[ { "id": 206021, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "96\n\nK. M. A. BARNETT\n\nThe 22 syllables or 15 words of English and the 8 syllables or 4/5 words of Cantonese are as near as may be the complete equivalents one of the other. A qualified statement about the present is followed by a mild negative imperative about the near future, with a deprecatory hint of the speaker's present status. The Cantonese adds the information that those addressed are two in number.\n\nThe sentences are as near as may be complete equivalents one of the other. Yet only in two cases does a word in the one stand for a word in the other, and only in one case does a syllable stand for a syllable. The order of presentation differs sharply.\n\nSuch variety in the manner of marshalling thoughts into speech (or writing) whilst fascinating to a student of comparative linguistics, must be frustrating to those mechanistic simpletons who think translation is just a matter of rearranging words. I call them the Leg Before Wicket school.\n\nWhen I was younger and less tolerant of stupidity I used to reply with scant courtesy to people who asked me “What language do you really think in?” Nowadays, realizing that the question conveys a genuine if unintended compliment, so few are the people who really think anyhow, that I treat the enquiry rather more gently than it deserves. Of course, nobody thinks in any language: if it ever became possible to record thought processes the necessary code would be far too intricate to be called a language; with strange leaps and skips, logical steps left out, others duplicated and triplicated, and the whole criss-crossed with echoes, recollections, and a sort of scanning device which (when the thought is accompanied by speech, hearing, reading or writing) continually flashes its Stop! Caution! Go! messages to warn you against ambiguity, repetition, contradiction or other socially disutile paths.\n\nThis process becomes so habitual, so reflex, with us that in relaxed, unguarded conversation with an intimate friend we may seem to ourselves to be thinking aloud; and such a conversation can be largely unintelligible to a third party, or even to ourselves if recorded and played back much later.\n\nBut even the record of such a colloquy, I suggest, would not really reproduce, much less reveal, the patterns of thought which underlay it: at most it would sketch, would adumbrate, a simplified version of one only of the many threads in the pattern of thought:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211389, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 105, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "81 + trying to find food and help. At last they came to a grasscutters path which they followed. After walking about ten miles they heard the sound of monastery bells and smelt the fragrance of burning joss sticks. Filled with hope they knelt and prayed to Buddha to bring them to safety. Then they came to a monastery, large and beautifully decorated, and saw ten or more priests outside, but coming nearer they found that they were made of stone. The travellers were amazed, and being afraid began to pray to be forgiven their sins. In the distance they heard a voice shouting to them, and searching in the direction of the voice they came across another priest, but found he also was made of stone. Many times they heard voices calling them, but could find nothing but some stone figures. Then they said to each other, \"Those are all Saints, we are unworthy wicked men, so how can we see them\", and they knelt down and prayed very earnestly for forgiveness. When they had finished praying they looked up and saw a real priest coming towards them, who welcomed them kindly and brought them into the monastery. A meal was set before them, all the dishes were ordinary vegetables such as Buddhist priests eat, but they smelt very fragrant, and tasted delicious, and the travellers had never tasted anything as good before. When the meal was over, they asked the priest how to get to the capital city, who answered, \"From here to the capital is more than 200,000 miles, but do not worry, make up your mind to go and you will reach there quickly\". Then he asked Chuc, \"Do you know Pooi To?\" The minister answered, \"Yes, I know him well\". Then the priest pointed to the north wall and showed him a cloth sack, a tall Abbot's staff, and a priest's alms bowl hanging there. He said, \"Those are Pooi To's things. I beg you to give him back this alms bowl when you see him, and this letter that I will give you. And here is a green bamboo stick, which when you get back to your boat, throw into the water in front of the boat and shut the windows of the boat and sit quietly. You need not trouble to row or sail, for you will arrive at the capital very speedily.\"\n\nThey all said goodbye and a young priest took them to the monastery door and showed them a path to follow which would bring them back to their vessel quickly. Once more on board they did what they had been told, and soon found to their amazement that the boat had left the water and was sailing over the tops of the trees. After three days of this novel means of travel, they reached the Waai river (17) and arrived at a place named Chue Tseuk (k) not far from the capital. Here they\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 } ]