Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Axel Jagau

Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 1d

Our librarian Mårten Söderblom Saarela will give three online talks for the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia, on November 8, 2025, 9:00am-1:30pm Eastern time. The theme of the talks is "The Jesuit Mission to China." For details and registration, see ncta.princeton.edu.

The poster for the event. RSVP at https://ncta.princeton.edu/registration/

A sea monster from Ferdinand Verbiest’s Chinese world map Kunyu quantu (1648). Photograph taken from a reproduction held at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, Boston College.

A diagram showing sunrise and sunset from Adam Schall von Bell’s Chinese treatise Yuanjing shuo (Explanation of the telescope; 1626). Photograph taken from an undated Japanese manuscript copy held at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, Boston College.

A drawing of a European telescope from Adam Schall von Bell’s Chinese treatise Yuanjing shuo (Explanation of the telescope; 1626). Photograph taken from an undated Japanese manuscript copy held at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, Boston College.

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Zev Handel @zevhandel.bsky.social · 1d

We've just enjoyed the bright harvest moon of Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋, 추석 秋夕, 月見, Trung Thu, etc.), so how about a moon-related linguistics thread?

We'll look at an unusual Chữ Nôm graph and recover some lost 17th-century Vietnamese sounds, among other things.

🌕 🇵🇹 🇻🇳

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Black-and-white photo of the full moon, showing a lot of detail of the surface of the moon.

Still image of the performer Psy from the music video for Gangnam Style, captioned "LET'S DO THIS CHỮ NÔM STYLE"

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Līvõ Kēļ @livokel.bsky.social · 2d

Vairāk par vārdu un tā izrunu meklējiet livonian.tech/meklesanas-r..., ierakstot vārdu “rōntõz”.

To learn more about this word and hear its pronunciation go to livonian.tech/en/search-re... and search for “rōntõz”.

#līvõkēļ

At the top of the image is the Livonian word "rōntõz". Below it are its Latvian translation "grāmata" and its English translation "book".

In the middle of the image is an example sentence using the word in Livonian: Ma lugūb rōntõzt.

Below the Livonian sentence on the left is its Latvian translation: Es lasu grāmatu.

Below the Livonian sentence on the right is its English translation: I'm reading a book.

On the bottom right is the hashtag: #līvõkēļ

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Benjamin Suchard @bnuyaminim.bsky.social · 1d

This chapter has now been out for more than six months and thus magically becomes #OpenAccess:

Sound Change in the Hebrew Reading Tradition

This contribution to Language Change in Epic Greek and Other Poetic Traditions investigates for Biblical Hebrew "to what degree this corpus retained its phonological independence from the vernacular f...

works.hcommons.org

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Axel Jagau @yraneac.bsky.social · 5d

#mongolsky
#tengri

Patrick Marques @pmarques35.bsky.social · 5d

[1/6] Adrien Simorre et Agatha Cantrill (AFP) analysent la "Grande Muraille verte" chinoise, vaste programme de reforestation lancé pour freiner la désertification du nord aride. Porté par l’État, il a reverdi 90 millions d’hectares mais bouleversé les modes de vie pastoraux. #geography #China

China's 'Great Green Wall' brings hope but also hardship

Inner Mongolian herder Dorj looked bitterly at the vast grasslands where his flock once grazed freely, before the practice was banned as part of a massive Chinese state greening project.

phys.org

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Warwick History Post-Doc Club @post-doc-club.bsky.social · 9d

Great news!
JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month

www.jstor.org/action/showL...

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VIEWS project @viewsproject.bsky.social · 12d

If you are interested in punctuation and spacing in text, from any world writing traditions, please join us for @timbrookes.bsky.social's discussion event:

Sunday 5th October, 12.00 ET / 17.00 BST

Registration link in next comment.

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Axel Jagau @yraneac.bsky.social · 14d

Also in Finnic: Finnish, Karelian, Ingrian, Votic, Estonian ‹meri›, Livonian ‹mer›, Veps ‹meŕi›, all meaning ‘sea’ – a loanword of either Baltic or Germanic origin.

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(Dr) Rena Maguire @justrena.bsky.social · 16d

And then I make a whole-ass career over that hashtag of Mistakes Were Made ;)

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Lameen Souag @lameensouag.bsky.social · 17d

Think I've just had my first encounter with LLM-fabricated language data. Some Indonesian paper mill journal just published a paper containing completely fabricated Siwi data, citing me as the source.

(It could have been made up by a human, but it looks like what you get when you ask ChatGPT.)

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CrossAsia @crossasia.bsky.social · 21d

Major milestone! 121 million Chinese characters from 1,937 historial titles are now fully searchable thanks to OCR collaboration between @stabiberlin.bsky.social East Asia Department and Academia Sinica Taiwan. Read more: sbb.berlin/x05w2
#DigitalHumanities #OCR #OpenAcess #CrossAsia

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 20d

Today, at long last, is publication day for @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social's Cultural History of Magic. I contributed a chapter to the volume on the Enlightenment, which features a case study on the prosecution and decriminalisation of magical acts in Lithuania www.bloomsbury.com/uk/cultural-...

