Re: Bidev 1979 typescript on playing cards' origin

41
Huck wrote:The Turkic peoples were often close to China ...

Image

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_peoples

Maybe they got some of the Chinese language habits.
Mongol and Turkish are both Altaic/Turkic languages. The word Tuman is common to both, possibly rooted in Chinese. There is also the Mongol invasions, as noted above, the chinese style dragon replaced the Seljuk Turkish style dragon in Islamic art following the Mongol invasions.

Here is the entry for tümen from An etymological dictionary of pre-thirteenth-century Turkish, p. 507/508:
F tümen properly ‘ten thousand’, but often used for ‘an indefinitely large number’; immediately borrowed from Tokharian, where the forms are A tmân; B tmane, tumane, but Prof. Pulleyblank has told me orally that he thinks this word may have been borrowed in its turn fr. a Proto-Chinese form *tman, or the like, of zvan ‘ten thousand’ (Giles 12,486). It became an early l.-w. in Mong. as tiime(n) (Hacnisch 154) and in Pe. as tümân and other foreign languages, see Doerfer II 983, where the word is discussed at great length. S.i.s.m.l., but in some, perhaps a reborrowing fr. Pe. or Mong. Türkü viii bir tümen artuki: yeti: big ‘17,000’ II S 1; a.0.0. for ‘10,000’; bir tümen ağı: ‘innumerable precious things’ / N 12: viii ff. (one spiraea became a hundred, a hundred a thousand) mil) tavılku: tümen boltı: ‘a thousand spiraeas became ten thousand’ IrkB 32: Man. yüz artukı kırk tümen yek ‘1,400,000 demons’ Chuas. I 12: Uyğ. viii [üjç tümen ‘30,000’ Şu. W 7; in big yunt tümen kon ‘a thousand horses and ten thousand sheep’ do W 9(F) and side (ETY I 182) the word is not intended to be precise: viii ff. Man.-A sansaz tümen yıl boltı ‘it has been countless myriads of years’ (since we departed from you) Ml 10, 4-5: Bud. PP 1, 5 (özlüg) a.0.0., nearly always for ‘an indefinitely large number’: Civ. the irrevocable sale of a property is often described as mig jril tiimen künke tegl ‘for a thousand years and ten thousand days’ USp. 13, 10 etc. (the phr., which also occurs in vm Şu. E 9, is prob. taken from Chinese): Xak. xi tümen al-katir ‘much, many’ of anything; one says tümen törlüg sö:zle:di: ‘he talked volubly on every kind of subject’: tümen mil) alf alf fVl-adad ‘a million’; one says tümen mig yarma:k ‘a million dirhams' (sic) Kaş. I 402; tüme:n (sic) ç6çek ‘all kinds (anzva) of flowers’ I 233, 26; (scorpions, flies, and snakes) dük mig kayu tümenler ‘in innumerable quantities’ III 367, 10: KB tümen ■‘an indefinitely large number’ is common, e.g. tümen mig törüttüg bu sansız tirig ‘Thou hast created these innumerable living beings’ 2i; 0.0. 2, 22, 84, 159, 172, etc.: xm(?) At. (this world looks nice from the outside, but within it are) tümen nâ-xwuşl ‘innumerable unpleasantnesses’ 218: Çağ. xv ff. tümen an expression for 'a large number’ (çokluk); also on bir) mtqdart 'Utman akçası 'a sum of ten thousand Osmanh small silver coins’ Vel. 220 (quotn.); tümen ‘j 0,000’; and the Mongols call an amir with an army of 10,000 mir-i tiimen; and the people of Persia call ‘10,000 dinars' yak tûnıân San. i8sr. 14: Xwar. xiv tiimen in both senses Qutb 190: Kom. xiv ‘10,000’ tümen CCG; Gr.: Kip. xiv tümen al-badra ‘a sum of 10,000 dirhams' Id. 40; dümen ' 10,000’; also called tümen do. 50: Osm. xiv-xvi tümen in both senses, fairly common TTS I 705; II gıı; III 692.

