounds in English, but still pretty ridiculous). In this case, the stamp would be the Chinese equivalent of those "Ex libram John Doe" labels/stickers people used to put on the inside of book covers to mark them as their own. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6295 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 6 of 8 28 December 2014 at 2:15am | IP Logged | |||||
Ah, I see. Thanks for that. I stand corrected. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LeH Diglot Newbie France Joined 5374 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 7 of 8 28 December 2014 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
So 晋 means Jin dynasty.
Wow that does sound pretty ridiculous!
Thanks for the interpretation. Funny how something from this time and place would find its way here. Many thanks for the answers! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5309 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 8 of 8 29 December 2014 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It reads 晋記珍藏。
晋 is not a proper Chinese character. It seems to be a Japanese character. 記 is written incorrectly. The right hand side should resemble a reversed S and not a reversed g. But it is possible that that's how they write it in art or in the past. I believe this seal is not Japanese, though, because the handwriting looks beautiful to me, while Japanese handwriting always looks childish or "off" to me. 晋記珍藏 doesn't make sense to me if "晋記" refers to the literary work. On a seal like this, the phrase shouldn't be a verb (珍藏 shouldn't mean "to collect"). I believe 珍藏 means the nice, precious things you keep or save for special occasions (eg. rare wine, special edition things, autographed books, special stamps). You see similar seals on Chinese paintings. They are seals of the artist plus all subsequent owners. But (I think) painting seals all use red ink, such that the seal itself would have red stain on it. This seal has red AND blackish stain. So I suspect it wasn't used (only) on paintings. I don't think they use this (modern) font on serious / painting seals either. I think 晋記 is the owner's name or nickname, and he puts this seal on books or other items he buys. 晋記珍藏 would be like "晋記's treasure", "晋記's collection". But then again, I'm not familiar with these things. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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