Recommended Databases for Finding Scholarship on Linguistics
Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman by 
A Phonological History of Chinese by 
Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction by
This book introduces a new linguistic reconstruction of the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of Old Chinese, the first Sino-Tibetan language to be reduced to writing. Old Chinese is the language of the earliest Chinese classical texts (1st millennium BCE) and the ancestor of later varieties of Chinese, including all modern Chinese dialects.
A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology by 
A Brief History of the Chinese Language I: The Basics of Chinese Phonetics by
As the first volume of a multivolume set on Chinese phonetics, this book gives a full picture of the historical development of the Chinese language and studies the phonetics of the early form of Chinese, that is, Old Chinese. Chinese language history is generally split into three phases: (1) Old Chinese, the form of the Chinese language spoken between the 18th century BCE and the 3rd century CE; (2) Middle Chinese, between the 4th century CE to around the 12th century CE; and (3) Modern Chinese, since the 13th century. In this volume, the author first introduces basic issues in Chinese language study, including research objectives, methodology, existing scholarship, periodization, and the distinctive linguistic characteristics of each period. The core chapters then describe and analyze the phonetical systems of Old Chinese, covering the initials system and related eight aspects, two types of rhyme groups, ancient finals, and the tonal system. This comprehensive groundwork on Chinese phonetical history will be a must read for scholars and students studying Chinese language, linguistics and especially for those wishing to become acquainted with Old Chinese phonetics.
Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese, Late Middle Chinese, and Early Mandarin by
Known for his pioneering work in Chinese historical phonetics, EdwinPulleyblank has compiled this Lexicon to present in convenientdictionary form the result of his researches on the phonology of MiddleChinese and its evolution to Mandarin. The Lexicon complements Pulleyblank's earlier book, MiddleChinese, by providing reconstructed pronunciation forapproximately 8,000 Chinese characters at three historical stages.Early Middle Chinese is the language of the Qieyun rhyme dictionary ofAD 601, which codified the standard literary language of both North andSouth China the preceding period of division. Pulleyblank'sreconstruction is a thorough reworking of that of Bernhard Karlgren,completed in the twenties, and in some respects differs radically fromit. Late Middle Chinese is the standard language of the High TangDynasty, based on the dialect of the capital, Chang'an. It has notbeen reconstructed previously as a separate stage but is of specialimportance, since it is the ancestor of most modern dialects. EarlyMandarin represents the speech of the Yuan capital, Dadu (presentBeijing), around the year 1300, for which Pulleyblank'sreconstruction differs considerably from that of Hugh M. Stimson. Thesources and methods used in these reconstructions were fully discussedin Middle Chinese, but recent developments in phonological theory haveled to some modifications in detail. The entries are arranged alphabetically according to the Pinyinsystem with an index, by the traditional Kangxi radical and strokenumbers. The Morohashi number is also given for each character,enabling easy reference to this important Chinese thesaurus. Anotheruseful feature of the Lexicon is the inclusion of the numbers inKarlgren's Grammata Serica for characters that are included in thatwork. Concise English equivalents for the Chinese words are alsoprovided. Reconstructed forms are given in the International PhoneticAlphabet. Though this requires a number of phonetic signs anddiacritical marks, these are carefully explained in the introduction.Every effort has been made to provide a useful tool for students ofChinese literature and China's relations with foreign countries, aswell as for specialists in Chinese linguistics.
The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Language Teaching by Chinese Grammar Made Easy: A Practical and Effective Guide for Teachers (Yale Univ. Press, 2009). eBook
Language Log University of Pennsylvania.
Posts filed by Victor Mair usually have a connection with Asia.
Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics (5 Volumes)
The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics by
The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics offers a broad and comprehensive coverage of the entire field from a multi-disciplinary perspective. All chapters are contributed by leading scholars in their respective areas. This Handbook contains eight sections: history, languages and dialects, language contact, morphology, syntax, phonetics and phonology, socio-cultural aspects and neuro-psychological aspects. It provides not only a diachronic view of how languages evolve, but also a synchronic view of how languages in contact enrich each other by borrowing new words, calquing loan translation and even developing new syntactic structures. It also accompanies traditional linguistic studies of grammar and phonology with empirical evidence from psychology and neurocognitive sciences. In addition to research on the Chinese language and its major dialect groups, this handbook covers studies on sign languages and non-Chinese languages, such as the Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan.
Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Chinese Linguistics
Publication Date: 2014 (eBook)
The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language
The Palgrave Handbook of Chinese Language Studies by
1. Research on Language Contact
2. Typology Studies in China
3. Cognitive Linguistics in China
4. Pragmatic Studies in China
5. Forensic Linguistics on Chinese
6. Sinitic Kinship Semantics
7. The Study of Classical Chinese in Europe
8. Language situations in contemporary China
9. Cantonese Diaspora
10. Language Contact: Shanghai Wu
11. Sinitic Languages along the Belt and Road
12. Hokkien in Diaspora
13. 'Migrating concepts' in Chinese
14. Chinese-English Bilingual Dictionaries
15. Chinese and the Search for a Universal Language
16. Machine Translation
17. Translating Chinese Law
18. Chinese children literature in English translation
19. Translating films on ethnic minorities into English
20. Subtitling in English as cross-cultural mediation
21. Subtitling in Chinese
22. Technology in Chinese Language Teaching
23. Cultural Performance Approach in Chinese language teaching
24. Cultural Key Words in Mandarin Chinese
25. Mandarin-Speaking Children in Britain
26. Chinese as a mother tongue in the context of Global Business English Communication
27. Chinese and Singaporean English
28. New Chinese Terms in English language media.
Literary Information in China: A History
58 chapters discussing such topics as: graphs, lexicons, dictionaries, sentence structure, punctuation, commentaries, encyclopedias, anthologies, bibliographies, concordances, serial publications, internet literature, etc.
The Routledge Handbook of Asian Linguistics by 
The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Applied Linguistics by 
The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis by 
Chinese Language Resources: Data Collection, Linguistic Analysis, Annotation and Language Processing by
Computational Linguistics
The Handbook of Asian Englishes (Wiley-Blackwell ) by 
Atlas of the World's Languages
See Chapter 5 "Languages of East and Southeast Asia," (pp. 159–208) by David Bradley. Several detailed maps included. This book is found in Humanities Reference on Level 5. Ask at the Humanities Help Desk for assistance in locating it.
Oxford: Languages of East & Southeast Asia: An Introduction
Publication Date: 2005 (eBook)
Chinese by 
A History of the Chinese Language by
A History of the Chinese Language provides a comprehensive introduction to the historical development of the Chinese language from its Proto-Sino-Tibetan roots in prehistoric times to Modern Standard Chinese. Taking a highly accessible and balanced approach, it presents a chronological survey of the various stages of the Chinese language, covering key aspects such as phonology, syntax, and semantics. The second edition presents a revised and updated version that reflects recent scholarship in Chinese historical linguistics and new developments in related disciplines. Features include: Coverage of the major historical stages in Chinese language development, such as Old Chinese, Middle Chinese, Early Modern Chinese, and Modern Standard Chinese. Treatment of core linguistic aspects of the Chinese language, including phonological changes, grammatical development, lexical evolution, vernacular writing, the Chinese writing system, and Chinese dialects. Inclusion of authentic Chinese texts throughout the book, presented within a rigorous framework of linguistic analysis to help students to build up critical and evaluative skills and acquire valuable cultural knowledge. Integration of materials from different disciplines, such as archaeology, genetics, history, and sociolinguistics, to highlight the cultural and social background of each period of the language. Written by a highly experienced instructor, A History of the Chinese Language will be an essential resource for students of Chinese language and linguistics and for anyone interested in the history and culture of China.
