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Author Topic: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)  (Read 1857 times)

Xvareon

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Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« on: February 07, 2023, 03:01:35 pm »

There are some items I want to sell, but have markings on them I cannot read due to being in a foreign language. There's one in particular I'll include an image for below. If I come up with any others, I may update this with more images. Thanks!

Hint:  This one was written on the bottom of a Chinese porcelain vase with gold inlay. It's a stamp, not a sticker.
Spoiler: Image (warning: big) (click to show/hide)
Full image bank (4): https://imgur.com/a/qATYuoZ

delphonso

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Re: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2023, 07:49:56 am »

I sent it to a friend who might know a bit more. I'll let you know if they tell me anything useful. (Sorry this is over a month late...I just saw the post.)

The character on the right is clearly "tian" 田, in Chinese. Tian means field, and is more commonly used in Japanese than Chinese. ta/da in Japanese is a common name ending, which suits a makers mark. Honda, for example, is "本田". If I had to guess, this is a Japanese vase, not Chinese. The torii in the scene, supports that, I think.

The character on the left would be the most useful for identifying the maker. Unfortunately it is too stylized for me to read (or even my wife to read.) Sorry I don't have much else to tell you. Someone who studies older Japanese writing or is more familiar with stylization might be able to point you in the right direction, though.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2023, 07:54:35 am by delphonso »
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Vector

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Re: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« Reply #2 on: March 30, 2023, 09:04:20 pm »

The vase is definitely Japanese or faux-Japanese, trying to give an impression of Japaneseness (clothing and hair of the people in the scene), although the color and shape seem very strange to me.

For the writing, here are some possibilities for the name: 田代 or 田付. However... 1. Both of these are on the unusual side of things, not names I've ever encountered before and 2. I don't recognize the second character and the pip is in the wrong place for both of the names that I mentioned above, additionally putting the pip to the lower right makes the character "unbalanced" 3. This isn't a stylization of Japanese writing that I'm especially familiar with.

My qualifications: JLPT N2

Recommendation: Check at the Wanikani forums, they have people who know a lot more than I do and who will be motivated to help.
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delphonso

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Re: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« Reply #3 on: March 30, 2023, 11:34:22 pm »

Good shout that it could be upsidedown. The 田 looks more natural that way, though the placement is less common.

Vector

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Re: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2023, 12:00:29 pm »

Right, although the 田 having a line extending through the top as though it were 由 from 経由 is also... unusual...
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"The question of the usefulness of poetry arises only in periods of its decline, while in periods of its flowering, no one doubts its total uselessness." - Boris Pasternak

nonbinary/genderfluid/genderqueer renegade mathematician and mafia subforum limpet. please avoid quoting me.

pronouns: prefer neutral ones, others are fine. height: 5'3".

Il Palazzo

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Re: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2023, 03:30:58 pm »

FWIW, I happen to have a Kanji dictionary on hand (but less actual command of the language than Vector), and for the love of me I can't find anything like that mysterious symbol in it. Upside down or not. It's five strokes, right?
The dictionary is not exhaustive - it's a brick, but not a 20k (or therebouts) symbol-sized one. Still, one'd think most of the low stroke count kanji should be listed in there.
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Vector

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Re: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« Reply #6 on: March 31, 2023, 04:13:12 pm »

Yeah, it should be rotated so that 田 is on top and the other one is on bottom (rotate 90 degrees left). That's because the left-hand radical in the character presently on the left only ever appears in kanji under the 90 degree rotation. It is a 5-stroke kanji.

Other evidence for rotation includes: characteristic slant on what would be the right hand slide of 田 caused by standard orthography, red background paint clearly starts at the current right and goes left, would expect to go from up to down or left to right.
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"The question of the usefulness of poetry arises only in periods of its decline, while in periods of its flowering, no one doubts its total uselessness." - Boris Pasternak

nonbinary/genderfluid/genderqueer renegade mathematician and mafia subforum limpet. please avoid quoting me.

pronouns: prefer neutral ones, others are fine. height: 5'3".

delphonso

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Re: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« Reply #7 on: March 31, 2023, 07:38:23 pm »

Yeah, looking at it sideways, the イ radical is obvious. Maybe something like '付'? Obviously the second radical is mirrored there, and there's not an obvious replacement.

Il Palazzo

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Re: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« Reply #8 on: April 01, 2023, 02:57:58 am »

There's also this: 代 which would be about right, if not for the little dash being in the wrong place.
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Maximum Spin

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Re: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2023, 03:21:18 am »

It's my understanding that 大 can be written like that in cursive, with the last stroke reduced to a little pip — cf. た, from a similar cursive 太 with the upper of the two lines representing the corresponding stroke — but I don't know enough to offer any reason why it might say 㐲.
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Please Translate This Text thread (w/ images)
« Reply #10 on: April 06, 2023, 02:29:20 am »

You found one of the nine seals of the prison of Dread Lord Tamabushi.
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