Translation of a short Chinese phrase

[Okaya]

Hello everyone,

Could someone provide some help with a short Chinese phrase I have found in an old private letter (otherwhise written in English)? The phrase can be seen here.

Any help would be most welcome in translating it. Forthermore, I would greatly appreciate it if someone typed these characters also, so I can look them up in an online chinese dictionary.

Many thanks,

Okaya

[YuehanHao]

I'd guess the characters are

大吉羊宜用

I have a feeling for the characters' meaning, but not the context so will leave to someone more knowledgeable.

约翰好

[skylee]

It's 大吉羊宜用.

大吉羊 = 大吉祥 ~ great luck/fortune.

A google search provides lots of references to an inscription on an ancient bronze. Take a look -> http://catalog.digitalarchives.tw/dacs5/System/Exhibition/Detail.jsp?OID=1819781

[jbradfor]

What does the "宜用" part mean? I'm with YuehanHao on this, I know the characters, but the meaning escapes me.

[skylee]

I think "宜用" means the container is good for use, as it will bring good luck.

[Okaya]

Thank you very much, this is most appreciated help!

Seeing the very interesting reference that skylee makes to this ancient bronze, would you say that the author of this old letter (which is in my possession) actually knew how to write in Chinese? Or would you think it more probable that he copied the image from somewhere, like a picture of the old bronze mentioned?

I see that the digital characters (which apparently capture the usual form of the character quite accurately) are quite different from the rather simplified form of the characters found on my letter. Would you consider it possible that a Chinese-knowing person would write these characters in such a form like the one found on my letter (seen here)?

On the other hand, I see that the bronze in question bears characters quite similar in style to the ones on the letter I have. So I suppose that it probably is a possible writing style for Chinese. The same similarity could be ascribed to the author copying it from a picture of this ancient bronze, though.

Any thoughts would be most appreciated. Thank you for the excellent help and feedback provided so far!

Okaya

[skylee]

Is there nothing in that private letter relevant to the Chinese characters?

Some webpages in the google results mention that the five characters also appear on teapots made much more recently.

[Okaya]

Thank you skylee, that's most interesting information. No, there is nothing in the letter which is at all relevant, unfortunately. It is a letter of a European who was then (in the 19th century) in India, written to a friend of his in London. The content contains quite unrelated discussion, and in the end of the letter this phrase of 5 characters is included, without any comment. Since I'm not at all sure that the author even knew how to write Chinese (although perhaps he had some contact with Chinese speakers in his travels -- who maybe taught him something of the language), I'm trying to see if it looks like he wrote this knowing what it was meant for, or simply copied it visually from somewhere.

For instance, after some searching, I find that this style of the characters is consistent with the so-called "Seal script" of Chinese, which was in use several centuries BCE. So I suppose that this means that the characters are not written in this script normally anymore, under almost any circumstances. I suppose they could be written occassionally in this script for decorative purposes however, as the reference to more recent teapots that you mention shows.

But I suppose that the close similarity with the Seal script probably hints at a visual reproduction of the characters by the author. Would you agree? Or is the script used even today in certain contexts?

Thank you for all your help. Sincerely,

Okaya