Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics Volume 4 ... · For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics Volume

For use by the Author only | © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV

Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics

Volume 4Shā–Z


General EditorRint Sybesma

(Leiden University)

Associate EditorsWolfgang Behr

(University of Zurich)Yueguo Gu

(Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)Zev Handel

(University of Washington)C.-T. James Huang

(Harvard University)James Myers

(National Chung Cheng University)


ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CHINESE LANGUAGE

AND LINGUISTICSVolume 4

Shā–Z

General EditorRint Sybesma

Associate EditorsWolfgang Behr

Yueguo Gu Zev Handel

C.-T. James Huang James Myers

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115 sinoform writing

Starostin, Sergei, Sino-Caucasian: Phonology and Glos-sary, Ms., http://starling.rinet.ru/, 2005.

Starostin, George, “Dene-Yeniseian and Dene- Caucasian: Pronouns and Other Thoughts”, Work-ing Papers in Athabaskan Languages 2009. Berkeley, California, July 10-12, 2009. Alaska Native Language Center: Working Papers 8, 2010, 107–117.

Trombetti, Alfredo, “Delle relazioni delle lingue Cau-casiche con le lingue Camitosemitiche e con altri gruppi linguistici” [On the relations of Caucasian languages with Hamito-Semitic languages and other language groups], Giornale della Società Asi-atica Italiana 15, 1902, 177–201.

Vajda, Edward J., “Yeniseian, Na-Dene, and Historical Linguistics”, in: James Kari and Ben A. Potter, eds., The Dene-Yeniseian Connection (Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, Vol. V), Fairbanks: University of Alaska, 2010, 100–118.

Vovin, Alexander, “Did the Xiong-nu Speak a Yeni-seian Language?”, Central Asiatic Journal 44/1, 2000, 87–104.

George Starostin

Sinoform Writing

The term Sinoform writing is used here with ref-erence to scripts used in reducing non-Chinese languages to writing, but developed on the basis of the Chinese script and predominantly mak-ing use of graphical elements pre-existing in the same. While not the only examples of their kind (for an overview including further cases not dis-cussed here, such as Sino-Miáo 苗 and Sino-Sui, or Shuǐshū 水書, see, e.g., Zhōu 1989 or Nishida 2001b), the four cases surveyed in the following in alphabetical order appear reasonably repre-sentative. Typologically the fĳirst two—Japanese and Korean—may resemble each other to some extent, yet they are of a quite diffferent order than the last two—Vietnamese and Zhuàng 壯.

1. J a p a n e s e

Since the 7th century at the latest, Chinese char-acters, or sinographs, were employed on a larger scale both as morphograms and phonograms (i.e., to render morphemes and sounds—here: syllables—respectively) to reduce Japanese to writing, the latter yielding the system known as man’yōgana 万葉仮名. Here, the sound values of phonograms were most commonly based on

some variety of Chinese or possibly on readings of Chinese characters imported from the Korean peninsula, but others deriving from Japanese translational equivalents are observed as well (e.g., nǚ 女 ‘woman’ used to represent /mye/, via Old Japanese mye ‘woman’; → Sino-Xenic Read-ings). This became the forerunner of the two syl-labaries hiragana and katakana, with hiragana’s syllabograms being based on cǎoshū 草書 or fur-ther cursivized forms of sinographs (e.g., め /me/ < Old Japanese /mye/ from the character 女) and katakana’s syllabograms resulting from simpli-fĳication through a combination of the deletion of strokes and cursivization where necessary to meet the needs of interlinear glossing of Chinese texts (e.g., イ /i/ from yī 伊 or ス /su/ from the cursivized right half of xū 須, via Early Middle Chinese *ʔji and *suə̆ [here and passim quoted from Pulleyblank 1991]).

Thus although syllabaries were formed through the graphical reduction of sinographs, it also happened throughout history that ‘national characters’—that is, sinographs made in Japan—were created, called kokuji 国字 in Japanese (or also wasei kanji 和製漢字 ‘Japan-created Chinese graphs’). In the absence of any need to create new phonograms, the great majority of these are phonosemantic (xíngshēng 形聲) or syssemantic (huìyì 會意) morphograms (→ Liù Shū 六書 [Six Scripts]). Rare exceptions to this are the following bigraphic ligatures with the structure ⿱ for use in proper names, which simply combine two phonograms: maro 麿 < 麻呂 /ma-ro/, kume 粂 < 久米 /ku-me/.

Of the ‘national-character’ morphograms, a great many pertain to the realms of flora and fauna, as in the examples below. The graphs in (1) in Table 1 are both syssemantic and paral-lel in structure: For sakaki, the sacred tree of Shintō, and shikimi, branches of which serve as offferings in Buddhism, the determiner 木 ‘tree’ is added to graphs metonymically representing the respective religion. The examples in (2)–(4) are all phonosemantic graphs, with the semantic element usually being chosen from the standard set of determiners in the Chinese script. The cases difffer in so far as the phonetic element variously derives from translational equivalents (2) or Sino-Japanese readings (3), or is expressed


sinoform writing 116

indirectly, here by an arithmetic pun (4). Note that partial phonetics (as in subashiri, asari) commonly occur besides full ones. As Japanese words are often disyllabic or longer, the absence of satisfactory candidates for phonetic elements arguably fostered the creation of syssemantic graphs.

