the sino-jurchen v cabu ary of the bureau of in erpreters

380 Pages·2017·47.24 MB·English

THE SINO-JURCHEN V CABU ARY
OF THE
BUREAU OF IN ERPRETERS
D. A. Kane
Thesis submitted for the Degree
of Doctor of Philosophy in the
Australian National University.
Submitted October 1975 .
This thesis is the result of
original research carried
out by myself.
D. A. Kane.
ABSTRACT
There were, during the Ming dynasty , two institutions
which were concerned with the study of foreign languages - the
Bureau of Translators and the Bureau of Interpreters. Manuscript
copies of the vocabularies used in these institutions have survived,
and have been studied and edited by modern scholars.
The Jurchen vocabularies of both the Bureau of Translators
and the Bureau of Interpreters have survived. The former was edited
and published in 1896 by W. Grube; the latter was published (without
any philological study) by M. Ishida in 1931, and republished, with
corrections, in 1973 - Neither vocabulary has been the su~ject of a
thorough investigation.
In this thesis I have given , in the Introduction, a
"bibliographie raisonnee" of all accessible studies on both
vocabularies, and on the several surviving inscriptions i~ the
Jurchen script. The main body of the thesis is an annotated edition
of the Sino- Jurchen Vocabulary of the Bureau of Interpreters. In
the original text, reproduced in the Appendix, each Chinese word
or expression is given an equivalent in Jurchen, in Chinese
transcription. In this thesis, each Chinese item is translated, and
the transcription of the Jurchen romanized. The cognate of each word
in Grube's edition of the Bureau of Translators' vocabulary, in Manchu
and in Sibe (modern Manchu) is given, whenever possible, and on the
basis of these, and the Chinese transcription, a reconstruction of
the original form of each Jurchen word is suggested. This study
of each individual item is preceded by a description of the phonology
and grammar of the language of t he t ext, and a study of the Chinese
transcription. An index is provided.
~ABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction 1
The Language of the Sino-Jurchen
· Vocabulary of the Bureau
of Interpreters 34
Transcription and Translation
of the Text 73
294
Index
Glossary 309
Bibliography 314
Appendix: Photocopy of the Text 331
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks for their assistance and encouragement go
firstly to my joint supervisors, Professor T.Y. Liu and Dr I.
de Rachewiltz. Professor W. Simon read through the first draft
of my Introduction and made many valuable suggestions, and has
continued to help with bibliographical r eferences. Professor
Hok-lam Chan sent me a very detailed bibliography of works in
Chinese, Japanese and Korean on the Jurchen language , which was
of great assistance. I must also thank Professor Shiro Hattori who,
through the good offices of Professor Simon and Professor Liu,
sent me a copy of Yamamoto Kengo's work on the Sibe language .
I would also like to thank Mr G. Taff and Mr D. Lu of the Menzies
Library at the Australian National University, for their
perserverance in locating articles in practically inaccessible
journals. My greatest thanks goes to my wife Anna, for her
patience during the preparation and writing of this thesis, and
particularly for her encouragement during the last difficult months.
Finally, I would like to thank my typist, Mrs P. Hughes, for her
excellent unravelling of a very difficult manuscript on a very
obscure topic. The many inadequacies of this thesis are my own
responsibility.
INTRODUCTION
1
INTRODUCTION
Although the Jurchen language and script caught the
attention of Western scholars fairly early, it was not until the
discovery of the Bureau of Translators vocabulary and its
publication by W. Grube that any serious progress could be made.
Grube's book, Die Sprache und Schrift der Ju~en, remains practically ,
the only study on the Jurchen language and script generally available
1
This state of affairs does not do justice
to Western stholars.
to the many contributions of Chinese, Japanese and Korean linguists.
I have attempted to compile a fairly complete bibliography of these
studies, but unfortunately many of them were published in journals
which are now extremely rare, and still remain unavailable. I have,
however, included these for the sake of completeness.
The Principles underlying the Jurchen Script
The most prolific writer in this area has been Yamaji
Riroaki; the results of his research have been summed up in his book
~oshin moji no seiji ni kansuru kenkyu [Research on the Structure
of Jurchen Characters]. Yamaji seeks to show that Jurchen characters
are derived from Chinese characters, with some deformation, through
a variety of transformations, and attempts to explain the derivation
of nearly all the characters in Grube's vocabulary. Not many of his
explanations, however, are convincing.