Dis. V. DMN-

1) tamın- (d-) Hap. leg.; Refl. f. of tam-; irregular since tam- is Intrans. Xak. xi ol ö:zir)e: ya:ğ tamındı: ‘he set himself to drip (bi-taqtir) the oil for himself’ Kaş. II 149 (tamınuır, taminmaik).

D timen- Hap. leg.; Refl. f. of time:-; ‘to prepare oneself’. Uyğ. viii ff. Bud. 6tinir) timenir) ‘prepare yourselves (Herid.)’ Iliien-ts. 230.

Tris. DMN

D tamındı: (d-) Hap. leg.; Uev. N./A. fr. tamin-. Xak. xt tamındı: su:v qatâratu'l-mâ' ‘dripping water’ Kaş. I 450.

D tumarnlığ (d-) P.N./A. fr. tuma:n; ‘foggy, misty’. S.i.m.m.l.g.; in NW Kk.; SW Az., Tkm. dumanlı. Üyğ. viii ff. Man. tumanlığ yekler ‘the demons of fog’ MII11,10: (Xak.)

xiv Muh.{ ?)yaivm mugim ‘a foggy day’ tu:ma:n-lu:ğ (mis-spelt tu:ma:ğhı:ğ) kü:n Rif. 185 (only).

ÖF tümenlig P.N./A. fr. tümen; ‘numbered in tens of thousands’; n.o.a.b. Türkü viii ff. Man. miglig tiimenlig kuvrağ ‘a congregation of thousands and tens of thousands’ TT II 8. 57: Uyğ. viii ff. Man. tümenlig yekler M II 11, 10.

Dis. DMR
In Turkish it may also mean drawers, wide bottom trousers, the word in Ottoman Turkish for both is :

تومان - tuman
Image


تومان - tuman
Image


However, spelt طومان - tuman in Ottoman Turkish it refers to trousers, drawers:
Image


And also to stand out, project:
Image


Ottoman -English Dictionary:
http://www.ingilizceosmanlica.com/

In Persian and Arabic:
Tomān is a Mongolian loanword (tumen, and in Turkish tümen) meaning 10,000. It was used Persian and Arabic as tūmān (طومان or تومان, as there is a proper name طومان خان).

Re: Bidev 1979 typescript on playing cards' origin

42
Steve: The main question I was trying to raise is whether "multitudes" would be an appropriate name for the whole suit, as opposed to just the court cards of a suit. Would "2 of multitudes" make sense, when the picture is of 2 cups? (not coins). Or would the word "multitudes", with a double meaning of a fashion-statement for officials, in the court card suggest "multitudes of cups" in three degrees (with "cups" perhaps suggesting men in an army, one cup per man)?

A rhyme is not necessary. But it is always nice to have one if one is available. I think Ettinghausen says that honorific salutations tended to rhyme if possible (I'll check when I get home--I'm at the library). They would be easier to remember, I think, in the manner of an advertising jingle.

I suppose it is possible, given the late date of the cards, that by the 16th century Cups had become a trump suit. But there is no indication. And surely, if it had always been a trump suit, we would see some indication somewhere.

Another question occurs to me. Ettinghausen suggests that the Mamluk word for "high official" was "sahib" as opposed to "naib". Is that true in Turkish, too? I can't think how it would make any difference to our concerns, but it might.

Huck: Thanks for reminding us of the remaining relevance of the Libro de Juegos regarding color correspondences, number of players, and number of suits.

Re: Bidev 1979 typescript on playing cards' origin

43
mikeh wrote:Steve: The main question I was trying to raise is whether "multitudes" would be an appropriate name for the whole suit, as opposed to just the court cards of a suit. Would "2 of multitudes" make sense, when the picture is of 2 cups? (not coins). Or would the word "multitudes", with a double meaning of a fashion-statement for officials, in the court card suggest "multitudes of cups" in three degrees (with "cups" perhaps suggesting men in an army, one cup per man)?

...I suppose it is possible, given the late date of the cards, that by the 16th century Cups had become a trump suit. But there is no indication. And surely, if it had always been a trump suit, we would see some indication somewhere.

