月氏 (or 月支) YueZhi, claimed by some non-Chinese sources to be the Jats, later known as Kushan (貴霜, one of the 5 YueZhi tribes) is said to be of Tocharian origin. By 1st century BCE, some of the YueZhi tribes were driving off by the 匈奴 Huns, to the Oxu river region. Which is in the general area referred by Greek Sources as Batria.

Now here is my question.

I have been taught since a young children that 月氏 is actually not pronounced as "YueZhi" but rather "RouZhi". As the first character is supposed to be the varient form of the character 肉. Those who knows Chinese Radicals will know, many words relating to the body, has a radical that looks closely similar to 月, but it is acutally written with 冫 in the middle instead of 二. For example, 脈 Palse, 臉 Face, 膽 Gul-Bladder, 肝 Liver, 肺 Lungs, 胃 Stomach, 腎 Kidneys.... the list goes on.

The character 肉, in this case 月, is pronounced as "Ba" in Traditional Chinese languages.

Therefore, 月氏 would sound like "BaChi" during Han dynasty. In YueZhi's case, it would sound like "GuaChi" in Han dynasty.

Now, is it just coinsident that "BahChi" sounds just like Bactria?

So here comes my question. Is Bactria so named by the Greeks because of 月氏? (unlikely since 月氏 only flead to Onux after Greeks has already arrived there.) Or is 月氏 so named because they were related to Batria?

Another possibility is that 月氏 is part of Tocharians. BaChi also sounds silimar to Tocha. Perhaps Tocharians is so named because they are from Bactria. When the Huns drove the 月氏 out, they fled towards where their ancestors were from?

Or all the names are simply unrelated?

In ancient times, travel between Bactria and Tarim is a popular route. DNA studies proved all Far East Asian originated from Iran. So, what's everyone's thoughts?

Just to add, another related name of Batrians is the Tajik, which is now an ethenicity in Central Asian. Even in East Turkistan (XinJiang). Referred by present day Chinese as 塔吉克族 Tǎjíkè. Below is what wikipedia said about Tajik:



Jat is more associated with Scythians.

Sogdiana (粟特人) were also just around Bactria. These people actually moved all the way from Iran to ShanDong and established 渤海國 (Balhae) during Sui and Tang dynasty.

Are you sure? I've always read that Balhae/Bohai was established in the Tang by Mohe/Malgals along with refugees from Koguryo. And it was not in Shandong but in northeast China.

Sogdiana (粟特人)

粟末 in Traditional Han language (So Boat)

Wiki
Bohai (669 - 926) located in the northern part of Corean penisula and Northeastern part of China. Formed by SoBoatMoJie's chef DaZhouRon.....


隋書 SuiShu - 東夷 DonYi


MoJie, North of Koguryo, every village has a leader, they don't adhear to one rule. There are a total 7 tribes, one of them is call So Boat.

舊唐書 JioTangShu - 北狄 BeiDi

BoHai MoJie's first king, DaZhouRon was originally a minority in Koguryo. After Koguryo as destroyed, he lead his family and moved to 營州 (遼寧)


新唐書 SinTangShu - 北狄 BeiDi



BoHai, Originally from those SoBoat MoJie that was under Koguryo's command. After Koguryo ended, leadered let his followers to DongMouShan (吉林).....

Anyway, I read somewhere that at there height, they controled parts of 山東 Shan Dong. But you are right, they didn't start at Shan Dong, but they weren't too far from it either.

I think the word "baʔ" is special to Min, I can't find similar reading of 肉 to it in Hakka or Cantonese (Hakka nyuk6, Cantonese yuk6); 肉 is also never read similar to it in any Sino-Xenic. (Sino-Korean yuk,yu; Sino-Japanese niku, juu; Sino-Vietnamese nhục)
月氏 does have a special reading, "月" is definitely 肉. 氏->(?)支.

Isn't the 'ch' in Tocharia pronounced like 'kh'? How are they similar?


Well, I don't think 粟末 and 粟特 are related; just by the first syllable. 粟末 is just part of 靺鞨.

Note that the voiced initials in Hokkien seem just denasalization from nasals, the real voiced initials as in Wu already went voiceless.

Isn't 渤海 a name of a sea? And their country just started near the sea? (around Shandong, Hebei, Tianjin, Liaoning)? Or the names are just coincident?

Bactria is so called by the Greeks simply as their pronunciation of Baktrish, which was its name in the Achaemenid period - it's on 6th-century BC Persian monuments. It may derive from bakhtar, "the west."

As for Tajik, the most common etymology is that it derives not from Bactria but from Tayy. The Tayy were an Arab tribe known to the Persians in the Sasanian period, and their tribal name became a synonym first for Arabs, and then after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran, for Muslims; ending up as Tajik meaning Muslim east Iranians instead of Muslim Arabs.

Hi Naruwan

QUOTE

The character 肉, in this case 月, is pronounced as "Ba" in Traditional Chinese languages.

