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. 🌕 🇵🇹 🇻🇳 1/🧵

Thanks to everyone who came out last night to hear me talk about the cool stuff in my book.

Today! www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/zev-ha...

My book talk at Third Place Books in the Ravenna neighborhood of Seattle is next Tuesday! Below in thread is an excerpt from *Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese*. I'll be reading more at the book event.

Are you in the Seattle area? Come see me at Third Place Books in Ravenna on Sept 16, 7pm. I'll be talking about and reading from my new book, followed by Q&A and a book-signing session. Would love to see you there. Check out the link for more info, to RSVP, and to pre-order a book for signing.

1/ Geodude is a tough-looking little rock-type guy with balled-up fists 🤛😠🤜. Despite the crusty form and threatening pose, it looks more cute than dangerous. At least to me. Time for a #Pokenomastics thread! We'll look at Geodude's names in a whole bunch of languages. 🇺🇸🇯🇵🇰🇷🇭🇰🇨🇳🇩🇪🇫🇷 #langsky

The Korean-language translation of my 2019 book Sinography has just been published! This is not an easy book to translate; I'm grateful to the team of scholars, led by Prof. Lee Yong (이용 교수님) who worked on it. The Korean title is: 동아시아의 한자 −중국 문자의 차용과 변용− www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduc...

I posted this quoted thread, on the 20th-century history of Chinese gendered written pronouns, in November. I've just come across a very nice 2024 article on this topic by Janet Davey in the journal Image [&] Narrative. I'll describe it briefly and put a link to the free pdf in thread below.

A massive attack on several humanities units (Arabic Studies, Judaic Studies, Holocaust Studies, Classics, Religion, German & Scandinavian, Russian/East European/Eurasian Studies) *and* tenure now unfolding at the University of Oregon (a blue state!). Closure of units and faculty layoffs threatened.

Thanks for this reference! Looks like the various terms are: - typographic mimicry - faux font - pseudoscript - ethnic typeface - simulation typeface - "foreign look" font I really dislike “ethnic font”.

I took this photo at Lumen Field in Seattle, when I went to see the Seattle Sounders FC play in a FIFA Club World Cup game ⚽️. The sign is of typographic and linguistic interest. Let’s take a closer look. 1/🧵

If you are in the UK or Europe and want a massive 40% off and free shipping on my book Chinese Characters Across Asia, see the link below.

Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) was an Italian Jesuit who lived in China for decades, pursuing his order’s goal of spreading the Catholic faith. He mastered both spoken Chinese and the classical written language. Ricci was well positioned to explain Chinese writing to his fellow Europeans. 1/🧵字

July 26 is Esperanto Day! Did you know that Esperanto was a major player in the Chinese language reform movement of the early 20th century? It was tied to internationalist sentiment, and particularly anarchism, in the 1910s through 1930s. 1/4

Herewith, a short thread on what I learned from this book, Yóuzhèngzhì Luómǎ Pīnyīn 郵政制羅馬拼音 (Postal Romanization), published in 1961 by the Directorate General of Posts in Taiwan. (Check out the prices in NT$, US$, and HK$. Books were cheap then.)

Andrew West, a brilliant and generous scholar, has died. corp.unicode.org/pipermail/un...

The European Association for Chinese Studies is holding an Autumn School titled "字 and the Search for Universalism", for students and junior scholars working on the history of the Chinese script and the “sinographic sphere”. Dates: 14–16 November Location: Nürnberg sites.google.com/view/eacsaut...

I took these photos in the Barcelona metro. The raised dot seen in the station name Paral·lel appears to be a feature of Catalan orthography. It has an interesting function.

Drops today: on this week's ARB @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcast, Nicholas Gordon talks to @zevhandel.bsky.social about his book “Chinese Characters across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese” @uwapress.bsky.social asianreviewofbooks.com/podcast-with...

A review of my book Chinese Characters Across Asia has come out in the LA Review of Books, alongside Uluğ Kuzuoğlu’s Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age. lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

A store name that includes a metalinguistic reference to its own spelling.

🎙️ I'm on a podcast! 🎙️ I was interviewed about my book Chinese Characters Across Asia for the @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social , you can find the episode here: newbooksnetwork.com/chinese-char... . My first time ever on a podcast. I was nervous at first, but Miranda Melcher was a great host.

