Botanical Names - Translator's Query
Botanical Names - Translator's Query
From: <smg7@cornell.edu>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2002 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: botanical names - translator's query
> Quoting pamela.mcelwee@yale.edu:
> > Dear Duc:
> > I'll take a crack at the plant names in the poem
> you're translating, although it's a bit hard out of ....
Dear Duc, Pamela and vegetative listaneers:
Pam's reply to Duc has prompted me to revisit my Grateful Dead archives to consult Nguyen Dinh Hoa's 1967 VNese-Eng Student Dictionary (VESD), the one SIU Press reprinted with a forest green cover. As I know it, this dictionary is not a bad source for southern literary uses from the late-republic-in-decline era.
Findings largely substantiate Pamela's work. I append my tidbits below her replies:
1. Chi't (flower & leaf?):
Likely the reed Thysanoloena maxima- the leaves are used to wrap ba'nh tro. I don't believe there is an English term for this, however. VESD shows "chi't" as a verb, "to wrap". A derivation or hint of s/t amiss? Interestingly, VESD also suggests that a "chi't" can be a fourth generation foward grandchild (we should all live that long!)
3. Sim (flower & berries)
In central Vietnam, which I know best, sim is the species Rhodomyrtus tomentosa - a small shrubby tree with no English equivalent......... Dr. Hoa calls this one as the myrtle tree.
4. Soi (leaves)
There are many different types of soi, most belonging to the genera Lithocarpus. These used to be in ...... VESD says if you slap a falling tone on this one, you've got a "wild mango."
5. Bong (fruit)
This is a hard one without the dau. Bo^ng is of course cotton, though..... I agree with Pam that no. 5 is open sport w/o a tone mark or diacritical! Bo^ng is also "flower" so w/o the poem or section where the word appears, it's kind of a silly guessing game. And if you again falling tone it, you've got a nice juicy grapefruit or pomelo.
So Pam's advice to Duc about sending on the entire carefully annotated QN text is very well founded!
Hope this adds something.
Steve Graw
From sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca Wed Oct 15 18:35:49 2003
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 15:09:30 -0700
From: Sinh Vinh <sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: botanical names - translator's query
Dear all:
I enjoyed reading Pamela and Steve's responses to Duc's query.
In order to avoid guessing, I totally agree with Pamela and Steve that one might put _da^'u_ after the Vietnamese vowels (if there are any). Also, it would be helpful if one knows the context in which the terms are used, and if possible, the geographic setting of the story, and the name of the author(s).
Let me have my two cents about "bong" and "sim":
1) As Duc indicates "bong" is a fruit, I guess it should be "bo`ng" as in the following _ca-dao_ (popular/folk poem) in the central region:
"Ai ve^` ngoa`i Sa~i ngoa`i So`ng,
Nha('n o ba'n bu+o+?i ba'n bo`ng qua dda^y !"
So, I tend to concur with Steve that bo`ng is a pomelo/grapefruit.
2) "Sim": I have spent a great deal of time rendering this term into Japanese in my "previous incarnation", i.e. my student years in Japon almost some four decades ago. To make a long and complex story short, the term that I finally came up with, after discussing with various Japanese friends, was "yama-tsutsuji" -- _yama_ implies mountain or wild, and _tsutsuji_ is the Japanese name for azalea. I found among the many types of azalea, the one with purple flower, looks almost identical to a _sim_ tree/plant (?, Pamela, please instruct me which way should I call).
The fruits of "sim", by the way, look -- and taste -- very much like "blue berries" (please note in Japanese and Vietnamese languages, "purple" and "blue" colors are well distinguished, so if a Vietnamese sees a "blue berry" without knowing its name probably s/he might call it "purple berry"). In the mountain area in Hue^', where I grew up, there are many _sim_ trees, and I loved to eat them.
The differences between a _sim_ as a fruit, and blue berries are (I hope my memory serves me well):
a) _sim_ have a bract on its base, whereas blue berries do not,
b) the skin of a _sim_ is harder (probably because it grows in hilly/mountainous area).
The the above reasons, I suggest that one might translate _sim_ as "wild/mountain azalea", then add a footnote.
One might add that there are quite a few Vietnamese writer and poets used _sim_ in their works for its rich, yet delicate imagery ! _Ti'm_ , to many Vietnamese, is a highly romantic color (think of _ chie^'c a'o da`i ti'm_ , or _chie^`u ti'm_ etc.).
One of the most popular poems in the first Indochina War (ca. 1946-1954) was "Ma`u ti'm hoa sim" by Hu+~u Loan (who was born in Thanh Hoa'), which later became lyric for a song, which was also very popular in South VN before 1975.