Therefore, 月氏 would sound like "BaChi" during Han dynasty. In YueZhi's case, it would sound like "GuaChi" in Han dynasty.

Now, is it just coinsident that "BahChi" sounds just like Bactria?

-- From the Western Zhou through the Sui Dynasties, both Rou and Yue had the initial "N". The rest may possibly resemble "actria" but ...

that's all I can contribute.

Considering that the Mohe 靺鞨 (Malgal in Korean) are usually identified as the ancestors of the Jurchen and Manchus, it's quite impossible for them to have had anything to do with the Sogdians. It's just a coincidental similarity in names between Sute and Sumo.



Bohai is indeed the name of that sea. The Bohai only started calling themselves as such after the Tang court enfeoffed their ruler as the Prince of Bohai. Before that, they referred to themselves as Mohe or as the kingdom of Zhen 振國 (震國).

Our thread on Bohai: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2535



I've heard on this forum that Tayy is also the origin of the Tang name for the Arabs, Dashi.

Great info!! thank you, non-Chinese explainations is one thing I was hoping to get out of this.

What's your source for all your assumed reconstructions of ancient Chinese? I've never heard of this reconstruction before, ie "BahChi" from any linguistic work that I've read. The ancient reconstructions of the word for Yuezhi 月氏 that I've read so far sound nothing like what you've reconstructed. According to Mallory and Mair in "The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West", pp. 98 - 99, some linguists have reconstructed Da Yuezhi as "d'ad-ngiwat-tieg", equating it to be the Massagetae (Massa = Great in Iranian, ie "Great Getae" = Massagetae) mentioned by Herodotus living in the Caspian-Aral sea regions of Central Asia. Others think that the Yuezhi are the Iatioi of Ptolemy's geography. One reconstruction of Yuezhi sounds like "gwat-ti, got-ti or gut-si", which some think sounds similar to the Goths, the Getae or the ancient Guti of Mesopotamia, and some have even go so far as to suggest that these people were the ancestors of the Yuezhi, which sounds a bit far-fetched IMO. Others see these reconstructions of Yuezhi as "Kusha" or the Kushans or the Gushi people of Turfan, which seems more plausible than the rest. None of these sound anything like "BahChi".

And the Yuezhi migrations happened in the 2nd century BC, not the 1st, when the Tocharian nomads were already present in both Transoxiana/Sogdia and Baktria.



How does Yuezhi, or your "BaChi" sound anything like "Tocha"? On the other hand, it is worth knowing that, beginning in c. 4th century C.E., the name for the general area known as Baktria (modern northern Afghanistan) in ancient times began to be known as "Tocharistan/Tokharistan" after that, probably because of the legacy of the Yuezhi/Kushanas or Tocharian peoples residing in that area for quite a long time since the destruction of the last Greek kingdom in c. 145 BC.



The majority of the Yuezhi initially fled to the Ili valley, not Baktria. It was the Wusun, under the patronage of the Xiongnu, who invaded and drove the Yuezhi out of the Ili that the Yuezhi then fled to Baktria. See Han Shu 96A for all the details.



They don't seem related.



? Source?

Disregarding the connection because the Han translation 1 thousand years apart is not exactly the same is a little hasty don't you think?

粟末 is not pronounced as SuMo, rather SuBoat or SuBut.

粟特 is PRC 's translation. Historically 粟特 has been recorded as 昭武九姓 (The 9 Family names of ZhaoWu). They are 康(Samarkand)、安(Bukhara)、石(Tashkent)、曹(Kaputana)、米(Maymurgh)、何 (Kushanik)、史(Kishsh) and so on. It would not be surprising if they move to North East China, the reason is the fur trade. 黑貂 fur trading to the Sugdas is as important as silk. Following is a passage regarding Sugdas:

In Ancient Persian, they are known as Suguda, Sughda ,in Sanskrit as Surika, in mid-persian as Sulik. Sugda is said to mean Shine and Burn. In Tajik Persian, Sugda means low land that collects water.

I have been many Bohai artifacts in museams before, and they look very much like things from Central Asia.

I wish I can find pictures to show that. Perhaps our Corean forumers can help with that.

Other historical mentions of Sugda moving to Manchuria:

《晉書》卷107《石季龍載記附冉閔》：


《古今姓氏書辯證》卷3脂韻夔氏條：
related books on the Sughda Bohai relations:

E.V.夏富庫諾夫《東北亞民族歷史上的粟特人與黑貂之路》
V.M.瓦西裏耶夫《渤海人及女真文化中的粟特-伊朗要素》，收在《西伯利亞古代文化問題》



Why don't you look that one up. Under any study of Y-chromosome for halogroup O group. This should be common enough to find.

I have said in the first thread, that In YueZhi's case, it would sound like "GuaChi" in Han dynasty.

But, as others provided example, 月 in 月氏's case is 肉 not 月. However, their argument is that 肉 sounds like 月 anyway.

