[tianzhuwoye]

First off, apologies for bringing a goofy question. Also I’m not even sure if this is the right place on the forum to ask, but this is driving me nuts.

I was wondering if anybody could help me with the reading of this character: 氵岁(sandianshui and sui from ‘suiyue’) which was used as a name of an northeastern ‘ethnicity’ that eventually merged with the 貊 Mo. It seems that the name is derived from the 辉发河 Huifa River in present-day Jilin province, and I believe I’ve seen the character written as 秽 hui4. Sadly, today 辉 hui1 and 秽 have different readings, whoever these people were their civilization’s most important archaeological site is only 50km out of town and still no one around here seems to know the character, and I can’t find it in any dictionary. Any idea how you read this thing?

The guess is that this is a pretty obsolete character, given that it’s apparently impossible to hammer out on a keyboard since all the sources I’ve seen online just type 氵岁. (For example, and for a pretty cool little article: http://www.northeast....0402250151.htm) Obviously, whatever standard pronunciation that exists today for a character that programmers didn’t feel the need to write an input code for would be different from its readings back before it fell into disuse. So my next question is whether or not anybody has suggestions as far as reliable studies (or, as reliable as these things can be) to go to regarding earlier pronunciations of characters from texts written before the development of the current phonological systems of the modern dialects. Abroad, who are the big names, what are the debates and controversies, etc? Does anybody care?

This is an aspect of the ‘ethnic’ name game, and of studying history in general, that probably doesn’t get the attention it deserves. I’ve started looking through Zhu Xueyuan’s immensely fascinating theories in "The Origins of China's Northern Ethnicities" 《中国北方诸族的源流》, but even there it feels like there’s a lack of credit given to language change (plus it bums me out when he transcribes Jurchen and Khitan with Chinese characters). Who else is out there?

Maybe I’m just not looking hard enough, but the fact is if I run into another line like "肃慎：或称息慎,稷慎；后又称为挹娄，勿吉，沃沮，靺鞨；至女真更为肃慎之转音语"* I’m gonna headbutt my dog. Are scholars outside of the PRC also content with reading something like that in contemporary Mandarin? Back in the day, what were they saying?






*《满族通史》General History of the Manchus, 2003. Okay, so I added ‘Woju’ there, and Yun has pointed out in another topic that the Malgals shouldn’t be included in this statement, but you know what I mean.

[General_Zhaoyun]

Can you simplify what you're trying to ask?

[Yun]

OK, let me handle this one. I'm glad you're reading Zhu Xueyuan's book. He may draw too many tenuous connections between names, and he's a physicist rather than a linguist by training, but at least he's willing to challenge conventional theories regarding the Huns, the Magyars, and so on.

The 氵岁貊 ethnicity you asked about is called the Yemaek by the Koreans, who claim that this ethnicity was absorbed into their first state, Old Choson. Gubuk Janggoon, our Korean moderator, calls them Weimo, but 'Huimo' is also possible. The word no longer exists, not even in the dictionary I have, so I can't be sure.

Gubuk Janggoon has been trying to start a discussion on whether the Weimo were Tungusic. No-one here knows anything about that, so it would be good if you could give your opinion on this!

I see that you're from Heilongjiang University. Are you Chinese, or a foreign student? Welcome to CHF!

[Gubook Janggoon]

Edit: Sorry tianzhuwoye I just skimmed your post at first and didn't get it so I ranted about the Yemaek...I don't think I can answer your question as it seems to have to do with Chinese linguistics...sorry...maybe you'll find the following c**p useful ey?



Actually someone else called them weimo...so I just followed suit. Yes, Koreans call these people yemaek. From what I understand, Koreans believe that Go-Joseon was actually ethnically Yaemaek. One Yaemaek state that did exist is Dongye, Eastern Ye. These people are thought to be 100% Yemaek. Koreans see themselves to be the descendents of the Yemaek.

I posted up a bit on them from Wiki in my "Korean history in a nutshell" post.

Dongye
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Dongye
Korean Name
Revised Romanization Dongye
McCune-Reischauer Tongye
Hangul 동예
Hanja 東濊


Dongye was a state which occupied portions of the northeastern Korean peninsula in the earliest centuries of the Common Era. Its people shared the language and ethnic origins of the people of Goguryeo and Okjeo. This may indicate that Dongye also shared a common origin with Manchurian kingdom of Fuyu, or Buyeo. Dongye occupied portions of the present-day provinces of South Hamgyŏng and Kangwon in North Korea, and Gangwon in South Korea. Dongye first appears in history as a vassal state of Wiman Joseon.

Very little information about Dongye has survived. However, the custom of Mucheon (무천, 舞天), a festival of worshipping heaven through song and dance in the 10th month, is mentioned in some records. This appears to have been closely related to the Goguryeo festival of Dongmaeng, held at the same time of year, which also incorporated martial displays.

The economy of Dongye was based primarily on agriculture, including sericulture. The Mucheon festival was largely aimed at securing a good harvest in the coming year. Their agriculture appears to have been well-organized at the village level. Dongye law meted out stiff penalties for those who encroached on communal land.

In the reign of King Gwanggaeto of Goguryeo, Dongye was finally absorbed by that kingdom, which came to dominate the entire northern portion of the Korean peninsula.