As with some Korean characters incorporating hankul as non-Chinese elements (on which see below), there are also hybrid characters combin-ing sinographs and katakana, although these are of course ultimately Chinese in origin. While such cases were rare in actual usage apart from the formerly widespread ligature 决 (from ト /to/, here rendering quotative =to, and yū 云 ‘to say’), the idea was sometimes taken to extremes in the script reform movements during the Meiji period. A case in point is the ‘newly invented Jap-anese script’ of Tanaka Shūsui 田中秀穂 (1899), which consists of phonosemantic graphs formed from a set of determiners that are only in part already present in Chinese paired with a slightly altered katakana syllabary. Three of Tanaka’s (in the end unsuccessful) characters are given in Table 2. Note his use of 士 and 夂 instead of the usual シ /si/ and タ /ta/ respectively, and also that only a single stroke rather than the usual two ( ゛) is added to mark voiced obstruents.

On a side-note one might refer to inventions such as the Sinoform abugida (in the terminol-ogy of Daniels 1990) of Keichū 契沖 (1640–1701), as presented in his Waji shōran-shō 和字正濫鈔 (1695; I/13v–14r). Here, syllables ending in a (or, consonants with inherent following vowel /a/) are written by one Chinese character employed phonographically each (e.g., 安, 加, 左, etc. for /a, ka, sa, . . . /, all already attested as man’yōgana),

just as zero-initial syllables are (安, 以, 宇, 江, and 遠 for /a, i, u, (y)e, (w)o/). Reduced forms of the latter four (人, 于, 工, and 袁) are then used much like vowel diacritics to derive combina-tions representing the remaining syllable types, each squeezed into a single block, e.g., 蔕 /ki/, 蕋 /ku/, 薛 /se/, 藏 /so/, and so on.

2. K o r e a n

Before the creation of the Korean alphabet han-

kul in the mid-15th century, the only method employed to reduce Korean to writing was to use sinography. A number of overlapping systems are usually distinguished, all making use of mor-phographical and phonographical strategies to render Korean. Such use of the Chinese script to render so-called hyangka 鄕歌 ‘local songs’, i.e., early Korean language poetry, is referred to as hyangchal 鄕札 ‘local letters’. Here, the charac-ters are graphically unchanged, with a high per-centage being used morphographically, while phonograms are chiefly used to render deriva-tional and inflectional sufffĳixes or particles. The extant corpus of only little more than a score of poems still contains not a few uncertainties despite numerous attempts at decipherment. Uncontroversial however are phonograms to render coda consonants such as 隱 (EMC *ʔɨn’) /-n/, 音 (*ʔim) /-m/, 乙 (*ʔit) /-l/, etc., which we will return to below. The heavily sinicized prose of administrative and other documents is reduced to writing in a mode of inscription known as itwu 吏讀 ‘clerk readings’. Finally, a system was devised to gloss Chinese texts and transpose them into Korean. While the Chinese original is left intact and can thus be read just

Table 1. Examples of kokuji morphograms

graph used to write graph used to write

1. 榊 sakaki ‘Cleyera japonica’ 神 kami ‘Shintō deity’ 梻 shikimi ‘Illicium anisatum’ 佛 hotoke ‘Buddha’2. 褄 tsuma ‘skirt, hem’ 妻 tsuma ‘wife’ 鯐 subashiri ‘young Mugil cephalus’ 走 -bashiri < hashir- ‘to run’3. 鳰 nio (< nipo) ‘grebe’ 入 Sino-Japanese nyū < nipu

鯏 asari ‘Ruditapes philippinarum’ 利 Sino-Japanese ri

4. 杤 (栃) tochi ‘Aesculus turbinata’ 万 ‘10,000’ = to (tō) chi ‘1,000’

Sven

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font issue -- read instead of the four characters here: <⿱加人>, <⿱加于>, <⿱左工>, <⿱左袁>

Sven

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unwanted line break

Sven

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supposed to read: '10,000' = to (tō) '10' × chi '1,000'

Sven

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font issue -- read instead: <⿰ | 云>



like any other Chinese text by simply ignor-ing all glosses, the logical or grammatical rela-tionship between certain units—the spectrum ranges from entire phrases to single words—is explicated by means of Korean case particles and inflected verbalizers (chiefly ho- ‘to do’, =i- ‘to be’), written in what is called kwukyel 口訣, or tho 吐. While printed works usually inserted them in smaller typeface in between phrases, thereby serving to clearly demarcate them, tho were commonly written interlinearly in man-uscripts. As with the functionally equivalent katakana in Japan, this led to the development of a simplifĳied variant better suited for annota-tions in smaller script (see Table 3).

Morphograms, such as 爲 (為 > 丷) for ho- [> ha-] ‘to do’ in these examples, are clearly outnumbered by phonograms here in terms of types. As the number of morphemes expressed is limited however, some of the latter could in efffect also be treated as morphograms. For instance, 厓 /oy/ conventionally renders the locative particle =oy and 果 /kwa/ likewise =kwa ‘and’.

Parallel to kokuji, there are also sinographs newly created in Korea. These are similarly known as kwukca 國字, or also as (Hankwuk) koyu hanqca (韓國)固有漢字 ‘(Korean) native Chinese graphs’. The older literature generally assumed a total of only about 200 characters

(see, e.g., Sasse 1980; Ha 1999), but owing to the massive effforts towards the digitization of pre-modern texts during the last two decades signifĳi-cantly higher numbers have now come to light. See, e.g., Sin (2005), who already assumes a total of about 2,000 characters, a large proportion of which being used in personal names.