Vi~nh Si'nh
From sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca Wed Oct 15 18:35:53 2003
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:13:54 -0700
From: Sinh Vinh <sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: botanical names
Dear Frank and all:
_DDa.i Nam quo^'c a^m tu+. vi. __ compiled by Huy`nh-Ti.nh Paulus Cu?a (Saigon: Imprimerie REY, CURIOL & Cie, 1895, Tome I) explains "bo`ng" as a fruit that belongs to the bu+o+?i [pomelo] family but has a smaller size ("loa`i bu+o+?i nho? tra'i");
-Tu+` ddie^?n tie^'ng Vie^.t_ (edited by Hoa`ng Phe^; Ha` No^.i & DDa` Na(~ng, 1997) explains that bo`ng belongs to the same family with bu+o+?i; it has big size, thick pulpy skin, and a sour taste" ("Ca^y cu`ng ho. vo+'i bu+o+?i, qua? to, cu`i da`y, vi. chua").
In this case, I believe the latter's description is more accurate.
Cheers,
VINH Sinh
From ProschanF@folklife.si.edu Wed Oct 15 18:35:58 2003
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:29:32 -0500
From: Frank Proschan <ProschanF@folklife.si.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: botanical names
One small query - is qua bong really a pomelo/pummelo (Citrus grandis)? I understand that qua bong has a golf-ball sized meat within a soccer-ball sized fruit, and the rest is the pulpy skin. The skin and pulp are used for medicine, and the flesh is not eaten. All skin and no flesh - now some may say that that describes pomelos in general, but these carry it to an extreme. So, does anyone know if qua bong is simply a variety of pomelo, or another species? (My ethnobotany books are in the last 3 boxes yet to be unpacked...)
p.s. - never a "grapefruit", which is a New World sport of the Old Word
pomelos.
Best,
Frank Proschan
Save Our Sounds
postal mail:
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012
Victor Building Suite 4100, MRC 0953
Washington, DC 20013-7012
>>> DNguyen@KQED.org 11/18/02 01:19PM >>>
Dear all,
It's been gratifying to see all the responses from you regarding my query on botanical names. They have confirmed for us the various names we discovered before; or directed us to the correct words.
I apologize for not including the diacritical marks and giving the context of things--the responses in fact showed you all didn't need them. Most of the words come from a long poem about Truong Sa, and others from the poet Huu Thinh.
The collection is called The Time Tree, if you're interested:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1880684691/qid=1037644049/sr= 8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-2313836-1778267?v=glance&s=books&n=507846&s=books&n=507846
I am most grateful to all of you.
Regards,
Nguyen Q. Duc
Pacific Time
2601 Mariposa Street
San Francisco CA 94110-1426
Tel. 415 553 2892 or 553 3399
Fax 415 553 2867
From smg7@cornell.edu Wed Oct 15 18:36:04 2003
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 23:34:32 -0500 (EST)
From: smg7@cornell.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: botanical names .....again!
Quoting Sinh Vinh <sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca>:>
> According to Jacqueline M. Piper's _Fruits of South-
>East Asia_ (Oxford Univ. Press, 1989) to the
>grapefruit, or grapefruit may be a variety of pomelo;
>the two fruits are certainly very closely related",
>and that graprefruits "first evolved in the West
>Indies and are rarely seen in South-East Asia."
Dear Sinh Vinh et al.
Oxford dictionary makes mention of a "shaddock." "[Captain Shaddock, who brought the seed to Barbados.] A citrus fruit, resembling but larger than a grapefruit; the tree bearing this fruit, Citrus maxima, believed to be a parent of the grapefruit. Also called pomelo, pompelmous, pompoleon."
So much for the Occidental view. But interestingly, my TDBK Nong Nghiep mentions the presence WITHIN VN of "citrus paradisi(aca)" that according to the Oxford dictionary is a grapefruit as known in the US (Ox dcty has a photo so I know that's what it is). TDBKNN says it came to VN from the US and Dda.i Trung Ha?i (Japan? please correct if not). The text is not explicit whether these are grown in-country or imported, but the TDBKNN is overwhelmingly concerned with VN agriculture - it is a nationalist intellectual project, after all. No posters here have yet mentioned such a fruit in VN. Could we imagine that if this latter item is sustainable and becomes a plantation (trang tra.i) export commodity in the future, it might some day compete with Florida producers? Then they could complain the VNese fruit has thrips or chemicals or that it's really a "pink fruit" masquerading as yellow with no place in the Free World. And yet even more 'colored' global trade issues might arise!
Activists' work never ends.... nor fruity email discussions.
