Talk:Cursive script (East Asia)

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[edit] Are these cursive scripts to be viewed as calligraphy or shorthand?

Title says it all. How are they classified? Gun Powder Ma 22:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I have read on the web that "grass" style is not named for grass, but for another meaning of "草", which is rough or wild. I put this in to the page shodo, but I would like to check this with other Wikipedians. If it's true, then it should be noted here. If it isn't true, then I'll remove it from shodo. Please let me know. Also, I wonder if there should be some integration between this page, Chinese calligraphy, calligraphy, and the shodo pages. What does everyone think? --DannyWilde 05:47, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

No answer to my question, so I'll answer it myself. According to the reference quoted on the main page, sou does indeed mean "rough". --DannyWilde 06:46, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I also disagree with the translation of the Chinese character 草 to "grass" in this context. It is true that one of the meaning of the word is grass. But the grass has nothing to do with the usage here. 草 is used in other contexts to mean draft, unrefined e.g. 草稿 or hasty, careless, sloppy, slovenly e.g. 草率. The latter meaning fits the description of this script much better than "grass". The term "Grass script" is typical Chinglish. Kowloonese 23:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I too disagree with the translation as "grass"; IMO that's an old translation still perpetuated by coffee-table books on Chinese, IMO. And since we should provide evidential references when possible on Wiki, I provide the following interpretation of 草 by the highly esteemed scholar 裘錫圭 Qiú Xīguī: "In antiquity, the character cǎo 'grass' was also used in the sense of 'coarse, rough; simple and crude.' It would appear that cǎo in the term cǎoshū 'grass script' was used in this same sense." (Chinese Writing, p.130; full ref. below). The translators of this book, Mattos & Norman, are both famous professors of Chinese. Throughout the rest of the work, they avoid the term 'grass' and use the term 'cursive' instead. I believe Qiu was involved. Other academic works I've seen also use 'cursive' as the standard translation. So how do we change the page title without breaking all the links to it? Note also that there are similar problems with some of the other script names, but to avoid multiposting I direct you to the Talk: East Asian calligraphy for the more general discussion.

裘錫圭 Qiú Xīguī (2000). Chinese Writing. Translation of 文字學概論 by the late Gilbert L. Mattos (Chairman, Dept. of Asian Studies, Seton Hall University) and Jerry Norman (Professor Emeritus, Asian Languages & Literature Dept., Univ. of Washington). Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-071-7.Dragonbones 08:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] origins of cursive script etc.

Most sources on this are cursory, traditional accounts which have not taken into consideration the fairly recent scholarship on bamboo and wood materials from the Warring States onward, leading to much confusion about the time of emergence and influences upon clerical, semi-cursive, cursive and standard scripts. I've found Qiu Xigui's book, Chinese Writing, to be an extremely valuable source for straightening out all the misunderstandings, and highly recommend it to you. I am going through the various script styles' main pages as well as the summaries in East Asian calligraphy and Chinese writing and adding clarifying notes, as well as Qiu as a reference. See pp.113 to p.149 on the origin of these script types.Dragonbones 09:40, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image requested

It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality.

An image of a phrase written in "grass script" versus "normal" Chinese script, and phrases in other East Asian cursive scripts, would be valuable here. --Quuxplusone 04:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

There are some good examples in East Asian calligraphy.