... Or would the word "multitudes", with a double meaning of a fashion-statement for officials,

...Another question occurs to me. Ettinghausen suggests that the Mamluk word for "high official" was "sahib" as opposed to "naib".
Not following you - I see no reason for it not being the name of the whole suit (courts and pips, same as for the other suits). Why not 2 myriad, 3 myriads, 4 myriads, etc.. (as it is in the Chinese suits, 1-9?). Seems to me you're over-complicating things...? I have no idea what you mean by multitudes of cups in three degrees, totally lost me. Nor about cups always being a trump suit, what you on about?* And Sahib, Naib & Malik were all high official titles? I am completely lost/confused...

Persian and Arabic titles often included three different words that are translated king, so in translation their titles would be 'king king king' :))

How does a multitude with a double meaning of a fashion statement make more sense? Two of a multitude of underpants, three of a multitude of underpants, four of a multitude of underpants...??? And how do underpants or trousers relate to cups? Not meaning to make fun, just a little baffled? Bedazzled and bewildered but not bewitched at this point, and maybe displaying through my own confusion my own laughable ignorance. I am sure there must be some logical sense to these statements, but I have failed to grasp the steps in between them; I am usually quite good at tangenital thinking, disappointed in myself in this instance.

Steve
*Interesting idea though, that the countless or innumerable suit would be a trump suit.

Re: Bidev 1979 typescript on playing cards' origin

44
I was saying that I did not think it probable that the suit with cups on them wqw a trump suit, at least not before the Europeans' invention of trump suits. We would surely have heard something about it earlier than 1440.

I was saying that I did not think it probable that a card with 2 cups on them would be called "the 2 of underpants"--or even " the two of fashionable baggy trousers".

I was gong so far as to question whether a card with 2 cups on them wold even be called "the two of myriads" or "the two of 10,000s" or "the two of multitudes".

I was suggesting that the term for 10,000 might have applied only to the court cards in cups. Whereas the 10 of cups might suggest a soldier who commanded a column (of 10, to be decimated), a deputy-commander of 10,000s might be the deputy-commander of 10,000 cups, where one cup = one soldier.

However I now see that there is then the question of why a similar term would not have been applied to the deputy commander, commander, and king, of the other suits. That is a difficulty for my suggestion. Perhaps it is too boring to repeat the same rhyme.

I remain unclear on why a card with two cups on it would be interpreted as "2 myriads". I would have thought a card with gold coins on it would be more likely. Perhaps there were cups worth 10,000 coins each--a gold cup, perhaps. But then how could the suit avoid being a trump suit, in relation to less valuable things such as polo sticks, or even swords?

I still cannot see such a card being interpreted as two baggy pairs of trousers. My point is that however you interpret "tümen " in the case of the court cards, it has also to apply to the other cards of the suit. That is something Ettinghausen didn't seem to consider. Or is it not true?

I guess the most reasonable explanation is that Cups was in fact a trump suit, at least by the time of the Istanbul cards. That raises the question of whether it might have been one before 1440, or even 1418 or whenever the Visconti gods game was invented and Filippo issued his edict prohibiting card games that overturned the natural order of society, if he meant something like Karnoffel. The idea of one of the regular suits being designated trumps seems to have been attributed to Spain, at least later. Maybe that's why they didn't invent tarocchi.

My question about "sahib" wasn't about how it would be translated, but about what languages it was in, or commonly used in, and derived from. I think my point would be that if Europeans saw the cards as "naipes" then perhaps they didn't learn about cards directly from Turks or Mamluks, or people with languages of that family.

Re: Bidev 1979 typescript on playing cards' origin

45
In the modern Chinese deck, that the WOPC shows, the "10000 things" is a suit (the figures are not court cards, but appear on number cards).



As these are Mah-Jongg cards (which has 3 number suits with 9x4 cards, totally 108 + 36 other cards - 4x4 winds, 3x4 dragons, 2x4 Flowers), my idea, that these are trump cards, is in this case not valid. If anything is comparable to trumps, then winds, dragons and flowers, but Mahjongg isn't a trick-taking game, but comparable to Canasta or Rommée.

