IV.On the Compilation,Editing and Publication of the Poya Folksong Collection

Upon the recommendation of researcher Huang Jianming,the Study Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Chinese Central University of Nationalities took responsibility for the compilation and publication of the Poya Folksong Collection and signed a contract with the government of Funing County.The university decided to include this book in its“985 Project”,a book series on ancient writings and writing systems of China’s minority ethnic groups,and set a deadline for completion in 2007.In September 2006,the Funing County Communist Party Committee and government attached great attention to the work and created a committee for the protection,development and compilation of The Zhuang Folksongs of Poya Village Funing,China and organized personnel to compile the book.After two years’ work,the work of compilation was finished and submitted for publication in March 2008.The compilation work consisted of four tasks.The first task was to transcribe the songs using International Phonetic Alphabet phonemic notation.The second task was to prepare a word-for-word interlinearized translation of the Zhuang texts into Chinese.The third task was to transcribe the Zhuang texts using the national Latin script Zhuang orthography.For this transcription,due to the phonemic and lexical differences among the various Zhuang dialects,the Zhuang transcription could not always be transcribed using the official Zhuang spellings(which reflect the Yongbei vernacular of the northern Zhuang dialect as spoken in Wuming County,Guangxi),but the transcription was still based upon the national Zhuang orthography standard,using the Wuming County-based spellings for similar or identical lexemes in the Funing dialect as far as possible.For the lexemes which could not be spelled as in Wuming dialect,suitable spellings were chosen in accordance with the distinctives of the Funing dialect of the Zhuang language.Our guiding principle in the transition and transcription work has been to retain the original meaning as much as possible in the wordfor-word interlinearizations,finding the closest corresponding Chinese word for each Zhuang word.The paraphrased free Chinese translation attempts to represent the general meaning of the Zhuang songs,[while trying to retain the five-syllable format of the original Zhuang songs.The English translation is not a translation of the Chinese free translation,but rather is based directly upon the Zhuang transcriptions of the songs.Because it is not possible to follow a five-syllable format in English,as English is quite different from Chinese and Zhuang typologically,the goal of the English translation is to communicate as much of the meaning of the Zhuang as accurately and emotively as possible without regard to retaining similar formal structure.] Of course,due to the linguistic distinctions between the languages,many sentences are difficult to translate accurately despite our best efforts.Additionally,due to compilers’ limited knowledge,we feel that our ability does not match our ambitions and our words cannot live up to our ideals well.But our original purpose in compiling the book is simply to begin the basic work that will then hopefully attract other scholars and experts.

The Compilers [of the Chinese edition]

March,2008

(Pre-publication Draft,January 2018)

【注释】

[1]Nüshu is a syllabic script used by women in Hunan Province.

[2]The“Six principles（Liu Shu）of character formation”is an ancient method of classifying Chinese characters，the first four referring to structural composition and the last two referring to usage.