In contrast to kokuji, many kwukca are phono-grams, chiefly used to spell personal and place names, especially in texts otherwise written entirely in Chinese. While Japanese and Korean may be typologically rather similar, the syllable structure of the latter has been more complex throughout attested history, thereby rendering an open syllable-based system like man’yōgana problematic.

The newly created kwukca phonograms usu-ally represent a single closed syllable /C(S)V(S)C/ (often one not or only rarely found in Sino-Korean) in a ⿱ structure, with the top rendering /C(S)V(S)-/ and the bottom for the fĳinal /-C/, similar to (but, in view of the general difffĳiculties in dating the creation of a given kwukca, not nec-essarily inspired by) hankul blocks. The sound value of the elements combined are mostly derived from Sino-Korean, though there are a few exceptions with the Korean translational equivalents intended in the top element (cf. 1b and 5b in Table 4). Now the bottom element interestingly takes up the traditions of early

Table 2. Graphs from Tanaka Shūsui’s ‘newly invented Japanese script’

graph used to write determiner phonetics

1. suki ‘spade’ ‘tools and machines’ (left) ス /su/, キ /ki/

2. sima ‘island’ ‘natural features’ (top) 士 /si/, マ /ma/

3. eda ‘branch’ ‘parts of plants’ (top) エ /e/, 夂` /da/

Table 3. Examples of kwukyel in full and abbreviated form

written out abbreviated reading and gloss

爲面 ho.myen ‘if . . . does’爲那 ho.na ‘does . . . but’爲示旀 ho.si.mye ‘does (honorifĳic) and’



phonography as described above for hyangchal, so that the coda consonants are likewise written here 乙 /-l/ and so on, as in the following selec-tion of graphs (see Sin 2005:162–164, 167–170 for a more balanced selection). Note that 卩 is a further reduction of 阝 < 隱 here, and that it is also found in abbreviated kwukyel, for instance to write the topic marker =un.

For a top element not acting as a phonogram in its Sino-Korean sound value, consider for instance 乭 /twol/. The top element 石, which writes the word ‘stone’ in Chinese, would in isolation be read as Sino-Korean syek [> sek], so 乙 /-l/ is added to trigger a reading based on the translational equivalent twol ‘stone’ instead.

In addition to the characters involving 叱 listed above (5), there is also a small number in which 叱 serves to render part of an initial consonant cluster. Thus we fĳind 㘒 to select the reading /ssi/, based on Korean [psi >] ssi ‘seed’, instead of Sino-Korean cywong [> cong] for 種 ‘seed’ alone. Only Sino-Korean sound values are involved in 哛 /spwun/ for the particle =spwun [> =ppun] ‘only’ and 㖰 /stwong/ for stwong [> ttong] ‘dung’, both of which are also attested with the two elements inverted, i.e., as 兺 and 㖯 respectively—probably by virtue of analogy to the more common cases with coda /-s/.

As before, some of these characters exhibit conventionalized employment for specifĳic mor-phemes in itwu and kwukyel contexts and have thus become quasi-morphographic. Besides the already mentioned 哛 ~ 兺 /spwun/, this also

applies to 廤 /kwos/ for instance, which is used for kwos ‘place’. Graphs like hon 爳 (or also 兯) for ho.n ‘did (adnominal)’ on the other hand were likely morphographic from the beginning (from 爲 > 丷 ‘to do’ plus reduced form of 隱 /-n/).

Phonograms incorporating hankul letters at the bottom to render coda consonants are much fewer in number and typically involve syllable types found neither in Sino-Korean for single characters (e.g., twuk or yam) nor among the purely Sinoform phonograms treated above. They include the following, all with top elements in their Sino-Korean sound value:

Table 5. Kwukca phonograms incorporating hankul letters

letter graphs

-k ㄱ cyak 䎞, ek 㫇, kak 㔖, kek 巪, noyk <⿱内ㄱ>, twuk 㪲, twuk <⿱豆ㄱ>

-l ㄹ kal 㠰 [cf. homophonous 乫]-m ㅁ nwom 㖈, yam 㖱-n ㄴ twun 䜳-ng ㅇ eng 㫈, kang 㔔, twung 㪳

The number of newly created morphograms beyond those used in names (on which see Sin 2005) was limited, and they are almost alto-gether obsolete nowadays. Structurally they are usually either phonosemantic, again making use of usual set of determiners used in sinography proper, or less often syssemantic. An example

Table 4. Selection of kwukca phonograms

coda graphs

1. -l 乙 a. chol 乲, cwol 㐍, cwul 乼, cyal 乽, el 乻, hal 乤, kal 乫, kal 㐓, kel 乬, kel 㐦, kil 㐞, kwol 㐔, kwol 㐣, kwul 㐇, kwul 㐝, etc.

b. kul 㐎 (kul ‘writing’), psol 㐘 (psol [> ssal] ‘rice’), ptul 㐢 (ptul- [> ttul-] ‘to float’), spul <⿱角乙> (spul [> ppul] ‘horn’), swol <⿱松乙> (swol [> sol] ‘pine’), tul <⿱坪乙> (tul(u)h [> tul] ‘fĳield’), twol 乭 (twol(h) [> tol] ‘stone’)

