M2an

ESAIM.

Francisco Varo's Glossary of the Mandarin Language

Western missionaries contributed largely to Chinese lexicography. Their involvement was basically a practical rather than a theoretical one. In order to preach and convert, it was necessary to speak Chinese. A missionary on post needed to learn at least two languages, the national Guanhua, the "language of the officials" or "Mandarin," and the local vernacular. The first lexicographical work by missionaries was a Portuguese-Chinese dictionary compiled in the late 1500s by Francisco Varo (1627-1687), a Spanish Dominican based in the province of Fujian, was legendary for his superb mastery in Mandarin. His Vocabulario de la Lengua Mandarina, a Spanish-Chinese dictionary, is made available to modern readers in the present study, which is based on two manuscripts held in Berlin and London. Volume 1 contains the text of Varo's glossary, with English translations offered for all Spanish glosses and Chinese characters added for all Chinese forms. Volume 2 includes a pinyin index to all Chinese forms in the text and a selective index to the English translations of the Chinese glosses. The Vocabulario is mainly devoted to the spoken language, but includes literary forms as well. Varo was also sensitive to other matters of usage, e.g., questions of style, new expressions coined by the missionaries, specific expressions in Chinese and in European culture, Chinese customs and beliefs, and aspects of grammar. The Vocabulario is recommended for readers interested in Chinese linguistics, lexicography, Sino-Western cultural relations and the history of Christianity in China.

Recent Developments in Computational Finance

Computational finance is an interdisciplinary field which joins financial mathematics, stochastics, numerics and scientific computing. Its task is to estimate as accurately and efficiently as possible the risks that financial instruments generate. This volume consists of a series of cutting-edge surveys of recent developments in the field written by leading international experts. These make the subject accessible to a wide readership in academia and financial businesses. The book consists of 13 chapters divided into 3 parts: foundations, algorithms and applications. Besides surveys of existing results, the book contains many new previously unpublished results.