Help Translating Jade Stamp

[cpellp]

My Mom and I found this jade stamp in some boxes my Dad had been storing for a long time, and are wondering what the characters mean and/or what the stamp may have been used for. Can anyone provide any assistance with translating? Please let us know, we appreciate any help, please respond to thread and/or e-mail cpellp@bellsouth.net. THANKS so much.

[skylee]

The photo is upside down. And since it is a stamp, it would be much easier if you would just stamp it on a piece of paper and let us see the paper instead.

This is what I see -> if you flip the mirror verion of the picture upside down, then I see either "KUK" or "KJK" on top. It could be an abbreviation or the initials of a name. There are two characters below. The one on the left is "凱" (pronounced Kai) (the "山" on top left corner looks like an "E"). I am not sure about the charcter on the right. I guess it is the transliteration of a name.

[JimmySeal]

I believe the character on the right is 拉 (la).

Here is an auto-generated seal script rendering of 凱拉

[madizi]

It is written (if I'm not wrong) in 甲骨文 (jia gu wen) script which was used (again if I'm not wrong) before 2nd cetury BC. This script is often used for stamps that tourists buy (see my stamp in avatar:wink:).

The letters are KJK. Do you guess what they mean? Maybe initials of your fathers name? If this is so than it would be easier to dechiper characters.

[raoming]

it could not be 甲骨文.

may be it mean: 凯拉

oh，i see.it was come from an English name which translate to be 凯拉

[cpellp]

I tried to ink the stamp, the ink I have isn't very good, will try to get a better image using seal wax, but the image that Jimmy Seal generated does seem accurate, except one symbol does seem to be slanted a bit. Does everyone think then that the characters are a translation of the initials "KJK", which are the three initials (they aren't too clear in the attached inks stamp image).

THANKS for everyone's help. I do find the stamp entriging. Does anyone know how these stamps are used, or were used? Were they perhaps used to seal envelopes?

The "ink" rendering is attached.

[Lu]

As you may know, Chinese does not have an alphabet like European languages have, so no characters can be the rendering of initials. It's more likely that this is a transliteration of your father's name. And I suppose the initials are his initials?

Such seals, also known as chops, were (and still are sometimes) used the same way a signature is used in the West: at the bottom of documents or letters, to show who wrote (or painted) a certain thing, and let others know it was genuine. I have a similar chop for my bank account in Taiwan.

They also make nice exotic souvenirs: get a transliteration of your name in Chinese characters, and have it carved on a seal. My guess is that is how your father got this seal.

[skylee]

Jimmy, what programme is it that does the auto-generation thing?

[cpellp]

I would very much like to know what language this signature stamp uses.

Also, one last question, if everyone doesn't mind. If one did assume that the characters do translate the initials, as someone previously pointed out, it is probably not a direct translation for letters, one for one.

Would the translation be based on then?

• How the initials sound?
  
• Or how the name, said completely outloud, sounds?
  

OR:

perhaps a translation of what the name might mean? And if so, is there a meaning to these characters?

I am sorry to ask so many questions, I do find these few characters and this little stamp, intriging. My father was a very quiet person, didn't travel outside the US much, had very few friends. I suspect he acquired this stamp when he bought or purchased a lot of used cameras, which he was known to do.

[skylee]

The initials sound like "KJK".

The characters are pronounced "Kai La". "Kai" rhymes with "why".

The meaning of the two charcters -

凱 (left) -> http://cdict.giga.net.tw/?q=%B3%CD

拉 (right) -> http://cdict.giga.net.tw/?q=%A9%D4

The two characters are probably used for transliteration, i.e. to convey the pronunciation of a name.

[cpellp]

Thanks so much.

What language, specifically?

Language and/or dialect, if there is anything anyone knows for sure beside being Chinese characters.

THANKS for everyone's help.

[JimmySeal]

The Characters do not belong to any specific dialect, or even language. They could be from Chinese, Korean, or Japanese, but Chinese is the most likely.

@Skylee

I used this website:

http://www.is-hanko.co.jp/shachi/tensho_check.html

Just put up to 10 characters in the box and press the gray button and it will give you their seal script versions. But it doesn't work for characters outside the Japanese character set.

[imron]

Jimmy, what programme is it that does the auto-generation thing?

There are also seal-script fonts available, so you can do this yourself. See the last font on this page for example.

[cpellp]

So...it sounds as if these characters could be Chinese or Japanese, and there really isn't anyway to tell which, yes?

[skylee]

cpellp, is none of the info we provided related to your father in any ways?

a) the abbreviation / initials "KJK"

B) the pronunciation of the two Chinese characters "Kai La"

Probably because I am Chinese, I don't understand what it is that you don't understand ...

[cpellp]

Skylee,

My apologies if I appear thick headed. I just wanted to be confident about the information provided. I thought I understood that the characters may be Chinese or Japanese, hard to tell which. So, it is nice to know that they are definitely Chinese. I thought there were different character sets and/or languages etc. within Chinese (mandarin versus x - I don't know much, that is why I am confused).

I don't think there is much of a relationship between the information on the stamp and my father, I beleive he simply received the stamp as part of the contents of a box of used cameras (that is my best guess). He never did travel to China or Japan. In the Army he was stationed in different army bases in the United States, and only traveled outside the US to visit Canada, Germany, and Scandavia. He never traveled to the Orient. So, rather than him being the actual owner and/or selector of the stamp, I think he merely "inherited" it by chance from someone that previously owned it, either the original owner, or a 'transfer" owner. It's hard to trace items such as this.

BUT, it has been extremely helpful and wonderful to find out what the two characters mean (I would have thought there were four, but seems as if they are really only two unique characters in the stamp). Thanks everyone for their time and patience.

I do appreciate everyone's help. I am very unfamiliar with character based languages, outside the English alphabet. My apologies for taxing anyone's nerves!

[madizi]

No, you're not thick headed. It's just that you don't know anything about Chinese. Even we, who now something about this, have some problems with your question. Even skylee, who is from HK......

But yes, I was completely wrong about script. It is (small) Seal Script, not Jiaguwen.

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_script

[JimmySeal]

The characters are definitely Chinese in origin, as are all characters of this type, but what I mean is that there is a question of in the context of which language they are being used. For example, in Japanese, the characters 慈美 can be read as "ji mi," a rendering of my name, but in mandarin, they would be pronounced "ci mei," which makes less sense. In Chinese something more similar in pronunciation to "Jimmy" would typically be chosen.

But since both characters are fairly uncommon in Japanese (and the second one is quite common in Chinese), I am guessing that the seal is Chinese. It could be that KJK are the initials of the owner, and the characters are a phonetic approximation of their first or last name. It sounds to me like a girl's first name (Kyla, Kayla, etc.), but could possibly be something like Kyle.

Sometimes people make these items on the street as novelty gifts for tourists, and this might not be for any special purpose.