After Amazon initially declined to send the book to Estonia it finally arrived today 😊 @zevhandel.bsky.social

To be clear, this had a pedagogical purpose. I was illustrating the challenges of determining Old Chinese rime groups through analysis of Shījīng 詩經 rhyming patterns when you don't know for sure (1) which words were intended to rhyme; (2) whether the rhymes are perfect or approximate.

The Chinese gender-neutral pronoun, ⿰㐅也 (tā), will be 𲎿 (U+323BF) in Unicode 17.0, due this September! 🥳 www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U...

A day when I sing a Belle & Sebastian song to my graduate seminar in Old Chinese phonology, is a good day.

There is a big sale going on at the University of Washington Press all month (April, 2025). It's 40% off and free US shipping, if you use discount code WSPRING25. The paperback cover price is $35, so with the code it's $21 + tax and free domestic shipping. uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295... 38/end

Hey Bluesky! I somehow ended up with an extra copy of @zevhandel.bsky.social's new book Chinese Characters Across Asia so I'm giving it away. Details in video.

Looks like my book has finally penetrated to every corner of the globe! 🌏

🅻🄰🅽🅶🆄🄰🅶🅴 🆀🆄🅸🆉 Way back in late 2020, I posted a "language quiz" on Twitter. I showed seven sentences written in Chinese characters. None of them was Chinese. I invited readers to identify which languages were represented by each written sentence. Only one of those sentences was invented by me:

Thanks for the glowing recommendation!

Yesterday the bookstore called that they had received @zevhandel.bsky.social's book and now I finally have it in my hands! 🥳

Look what arrived in the post today! Can't wait to read this @zevhandel.bsky.social

new @zevhandel.bsky.social jawn just arrived 🀄️📚

@zevhandel.bsky.social I just got your book and I'm excited to read it.

Finally received a copy of Chinese Characters Across Asia by @zevhandel.bsky.social ! Looking forward to reading it!

A 🧵 on dǎdī 打的. The Mandarin word dǎdī 打的 meaning ‘hail a cab’, ‘ride in a taxi’ is strange, right? It sounds strange. It looks strange. What’s up with this word? 1/

In the newly released CHINESE CHARACTERS ACROSS ASIA, @zevhandel.bsky.social tells a fascinating story of writing across cultures and time. Learn more: uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...

Recommended! i'm about a third of the way through and it's well written, really well explained, and I'm learning a lot and enjoying it.

Amazon still hasn't figured out the publication date of my physical book (March 18), but the Kindle version is already available there! www.amazon.com/Chinese-Char...

@zevhandel.bsky.social just got your book!

📣 Book publication update! 🎉 The first shipment of Chinese Characters Across Asia has arrived at the University of Washington Press's warehouse from the printer! Pre-orders from UW Press will be shipped from the warehouse this week!

Well, doggone it. The publisher just told me that the printer hasn't delivered the book on time. It will arrive this week at the publisher's warehouse, and then pre-orders will get shipped out immediately. New official publication date is March 18. bsky.app/profile/zevh...

If you saw this thread from a few days ago with a sneak peek inside my new book, you might have noticed a discrepancy involving the subtitle.

My book Chinese Characters Across Asia is coming out on Tuesday. Let's get a peek at some of the pages! 🧵📖

🎉 🎉 🎉

I don't know the answer. I suspect that across China 天然气 is displacing 瓦斯 as the common word for 'natural gas'. 瓦斯 was the term I learned when I first started studying Mandarin decades ago. I'd be curious to hear from other Chinese speakers whether they use 瓦斯 or not, and if so, in what contexts.

Have you ever noticed that there is something strange about the Mandarin word wǎsī '(natural) gas'? Looking at the written form 瓦斯, it just doesn’t seem like a typical Chinese compound word. What's a roof tile got to do with gas? Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on. 加油! 1/

Happy New Year, everyone. May the Year of the Snake bring prosperity and an end to evil times. I have good news and bad news about my forthcoming book, Chinese Characters Across Asia. Good: It is completely done and in production! Bad: The official publication date has slipped to March 4.

Happy New Year everyone! I did a short thread on #Pokémon names a while back—but I'm going to dive in a little deeper this time. I’ll be looking at Japanese, Chinese, and Korean components in the English names. We’ll touch on some European languages, too! 🇬🇧🇯🇵🇰🇷🇰🇵🇨🇳🇹🇼🇭🇰🇩🇪🇪🇸🇫🇷 etc. #langsky #sinology 🀄️📚