2. -m 音 kam 䪪3. -n 隱 > 卩 syan 厁, hon 爳4. -p 邑 > 巴 sap 䣉, kwop 䯩, kwop <⿱古巴>5. -s 叱 a. cwus 㗟, cyas 㗯, es 旕, kas 㖙, kes 唟, kwos 廤, kwos 㖛, kwus 㖌, phas 巼, phwos

喸, etc. b. kwos 蒊 (kwoc(h) [= kwos through coda neutralization] > kkoch ‘flower’)



for the latter is the still common character tap 畓 ‘paddy fĳield’ (as in tapcwu 畓主 ‘owner of a fĳield’ for instance), formed by squeezing syu-

tyen [> swucen] 水田 ‘ditto’ into a single square; its quasi-Sino-Korean reading appears to derive from the similar graph tap 沓.

The sound value of the phonetic element in phonosemantic characters usually derives from its Sino-Korean reading, as in 䆆 for cwo [> co] ‘millet’, which combines 喿, Sino-Korean cwo [> co], with the determiner 禾 ‘grain’. The read-ing of 䲈 ‘Japanese Spanish mackerel’ (Korean samchi) on the other hand is nowadays given as ma based on the Sino-Korean reading ma of its phonetic má 麻 ‘hemp’, but the latter was undoubtedly originally chosen for its Korean equivalent sam ‘ditto’ to render samchi (fĳinal -chi is common to various names of fĳish). Lastly noteworthy for their recursiveness among the phonosemantic graphs are cases such as for cwul ‘fĳile’, as the phonetic element 乼 is itself already formed just as the kwukca phonograms treated above.

For further discussion and numerous attesta-tions of all types of kwukca see, e.g., Sasse (1980) and especially Kim (1992), Ha (1999), and Sin (2005).

3. V i e t n a m e s e

Next, we will consider the Chinese-based scripts used to write Vietnamese and Zhuàng, both tonal languages featuring monosyllabic morphemes to a considerable extent. The newly created Sino-form graphs in both scripts most characteris-tically combine two preexisting and often by themselves already rather complex graphs into a single one and they constitute a large and inte-gral part of the writing systems in their entirety, unlike kokuji or kwukca.

The Vietnamese script was primarily in use before, yet to some extent also after, the Roman alphabet was adopted as the default script (quốc

ngữ 國語). It is known as chữ nôm 𡨸喃 ‘vernac-ular script’ (or, as others would have it, ‘Southern [i.e., Vietnamese] script’), as opposed to Chinese writing as such, which is referred to as chữ nho 𡨸儒 ‘scholarly script’. The term chữ nôm also covers the use of unaltered sinographs (type

I) that can be used either morphographically (Ia), be it for Sino-Vietnamese (SV) or native morphemes, or phonographically (Ib). Most characteristic are however the countless newly created characters (type II), which either com-bine two sinographs or less often a pre-existing chữ nôm character and a sinograph into a single square, usually arranged as ⿰ or ⿱. The graphs combined can be written out in full or appear in an abbreviated form, with the latter rang-ing from abbreviations already common in the Chinese script, including also the conventional-ized reductions for determiners such as 扌 for 手 ‘hand’, to unprecedented ones. Functionally speaking, one element is usually phonetic, while the second is mostly semantic (abbreviated as “ps” below). However, it is also possible to have two phonetic (“2p”) or two semantic elements (“2s”). Besides these basic types further patterns can be found, some of which will be addressed below. (Cf. e.g., Nguyễn 1992 for several pro-posed classifĳication schemes, and Tomita 1979 for the distribution of the diffferent graph types in a given corpus. A relatively comprehensive dictionary also suggesting a derivation for each chữ nôm graph is Takeuchi 1988.)

To take the basic numerals as an example for the most common types: Only ‘1’ is written by a type Ib phonogram, which can option-ally be abbreviated. The chữ nôm graphs for all other numerals are phonosemantic compounds belonging to type II/ps. The phonetic element is often written out in full, as in ‘3’ to ‘6’, and ‘8’, at times however it is abbreviated, be it by leaving out entire elements, as in ‘2’, ‘7’, and ‘9’, or by simplifĳied character forms already present in Chinese, as in ‘10’. (In ‘6’ l- renders the sec-ond half of an original consonant cluster *Cr-, which only later developed into s-. Cf. Table 6 for explicit renderings of such clusters.)

Note that these are by far not the only possible characters to write the Vietnamese numerals, so that for instance bảy ‘7’ can also be writ-ten purely phonographically as 罷, optionally reduced to 罢 (with 去 reflecting the stacked 匕, cf. 䏻 for 能), or with semantic element added as

or . Further abbreviation of the phonetic element leads to . Such variation or even greater one is easily found elsewhere in chữ nôm,



leading to a correspondence of many graphs to a single morpheme.

In a subtype of II/ps there is no true deter-miner referring to any semantic category, but rather merely an indicator of the phonographic function of what is otherwise a simple type Ib phonogram. This may take a く–like shape added to the right hand side, but can also be 口 ‘mouth’ as is already common in transcriptional sinographs as used in China.