A Cultural History of Magic

What role has magic played in society through the ages? How has it been practiced and, at times, controlled? How has magic been understood and represented? And…

www.bloomsbury.com

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Royal Asiatic Society @royalasiaticsoc.bsky.social · 20d

Did you know #PinkFloyd’s song ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’ has a connection with Chinese poetry? The line 'One inch of love is one inch of shadow' was inspired by a poem by Li Shangyin, translated into English by Welsh scholar Angus Charles Graham. (Archives ACG)

Photo of Angus C. Graham. Label on the reverse reads ‘to see the world in a grain of sand…’

Graham’s draft translation of Li Shangyin’s untitled poem, showing amendments to the last stanza

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David Monniaux @monniauxd.bsky.social · 21d

Ah oui j'oubliais: si vous publiez des articles disponibles uniquement derrière des paywalls, des bouquins à 140€, ne pleurez pas de ne pas être cité.

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Kristel Zilmer @kristelzilmer.bsky.social · 26d

Estonian directness: ‘Kennedy withdrew after the country’s Minister for Social Affairs reportedly called him “cuckoo in the head.”’

Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 26d

NEW: Take a moment with me to enjoy some light comedy and read about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apparently planning to speak at a fringe health conference in Estonia, and then pulling out because local politicians called him "a quack" and "cuckoo in the head." www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The saga of RFK Jr. and an Estonian vaccine skeptics conference

Kennedy withdrew after the country’s Minister for Social Affairs reportedly called him “cuckoo in the head.”

www.motherjones.com

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Axel Jagau @yraneac.bsky.social · 27d

Mõnda aega (u 10 aastat tagasi) vist tõesti kasutati, aga see võis ka pigem moe pärast olla. Peaks erinevate põlvkondade esindajate käest küsima, kas nende jaoks on "enekas" (või ka "endel") pigem selfie või pigem enesetapp.

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 27d

Why is it always a children's book? When do we get a celebrity who decides to edit a Festschrift or prepare an annotated edition of a primary source text?

Barb Drummond @barbdrummond.bsky.social · 27d

Yet another #celebrity writes #ChildrensBook

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Collège de France @college-de-france.fr · Jul 4

"Assimilation ou intégration ? La représentation de la #Mongolie, du #Tibet et du #Xinjiang dans les parlements de l'Empire Qing et de la République de Chine"
🖥️ Les vidéos des conférences de Egas Bender de Moniz Bandeira (@fau.de‬) sont disponibles.
👉 https://f.mtr.cool/yheoqqtceq

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波鴻漫錄 || Sven Osterkamp @schrift-sprache.bsky.social · 28d

Newly digitized @gallicabnf.bsky.social: 🙏

[trilingual ms. dictionary French-Manchu-Chinese, ca. mid-18th c.] @ gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/b... (BnF, Mandchou 280)

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Līvõ Kēļ @livokel.bsky.social · Sep 9

Vairāk par vārdu un tā izrunu meklējiet livonian.tech/meklesanas-r..., iekrakstot vārdu “eņtšik”.

To learn more about this word and hear its pronunciation go to livonian.tech/en/search-re... and search for “eņtšik”.

#līvõkēļ

At the top of the image is the Livonian word "eņtšik". Below it are its Latvian translation "pašiņš" and its English translation "selfie".

At the bottom of the image is an example sentence using the word in Livonian: Minnõn mīeldõb tīedõ eņtšikidi.

Below the Livonian sentence on the left is its Latvian translation: Man patīk taisīt pašiņus.

Below the Livonian sentence on the right is its English translation: I like taking selfies.

On the bottom right is the hashtag: #līvõkēļ

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Stephen DeCasien, Ph.D. @sdecasien.bsky.social · Sep 7

Now that it’s in Italian news, I can share: a new inscription has been found on Egadi Ram 25.

It reads SER SOLPICIO C F QUAISTOR PROBAVE[T] — “Servius Sulpicius, son of Caius, Quaestor, approved (this).”

This likely refers to the son of Caius Sulpicius Galus, Roman consul in 243 BCE.

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DatNoFact @datnofact.bsky.social · Sep 3

Microsoft Word to begin saving people's documents in the cloud *by default*

Reminder that LibreOffice is free and a good drop-in replacement for Microsoft Office software: www.libreoffice.org

www.theverge.com/news/767522/...

Microsoft Word now automatically saves new documents to the cloud

Word documents will be automatically saved to OneDrive

www.theverge.com

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andrew phillips @herfst.bsky.social · Sep 6

The runic text is taken from the Konungs skuggsjá (The King's Mirror), advising one to "learn all tongues without forgetting your own". The original has "helzt latínu og völsku" 'but first Latin & French', 'völsku', cognate with Welsh, reflecting its use by Germanic speakers to refer to Romance ones

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Janet Brennan Croft @banzailibrarian.bsky.social · Sep 3

Tolkien language nerds, scans of the first five issues of Parma Eldalamberon, long only available as photocopies, are now available open access: dc.swosu.edu/parma/

Parma Eldalamberon | Mythopoeic Society | Southwestern Oklahoma State University

dc.swosu.edu

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Matthew Scarborough 𓀀 @mattitiahu.bsky.social · Sep 2

Just about ten years now in the making: The IE-CoR database paper has finally been published.

C. Anderson, M. Scarborough, [ ... 96 further authors ... ], R. Gray & P. Heggarty. 2025. The Indo-European Cognate Relationships Dataset. Scientific Data 12:1541.

The Indo-European Cognate Relationships dataset - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - The Indo-European Cognate Relationships dataset

www.nature.com

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