When I first took a look at the page containing the copyright info, I had a shock because it said that this was first published in 2012 (correct for Johnson 2013) as the 2012 edition. If it were true, then my efforrt in sourcing Johnson 2013 would have been misplaced. Having checked through the foreword (titled Agenda 2013 in the English), it occurred to me that they just made a mistake in the attribution, for indeed this is the Chinese edition of the 2013 edition. The other thing that occurred to me was that this translation did not come from Hong Kong but Taiwan. For those unfamiliar with the pitfalls in Chinese translations and transliterations, the names will be different depending on whether one takes the Cantonese (Hong Kong) or Mandarin/Putonghua(Taiwan, PRC respectively) pronunciation; and you guessed it, there can be three or more versions of the Chinese name. Of course if the book is from (or even for) mainland China, then there is the problem of traditional vs simplified Chinese characters.
It seems that the translaors and editors have taken an easy way out and left the original European name in. The grape names are the Taiwanese ones. My little disappointment is that there was no use of the Chinese synonym for Rkitaseli (Baiyu, 白玉), but then that was not in the original, although it was in Jancis Robinson's Pocket guide of 1996.
It seems that the translaors and editors have taken an easy way out and left the original European name in. The grape names are the Taiwanese ones. My little disappointment is that there was no use of the Chinese synonym for Rkitaseli (Baiyu, 白玉), but then that was not in the original, although it was in Jancis Robinson's Pocket guide of 1996.
No comments:
Post a Comment