Any translations of the Shuo Yuan in English or Russian?

[CJGait]

I found a reference at one point to some translating the important Han Dynasty work the Shuo Yuan but can't seem to find it again. Does anyone know if there is a translation existing or in the works in English or Russian? I would love to use it in my work on the Jiao Shi Yi Lin.

[Shelley]

You could try this : http://ctext.org/shuo-yuan

[CJGait]

I already have the Chinese version, thanks. I am looking for a translation.

[Shelley]

oh sorry, thought there were translations on this site.

[CJGait]

On some things, but it has to be either copyright free (Legge), or the site owner has to get the copyright holder's permission. What a wonderful thing it would be if there was a way to get a reasonable subscription system for scholarly use of translations so we could have the Xunzi, Huananzi, etc. all in that great search system at Chinese Text Project. Even better I'd love to see it integrated into Pleco so you could instantly see translations in context across all the pre-Han literature that has western translations as you run texts through the dictionary. Even modern Chinese translations integrated would be good. I know that without the modern Chinese translations of the Jiao Shi Yi Lin I would be wandering about in the dark bumping into things on a lot of the texts. 

[Shelley]

So that's your wish list filled

 

I hadn't put it together that although the original classic work in Chinese is copyright free, the English translation is not.

 

Hope you find what you need.

[Dani_man]

I don't know of any translations, but as you probably already know, (more or less) same passages of the Shuo Yuan appears in other translated collections (such as the ZhangGuo Ce), if you need a specific translation. 

[CJGait]

Actually, no, I didn't know that and ordered Crump's translation immediately. Thank you!

[Dani_man]

Then you should also add the Zuozhuan and the Guoyu, and this is not an exhaustive list. But you can really find versions online, no need to buy the books. I don't know what per cent of the anecdotes are in each book, so don't end up buying all the pre-han texts. Google is your friend

[CJGait]

Oh yes, I work with the Zuozhuan every day, along with the Book of Songs. They are the two most frequently cited and alluded to works in the Yi Lin. The Guoyu I encounter far less, but is a very valuable document, of course.

 

Back to my list of 'wanna's' it sure would be nice if someone could come up with a well indexed version of the Zuozhuan in pinyin. There are editions in pinyin on line, but they are just in plain text so you have to slog through to find a particular year, and the paper version I have is the Legge reprint with his persistently odd transliteration. Oh well. I have experience with computers. Instead of wishing for things I should really be doing them.   I asked the owner of CText about it once a long time ago and basically they explained how difficult it would be to machine format the translation for the sight. Perhaps if we all bribe him with donations marked 'For Zuozhuan in English'?