Syssemantic combinations (type II/2s) can be seen in giêng ‘fĳirst month’ or trời ‘heaven’ for instance. The former is modeled after zhèngyuè 正月, while appears to fol-low tiānshàng 天上. In view of other graphs of what is sometimes termed the intrasyntactic type such as trùm ‘chieftain’ however—with 上 ‘upper’ at the bottom modifying 人 ‘person’ on top—it might as well derive from shàngtiān 上天. In other words, the head-modifĳier order of Vietnamese syntax is visualized here in vertical writing order.

Recursive use of type II/2s graphs is seen in <⿰(⿱不幸)磊> for instance, one of the possible characters for rủi ‘unlucky’, involving a sysse-mantic combination (cf. bùxìng 不幸 ‘unfortu-nate’) plus phonetic 磊 (SV lỗi). Trời on the other hand is also itself employed as phonetic element in (type 2b/A) to render lời ‘word’, a near-homophone of trời ‘heaven’—at least at the time the new character was created. Direct evi-dence for this comes from Alexandre de Rhodes’ Dictionarivm Annnamiticvm [sic] Lvsitanvm, et

Latinvm (Rome 1651), in which the two words are recorded as blời and mlời respectively (pp.

45, 470).The only initial consonant cluster left in de

Rhodes’ times besides bl- and ml- (~ mnh-) was tl-, which however was already merging with tr- (de Rhodes 1651:6). These lead us to chữ nôm graphs consisting of two phonetic elements (i.e., type II/2p). Some such cases were still transpar-ent in the 17th century, as for instance (from 巴 and 賴: SV ba and lại) used for trai ‘boy’ or likewise (陵: SV lăng) for trăng ‘moon’. These may seem puzzling today, in de Rhodes’ time however the respective forms were blai and blăng (de Rhodes 1651:38, 40). Both graphs were thus obviously conceived as phonograms for syl-lables with initial consonant clusters.

Other clusters implied by such chữ nôm graphs were already gone or at least had under-gone signifĳicant changes by the 17th century. Nevertheless, they are observed in related Vietic languages such as Ruc (quoted here from the MKED) and are reconstructed for proto-Vietic. Thus (from 巨 and侖: SV cự and lôn ~ luân), used for tròn ‘round’ and given as tlon by de Rhodes (1651:812), implies an original cluster such as *kl-, which is indeed found in Ruc klɔ̀ːn for instance. A similar case is (稟: SV lẫm) for sấm ‘thunder’ (de Rhodes 1651:673; sắm), sug-gesting initial *kr- as in Ruc kr�̂ː m at the time the character was created.

Formed on entirely diffferent principles than all of the above and only sporadically observed are chữ nôm graphs such as to write đĩ ‘cour-tesan’ for instance, created through the diacritic addition of a single stroke to the pre-existing sinograph 女 ‘woman’.

Table 6. Chữ nôm graphs for the basic numerals

numeral graph phonetic element SV reading

một ‘1’ 沒 (> ) (entire graph) mộthai ‘2’ 咍 haiba ‘3’ 巴 babốn ‘4’ 本 bổnnăm ‘5’ �� 南 namsáu ‘6’ 老 lãobảy ‘7’ <⿱⺲(⿰䏍七)> 罷 bãitám ‘8’ 參 tamchín ‘9’ ~ 診 chẩnmười ‘10’ 迈 (= 邁) mại

Sven

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supposed to read: 𠄼 (i.e. <⿰南五>)



4. Z h u à n g

The Zhuàng square script (or also Old Zhuàng script as opposed to the current Roman-based script), used to write Zhuàng, a Tai-Kadai lan-guage primarily spoken in Guǎngxī, can be traced back to Táng times—and might there-fore even have served as the model for chữ

nôm (Nishida 2001a:606, 785). The relationship between the two scripts and the age of the Zhuàng script as such are challenging issues, however; see now Holm (2013:763–769, 784–795) for discussion. Despite the existence of lexical resources such as Gǔ Zhuàngzì zìdiǎn 古壮字字典 [Dictionary of the Old Zhuàng script] (Sū 1989, called GZZ below), the exact number of Zhuàng characters is uncertain, mainly because the script has not been standardized—and it is these circumstances that are believed to have led to its designation saw-ndip ‘raw script’ (writ-ten <⿰書史, ⿰立生> and in various other ways; cf. GZZ 451, 359). Also, no uniformity in usage is observed in diffferent regions reflecting distinct dialects of Zhuàng, a situation that can already be ascertained via the relevant bilingual glossaries of the Huáyí yìyǔ 華夷譯語-type dat-ing from the 18th century (Nishida 2001a:607f.). The romanizations below follow the Wǔmíng 武鳴 standard.

Seen in its entirety the Zhuàng script also comprises unaltered sinographs (type I), which can either be used as morphograms—be it for Chinese loans or native morphemes—(Ia) or pure phonograms (Ib), but as with chữ nôm it is newly created characters (type II) that are char-acteristic of the script. In fact, the two scripts exhibit fundamental structural parallels: Most unique Zhuàng characters consist of two ele-ments combined into a single ⿰ or ⿱ block, which are either parts of or more often entire pre-existing Chinese characters. On a functional level, we see further parallels: one of the ele-ments combined can be phonetic, while the second is mostly semantic (“ps”), but again, it is also possible to have two phonetic (“2p”) or two semantic elements (“2s”).