Xin cha`o
sgraw
From sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca Wed Oct 15 18:09:22 2003
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 23:02:26 -0700
From: Sinh Vinh <sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: botanical names .....again!
Dear Steve et al.:
===> In the new version of Pha.m Hoa`ng Ho^.'s _Ca^y Co? Vie^.t Nam_ (An Illustrated Flora of Vietnam) (Nxb Tre?, 2000), vol. II, that I have, interestingly enough, there is also en entry for "grapefruit", using a different Latin name (_Citrus grandis_ var. _racemosa_ (Roem.) B.C. Stone). The Vietnamese name for this is "bu+o+~i [sic] dda('ng [bitter]"; and the English name is "Grape-fruit". Its description is as follows:
"Fruit: smaller than bu+o+?i, yellowish, size 10-14 cm.; thinner skin, 5-7 mm, which is difficult to pill, more juicy, but _our and bitter_ (chua va`dda('ng, emphasis by the author). Grown in Dda` La.t; people in cold countries like to eat. Origins: Tropical Asia, but could be Central America.... (p. 434).
====> The term "Dda.i Trung Ha?i" that Steve found in TDBKNN must be a mispelling of Ddi.a Trung Ha?i (Mediterranian Sea).
====> As for _Ciprus grandis_, CCVN gives its equivalents in Vietnamese, English, and French as: Bu+o+~i [sic], Shaddock, Pomelo, Pamplemousse.
Origins: Tropical Asia, World record weight: 13 kg [Wow!], Numerous varieties: Thanhtra` [the way the author prefers to spell], Bie^nho`a... (ibid.).
VSi'nh
From DNguyen@KQED.org Wed Oct 15 18:09:28 2003
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 21:59:03 -0800
From: Nguyen Qui Duc <DNguyen@KQED.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: botanical names .....again!
Dear all,
I am amzed at the interest that my humble query has generated - and remain most grateful for all the help.
I also found another plant I need help with, and beg you to once again go to your sources/dictionaries: It's a tree called phu*o*'n.
Here are the sentences I am translating:
Ngu*o*`i ta coi cuo^.c ti`nh la` to^.i pha.m
Ca^y phu*o*'n sa^`u tre^n ma(.t da^'t hoang mang
I appreciate your kind help,
Duc
From sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca Wed Oct 15 18:09:31 2003
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 01:03:56 -0700
From: Sinh Vinh <sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: botanical names .....again!
Dear Duc et al.:
Ca^y phu+o+'n appears to be "a banner, or a streamer", often found in front of a Buddhist temple. "Ca^y" here is a particle, and does not imply a plant. Apart from "ca^y", one also finds other particles preceding phu+o+'n such as "co^.t" (co^.t phu+o+'n) and "ca`nh" (ca`nh phu+o+'n).
Examples of phu+o+'n used_ca dao_:
Chua` Ta`u mo+? ho^.i be^n Ngo^,
Co+' sao bo'ng phu+o+'n sang chua` Vie^.t Nam !
(What a satire !)
or in _Kie^`u_ (The Tale of Kie^`u):
So+'m khuya la' bo^'i phu+o+'n ma^y,
Ngo.n dde`n khe^u nguye^.t tie^'ng cha`y ne^.n su+o+ng.
(lines 2057-58).
Phu+o+'n ma^y -- literally, clouds-scraper/sky scraper (!) - because the pole to which the banner is hung is too high. The gifted translator Huy`nh Sanh Tho^ng renders these two lines into English as follows:
Each day, she'd copy Scriptures on palm leaves or fly the Buddha's banner in the clouds.
(see _The Tale of Kieu_ translated and annotated by HST, Vintage Book, 1973, p. 102).
Why "ca^y phu+o+'n sa^`u" then ? My guess is that in a melancholic mood, the poet sees a banner which is not fluttering in the wind, shares his feeling.
Cheers,
VINH Sinh
Dear Herbophones & Vegetative listaneers:
The mysterious quest for b\ong is not quite ready for closure! Since Dr. Proschan has not been able to raise bail, obtain habeus corpus, or deliver six white horses to rescue his botanical references from lock-up, I've made a pro-bono appeal to my "Tu Ddien Bach khoa Nong nghiep" (ed. chairs Nguyen Van Tru+o+ng & Trinh Van Thinh),[ Hanoi: Trung Tam QG Bien Soan TDd BKVN, 1991].
That learned tome (p.51) distinguishes bo\ng (citrus medica) from citrus decumana & c. paradisiaca. B\ong is "a shrub-like plant ('ca^y nu+?a bu.i') with soft branches and large fruit that have a small, thick meaty pulp, slightly sweet and somewhat sour. Vietnamese use it in their ngu~ qua? display at Tet, and in distilling fragrant oils and candymaking."