By the way, to who ever mentioned this, I do agree before Mandarin took over, 肉 had a N initiate sound. Because all R initiated words in Mandarin at 中古音 had N as initiated sound. For example, 日 Ni.

However these words had a J or Z sound attached too. So does 肉.

月 however does not have a N initated sound. It has a Y initiated sound (中古) and it also has a G initated sound (上古).

No, why don't you look it up for me? It's you who has made these statements and you that needs to back it up, not me who's simply asking for your source.

Yes, I am aware of that.



Yes, I am very well aware of that too.

I'm sure that those distinguished linguists have taken note of 肉 or 月 and the differences. You've still got to gimme a source for your reconstructions of ancient Chinese since I haven't found any linguistic reconstruction that sounds anything like yours and reconstructing ancient Chinese requires linguistic experts.



Your initial post did not tell me that you were.

Anyway, I doubt "Baktria" has any linguistic relativity to "Yuezhi" but, again, "Tocharistan/Tokharistan", a later name for Baktria, certainly does in regards to the Tochari of Ptolemy and Strabo.

This is why. I feel this is pretty much common knowlege in Geneology.

It is established fact that people originated from Africa. And on their migration to Asia, they stopped at Iran first. Resulting in this one male Y Chromosome Iran, which all Far East Asians and Native American can trace back to.

You don't even need sources to deduce this from logic.

Unless you believe human race originated from Asia not Africa, otherwise it's hard to not to come to that conclusion.

If you disagree with me, perhaps you should also look up your sources in counter-arguement??

But then I am used to looking up sources. In fact I have the sources with me but then I decided maybe you should look this one up yourself. Because this is simply everywhere on google. This is actually from Gubuk's DNA testing.



so now, where is your sources?

No, it is not an "established fact" that "people" originated from Africa. It is accepted that homo sapien sapiens originated from Africa but further studies of bones and skulls suggest differences in local populations because of local development. For example, Westerners and certain Central Asians may have more ancestral lineage from Homo sapien neandertals than does the people of eastern Central Asia and East Asia, which some scientists even proposed a genetic continuity from homo erectus to homo heidelbergensis down to homo sapien sapiens, and which the skulls doesn't show Neandertal traits. The "original African" theory is still hotly debated because of newer and newer finds. However, it is an established fact that the great apes had their homeland in Africa and our earliest hominid ancestors, ie homo australopithecus, did come from Africa. Yet that was millions of years ago and during those millions of years, local developments would've rendered different results for local populations. It's change. Source? Jurmain, Kilgore, and Trevathan in "Introduction to Physical Anthropology", pp. 337 - 338. In fact they state a find from Dali, dated to the Middle or early Upper Pleistocene, displaying Homo erectus and homo sapiens (probably heidelbergensis) traits. In fact, a look at a map on p. 346 shows the easternmost extent of Neandertal finds at Teshik Tash in south-central Kazakhstan, indicating the lack of homo sapien neandertalensis in the ancestral lineage of certain eastern Central Asians and East Asians and that Neandertals were only specific to Westerners and western Central Asians ("Middle Easterners").



Funny. Using that same "logic" of yours, I could also "deduce" that "humans" stopped in Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan, and then resulted in this "one male Y chromosome". Why Iran? Again, source. Simple "logic" doesn't cut it.



It's an issue that's still hotly debated, and what is considered "people" comes down to a subjective definition, and the "origin of humans" is certainly not as settled as you make it sound like it is.



I provide sources whenever asked and whenever possible.



It's in my post. Look it up.

All your article proves is that there is a genetic contribution from Africa to today's populations in the world that include East Asians, in the same way perhaps as much as does local development among local populations, though the article doesn't elaborate on that. To claim that the ancestral lineage of East Asians had contributions from Africa may be valid, but to claim that "DNA studies proved all Far East Asian originated from Iran" is an entirely different thing and is far-fetched as well as one-sided and biased because it ignores everything that happened 40,000 years after that, and all the other contributions from other hominid groups, that is local development, which may have contributed as much, if not more, as suggested by newer finds from China and other places (ibid, p. 378, "...many Chinese paleanthropologists see a continuous evolution from Chinese h. erectus to premodern forms. to anatomically modern humans. This view is supported by Wolpoff, who mentions that materials from Upper Cave at Zhoukoudian 'have a number of features that are characteristically regional' and that these features are definitely not African (1989, p. 83)". Besides, your "article" specifically said that M175 arose among early Siberians and it is M175 that occurred in Siberia, not Iran, that uniquely defines East Asians, not M9 which Eurasian and native North American populations share. So your theory of "DNA studies proved all Far East Asian originated from Iran" is already proven wrong by your own source. If you want to claim Iran, why not Africa? And why only "Far East Asian", but not Europeans and Native Americans as well, which was what happened in Iran in the case of M9.

And I still don't understand how bringing all this up is relevant to or even helps your argument of "Yuezhi = Baktria" at all.

I think we don't need to argue anymore.

You obviously have a VERY DIFFERENT understanding from my own to throw out the term "Homo Sapien Neandertals".

