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faq.html
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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="author" content="Conway">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
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<title>FAQ | Conway's site</title>
<style>li > ul, li > ol {
margin: 0.3em 0;
}</style>
</head>
<body>
<header>
<nav>
<ul>
<li><a href="/" title="Home page">Home</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#" title="Jump back to top">Top</a>
</li>
</ul>
</nav>
</header>
<h1>FAQ</h1>
<div class="page-properties">
First created: 2019-08-01<br>
Last modified: 2020-06-07
</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="#general">General</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#time">What do you do in your spare time?</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#site">How is this site built?</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#domain">Why don't you get yourself a custom domain
instead of the default yawnoc.github.io?</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#death">That's a bit macabre.</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#cookies">Does your site use cookies?</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#favicon">How did you set up the site favicon?</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#equations">How are equations rendered?</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#translation">Translation</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#italics">Why are there italicised words in your translations?</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#archaic">Wherefore usest thou archaic verb conjugation?</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#romanisation">What weird romanisation system(s) are you using for proper names?</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#this">Doesn't <span lang="zh-Hant">是</span> mean "is", and <span lang="zh-Hant">也</span>, "also"?</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="general"><a class="permalink" href="#general" aria-label="Permalink"></a>General</h2>
<h3 id="time"><a class="permalink" href="#time" aria-label="Permalink"></a>What do you do in your spare time?</h3>
<p>
That depends on what you mean by spare time; a day is quite short really.
Generally speaking life is very short too.
Eighty years is not a very long time to (expect to) be alive,
and even eight hundred years would pass me by very quickly.
</p>
<p>
These days I ponder <a href="/#applied-maths">unsophisticated applied maths problems</a>
and attempt to read and <a href="/#literary-chinese">translate Literary Chinese</a>,
and burn even more of my time building this website
to make such material freely available online.
</p>
<h3 id="site"><a class="permalink" href="#site" aria-label="Permalink"></a>How is this site built?</h3>
<p>
Using <a href="https://pages.github.com/">GitHub Pages</a>,
which is <b>simple</b>, <b>fast</b>, and most importantly <b>ad-free</b>.
I <a href="https://github.com/yawnoc/yawnoc.github.io/blob/master/.nojekyll">do not use Jekyll</a> or any plugins;
just straight CSS and JavaScript.
</p>
<p>
The pages are written in <a href="https://conway-markdown.github.io/">Conway's markdown (CMD)</a>,
which gets converted to HTML via my custom-written <a href="https://github.com/conway-markdown/conway-markdown">Python converter</a>.
For example, this page was generated from the CMD file <a href="https://github.com/yawnoc/yawnoc.github.io/blob/master/faq.cmd"><code>faq.cmd</code></a>.
</p>
<p>
Unfortunately conway.github.io was already taken though (sob);
blame <a href="https://github.com/Conway">Jake Conway</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="domain"><a class="permalink" href="#domain" aria-label="Permalink"></a>Why don't you get yourself a custom domain
instead of the default yawnoc.github.io?</h3>
<p>
Firstly, I am poor, and secondly, even if I did buy a domain,
I can't keep it with me when I die.
On the other hand, the default subdomain
is as permanent as GitHub Pages itself.
</p>
<h3 id="death"><a class="permalink" href="#death" aria-label="Permalink"></a>That's a bit macabre.</h3>
<p>
I do not fear death for my own sake.
I might die some time later today, or I may have many decades yet.
At the time of writing the latter is more probable. Fear changes nothing.
</p>
<h3 id="cookies"><a class="permalink" href="#cookies" aria-label="Permalink"></a>Does your site use cookies?</h3>
<p>
No, unless you have visited this site prior to 14 May 2020.
</p>
<h3 id="favicon"><a class="permalink" href="#favicon" aria-label="Permalink"></a>How did you set up the site favicon?</h3>
<p>
Using <a href="https://realfavicongenerator.net/">RealFaviconGenerator</a>
by <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/19590415">Philippe Bernard</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="equations"><a class="permalink" href="#equations" aria-label="Permalink"></a>How are equations rendered?</h3>
<p>
Using <a href="https://katex.org/">KaTeX</a>.
</p>
<h2 id="translation"><a class="permalink" href="#translation" aria-label="Permalink"></a>Translation</h2>
<h3 id="italics"><a class="permalink" href="#italics" aria-label="Permalink"></a>Why are there italicised words in your translations?</h3>
<p>
These are words which I have supplied as the translator.
</p>
<p>
No two languages correspond perfectly.
When the target language has no equivalent,
one inevitably loses meanings, connotations, rhymes, meter, structure, etc.