I think or better remember, that there are in China associations of the 4 suits (playing cards) to 10-100-1000-10000, which is just a modification of 1-2-3-10000 (used in the Lao tse poem 42), well understandable, if one knows, that East-Asian countries had a heavy use of the Abacus (with 4 rows of pearls you can count till 9999).

The common abacus of 10 pearls for each row was reduced to 5+2 pearls ...

Image


... and later to 4+1 pearls ...


http://mmebsabacus.blogspot.de/

.... , somehow also expressed by an old mythic order, the Ho-Tu plan (also stuff in Richard Wilhelm's I-Ching).

Image

http://www.tao-chi-muelheim.de/Das_Ho_Tu/das_ho_tu.html

This was also connected to the 5 Chinese elements ..

1-6 to Water
2-7 to Fire
3-8 to Wood
4-9 to Metal
5-10 to Earth

... and to the 4 directions and 4 seasons and to the whole calendar and to the 60-years counting and Chinese medicine and to Chinese fighting sports and some more cultural elements. This was very dominant.

Well, and it was connected to the I-Ching.

In 17th century a Jesuit (actually a boy of Cologne ...

Image

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Ad ... l_von_Bell

... , Johann Adam Schall von Bell), got some influence on the young Chinese emperor, and this developed into a change of the Chinese calendar, creating a modernized lunisolar system (short after the death of Galileo, 1644/45).

Then the dominance of the old system changed (a little bit).

**************

Added

I miss my book of Sylvia Mann, who wrote about Chinese cards.

But English wiki writes about money-suited cards:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_playing_cards
Money-suited cards

Money-suited cards have attracted the most attention from scholars. They are considered to be the ancestors of most of the world's playing cards. Each suit represents a different unit of currency. Lu Rong (1436–1494) described a four-suited 38-card deck:

Cash or Coins: 1 to 9 Cash
Strings of Cash: 1 to 9 Strings
Myriads of Strings: 1 to 9 Myriad
Tens of Myriads: 20 to 90 Myriad, Hundred Myriad, Thousand Myriad, and Myriad Myriad (11 cards in total)
I'm confused a little bit by the use of "Myriad" (= 10.000 ?)

Cash or Coins: 1 to 9 Cash ... 1-9
Strings of Cash: 1 to 9 Strings ...10-90
... Missing: 100-900
... Missing: 1000-9000
Myriads of Strings: 1 to 9 Myriad ... 10000 - 90000
...

If I interpret Myriad = 100, I get ...

Cash or Coins: 1 to 9 Cash ... 1-9
Strings of Cash: 1 to 9 Strings ...10-90
Myriads of Strings: 1 to 9 Myriad ... 100 - 900
Tens of Myriads ... 1000
20 to 90 Myriad ... 2000-9000
Hundred Myriad ... 10.000
Thousand Myriad ... 100.000
Myriad Myriad (actually should be Myriad Myriad Myriad) ... 1.000.000

... and this looks logical. But card games must not in all aspects be logical.

The article proceeds
There is no 10 Myriad card as it would share the same name as its suit. By the early 17th-century, the suit of Cash added two more cards: Half Cash and Zero Cash. The Cash suit was also in reverse order with the lower number cards beating the higher. This feature also appeared in other early card games like Ganjifa, Tarot, Ombre, and Maw. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the suit of Myriads and Tens depicted characters from the novel the Water Margin which is why they were also called Water Margin cards. They were also known as Madiao cards after one of the most popular games.

From at least the 17th-century, games played with stripped decks became more popular. This was done by removing the suit of Tens save for the Thousand Myriad as in the game of Khanhoo. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Thousand Myriad, Half Cash, and Zero Cash took on new identities as the suitless Old Thousand, White Flower, and Red Flower respectively. They are sometimes joined by a "Ghost" card. The Myriad Myriad card disappeared by the late 19th century. During the Qing dynasty, shedding type rummy games became more popular and the 30-card deck was often multiplied with each card having two to five copies. Mahjong, which also exists in card format, was derived from these types of games during the middle of the 19th century.