Here is why:



Homo neanderthalensis <-- they are not homo Sapiens.

Same goes with Homo Erectus, or those miniture human found in Java. All DIFFERENT SPECIES. Having them mate would produce children similar to mules and ligers.

I don't see your source relating Neanderthals to some present day Homo Saipiens.



In anycase, this is pretty much off topic.



you can pick bones all you like. Or you can go read the source that I provided. This topic has already been discussed in Gubuk and Rudeboy's DNA threads. If you don't know them, go read up on those existing thread.

By the way, homo heidelbergensis predates Homo Saipiens and Neandertals. It is speculated that these could be the common ancestor shared between the 2 species. It is SUPPOSED to have traits from both species to trigger such a speculation. Homo Heidelbergensis is not an example of Homo Saipiens and Neandertals hybrids.



Google is only useful to people who knows how to use it. It is extremely funny indeed. That you would put "Gubuk's DNA testing" on google and expected to find results.

I was well aware of the ongoing debate between classifying neandertals as homo sapiens or not. But I'm also aware of certain errors regarding the mtDNA analysis, namely the lack of clarity of how rapidly mtDNA evolves, or how exactly we should expect ancient hominids to be compared to us, which again, is subjective in the 1st place. For the sake of convenience, I simply used the classic taxonomic approach my source used, which is not one-sided and goes into detail about the debates and elaborates on the sides of both arguments, etc. The analysis of bones and skulls of modern homo sapien sapiens found in Europe that shows Neandertal traits may indicate interbreeding or may not (which an objective person would conform with the former, ie that analysis of bones does show interbreeding with Neandertals, - if you want, I can go into detail on this when I have time, but I wouldn't expect a person like you to be objective anyway), so whether or not they are homo sapiens isn't my point, but just how much they contributed to the ancestral lineage of certain modern populations is debatable. I didn't expect such a strong reaction from the likes of you.



Funny. I never claimed that homo erectus or those "miniture human found in Java" are homo sapiens.



Because that wasn't my point. The point was that genetic contributions from Africa to the lineage of East Asians may have as much weight as does local development among local populations. I brought up the evidence from Zhoukoudian to back that up, because analysis of the remains indicate local developments, ie a continuity from homo erectus to premodern forms to modern humans, and also the findings of homo erectus traits in certain East Asian populations. It means that claiming that "all Far East Asians came from Iran" is one-sided and ignores everything else that happened 40,000 years ago or other genetic contributions to the ancestral lineage of East Asians. It means that your "theory" is oversimplified and also means that you need to read more carefully next time.



LOL. And you can nitpick all you want. Your source doesn't even prove your theory at all. If any, it refutes it.



Remarkable. Never has been a false accusation driven to such elaboration. I didn't say that homo heidelbergensis is an example of a homo sapien and neandertal hybrid. I've brought up heidelbergensis finds in China, ie the one from Dali, to support the "local continuity" theory of hominid evolution in China.



It seems you copied and pasted my post on wordpad or something right when I posted it, logged off, and then replied to it without having looked at what I changed in my post. I did that in a rush because I had to get to class in a few minutes. Anyway, I've found the article here and its from National Geographic and also saw a thread on AE by "Gubruk Jangoon". So no further need to playing a smallman's game and ridicule me on this little mistake when it's clearly your own incompetence when it comes to citing your sources correctly.

mtDNA does evolve rapidly, in fact it evolves in a certain rate. That is why a time frame can be measured out of the devient from two subjects.

In this case, between the Neandertals and Humans, the time frames of the split off in species is 500,000 years.

When people are talking about human migration in regard to history, the term human, is refering to Homo Saipiens. Not the migration of Homo Erectus or Homo neanderthalensis.

In the Y-Chromosome studies, all Eurasian shared this one common father. I am not claiming there is only one human migration, or one human migration into the Far East. In fact I support the view of constant migration into Asia. But my point is the migration into the Far East moved from Central Asia into the Tarim then further Eastward. That is how the Native AMericans got to America. That is how Huang Di moved to the Yellow River area, and that is how Tungus people moved into Siberia.

There is relatively little historical indications that after moving into the Far East, people migrated from South East Asia northward. By the time Indians started to move Eastward along the coast of South East Asia, it was already recorded by history. Even the Austronesians followed the same pattern of North to South, West to East.

You kept claiming proving the relations between Homo Neandertalensis and Homo Saipiens is not your point.

Likewise my point is that people moved in this direction. And 月氏 and Tocharians might have historically lived in Bactria and still had ties with the area until it was over taken by Seleucids.

If Zhang Qian's records are as thorough as it seems, this line is what I am referring to:

康居 is Samarkand, know by the Greek as Marakanda. People in Samarkand speaks Tajik.

Samarkand is in fact one of the oldest city in the world. By the time Zhang Qian heard of 月氏 fighting with 匈奴 and set off to to establish an allience, till the time he got to 大月氏 was less than 20 years. Yet it is said its customes and 月氏 are 大同俗 (not 大致同俗).



