The Other Greek ― An Introduction to Chinese and Japanese Characters, Their History and Influence

Cooper (1916-88) is widely known to scholars of China for his translations of Tang poetry, published in 1973 and still in print. Less well known is that while decoding Japanese military messages during World War II, he acquired an interest in Chinese characters. Without formal training in the field, he spent decades studying and gradually developed an unconventional theory of their composition and origin. He planned two large monographs, but neither reached publication. A typescript of one survived, however, and it is the source of this volume. His theory is at odds with conventional scholarship, offering the view of a devoted outsider. Annotation ©2018 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Arthur Cooper (1916-1988) is primarily known to students of Chinese for his translations of Tang poetry. By profession, he was a cryptanalyst who worked at Bletchley Park during and after WWII, decoding Japanese military and diplomatic messages. He had a deep interest in language and poetry, as a result of which he devoted the later half of his life to studying the structure of the Chinese script.

Imre Galambos, Ph.D. (2002), UC Berkeley, is Reader in Chinese at the University of Cambridge. He specializes in Chinese manuscript culture, with a particular emphasis on Dunhuang. His work includes the book Manuscripts and Travellers (De Gruyter, 2012) and Translating Chinese Tradition and Teaching Tangut Culture (De Gruyter, 2015). He is also the translator of Rong Xinjiang's Eighteen Lectures on Dunhuang (Brill, 2013).