New lexical items

One of the things that makes Manchu poetry difficult to read is that about 5% of the vocabulary consists of words that are not found in most (or all) dictionaries. As a remedy, I have been working through Jakdan’s translations of Chinese poetry, and using that to build a lexicon of Manchu poetic usage. I haven’t posted much lately because this process doesn’t produce new translations of original Manchu works, but to keep things on this blog interesting I'll start posting the new lexical items that I find. Here are three recent ones, with more to follow.

gerikešembi, to twinkle (of stars) (J6.46); usiha tumen uce-i ishun gerikešehei, [星臨萬戶動] “as the stars twinkle on the myriad households,” from Dù Fǔ’s 春宿左省, line 3.

simiyan, repository (J6.40); dergi boode nirugan bithei simiyan, [東壁圖書府] “in the East Room, a repository of pictures and books,” from Zhāng Yuè’s 麗正殿書院賜宴應制, line 1.

tonombi, to roost (J6.46); gūr gar tonoro cecike duleke, [啾啾棲鳥過] “twittering, the roosting birds have passed by,” from Dù Fǔ’s 春宿左省, line 2.