Zhang Qian was captured by the Huns for about 10 years. Let say 20. Then he only took less than a mounth to get to 大宛 Ferghana. From there he probably got to Samarkand in less than a year.

When 月氏 was mentioned, it only said 月氏 is a nomad people just like the Huns (行國，與匈奴同).

So in less than 20 years, Samarkand adapted 月氏 customes? or did they share the same customes to begin with?

That is how the Sogdians were known in the Wei Shu, i.e. during Northern Wei times. However, as one source you have cited shows, there was also a 粟特康 in the Later Zhao, unless the 粟特 in his name does not mean 'Sogdian'.



That's not the reason why I dismissed it; rather, it first has to be disproven that the Mohe were the ancestors of the Jurchen, since the Jurchen did not look at all like Sogdians. Then it has to be shown that there are Sogdian elements in the language of the Mohe. I have also seen no similarity to the Sogdians in Tang descriptions of Mohe social customs, burial practices, and physical appearance. These are what led me to believe that Sute and Sumo are only coincidentally similar - not the 1,000-year difference.



Are the Russian scholars the only ones who have this theory? I have certainly never seen it in English-language or Chinese-language scholarship.

However, because it is less relevant to the topic of this thread, and because the Korean members might miss this discussion, could I request that further discussion on the Sogdian-Mohe question be moved to the Bohai thread http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2535 ? I will start that off by copying and pasting your relevant postings in that thread.

Yun, is the later Zhao you are talking about aka 石趙? Because that also has to do with why I thought there might be a connection.

And yes, by all means move it to the Bohai thread ^^~ it was supposed to be a side note in the first place.

Yes, the one founded by Shi Le. Kui An, whom you mentioned, was one of Shi Le's generals. Warlordgeneral and I have been discussing on another thread whether the Jie of the 石趙 were Sogdians, or Yuezhi descendants from Kangju.



As I have mentioned on that thread, Samarkand was said in Tang sources to be the descendant of Kangju, but the actual location of old Kangju was said to be occupied by Kesh 史 during the Tang.

The point is that different patterns of movement may have caused mitochrondial DNA to diverge more quickly in the past. The whole picture isn't at all clear. The neutrality of modern human mtDNA is a topic hotly debated. If the recent pattern of variation in human populations was a result of a selective sweep in humans, then the mtDNA of Neandertals being "less human" should be expected. It has been discovered that mtDNA is affected by chronic diseases of aging (Zhu X, Smith MA, Perry G, Aliev G. 2004. Mitochondrial failures in Alzheimer’s disease. American Journal of Alzheimers Disease and Other Dementias 19:345-352.), brain disorders (Niemi AK, Moilanen JS, Tanaka M, Hervonen A, Hurme M, Lehtimäki T, Arai Y, Hirose N, Majamaa K. 2005. A combination of three common inherited mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms promotes longevity in Finnish and Japanese subjects 13:166-170.), longetivity (ibid), etc. All these discoveries suggest that mtDNA variation is a strong target for all the above mentioned human changes. These facts suggest that human mtDNA may have undergone multiple adaptive substitutions within the past million years.

The bottom line? The mtDNA study on the "less human" like features of Neandertals or whether or not they are part of the ancestral lineage of Westerners, ie they are homo sapiens, is still unclear and does not kill the argument or is as settled as you may think it to be. The fact is, there is still more research that needs to be done on how mtDNA changes. That Neandertals and homo sapien sapiens coexisted is almost clear, but whether or not they were genetically close enough to mate with homo sapien sapiens is still hotly debated and the current mtDNA analysis does not cut it that they can't mate, simply because we aren't exactly clear on how mtDNA evolved through time. Furthermore, you completely ignored the fossil evidence that I'm sure you would've encountered upon but simply failed to bring it up. Erik Trinkaus discovered a 25,000-year old skeleton from Portugal that shows clear Neandertal traits in a homo sapien sapiens child, a case of a Neandertal-homo sapien hybrid. Most proponents of the opposite theory have simply denied the analysis without any proof. Certain traits, e.g. like huge thigh bones, seem uniquely Neandertal in the child.



Yes. And whether or not homo neandertalensis did contribute or exactly how much to the ancestral lineage of modern homo sapien sapiens is still hotly debated and that is relevant to the evolution of modern humans. So a study of Neandertals is certainly relevant to the study of modern humans.



Your initial post did not suggest that you supported a "constant migration into Asia". You simply put "DNA studies proved all Far East Asian originated from Iran" like it was only one migration or something, ignoring everything that happened 40,000 years after that. Again, "To claim that the ancestral lineage of East Asians had contributions from Africa may be valid, but to claim that "DNA studies proved all Far East Asian originated from Iran" is an entirely different thing and is far-fetched as well as one-sided and biased because it ignores everything that happened 40,000 years after that, and all the other contributions from other hominid groups, that is local development, which may have contributed as much, if not more, as suggested by newer finds from China and other places."



