The Shiming, also known as the Yiya, is a Chinese dictionary that employed phonological glosses, and is believed have been composed c. 200 CE.[1] Because it records the pronunciation of an Eastern Han Chinese dialect, sinologists have used the Shiming to estimate the dates of sound shifts, such as the loss of consonant clusters that took place between the Old Chinese and Middle Chinese stages.

Shiming
Traditional Chinese釋名
Simplified Chinese释名
Literal meaningExplanation of names
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinShìmíng
Wade–GilesShih4-ming2
IPA[ʂɨ̂mǐŋ]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationSīk-mèhng
JyutpingSik1 meng4
Southern Min
Tâi-lôSik-miâ
Yiya
Chinese逸雅
Literal meaningLost Erya
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinYìyǎ

Format

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The 1,502 definitions attempt to establish semantic connections based upon puns between the word being defined and the word defining it, which is often followed with an explanation. For example, chapter 12 contains:

愛哀也愛乃思念之也
Love is sorrow. If you love, then you remember fondly.

The Chinese call these paronomastic glosses shengxun 'sound teaching', which goes back to the Rectification of Names, which hypothesized a connection between names and reality. The Shiming preface explains this ancient Chinese theory of language.

In the correspondence of name with reality, there is in each instance that which is right and proper. The common people use names every day, but they do not know the reasons why names are what they are. Therefore I have chosen to record names for heaven and earth, [yin and yang], the four seasons, states, cities, vehicles, clothing and mourning ceremonies, up to and including the vessels commonly used by the people, and have discussed these terms intending to explain their origin.[1]

Authorship and internal organization

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There is controversy whether this dictionary's author was Liu Xi [zh] (劉熙; fl.c. 200 CE) or the more famous Liu Zhen [zh] (劉珍; d. 126 CE). The earliest reference to the Shiming is a criticism in the late 3rd-century Records of Three Kingdoms biography of Wei Zhao (韋昭; 204–273); while in prison, Wei wrote a supplement to Liu Xi's Shiming because it lacked information on official titles. The next reference is in the mid-5th century Book of the Later Han biography of Liu Zhen, which notes that he wrote an otherwise unknown Shiming in 30 chapters. The received text has 8 volumes and 27 sections that the Shiming preface, written in Liu Xi's name, calls 27 chapters. Bibliographies in official histories simply listed the Shiming as having eight fascicles without mentioning the number of chapters. The Ming dynasty scholar Zheng Mingxuan (鄭明選; fl. 1572–1620) questioned the difference in chapters and doubted the book's authenticity. The Qing-era commentator Bi Yuan (畢沅; 1730–1797), who published the 1789 Shiming shuzheng (釋名疏證 'Exegetical evidence for Shiming') critical edition, believed that the work was begun by Liu Zhen and completed by Liu Xi who added his preface. Another Qing scholar Qian Daxin (錢大昕; 1728–1804) concurred that Liu Xi was the author based upon studies of his students' biographies. Based on internal evidence Bodman concludes "[i]t is not impossible that Liu Zhen did compose such a work and that Liu Xi might have used some of its material in his work, but the chance of this having happened is very small".[2] The date of the Shiming is almost as controversial as its author. However, it is undisputed that Liu Xi lived at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty and was a refugee who fled to Jiaozhou (present-day Hanoi) from the turmoil between the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 and the dynasty's collapse in 220.

List of Shiming chapters
No. Chinese Translation
1 釋天; Shìtiān Explaining Heaven
2 釋地; Shìdì Explaining Earth
3 釋山; Shìshān Explaining mountains
4 釋水; Shìshuǐ Explaining rivers
5 釋丘; Shìqiū Explaining hills
6 釋道; Shìdào Explaining roads
8 釋形體; Shìxíngtǐ Explaining physical bodies
9 釋姿容; Shìzīróng Explaining appearance
10 釋長幼; Shìzhǎngyòu Explaining age-group terms
11 釋親屬; Shìqīnshǔ Explaining kinship terms
12 釋言語; Shìyányǔ Explaining speech and language
13 釋飲食; Shìyǐnshí Explaining food and drink
14 釋綵帛; Shìcǎibó Explaining dyes and silk
15 釋首飾; Shìshǒushì Explaining hair ornaments
16 釋衣服; Shìyīfú Explaining clothing
17 釋宮室; Shìgōngshì Explaining dwellings
18 釋床帳; Shìchuángzhàng Explaining beds and curtains
19 釋書契; Shìshūqì Explaining writing and documents
20 釋典藝; Shìdiǎnyì Explaining literature and art
21 釋用器; Shìyòngqì Explaining utensils and implements
22 釋樂器; Shìlèqì Explaining musical instruments
23 釋兵; Shìbīng Explaining weapons
24 釋車; Shìchē Explaining wheeled vehicles
25 釋船; Shìchuán Explaining boats
26 釋疾病; Shìjíbìng Explaining disease and illness
27 釋喪制; Shìsàngzhì Explaining mourning ritual

From this table of contents, the Shiming clearly followed the Erya's organization into semantically arranged chapters and all their titles begin with the word shì 'explain'.

See also

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References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b Miller 1980, p. 424.
  2. ^ Bodman 1954, p. 4.

Works cited

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  • Miller, Roy Andrew (1993) [1980]. "Shih ming". In Loewe, Michael (ed.). Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. ISBN 1-557-29043-1.
  • Bodman, Nicholas Cleaveland (1954). A Linguistic Study of the "Shih Ming": Initials and Consonant Clusters. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Further reading

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