It is also necessary to introduce words in the target language
which do not appear in the source text.
</p>
<p>
I aim for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_and_formal_equivalence">formal equivalence</a> in my translations,
and believe that translations should be
as faithful to the original text as possible.
Accuracy should not be forsaken in favour of readability,
and the translator should take care not to alter a text by paraphrasing.
</p>
<p>
In order to make clear
which words are the original text's and which words are mine,
I adopt the convention of the King James Bible translators,
who <i class="translator-supplied">distinguished</i> words which did not appear
in the original Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek,
but were supplied.
(Note that in the 1611 version this was done not using italics,
but using Roman type instead of the main Black Letter type.)
</p>
<p>
In my case, English words which do not appear in the original Chinese
(meaning I cannot point to a character which corresponds to
or contains that word) are <i class="translator-supplied">distinguished</i>, except:
</p>
<ul>
<li>"The" is not distinguished when referring to a general class
as opposed to a particular instance, e.g. "the poor".
</li>
<li>"Of" is not distinguished unless part an entire phrase
not in the original Chinese,
and is thought of as being provided by the word order in Chinese.
</li>
<li>Prepositions are not distinguished when they follow a verb,
and are thought of as part of the verb in Chinese,
e.g. "went to", "laughed at".
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="archaic"><a class="permalink" href="#archaic" aria-label="Permalink"></a>Wherefore usest thou archaic verb conjugation?</h3>
<p>
This is stylistic, and in my view
accurately reflects the archaicness of Literary Chinese.
</p>
<p>
Also it sounds cooler and allows for greater freedom in word order.
For example,
compare
"This is what the LORD says" (New International Version)
to
"Thus saith the LORD" (King James Version)
for the Hebrew
<span lang="he" dir="rtl" class="no-wrapping">כה אמר יהוה</span>.
</p>
<h3 id="romanisation"><a class="permalink" href="#romanisation" aria-label="Permalink"></a>What weird romanisation system(s) are you using for proper names?</h3>
<h4>In the translation parallel text itself:</h4>
<ol>
<li>An <b>established romanisation</b> if one already exists,
e.g. Confucius for <span lang="zh-Hant">孔子</span> and Mencius for <span lang="zh-Hant">孟子</span>.
</li>
<li>Otherwise, the <b>romanisation which best suits the context</b>,
e.g. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Government_Cantonese_Romanisation">Hong Kong Government Romanisation</a>
for someone from Hong Kong.
</li>
<li>Otherwise, <b>Conway's common romanisation for Mandarin</b>:
<ol>
<li>Write down the Wade–Giles romanisation.
</li>
<li>Replace alveolo-palatal initial consonants
with the initial consonants before the dental-velar merger:
<ul>
<li>[t͡ɕ] (pinyin j) becomes <b>ts</b> or <b>k</b>
</li>
<li>[t͡ɕʰ] (pinyin q) becomes <b>ts'</b> or <b>k'</b>
</li>
<li>[ɕ] (pinyin x) becomes <b>s</b> or <b>h</b>
</li>
</ul>
If unsure whether to choose the dental (ts, ts', s)
or the velar (k, k', h),
refer to the initial consonant in a <a href="https://ytenx.org/">rime dictionary</a>,
or to whether the initial consonant is dental or velar in Cantonese.
</li>
<li>Change <span class="no-wrapping">-ui</span> to <span class="no-wrapping">-uei</span>.
</li>
</ol>
The result is something similar to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_postal_romanization">Postal Romanisation</a>.
</li>
</ol>
<h4>In the annotations (dot points) underneath the parallel text:</h4>
<ul>
<li>For Cantonese: <a href="/cantonese/conway-romanisation">Conway romanisation</a>.
</li>
<li>For Mandarin: pinyin.
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="this"><a class="permalink" href="#this" aria-label="Permalink"></a>Doesn't <span lang="zh-Hant">是</span> mean "is", and <span lang="zh-Hant">也</span>, "also"?</h3>
<p>
Forget everything you learnt in Mandarin class; that is modern vernacular.
Welcome to pre-twentieth-century Chinese Literature,
in which <span lang="zh-Hant">是</span> primarily means "this",
and <span lang="zh-Hant">也</span> is primarily an ending speech-assist word (with no inherent meaning)
which asserts the preceding thing/notion/statement.
</p>
<p>
In Hong Kong you might see <span lang="zh-Hant">是日例湯</span> written on a chalkboard
for soup at an eatery.
Here <span lang="zh-Hant">是日</span> means "this day", i.e. "today".
</p>
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