Again, that "migration" probably contributed as much to the genetic makeup of those Native Americans as does local development among local populations. The "Out of Africa" theory is just one of the theories and isn't as settled as it once would seem like it was because of newer and newer finds and newer analysis done.

Yet, I still don't understand how any of this gives weight to your argument of Baktria = Yuezhi. Odd logic that you cite something that happened 40,000 years ago when historical research has only traced probable Tocharians to at least 5,000 - 4,000 years ago or so (the Afanasievo that sprung from the Yamnaya). You seem to be oblivious to what happened to human populations and demographic changes in the last 35,000 - 36,000 years before the probable emergence of a distinctly Tocharian people.



LOL. Because it was not. You seem to have jumped at my conventional grouping of "homo sapien neandertalensis" when I have neither indicated that they were ancestral to homo sapien sapiens nor that they were anatomically the same as modern humans. In fact, that Neandertals and homo sapien sapiens coexisted is almost clear but that Neandertals may have contributed to the genetic makeup of certain populations, ie those of the West, is debatable and only suggests that variations among modern local populations may have been due to different ancestry and that there is no "one wave = all people" as you've suggested with your "Far Eastern Asians originated from Iran" theory.




Using that logic, I could also deduce that Tocharians lived everywhere between Africa and eastern Central Asia simply because they are humans and migrated east. Why only Baktria? Again, you bringing up what happened 40,000 years ago is irrelevant and also doesn't offer a clue as to what happened to the history of Tocharians, which can only be traced to about c. 4,000 - 5,000 years ago when they, according to some Indo-European experts, diverged from a common ancestor with proto-Celtic and proto-Italic speakers, and made their way across the steppes, NOT the oases to the south of it, ie NOT Baktria, to eastern Central Asia. Historically, Tocharians have been traced to the Afanasievo culture, according to Mallory and Mair.



Kangju is not Samarkand, but later shifted its center to Samarkand. It was originallly centered in Tashkent. Samarkand is not northwest of Ferghana, but in the heart of Sogdia, which is to the west of Ferghana/Dayuan/Dawan. Refer to the thread about the Five Hu that Yun and I were discussing about.

BTW there are as many people speaking Russian or Uzbek in Samarkand as does Tajik, in fact Uzbek even more since it's the official language as Samarkand is in modern-day Uzbekistan. I don't see your point about Samarkand and Tajiks.



The Shi Ji 123 also says something like: "行国也，随畜移徙，与匈奴同俗",or, roughly translated as "They are a nation of nomads, moving from place to place with their herds, and their customs are like those of the Xiongnu." (following Watson) Does that mean that the Xiongnu were Tocharians too? Again, this general designation of "同俗"by Zhang Qian may be a hint as to the generally similar customs and cultures of the steppe nomads. I believe that "同俗" should not be read too indepthly as detail, but rather to hint at the Kangju, Yuezhi, and Xiongnu, as well as the Wusun and the Yancai as steppe nomads sharing similar customs (as in the glorification of their young and despising the old, the generally militant nomadic society, etc.).



You've obviously not been keeping up with the discussion on the Five Hu thread. First off Kangju was, as indicated in that thread, centered around Tashkent, not Samarkand, since the Shi Ji 123 says: "康居在大宛西北可二千里", ie 西北 of Dayuan/Dawan/Ferghana, and Samarkand is not northwest of Ferghana, but directly to the west of it. Tashkent is, and, as I've indicated in the Five Hu thread Pulleyblank's linguistic interpretation of Tashkent as "Stone Country/City", and the Kang in Kangju deriving from the kanka of Tocharian, which also means stone, is in line with Tashkent as the center of Kangju.

Second, the Kangju being "行国", ie "walking/moving nation" and "大同俗", ie similar customs, while indicating that they were part of the steppe culture, could also be indicative of their shared Tocharian ancestry with the Yuezhi. In fact, I've already brought this up in the Five Hu thread and their "国小，南羁事月氏，东羁事匈奴" (small country, subservient to the Yuezhi in the south and the Xiongnu in the east) is indicative that they were recent invaders in the southern Kyrgyz steppe and northern Sogdia region and that they were part of the Tocharian peoples who moved to Sogdia along with the Da Yuezhi. This is further collaborated with the Xin Tang Shu 221 that Yun had thankfully provided with the ancestor of Kang being descended from Yuezhi tribesmen who lived in Zhaowu, presumably a city/area in the Junggar Basin. So, the Kangju sharing similar customs with the Da Yuezhi makes sense since they were part of the Tocharian peoples who were forced from the western Gansu - eastern Tianshan region elsewhere, first to the Ili, and then to Baktria.

O* seems from North. Native American does not even have O chomosome, but the brother Q, while both descended from F. see http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf
F is a large haplogroup: it's even the ancestor of R, a common marker in Europe.