1
Two important recent studies are by L. Ligeti, "Note preliminaire
sur le dechiffrement des "petits caracteres11 joutchen", and "Les
inscriptions Djurtchen de Tyr: la formule om mani _padme hfun." . cf.
also K. Menges "Die Sprache des 3urcen". -·--·
')
"-
An article which tries to explain Jurchen chara ters
on the basis of Khitan is by E,V. ~avkunov, "K voprosu o rassirovke
maloj kidan'-cfur~len'skoj pis'mennosti" [On the Problems of the
Decipherment of the Khitan- Jurchen Small Script], in which he regards
the Khitan script and the Jurchen script as being essential~y the
same thing, and suggests values f or the various script el ement s to be
found in a "Khitan-Jurchen" character, which, when applied to the
characters in an inscription in Khitan (from the Liao Imperial
2
Mausoleum) will yield Khitan, and when applied to the characte s in
an inscription in wh~t the author regards as Jurchen (the Da Jin
Huang- di dutong jingliielang jun xingji inscription) will yield
Jurchen. He gives very few examples, and in any case the latter
inscription is regarded by most researchers as being written in Khitan.
2
Cf. Tamura Jitsuzo and Yukio Ko~ayashi, Keiryo [Tombs and Mural
Paintings of Ch'ing Ling] pp.256-270 (Japanese ) pp.48-53 (English)
and K,A. Wittfogel and Feng Chia-sheng: History of Chinese Society:
Liao (907-1125) pp.241- 252. There is a voluminous literat ure
attempting to explain the script on these stelae. See the references
in both works mentioned and K. Honda and E.B. Cee..del, "A Survey of
Japanese Contributions to Manchurian Studies", pp .87- 91. To these
items may be added the following more recent contributions:
L. Hambis, "Premier Essai de dechiffrement de la langue khitan",
L. · . Rudov, "Problemy Kidan ' skoj pis 'mennosti' [Problems of the
Khitan Script],
V.S. Taskin "Opyt desifrovki Kidan'skoj pis'mennosti" [An Attempted
Decipherment of the Khitan Script],
V,S. Starikov et al., Materialy po Desifrovke Kidan'skogo Pis'ma
[Materials for the Decipherment of the Khitan Script]. Cf. the
review of this book by G. Kara.
Zheng Shaozong, "Xinglong-xian Zim.ulinzi ,faxian de Qidanwen
muzhimingu [An Epitaph in the Khitan Script discovered in Zimulinzi
Village, Xinglong District]. (This is a report of a very important
discovery of a stele with an inscribed text, 50 lines long , in a
Khitan script of the same variety as that found in the Li ao Imperial
Mausoleum. The tomb in which it was found was discover ed in 1942, but
it was not until October 1972 that it was taken to the Hcbei
Provincial Museum for examination. This article also contains a u~;(' ful
bibliography of recent articles on the inscriptions in t ht: Khi lan
script. )
Wang Jingru, "Xinglong chutu Jindai Qidanwen muzhiming jie" [An
Explanation of the Khitan Script of the Jin Dynasty used on an
Epitaph Discovered in XinglongJ.
·3
Other articles which treat the structure of the Jurchen
script and its relationship to Khitan in a general way are:
Osada Natsuki, "Joshin moji to genson shiryo" [Extant
Historical Materials on the Jurchen Script].
Saito Buichi, "Kittan moji to Joshin moji" [The Khitan
Script and the Jurchen Script].
Tamura Jitsuzo, "Joshin moji" [The Jurchen Script]
Watanabe Kuntaro, "Manshugo Joshingo to kanjion no
kankei" [The Relationship between the Pronunciation of Chinese
Characters and the Manchu and Jurchen Languages].
Ohira Yasukata, "Ry6,Kin,Seika,Gen,Shin gocho no seiji'
[The Structure of the Scripts of the Liao, Jin, Xixia, Yuan and
Qing Dynasties].
Min Y~ng-gyu, "Y~j in : munj a-u.i kuscSng-e taehayo" [On the
Structure of Jurchen Characters].
Tamura Jitsuzo, "Kittan, Joshin, Seika no rnoji" [The Khitan,
Jurchen and Xixia Scripts].
Ishida Mikinosuke, "Joshin daiji to wa nanzo ya" [What
is the Jurchen "large script"].
Ishihama Juntaro, "Joshingo", [The Jurchen Language J .
Osada Natsuki , "Joshin rnoji no kozo to sono onka ni
tsuite".
Osada Natsuki, "Joshingo shiryo no gengogaku-teki
kenkyu-arutai , shogoshi-teki hikaku gengogaku no ikkan to shite
ichi" [Linguistic Research on Jurchen - a Link in the Comparative
Linguistic Study of the Altaic Languages].
Of great importance for future r esearch in this area are
several articles on the script of the type f9und on the Gu Taishi