Type Ia—by far the most common type in running text (cf. Holm 2008:423)—can be illus-trated by 一 for ndeu ‘one’. The same word is also written 了 or 尞 for instance, just as song ‘two’ is rendered by 松 (all type Ib). Abbreviation of elements may take place, so that siet ‘snow’ for instance is written morphographically as 雪 but likewise as 彐. As in chữ nôm, the phonographic nature of type Ib characters can be indicated by means of a diacritical mark, written ϟ here, leading again to a subtype of II/ps. Thus, for instance <⿰丁ϟ > for dengj ‘to hit’ or <⿰开ϟ > for gaiz ‘shoe’ (with 开 < 開). The same applies to cases involving the marker for phonograms 口 ‘mouth’, such as 吶 noix ‘few’. Likewise, aen ‘pieces of (counter)’ may be written by the pure phonograms 安 and 恩 (optionally abbreviated to 因), to which 口 can be added to yield 咹 and 嗯. A number of newly created Zhuàng graphs are also secondarily used to write semantically unrelated (near-)homophones, in which case they themselves are reduced to simple phonograms. Thus syssemantic <⿱天下> for laj ‘below, under’ (type II/2s) is also used to render laj ‘still’.

Most common among the newly created Zhuàng graphs are however those of type II/ps proper, combining a phonetic with a seman-tic element, for instance <⿱少内> ~ <⿰内少> ~ <⿱内少> and <⿰个恩> for the same mor-phemes noix and aen respectively. Abbreviated phonetics occur as well, as in 腅 for damj ‘gall’, with 炎 as a likely reduction of 談 (also used to write damz ‘to talk’). Usually, the sound values of the phonetics derive from Chinese, as here, but occasionally they are also based on Zhuàng translational equivalents. Thus, wǔ 五 is pho-netic in <⿰足五> for ha ‘leg’ via Wǔmíng haj ‘fĳive’. In cases like <⿰歪 to render mbieng ‘askew’ is it fĳinally Zhuàng characters that serve as phonetic elements, namely here for mbiengj ‘side; one half’.

The examples so far already exhibit consider-able variation, yet they pale in comparison to cases like the following, the—still incomplete—set of close to twenty graphs that write the same word feiz ‘fĳire’ (cf. GZZ 157) (see Table 7).

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missing corresponding ">": <⿰歪𠁣>



Table 7. Selection of graphs for Wǔmíng feiz ‘fĳire’ and cognates

Zhuàng graphs

phonetic elements

1b II/ps <⿱非火>, <⿰火非> fēi 非 <⿰火飞> fēi 飛 <⿰火未> wèi 未 <⿰火為> wéi 爲 <⿰火市> fèi 肺 (> 市)肥 <⿱肥火>, <⿰火肥>,

<⿰火巴>féi 肥 (> 巴)

費 <⿰火費>, <⿰火弗>, <⿱弗火>

fèi 費 (> 弗)

微 <⿱微火>, <⿰火微> wēi 微

The following selection of Zhuàng characters to write Wǔmíng raemx ‘water’ and related forms—two of which incidentally coincide with the sinographs niàn 淰 and lín 淋—is likely the result of regional variation (cf. now also Holm 2013:645–654, who also suggests that 心 in is not phonetic after all). This is suggested by the correspondences between the initials implied by the phonetic elements and the initials in the word for ‘water’ in diffferent dialects (the latter being taken from Zhāng Jūnrú et al. 1999:596 [#12]; EMC = Early Middle Chinese).

Table 8. Graphs for ‘water’ reflecting diffferent Zhuàng dialects

graph phonetic element dialect forms

淰 niàn 念, EMC *nɛmh [nam4], [nam3]淋 lín 林, EMC *lim [lam4], [ram4],

[ɣam4]xīn 心, EMC *sim [ðam4], [Ɵam4]

Remarkable are double phonetics (type II/2p), which are however quite unlike the chữ nôm ones discussed above. For one, it is possible to have two phonetics elements with (near-)identical sound values. Thus fangz ‘ghost’ can be written as ambiphonetic <⿰房方>, with both fáng 房 and fāng 方 indicating the same sound value apart from tonal diffferences. Sec-ond, some Zhuàng graphs are claimed to follow

the → fǎnqiè principle, with one element indi-cating the initial, the other the fĳinal (cf. Zhāng Yuánshēng 1984:506f., also Bauer 2000:243f.). The proposed cases are inconclusive however, as either both alleged phonetics share the same or at least near-identical initial or otherwise are unproblematic fĳits for dialectal forms. For instance <⿱竹失>—with shī 失, indicating the reading saet [Ɵat7] in several graphs (cf. GZZ 443), as phonetic—was probably not originally intended to render Wǔmíng raet [ɣat7] ‘mush-room’, but rather a form like [ðat7], as it is found among the cognates given by Zhāng Jūnrú et al. (1999:632 [#253]).

If both elements are semantic (type II/2s) several logical relationships can be observed. First, in a parallel to type II/2p characters with (near-)identical phonetics, a number of charac-ters combines two (near-)synonyms, as in <⿰光亮> for rongh ‘bright’. More often, however, one of the two modifĳies the other, as in to write fanz ‘common person’ (cf. fánrén 凡人). An interesting sub-category of this type are charac-ters involving the negation marker 不 in the top slot, such as for daemq ‘short (not tall)’ or 孬 for rwix ‘inferior (not good)’ (cf. e.g., wāi 歪 ‘crooked’ in Chinese).