月was with 'ng' in 中古. Cantonese assimilates 'ng' into 'y' when there is an 'i' or 'ü' as a vowel glide. Compare to Sino-Vietnamese 'nguyệt'. Voiced G is Min Nan "invention", I think Min Bei does not have G in 月. 上古 also more likely 'ng'.

J/Z reading attached to 'n' in Min Nan is a literarization effect, which is from Middle Chinese sound (中古音), which was more like 'ny'/'nh' ('ñ'). This is a distinct consonant from 'n' in Middle Chinese (though they might be the same in old Chinese, just effects of vowels). The proof is that in Cantonese and Mandarin they evolve into totally different consonants.

About the Tâjîks: The Turkic peoples called the Muslim Arabic invaders of Central Asia as Tezik.

By the way, Tadjiks speak a kind of Iranian language.

there are speculations that "月支" was pronounced something like "nguet tieg" in Han times and the etymology may be related with indo-european peoples like Goths, Geats (as in Beowulf) as well as the Guti of mesopotamia

nguet?? I think that's based on the assumption that 月 is moon. But 月 is actually another way to write 肉....

Do you mean there was another word for 'moon' in Qin-Han times?

If not, how do you know whether in this context, the 月 was a real 月 or actually 肉?

[I know we've been over this before, but I'm still not convinced.]

no problem. here we go



This character is 肉 Rou, meat.



This character is 月 Yue, Moon.

for example, 月桂 (cassia) is pronounced Rou Gui, instead of Yue Gui

Computer won't let me type these words properly. But Rou should be written with the two dots (like the side of 冰) instead of two horizontal lines.

hi,

this is the 1st time i heard of this actually, perhaps u can tell me more?

so if 月 is supposed to be another way to write 肉, how was it pronounced?

It seems the character pronunciation probably had evolved as such:


hakka canton Korean
ngiuk -> jio̍k -> yuk
　　　-> niok -> nio -> rou
Wu transition to Mandarin

however in Holo, which is considered to be closer to Han dynasty phonetics (especially when it's a colloquial pronunciation) , it is pronoucned as Bah.

i'll get back to this later

the sad thing is, 切韻, 唐韻, 集韻, 廣韻 are all middle han language. Prior to Buddhism influence, phonology was not something people leave records on.

unless the Holo bah really came out of no where or is an influence of Bai-Yue, otherwise there should be a connection between Bah and Earlier Han language.

I see some reference saying the reconstructed Western Han Language 肉 is read as Nh@uk. I guess I can see how Bah, Ngiok, Jiok, Rou derived from this.

in 爾雅 (said to be oldest Han dictionary) 釋器：肉倍好謂之璧，好倍肉謂之瑗，肉好若一謂之環。

where 肉 is the jade, 好 is the hole on a circular jade worship ring. Where if Jade width of the jade is much wider than the hole, it's called a 璧. If hole is much larger than the width of the jade it's called 瑗, and if the width of the Jade and the hole are about the same size, it's called 環.

guess that doesn't help with how it's read either.

i do not think "bah" is related to 肉 (suspected Bai Yue substratum in my opinion but unconfirmed)even, japanese 'niku' (is it kunyomi or onyomi?) is closer to the older chinese term..
also, this term is not universal as a general term for "meat" minnan areas,

the northern quanzhou areas has "hiap" , while the chaozhou areas has "nek", hainan has another term which i forgot, the only areas (according to my freind who s native quanzhou person) that has "bah" are the zhangzhou and southern quanzhou areas (xiamen, nan' an etc).. however, the term 'bah' is pretty well-known even amongst areas that dun used it. it may have been the general term in the minnan areas ages ago

(this is not a linguistic thread, if u are interested to carry on, lets do in the language section)



i didn't know that... in my books it is always 肉桂

i supposed that these are the xiaozhuan forms? but besides shape similarities, were there any references (in dictionaries) to etymological relation?
also i do not think u answred yun s question what was the moon then if this 月 meant 'meat'

Same here.

Naruwan, how do we know how the 月 in Yuezhi/Rouzhi was written in the original texts?

If it was



then you are correct, but there has to be evidence of it.

i think that's where we were stuck last time

I hope someone with access to more sources can provide help this time around.

I was taught that 月支 is pronounced as Rou Zhi since elementary school.

I see this in wiki regarding this question:

so appearently in the original 辭海 Cihai, the word was written as Rouzhi.

Now I don't completely buy this theory. It is actually pretty difficult to mistaken Yue for Rou, and much easier the other way about.

According to the 禺氏 theory, ethomology shows:



【唐韻】【集韻】牛具切

all points to n initial with u ending

where as 月 is 魚厥切, which is n initial with at ending.

say the real pronounciation of 肉 is only nhuk, it'd say 禺氏 actually supports RouZhi rather than YueZhi theory

I wonder if it came from mistake, as how Russians call Chinese as "Kitai" (which should be pointing to 契丹).

For me, "bah" does not seem related.