Four-suited decks still exist and are used by the Hakka to play Six Tigers, a multi-trick game. Six Tigers decks lack illustrations and instead just have ideograms of the rank and suit of each card.[8] Another structurally similar deck is Bài Bất found in Vietnam; it's three-suit version is Tổ tôm. These Vietnamese cards were redesigned by Camoin of Marseilles during French colonial rule to depict people wearing traditional Japanese costumes from the Edo period.

Direct foreign derivatives include Bài tới in Vietnam, Pai Tai in Thailand, and Cheki in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Korean Tujeon cards were possibly a descendant.[9] Ultimately, all four-suited decks (especially Italian and Spanish suited packs) are indirectly descended from the money-suited system through Mamluk Kanjifa.
Last edited by Huck on 14 Aug 2016, 11:39, edited 1 time in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Bidev 1979 typescript on playing cards' origin

46
mikeh wrote:I was saying that I did not think it probable that the suit with cups on them wqw a trump suit, at least not before the Europeans' invention of trump suits. We would surely have heard something about it earlier than 1440.
No, I don't think so either - I didn't even know it had been suggested, perhaps I speed-read over it in an earlier post?
I was saying that I did not think it probable that a card with 2 cups on them would be called "the 2 of underpants"--or even " the two of fashionable baggy trousers".
ditto
I was gong so far as to question whether a card with 2 cups on them wold even be called "the two of myriads" or "the two of 10,000s" or "the two of multitudes".
But we have the example of the Chinese money cards, from which the Mamluk cards are suspected to have derived, that uses that nomenclature for their suit of 10,000/myriads. Of course it makes greater sense in the context of the Chinese money cards - less so in the case of the Mamluks, but that is the result of misinterpretation?

Nonetheless on might ask if the Mamluks would have tried to make some connection between the name and the emblem. I don't know, perhaps in context of countless and 'my cup overfloweth' ;) Although Tuman was used figuratively for countless, innumerable, myriads - it did have a specific meaning of 10,000, and was used for such in legal, administrative and military contexts. For example, in military terms, for a division of 10,000 troops - but cups hardly seems a suitable emblem for warriors, the swords would surely be better. In administrative affairs it would also denote a region or tribe(s) with a large enough population to be able to supply a division of 10,000 troops. Cups might be better as an emblem there, as a symbol of people coming or congregating together to form a unt, a tribe, village, town or urban center (Etteilla's 10 of Cups as City just popped into my head), but it is all a bit of a stretch.
I was suggesting that the term for 10,000 might have applied only to the court cards in cups. Whereas the 10 of cups might suggest a soldier who commanded a column (of 10, to be decimated), a deputy-commander of 10,000s might be the deputy-commander of 10,000 cups, where one cup = one soldier.

However I now see that there is then the question of why a similar term would not have been applied to the deputy commander, commander, and king, of the other suits. That is a difficulty for my suggestion. Perhaps it is too boring to repeat the same rhyme.
The rhyme is also on the polo-sticks, and appears to me to apply to the whole suit, I don't see why it shouldn't apply to the whole suit of cups/10,000 too. Perhaps Polo-Sticks and Cups were head of the pillars as they were emblems of the highest officials who took lead role in ceremonies, processions?
I remain unclear on why a card with two cups on it would be interpreted as "2 myriads". I would have thought a card with gold coins on it would be more likely. Perhaps there were cups worth 10,000 coins each--a gold cup, perhaps. But then how could the suit avoid being a trump suit, in relation to less valuable things such as polo sticks, or even swords?
Well, the confusion would start with the misinterpretation of the Chinese money cards, if that is indeed the origins for the Mamluk developments. All the suits in the Chinese money deck had coins, a suit of coins, a string of coins, a myriad of coins, etc. This would suggest that one suit should have a higher value than another (a string of coins suggest a higher value than coins aone, a myriad of coins a higher value than a suit of coins or a string of coins), I am not sure if this was the case, I don't know the rules of the Chinese game - but one would imagine that such an association would lead naturally to a suit of highest value, and thus to a trump suit? I don't think there is any evidence of this early on though, at least not with the Mamluk Kanifa or western cards, I don't know about Chinese games.
I still cannot see such a card being interpreted as two baggy pairs of trousers. My point is that however you interpret "tümen " in the case of the court cards, it has also to apply to the other cards of the suit.
I am still not sure as to why one should think otherwise.
I guess the most reasonable explanation is that Cups was in fact a trump suit, at least by the time of the Istanbul cards. That raises the question of whether it might have been one before 1440, or even 1418 or whenever the Visconti gods game was invented and Filippo issued his edict prohibiting card games that overturned the natural order of society, if he meant something like Karnoffel. The idea of one of the regular suits being designated trumps seems to have been attributed to Spain, at least later. Maybe that's why they didn't invent tarocchi.
There are considerations that one might think would lead to or suggest a suit as a trump suit, I don't think there is any evidence for this happening until later on though...
My question about "sahib" wasn't about how it would be translated, but about what languages it was in, or commonly used in, and derived from. I think my point would be that if Europeans saw the cards as "naipes" then perhaps they didn't learn about cards directly from Turks or Mamluks, or people with languages of that family.
Off the top of my head I am pretty sure Sahib is Arabic, or possibly Persian. I know it is used in several Indian languages too, such as Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi, but I think as a loan word from the Arabic (or Persian). Not sure about your point about naipes -- surely it is related to the na'ib of the Mamluk cards? It is a semitic word, it and Malik are used in Turkish too, but as loan words from the Arabic.

