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The Pentaglot Dictionary (<i>Yuzhi Wuti Qing Wenjian</i>), also known as the Manchu Polyglot Dictionary, was a dictionary of major imperial languages compiled in the late Qianlong era (1711-1799) of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), said to have been compiled some time in 1794. The work contains Manchu lexemes and their translations into various administrative languages such as Tibetan, Mongolian, post-classical or vernacular Chagatai (Eastern Turki, now known as Modern Uyghur since 1921) and Chinese.
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi, also known by his Latinized name Rhazes or Rasis (854 CE – 925 CE), was a Persian polymath, physician, alchemist, philosopher, and important figure in the history of medicine.<br/><br/> A comprehensive thinker, Razi made fundamental and enduring contributions to various fields, which he recorded in over 200 manuscripts, and is particularly remembered for numerous advances in medicine through his observations and discoveries. An early proponent of experimental medicine, he became a successful doctor, and served as chief physician of Baghdad and Rey hospitals.<br/><br/> Gerard of Cremona (Latin: Gerardus Cremonensis), c. 1114–1187, was an Italian translator of scientific books from Arabic into Latin. He worked in Toledo, Spain and obtained the Arabic books in the libraries at Toledo. Some of the books had been originally written in Greek and were unavailable in Greek or Latin in Europe at the time.<br/><br/> Gerard of Cremona is the most important translator among the Toledo School of Translators who invigorated medieval Europe in the twelfth century by transmitting the Arabs and ancient Greek knowledge in astronomy, medicine and other sciences, by making the knowledge available in the Latin language.
Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb (c. 1138 – March 4, 1193), better known in the Western world as Saladhin, was a Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt and Syria. He led Islamic opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant.<br/><br/> At the height of his power, he ruled over Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Hejaz, and Yemen. He led the Muslims against the Crusaders and eventually recaptured Palestine from the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem after his victory in the Battle of Hattin.
The Battle of Hattin took place on July 3 and 4, 1187, between the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the forces of the Kurdish Ayyubid sultan Salah ad-Din, known in the West as Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, from a nearby extinct volcano.<br/><br/> The Muslim armies under Saladin captured or killed the vast majority of the Crusader forces, removing their capability to wage war. As a direct result of the battle, Islamic forces once again became the pre-eminent military power in the Holy Land, re-conquering Jerusalem and several other Crusader-held cities. These Christian defeats prompted the Third Crusade, which began two years after the Battle of Hattin.
The rugged, indomitable Chinese muleteers known to the Burmese as Panthay, and to the Thai and Lao as Haw or Chin Haw, were—and to some extent still are—the masters of the Golden Triangle. Certainly they were the traders par excellence, penetrating into the remotest reaches of forbidden territory such as the Wa States, whilst at the same time their mule caravans, laden with everything from precious stones and jade to opium and copper pans, traded as far as Luang Prabang in Laos, Moulmein in Burma, Dali and Kunming in Yunnan, and Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.<br/><br/> Doi Mae Salong was once an impoverished, heavily-armed Kuomintang (KMT) outpost, it is today a tranquil oasis of tea gardens, fruit orchards and Yunnanese-style houses.
Pedanius Dioscorides (Greek: Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης; circa 40—90 AD) was a Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist, the author of a 5-volume encyclopedia about herbal medicine and related medicinal substances (a pharmacopeia), that was widely read for well more than a thousand years.<br/><br/> A native of Anazarbus, Cilicia, Asia Minor, Dioscorides practiced in Rome at the time of Nero. He was a surgeon with the army of the emperor, so he had the opportunity to travel extensively, seeking medicinal substances (plants and minerals) from all over the Roman and Greek world.<br/><br/> This miniature painting is from a 12th century Arabic edition of Disocorides' work.
Prajñāpāramitā (Sanskrit Prajñāpāramitā; Tibetan sherchin) means 'Perfection of (Transcendent) Wisdom'. Prajñāpāramitā is a central concept in Mahāyāna Buddhism and its practice and understanding are taken to be indispensable elements of the Bodhisattva Path. The practice of Prajñāpāramitā is elucidated and described in the genre of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, which vary widely in length and exhaustiveness.<br/><br/> The monk Xuanzang returned to China from India with three copies of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra which he had secured from his extensive travels. Xuanzang, with a team of disciple translators, commenced translating the voluminous work in 660 CE using the three versions to ensure the integrity of the source documentation. Xuanzang was being encouraged by a number of the disciple translators to render an abridged version. After a suite of dreams quickened his decision, Xuanzang determined to render an unabridged, complete volume, faithful to the original of 600 fascicles.
In 1840, a group of four people (Walter Henry Medhurst, Charles Gutzlaff, Elijah Coleman Bridgman, and John Robert Morrison) cooperated to translate the Bible into Chinese. The translation of the Hebrew part was done mostly by Gutzlaff, with the exception that the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua were done by the group collectively. This translation, completed in 1847, is well-known due to its adoption by the revolutionary peasant leader Hong Xiuquan of the Taipingtianguo movement (Taiping Rebellion) as some of the reputed early doctrines of the organization.
Hangul is the native alphabet of the Korean language, as distinguished from the logographic Hanja and phonetic systems. It was created in the mid-15th century, and is now the official script of both North Korea and South Korea, being co-official in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of Jilin Province, People's Republic of China. Hangul is a phonemic alphabet organized into syllabic blocks. Each block consists of at least two of the 24 Hangul letters (jamo), with at least one each of the 14 consonants and 10 vowels. These syllabic blocks can be written horizontally from left to right as well as vertically from top to bottom in columns from right to left.
The Old Uyghur alphabet was used for writing the Old Uyghur language, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in Turfan, which is an ancestor of the modern Uighur language.<br/><br/> The term 'Old Uyghur' used for this alphabet is misleading because the Uyghurs of Mongolia used the runic Orkhon (Old Turkic) alphabet, and only adopted this script used by the local inhabitants when they migrated into Turfan after 840.<br/><br/> It was an adaptation of the Sogdian alphabet, used for texts with Buddhist, Manichaean and Christian content for 700–800 years in Turfan. The last known manuscripts are dated to the 18th century. This was the prototype for the Mongolian and Manchu alphabets.
George Sale (1697, Canterbury, Kent, England–1736, London, England) was an Orientalist and practising solicitor, best known for his 1734 translation of the Qur'an into English.<br/><br/> Sale reputedly spent 25 years in Arabia, thus acquiring his knowledge of the Arabic language and customs.