In the version of my Cihai, the "rou" reading was not explicitly written down (but "zhi" is).
Rather, it quotes from 85th roll of 《說郛》, (?) or《金壼字考》of 適之, "月支,月音肉"

No. It points to ng- initial (or g- in Minnan).
Ng- can change to N- in Mandarin before -i- (though "far from 100%"),
Examples (left: Sino-Vietnamese, right: Cantonese):
虐 ngược (where ươc rhymes with 腳) yeuk6
孽 nghiệt yit6
凝 ngưng ying4
霓 nghê ngai4
逆 nghịch yik6
牛 ngưu ngau4
All the ng- is preserved in Sino-Vietnamese, but in Cantonese it becomes "y" if the vowel is "i".

The "n|" above might be because of "ŋ" is difficult to write (technical limitation).
I think Ngu-Chi 禺氏 supports Nguyệt-Chi 月氏 better than Nhục-Chi 肉氏.

.. i was going to say that too..but i think you will do it better than me anyway



i think the wiki said that reading 「月」 as 「肉 was a misreading, is it not?


anyway, anyone knows how early was '月氏' used to denote the people? was '月氏' already used in pre-qin times?

I think its first appearance is in the Shiji.

then , i suppose the similarities between the xiaozhuan forms of 'meat' and 'moon' may be invalid in the case of yueshi?

since lishu was already used by han times?

while 說文解字 was written in Eastern Han Dynasty, it was still written in 小篆 xiaozhuan. point is, 肉 written as 月 has made itself into the Han characters.

words like 脈, 背, 肌, 肘, 腳 all shows that.

Here are some other clues.

The first known reference to the Yuezhi was made in 645 BC by the Chinese author Guan Zhong in his Guanzi 管子. He described the Yuzhi 禺氏, or Niuzhi 牛氏

by qrasy's example, 牛 being ŋuua is probably more like 月 as well.

What about Greco sources?

月氏 are believed to have been the same as or closely related to the Indo-European people named Tocharians (Τοχάριοι) by ancient Greeks, originally settled in the arid grasslands of the eastern Tarim Basin area, in what is today Xinjiang, Gansu, and possibly Qilian in China, before they migrated to Trans-oxiana, Bactria and then northern South Asia, where they formed the Kushan Empire.

1. the shuowen does contain the xiaozhuan characters, but it had already ceased to be in common use at the time xu shen compiled the dictionary.. the shuowen actually served as a reference to the old characters like a dictionary teaching an old extinct language






you have a point here... i was wondering the '月' semantic portion here may be derived from the older xiaozhuang chracter for 'meat'?




in middle chinese, 牛 was indeed a nasal velar like 月, the modern minnan pronuounciation 'guu' is a remnant, having lost the nasal element

Problem there is that Guanzi is generally believed to be a much later forgery.

exactly...

anyway, back to the word 肉 XD

since the holo word "bah" seems so out of place, I want to find out where the heck it came from.

Close by languages:

Meat:

Vietnam: thịt

Taiwanese Aboriginals:

Amis: titi
Atayal: hi'
Bunun: titi'
kavalan: si
Paiwan: vutjul
Puyuma: isi
Rukai: beate
Saisiyat: bori
Thao: bunlaz
Tsao: beahci
Tao: viniay

wow, Qrasy.... again the Vietnamese seems pretty related to some of the Taiwanese aboriginal languages. And the matter of fact is Taiwanese jade were traded to Vietnam at earliest 2,000 years ago.

also the Altayal hi', can it be related to hiap? I mean hiap is pretty unrelated to the all "ngiok" trend.

But, still, where is "bah"?

泉州 QuanZhou's "肉 hiap" could be explained by another ng initial word 魚 that became a "h" sound. Most ng sounds became g.

But I have a feeling that all these Middle Chinese is later than the developement of bah or hiap.

Cihai does not state a special reading of "rou4", which means it's under "yue4" category.

I have always assumed that... Just like 氵to 水.

Ng- and g- are said to be conditional allophones in Minnan.

Well, it seems to be quite superficial similarity to me.
The loaning from Chinese shows a change of s->t too. The "dot" tone means it was voiced.
Example of the lower tone register of Sino-Vietnamese "th": 禪, 船, 成, 常, 乘 etc.
(all of them has same initial in Cantonese; Beijing Mandarin changed most of YangPing sh into ch)

I suppose "ngiok" is because of Hakka confusing nhi and ngi.

目?
beahci, beate ~ English "meat"

It might be other words that changed meaning into it. The ending of "hiap" also matches nothing in my knowledge... Could be "月+something" though.

目 (ba̍k 目) isn't the same as 肉 (bah)

in a complete list of Holo 肉 readings:

1 lio̍k 肉
2 jio̍k 肉
3 he̍k 肉
4 chū 肉
5 bah 肉

where lio̍k, jio̍k are literal.

chū ending sound matches
【韻會】【正韻】而由切 (iû)
【集韻】【韻會】【正韻】如又切 (iū)

since 如 is jû or jî chū seems like the result of 如又切