U-PARL has published its 2023 leaflet.
The leaflet features designs of Asian landscapes, fabrics, and text. The mandarin-orange cover contains texts in Vietnamese, Chinese, Urdu, and French. Yuki Shibuya and Emiko Sunaga, project research fellows at U-PARL, will provide explanations regarding these inscription.
Ngoc-Hoang Pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Some of the characters used in the design on the leaflet are taken from Pagode de Dakao（A.-E Lelièvre et Ch.-A. Clouqueur, Saigon : C. Ardin , 1914）, a book describing Ngoc-Hoang Pagoda (Điện Ngọc Hoàng) in Da Kao Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Ngoc-Hoang Pagoda is a Chinese religious facility built in Indochina from 1900 to 1906 by a Chinese named Lưu Minh. During the French colonial period, this religious facility was called Pagode de Dakao by the French, and became particularly noticeable among French orientalists for its syncretic interior. Recently, it made the news when former US President Barack Obama stopped by there during his official visit to Vietnam in May 2016.
The book describes in French the history, architecture, and internal structure of the pagoda, as well as the deities worshipped there. In addition, it provides the names of the deities in Chinese and their Vietnamese pronunciation.
Yuki Shibuya, U-PARL
Urdu Literary Magazine Mah-e Nau(New Moon) and Regional Language Literature in Pakistan
The Arabic script designed on the leaflet is a collage of articles from the Urdu magazine Mah-e Nau. Pakistan is a multilingual society, with 30 to 60 languages spoken. Urdu, the national language, and English, used in business and government offices, are the common languages.
Regional languages are passed down from generation to generation within families and local communities, and play an indispensable role in original cultures. Folk songs, music, dances, local puppet shows, and theater dramas are performed in each regional language. A music TV show called Coke Studio, which started in 2008, has been making a splash by remixing folk songs in regional languages such as Brahui and Saraiki.
However, many of these regional languages do not have writing systems While Punjabi and Sindhi, which are spoken relatively widely, do have scripts, many of the regional languages are not associated with a “written culture”. As for speakers of those languages that do not have scripts or are not used for written communication, when writing about culture or writing down oral stories and plays, the speakers use Urdu, which they learn to read and write in school.
Emiko Sunaga, U-PARL
June 22, 2023