The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy
Ebook also available through catalog title search
Publication Date: 1984
A Cultural Dictionary of the Chinese Language by
A Cultural Dictionary of the Chinese Language introduces the 500 most important cultural traits of the Chinese as reflected in language use, especially in Chinese idioms (chengyu), proverbs and colloquial expressions (suyu). Communicative competence, the ultimate goal of language learning, consists of not only linguistic, but intercultural competence, which enables the language learner to speak with fluency and understanding. The Chinese language is richly imbued with cultural wisdoms and values underlying the appropriateness of idioms in the Chinese language. The Dictionary provides Intermediate and B1-C1 level learners as well as scholars of the Chinese language with an essential reference book as well as a useful cultural reader.
Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860-1960 by
Taking aim at the conventional narrative that standard, national languages transform 'peasants' into citizens, Gina Anne Tam centers the history of the Chinese nation and national identity on fangyan - languages like Shanghainese, Cantonese, and dozens of others that are categorically different from the Chinese national language, Mandarin. She traces how, on the one hand, linguists, policy-makers, bureaucrats and workaday educators framed fangyan as non-standard 'variants' of the Chinese language, subsidiary in symbolic importance to standard Mandarin. She simultaneously highlights, on the other hand, the folksong collectors, playwrights, hip-hop artists and popular protestors who argued that fangyan were more authentic and representative of China's national culture and its history. From the late Qing through the height of the Maoist period, these intertwined visions of the Chinese nation - one spoken in one voice, one spoken in many - interacted and shaped one another, and in the process, shaped the basis for national identity itself.
Studies in Colloquial Chinese and Its History by
An extensive history of Chinese dialects. Studies in Colloquial Chinese and Its History presents cutting-edge research into issues regarding prestige colloquial languages in China in their spoken forms and as well as their relationship to written and colloquial literary forms. These include the influence of historical forms of spoken Chinese on written Chinese, the history of guanhuà and the history of báihuà, proto-dialects, and supra-regional common languages, as well as their relationship to spoken dialects. The various studies in this collection focus on the dialect groups with the most substantial written traditions, including Mandarin, Wu, Min, and Cantonese. The contributors explore the histories of these dialects in their written and spoken forms, presenting a variegated view of their history and development. This volume expands our understanding of the underlying factors in the formation of supra-regional common languages in China and the written forms to which they gave rise.
Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. Revised edition (2014). eBook
Writing Systems: An Introduction to their Linguistic Analysis (2003). eBook
The Encyclopedia of Taiwan Studies contains a section titled "Languages and Linguistics."
International Journal of Chinese Linguistics (2018–present)
Journal of Chinese Linguistics
Click the link for electronic access. The most recent 3 years are only available in print. For the most recent issues, visit the Periodicals Reading Room on Level 2. Call number: PL 1001 .J68
PL 1009 .c55x
(Chinese Periodicals, Level 4)
Foreign Language Annals (
You will need to register for an account with NSSD (National Social Sciences Database) to access this journal.
当代语言学 Contemporary Linguistics
You will need to register for an account with NSSD (National Social Sciences Database) to access this journal.
Imre Galambos, Orthography of Early Chinese Writing: Evidence from Excavated Manuscripts (2009). Click the link to download.
Zusetsu Kanji no Rekishi 図説漢字の歴史 (An Illustrated History of Chinese Characters) (1989). Located in the Asian Quarto (oversize) section on Level 4.
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems (eBook). Physical copy is also available in Humanities Reference (HBLL 5th Floor). Call Number: Z 40 .C67 1996
The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, 1996. Very good chapter on Chinese writing. (Located in Humanities Reference, HBLL Level 5)
H. Park, The Writing System of Scribe Zhou (2016). Regional variation in the early Chinese writing system.
In 2013, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China published a table of 8,105 standard characters.
Click here for access to the list:
通用規範漢字表 (Current Standard Chinese Character Chart)
Here is a Wikisource copy of the chart
Click here to download a PDF of the list (100 MB)
The list is divided into three tiers, the first 3,500 characters comprise the most common characters.
After the list of 8,105 characters you will find a comprehensive list of standard simplified characters compared with their traditional (繁體) forms.
Finally, there is also a second list of all 8,105 characters organized by the number of strokes in each character.
Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants
Enter a Chinese character to see the various ways the character has been written. You can also find a character by using the number of strokes in the "radical" to drill down to the appropriate graph.