OK - close it down.
**********
Stephen Graw
u no the rest
**************
PS: DAMN THAT FRANK PROSCHAN - nothing is more embarassing to a rural sociologist than to let slip one's inability to tell a grapefruit from a pomelo!
Guess I've been hanging out with rice breeders for too long! Apart from eating bu+o+?i all the time when I worked in the south, I don't recall markets selling bo\ng, but then again no one tried to slip me one, not even at Ben Thanh. Wait 'till next time! My only other recollection of weird citrus was back in the bad old good old sixties (you know, when James Bond was in a book really written by Ian Fleming and if you had a 3 1/4" floppy, you didn't make light of it). Before I was marginalized into SE Asia, I had a minimum wage job in the UCLA geophysics lab of a Nobel laureate and Manhattan Project veteran. I once immersed a grapefruit into a liquid oxygen filled flask and then dropped it onto the lab floor. I left that stupid fruit still trying to pick up its 10,000 pieces!
Really, tip of the pith (or pits, your choice) helmet to Frank!
sgraw
PPS: to avoid any Amerikan hard feelings, especially in Florida, US listaneers (no aliens please), please make a note on your calendars so you can all mobilize: February is National Grapefruit Month
On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, C. Michele Thompson wrote:
Dear Fellow Herbophones and hopefully some people interested in Vietnamese Buddhism will notice this post,
Sorry I am joining this thread so late, I've been out of town. I think names are fairly well taken care of at this point but let me throw out something else that might be of interest. I've just read an artical in the Journal of the American Oriental Society (vol 122, no 2) by Ellison Banks Findly "Borderline Beings: Plant Possibilities in Early Buddhism," and I realize that since many of the early and most well known Vietnamese healers were Buddhist perhaps I need to look more at Buddhism and at how it influenced these healers view of plants. The article in question doesn't really address the issue of the medical uses of plants but it does present arguments about early Buddhist views of plants as sentient beings and that they are "as one of the objects of the ethic of non-violence, not to be injured." Has anyone see any discussion about this in Vietnamese sources? Does anyone have an opinion?
cheers
Michele
From: <smg7@cornell.edu>
To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 12:18 PM
Subject: Re: botanical names .....again!
From sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca Wed Oct 15 18:35:36 2003
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 19:07:18 -0700
From: Sinh Vinh <sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: botanical names .....again!
Dear all:
I think I have now a clearer picture about bo`ng and bu+o+?i.
My following description is based on the Hue^' area. Generally speaking, people there consider that bu+o+?i is not as delicious as _thanh tra`_(yes, a new name, obviously of the same family with bu+o+?i. The etymology of this name seems quite mysterious to me), because thanh tra` is less tart than bu+o+?i, and has thinner skin and a more refined taste. Bu+o+?i is, however, more juicy.
What about bo`ng in Hue^'? While bo`ng's size could be bigger or smaller than bu+o+?i's, bo`ng's skin is greener, and thicker than bu+o+?i's (so as bo`ng's spongy pith). Because of bo`ng's nice outlook and its big green leaves, many prefer to place bo`ng upon the ancestral altar in their home.
According to Jacqueline M. Piper's _Fruits of South-East Asia_ (Oxford Univ. Press, 1989) which I happened to acquire from a small bookstore in the British Museum many years ago, pomelo was first taken to Europe by voyagers in the twelfth or thirteenth century. The author is of the opinion that "a chance cross between a pomelo and a sweet orange may have given rise to the grapefruit, or grapefruit may be a variety of pomelo; the two fruits are certainly very closely related", and that graprefruits "first evolved in the West Indies and are rarely seen in South-East Asia."
By the way, I don't think one can find bo`ng in Be^'n Tha`nh Central Market for two reasons: (1) in the southern part of VN, people call these varieties of _citrus grandis_ bu+o+?i; and (2) because bu+o+?i is so delicious in the Mekong Delta (e.g. bu+o+?i Bie^n Hoa`, or bu+o+?i Na(m Roi, etc.), there is no room for bo`ng which has a sour taste to grow there.
VINH Sinh
From DNguyen@KQED.org Wed Oct 15 18:09:35 2003
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 00:21:45 -0800
From: Nguyen Qui Duc <DNguyen@KQED.org>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: botanical names .....again!
Dear Mr. Vinh Sinh,
Brilliant of me not to remember ca^y phu*o*'ng as such. I am giving up this translating business. With much gratitude, and head bowed in terrific shame.
d