[tianzhuwoye]

Thank you guys SO, SO much for an answer that was far better and much more interesting than I thought it was gonna be. In fact, that was EXACTLY what I wanted to hear. To clarify the original post, which is pretty hectic (I have a hard time thinking in a straight line, you’ll get sick of it pretty soon) my question(s) is/are:

How seriously can we take these texts if we don’t know how the language was pronounced by the people writing them? Or more bluntly, how seriously can we take our study of these texts if we can’t pronounce them correctly? If scholars can toss a couple hundred languages together and theoretically reconstruct Proto-Indo-European, who is working on Proto-Chinese? A characteristic of human language (and all other social constructs) is that they change over time. If you read Tang poetry out loud in the modern dialects, sometimes meter is strange and rhymes are broken, and this is more apparent further back in time with texts like the Shi Jing, because the language has changed more since then. I was wondering who out there is making a serious study of this, and what are good books to read. I’m personally curious about the results that people working on this have come up with, and I seriously believe anybody studying this part of human civilization should be thinking about the language used by the individuals who provide us with our primary sources.

Secondly, this is immediately relevant to the study of these ancient ‘ethnicities,’ partly because language is a big factor in our current (mis?)understanding of this concept- a concept that seems to me, and has pretty much been proved- to not exist outside of our imaginations. Outside of, and possibly part of, nationalist mythologies that are fostered since our youth by whatever state we happened to be born in that require us to truly believe that there is a categorical ‘difference’ between Us and everybody outside of Our Current Borders in order to maintain allegiance to the government and to establish its legitimacy- we also grow up learning to think in a way that is possibly a little too binary to sufficiently comprehend, or even appreciate, an extremely complex reality. What I mean is, ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ do not empirically exist (if you’re still playing along, neither do ‘countries’), which is why this yes/no, on/off, Chinese/not Chinese (here you can throw in “sinicized” for those politically sticky situations) approach is rarely satisfactory. I also believe this kind of thinking to be flat-out dangerous as it has resulted in, and continues to lead to, unnecessary and unfortunate conflicts, and in far too many cases, the actual and irreversible death of people who, regardless of whatever ‘identity’ they bought in to (or were slotted into in later histories), are in the end just as human as we are.

Bringing this back to the question, this same binarism might lead us to respond with “we’re talking about history, you need to ask a linguist.” I don’t see how these two ‘fields’ could possibly be mutually exclusive. The fact is that there is no monolithic and eternal ‘Chinese Language’ that has been handed down to us pure and uncorrupted from the heroic founders of The National Culture, and since we all study history, we should respect that fact. Nor could there possibly be an unassailable definition of ‘Chinese Culture,’ or any ‘other culture’ for that matter. Does anybody else have the suspicion that our reaction of categorizing and compartmentalizing artificial social constructs like ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity,’ and even language- ideas that are constantly changing, exist at best as vague dis/agreements among participants in their dialogues, and are usually defined by contrasting them to everything they’re ‘not’- may not be the best approach to understanding history?




p.s.: Thanks again for your above responses! The bad news is that your answers seem to me to beg to lead into a discussion regarding the ‘modern status’ of Koguryeo (sorry about the ‘K’), which is something that I’d imagine you might be tired of talking about now. Is it ok to get into it? Also, sorry about my overloading these posts- there’s so much I want to say that is unfortunately not exactly open to discussion where I am now- I’m just excited that this forum is available and am very interested in what people in more flexible environments have come up with. Thanks again!

[Yun]

Quote

If scholars can toss a couple hundred languages together and theoretically reconstruct Proto-Indo-European, who is working on Proto-Chinese?

Well, I think I could help you with this. Have you read the work of the late Swiss linguist Bernhard Karlgren, who reconstructed the Middle Chinese that was spoken in the Tang, and published a dictionary for it? If not, you should start looking for it.

[Gubook Janggoon]

tianzhuwoye, on Jan 20 2005, 07:59 AM, said:

p.s.: Thanks again for your above responses! The bad news is that your answers seem to me to beg to lead into a discussion regarding the ‘modern status’ of Koguryeo (sorry about the ‘K’), which is something that I’d imagine you might be tired of talking about now. Is it ok to get into it? Also, sorry about my overloading these posts- there’s so much I want to say that is unfortunately not exactly open to discussion where I am now- I’m just excited that this forum is available and am very interested in what people in more flexible environments have come up with. Thanks again!
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sure sure...when I get finals over with, in about a grueling week, maybe we can have a discussion...

[Yun]

OK, I just read Tang Changru's "History of the Age of Fragmentation" (1980), which is very much in the traditional mode of Chinese historiography (i.e. unquestioning reliance on the dynastic histories), with Marxist theory added.

Tang says that the Wei and the Mo were originally two different groups, with the Wei to the east of the Mo. The people of Koguryo/Goguryeo were of the Mo ethnicity, and only absorbed the Wei later. But the kings of Koguryo claimed to be descended from Zhumeng (Chumong), a prince exiled from the Fuyu/Puyo kingdom around 37 BC. They were thus foreigners ruling over an indigenous population.

[Gubook Janggoon]

Just elaborating on Yun's stuff.

History tells us that Baekje evolved from the Byeonhan confederacy, but Baekje's creation myth claims Onjo, Baekje's first king, to be a son of one of the kings of Goguryeo, Dongmyeong?

Also, depending whether or not you believe in the Horse Rider invasion Theory, pertaining to the origins of the Japanese, one could argue that the Japanese royal house was partly descended from the Baekje royal house.


Looking at this pattern, it seems that there was just a Buyeo tendency to move downwards....iono...