Finally, a number of Zhuàng characters follow quite diffferent principles of formation that are only sporadically attested. Above for mbiengj ‘side; one half’ was already referred to, which obviously derives from the left side of mén 門 ‘gate’. Similar graphical operations are at work when the fĳinal two strokes are left out in yǒu 有 ‘to exist’ to yield 冇 for mbouj ‘not (exist)’ (also used to write ndwi ‘empty’)—a graph that is likewise used in writing Cantonese, as noted by Bauer (2000:241). Another negation, meiz ‘not’, is similarly written by leaving out the three fĳinal horizontal strokes in méi 眉, which itself was obviously chosen for its sound value. While in chữ nôm is used to write đĩ ‘courtesan’, it renders ced ‘female genitals’ in Zhuàng usage—unsurprisingly a dot added to nán 男 ‘male’ thus yields the character for Wǔmíng vaez ‘male genitals’.

Though ultimately very few in number, some Zhuàng graphs contain or even entirely consist of non-Chinese elements. Thus, (1) and (2) in

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for erroneous "Ɵ" read "θ"

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again, for erroneous "Ɵ" read "θ"



Table 9 clearly betray their pictographic origin, imitating a (person with a) cane and a butterfly respectively. Now, all indicative graphs in (3) are used for action verbs. They are based on a ‘3’-like shape, which might depict a person, with dots or strokes added to indicate the body part involved in the respective action or also relevant portions of the person’s environment. Lastly, (4) illustrates the use of a similarly created graph as phonetic for near-homophonous morphemes.

graph reading and meaning

1. dwngx ‘cane’

2. mbaj ‘butterfly’

3. aemq ‘to carry on one’s back’

naengh ‘to sit’

ndwn ‘to stand up’

ngaem ‘to lower one’s head; to look down’umj ‘to hold in one’s arms’

4. cah ‘bamboo broom’

cax ‘ugly’

caz ‘crude’

5 . C l o s i n g R e m a r k s

Besides the various graphs discussed in the four cases above countless others exist, not a few of which defy explanation as to the principles underlying their formation, at least at fĳirst glance. Accordingly new categories may become neces-sary as our understanding of Sinoform scripts deepens. Left unaddressed in the above is also the problem as to where to draw the dividing line between sinographs proper and Sinoform creations. For instance it is not too uncommon that a newly created graph happens to be identi-cal with a pre-existing one in sinography proper

or in one of the other Sinoform scripts. The Zhuàng graphs 淰 or 淋 for ‘water’ are cases in point, but also compare the phonosemantic chữ

nôm graph đèn 畑 ‘lamp, lantern’ with its sysse-mantic kokuji counterpart 畑 for hatake ‘fĳield’ for instance—as in comparative linguistics, chance resemblances as is here obviously the case need eventually be sorted out and separated from actual loangraphs.

B i b l i o g r a p h y

Bauer, Robert S., “The Chinese-based Writing System of the Zhuang Language”, Cahiers de linguistique—Asie orientale 29/2, 2000, 223–253.

Daniels, Peter T., “Fundamentals of Grammatology”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 110/4, 1990, 727–731.

Ha Yengsam 河永三, “Hankwuk koyu hanqca-uy pikyocek yenkwu 韓國固有漢字의比較的硏究” [A comparative study of sinographs native to Korea], Cwungkwuke munhak 中國語文學 33, 1999, 185–224.

Holm, David, “The Old Zhuang Script”, in: Anthony V.N. Diller, Jerold A. Edmondson and Yongxian Luo, eds., The Tai-Kadai Languages, London: Rout-ledge, 2008, 415–428.

Holm, David, Mapping the Old Zhuang Character Script: A Vernacular Writing System from Southern China, Leiden: Brill, 2013.

Kim Conghwun 金鍾塤, Hankwuk koyu hanqca yen-kwu 韓國固有漢字硏究 [Studies in sinographs native to Korea], Sewul: Cipmuntang 集文堂, 1992.

MKED = Mon-Khmer Etymological Dictionary, avail-able at: http://sealang.net/monkhmer/dictionary/ (last accessed August 29, 2015).

Nguyễn Đình Hoà, “Graphemic Borrowings from Chi-nese: The Case of Chữ Nôm—Vietnam’s Demotic Script”, Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philol-ogy, Academia Sinica 61/2, 1992, 383–432.

Nishida Tatsuo 西田龍雄, “Chuwan moji 壮文字” [The Zhuàng script], in: Kōno Rokurō 河野六郎, Chino Eiichi 千野栄一 and Nishida Tatsuo 西田龍雄, eds., Sekai moji jiten 世界文字辞典 [Encyclope-dia of the world’s writing systems], Tokyo: Sanseidō 三省堂, 2001a, 605–609.

Nishida Tatsuo 西田龍雄, “Higashi Ajia-no shomoji 東アジアの諸文字” [The writing systems of East Asia], in: Kōno Rokurō 河野六郎, Chino Eiichi 千野栄一 and Nishida Tatsuo 西田龍雄, eds., Sekai moji jiten 世界文字辞典 [Encyclopedia of the world’s writing systems], Tokyo: Sanseidō 三省堂, 2001b, 782–799.

Pulleyblank, Edwin G., Lexicon of Reconstructed Pro-nunciation in Early Middle Chinese, Late Middle Chi-nese, and Early Mandarin, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1991.


sino-islamic linguistics 124

Sasse, Werner, “ ‘Chinesische’ Zeichen erfunden in Korea” [“Chinese” characters invented in Korea], Asiatische Studien / Études asiatiques 34/2, 1980, 189–205.