Re: Bidev 1979 typescript on playing cards' origin

47
I believe it was Wilkinson, in a late 19th century article about Chinese cards where he argued for the Chinese origin of Western playing cards (he suggested a direct origin, being unaware of Mamluk (Turkic from Mongol) cards), who suggested that the Cups suit derived from reading the Chinese "Wan" symbol, the additional suit in four suited card packs, as a Cup. But it has to be read "upside down".

I don't think the details of his argument were accepted, although the Chinese origin, via the Mongols to the Levant, Mamluk rulers or otherwise, of our suit symbols is now the consensus.

Although it might seem far-fetched on first glance that the Wan symbol would be read upside down as a cup, it does at least look like a cup. And there is a parallel, also unknown to Wilkinson, in Japanese playing cards, introduced by the Portuguese. There, the standard playing cards turned the Portuguese Cups suit upside down, and because of the roundness of the cups, they have become balls or round bells, with a tie at the top (the "fossil" of the original stem and base of the cup).

I am sorry I have no links or images ready to hand and am pressed for time, but the text and images should be easy to find.

Also, if I remember correctly, and what suggested this hasty post, Wan = Tuman in meaning, either "myriads" or "tens of myriads" IIRC.
Image

Re: Bidev 1979 typescript on playing cards' origin

49
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:Here is the link to Wilkinson's 1895 article, "The Chinese Origin of Playing Cards" -
http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Arc ... inson.html
There is also a pdf version here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 00070/epdf

quote:
This writer (chatto) elsewhere observes, “in the 16th century it appears that in Italy the suit of bastoni, ‘clubs.’ was also called colonne, ‘columns’, ... merely because the club or mace bore some resemblance to a slender pillar.” Take a number of kun p;ai packs and submit them to various persons who are ignorant of their meaning and it will be found that among the interpretations given to the suit of strings those of swords, bamboos, batons and pillars will be the most common, particularly if the ace of the two is the first card shown.
end

In the mamluk too:

'ahad al-arkân malik al-jawkân one of the pillars also is the king of polo sticks

But not sure the same reasoning can be applied, not only as to whether one may polo-sticks be seen as columns (?), but in that it is also applied to the (King of] 10,000/cups:

ahad al-arkân malik al-tûmân one of the pillars also is the king of multitudes (lit: 10,000)

In the Chinese game, the person who bets the stake is called 'the pillar'. See The late Ming game of Ma Diao by Andrew Lo n The Playing Card:

http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3556671

(A Muslim may also perhaps associate with the five pillars of Islam? The first of which is Shahada - a declaration of faith and trust that professes that there is only one God (Allah) and that Muhammad is God's messenger. But then again, in context of a game, perhaps not.)
Last edited by SteveM on 14 Aug 2016, 20:27, edited 6 times in total.