About The Rosetta Knot Project

Why

They say that you can find anything on the Internet. The unspoken corollary is that you can find anything on the Internet if you know what it's called. Sure, you can try to describe what you are seeking, but you are much much better off if you actually know the name of the thing. A further vexation is that searching for jargon has a notoriously low signal to noise ratio. For example, a bend is a very particular class of knots with a very generic name that is a very common word in English. Throwing translation into other languages into the mix and it is a recipe for extreme frustration.

One of the main goals here is to provide the names of knots in Chinese (traditional and simplified), Japanese, Korean, and English so that you can find what the ever expanding Internet has to offer on those knots. Et le français? you might ask. While I do have a maedeup book in French, my resources are not unlimited and I cannot translate everything into every language. Having said that, if you want to help and can contribute the occasional term in Urdu, Vietnamese, Dene, or ..., that would be fabulous and I will happily collect them.

Who

I have been knotting for nigh unto 50 years and collected many books and other reference resources. Two of those books are the illustrated catalog (?) of the knots that comprise the Chinese knotting competency tests for The Taiwan Hand Knitting and Crafts Association (1st and 2nd editions).

In Mainland China, the Chinese knotting website zhongguojie.org has a modified test of their own.

In Japan, there is a Chinese knotting association with an entirely different test. There is also Traditional Japanese Knots association in addition to various Mizuhiki groups, but of their tests, if any, I have no idea.

In Korea, there is a Maedeup Research Institute which may or may not have tests.

What

As you might imagine, there is a great deal of overlap between these tests, because the basic (and intermediate) knots are the same. As a collector of (decorative) knots and knot tying methods, I wanted to synthesize a knot tying test concordance and study guide along with some of my own thoughts of how things might connect plus where a few other decorative knot traditions fit into a bigger picture.

This is the Rosetta Knot Project.

Where

Everyone learns differently and what might work for me might not work for you. The intention, then, is to create sets of step by step illustrated instructions, which will be published on chineseknotting.org. Video instructions will be published on YouTube. Guidance and recommended curricula will be here. If people are interested creating classes so that groups can move through the material as a cohort for support and discussion purposes, that would be here. Tangents and other random knot related stuff will be at Knotty Notions... or should I start a Discord or Patreon?