Sin Sanghyen 申相賢, “Hankwuk koyu hanqca cosa yenkwu: inmyengyong koyu hanqca-lul cwungsim-ulo 韓國固有漢字조사연구——人名用固有漢字를 중심으로” [A survey of sinographs native to Korea: Focusing on graphs used in personal names], Mincok munhwa yenkwu 民族文化硏究 43, 2005, 155–202.

Sū Yǒngqín 苏永勤, Sawndip sawdenj / Gǔ Zhuàngzì zìdiǎn 古壮字字典 [Dictionary of the Old Zhuàng script], Nánníng 南宁: Guǎngxī mínzú 广西民族出版社, 1989.

Takeuchi Yonosuke 竹内与之助, Tự Điển Chữ Nôm / Chūnomu jiten 字喃字典 [Dictionary of chữ nôm characters], Tokyo: Daigaku shorin 大学書林, 1988.

Tanaka Shūsui 田中秀穂, Shinshiki hatsumei Nihonji 新式発明日本字 [Newly invented Japanese script], Tokyo: Nihon kyōikusha 日本教育社, 1899.

Tomita Kenji 冨田健次, “Betonamu-no minzoku zokuji ‘Chūnomu’-no kōzō-to sono engen ベトナムの民族俗字「字喃」の構造とその淵源” [The structure and origin of chữ nôm, the demotic script of Vietnam], Tōnan Ajia kenkyū 東南アジア研究 17/1, 1979, 85–98.

Zhāng Jūnrú 张均如, Liáng Mǐn 梁敏, Ōuyáng Juéyà 欧阳觉亚, Zhèng Yíqīng 郑贻青, Lǐ Xùliàn 李旭练 and Xiè Jiànyóu 谢建猷, Zhuàngyǔ fāngyán yánjiū 壮语方言研究 [A study of Zhuàng dialects], Chéngdū 成都: Sìchuān mínzú 四川民族出版社, 1999.

Zhāng Yuánshēng 张元生, “Zhuàngzú rénmín de wénhuà yíchǎn: Fāngkuài Zhuàngzì 壮族人民的文化遗产：方块壮字” [The cultural legacy of the Zhuàng people: The Zhuàng square script], in: Zhōngguó mínzú gǔwénzì yánjiūhuì 中国民族古文字研究会 [Studies in the ancient scripts of Chi-na’s minority peoples committee], ed., Zhōngguó mínzú gǔwénzì yánjiū 中国民族古文字研究 [Stud-ies in the ancient scripts of China’s minority peo-ples], Běijīng 北京: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué 中国社会科学出版社, 1984, 455–521.

Zhōu Yǒuguāng 周有光, “Hànzì wénhuàquān de wénzì yǎnbiàn 汉字文化圈的文字演变” [Script developments in the sinographic cultural sphere], Mínzú yǔwén 民族语文 1, 1989, 37–55.

Sven Osterkamp

Sino-Islamic Linguistics

Sino-Islamic linguistics comprises the study of the spoken and written traditions of the Chi-nese-speaking Muslims Huí 回 (Huízú 回族,

Huíhuí mínzú 回回民族). Islam and Arabic were

introduced into China by land in the northwest and by sea in the southeast beginning from the Táng Dynasty (618–907). Under the Yuán (1271–1368), many people from the countries subjugated by the Mongols were involuntarily or voluntarily brought into the territory of China and occupied there various military and admin-istrative positions. In the offfĳicial hierarchy of the Yuán dynasty, Muslims came second after the Mongols, and within many Muslim com-munities in China, Persian was an important language. During the Míng Dynasty (1368–1644), some Muslims became native speakers of Chi-nese (Hán 2005:12–13).

The origin and the meaning of the Huí eth-nonym are obscure. The name Huígǔ 回鵠 was used during the Táng to refer to the Uyghurs. The Huíhuí word is known to be fĳirst mentioned in the written sources of the Northern Sòng (960–1127), when it served as a common name for several ethnic groups of northwestern China irrespective of their origin and faith. Beginning from the Yuán, the term was on the contrary specifĳically associated with Islam and Muslims of various ancestry and languages (Hú Zhènhuá 1989; Jīn Xiàojìng 1989; Hú Yúnshēng 2005). In the People’s Republic of China today, various groups of Chinese-speaking Muslims are scat-tered all over the country. They are offfĳicially recognized as the Huí nationality numbering 9.8 million (Zhōngguó 2002). The ethnonym, how-ever, remains in use for several small Muslim communities speaking non-Chinese languages, such as the Huíhuī rén 回輝人 of Hǎinán, whose tonal language belongs to the Austronesian fam-ily; see, for example, Ní (1988).

The Chinese-speaking Muslims use as their native language the same dialects as the local Chinese population. An exception, which is known to us at present, is Xīnjiāng, where groups from several regions of northwestern China were settled after the Qīng government had gained control over the region in the second half of the 18th century. As a result, the Huí and Chi-nese speak here a number of closely related but distinct dialects (Liú Zhòngshēng 1958). In Xīnjiāng, a previously unknown ethnonym, ‘Dungan’ (Dōnggān 東干, Dōnggānrén 東干人), was applied by the local population to the Huí

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