Review: [untitled] Author(s): Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 32, No. 2 (1969), pp. 416-419 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/614034 . Accessed: 21/03/2011 14:47

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http://www.jstor.org 416 REVIEWS inadequate in which a number of faithful(?)', a mistranscription of amtl: letters represented more than one sound, and 'now', and mat 'glory, honour(?)' taken in particular that the letters which represented from a damaged passage of which the true plosives, b, d, etc. also represented fricatives, reading seems to be ]kiirm a~i[.. . But its v, d, etc.; we know that so far as the con- chief fault is its intolerable prolixity, which sonantal sounds are concerned there was very is reflected in the high price (?4 3s. 4d.). Dr. little difference between the phonetic structure Tekin is obviously a skilled punched card of early Turkish and the neighbouring Iranian sorter, but surely it was unnecessary to quote languages, and we know that there is great 119, 36, 8, 21, 41, and 8 words respectively confusion and inconsistency in the repre- to prove that t can occur initially, inter- sentation of the dental and palatal sibilants, vocalically, before medial consonants, after s and 8, in the inscriptions. All this labori- medial consonants, finally after vowels, and ously accumulated knowledge has gone clean finally after certain consonants ? Imagination over Dr. Tekin's head. In his preface he boggles at the number of illustrations which states that 'the basic assumptions which would have emerged if the raw material had guided my re-evaluation of the old Turkic been more than 20 pp. of text. were (1) any given sign with the excep- Finally, a word about the title. In English tion of the vocalic and syllabic signs, repre- the language talked by Turks is, and always sents only one and the same sound whenever has been, called 'Turkish', qualified, if it occurs ...'. By p. 23 this has become '20 necessary, by an adjective (early, eastern, are double " consonant characters" (syllabic Ottoman, Republican, etc.), just as we call characters) which designate syllables begin- our own language 'English', and the lan- ning with a or i and ending in this character- guages spoken by Danes, Flemings, Poles, istic consonant. They can also represent the Spaniards, and Swedes 'Danish, Flemish, consonants alone', and on p. 30 'The old Polish, Spanish, and Swedish' respectively. Turkic system of writing is a mixture of Scholars who accept such neologisms as syllabic and alphabetic systems of writing .... 'Turkic' will have only themselves to blame Judging from this we can say that the old if they are confronted with a monograph on Turkic script was on the verge of becoming the differences between English, American, an alphabetic system of writing'. and United Nations 'Englic'. All this is of course nonsense; nearly all GERARD CLAUSON languages are rich in consonantal and vocalic sounds, and until the first true phonetic were invented in the nineteenth century, all alphabets were inadequate to YE. I. KYCHANOV: Ocherk istorii even some letters represent them, though tangutskogo gosudarstva. (Akademiya were used, singly or in combinations, to Nauk SSSR. Institut Narodov Azii.) more than one sound. The inventor represent 355 pp. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo of the runic alphabet was fortunate in the fact 'Nauka 1968. that in the script with which he was most ', Rbls. 1.65. familiar, probably Sogdian, several consonants M. V. SOFRONOV: Grammatika - represented both plosives and fricatives, but skogo yazyka. (Akademiya Nauk unfortunate in the fact that nearly all short SSSR. Institut Narodov Azii.) 2 vowels were left to be supplied by the reader. vols.: 275 pp.; 404 pp. Moscow: He saw that this would not do for Turkish, Izdatel'stvo 'Nauka', 1968. Rbls. and used vowel letters in the first syllable to 3.13. represent both short and long vowels other than a/e, one for 6, 1, i, one for 0, U, and one It is odd that a people speaking a Sino- for 6, iti; but he saw no reason to do this Tibetan language, who called themselves, and later in the word. If he had to write, say, were called by the Tibetans, Mi-ilag, and in oliiriip (or more probably 616r6p),sibJiiq or the tenth century founded a kingdom called bermiq, he was quite happy to write o 1 r p, by the Chinese Hsi Hsia 'Western Hsia', s ii i 5, or b r m S and leave the reader for no better reason than that it occupied to supply the other vowels. territory which had supposedly been the The actual grammar is less open to objec- homeland of the first, probably mythical, tion. It does of course contain some mistakes ; Chinese dynasty, Hsia, some 3,000 years for example, by disregarding the fact that no earlier, should have become known to Euro- Turkish words begin with m- except loan- pean scholars first as Hsi Hsia and more words and words in which b- has become m- recently as Tangut. This name first appears by regressive assimilation to adjacent nasals as Taiut in a Tiirkti inscription erected in the (e.g. men from ben 'I '), it has added two second quarter of the eighth century, when the ghost words to the vocabulary, mati 'loyal, Tangut were still a loose confederation of REVIEWS 417 primitive tribes. The most plausible explana- the way of life of the , with tion of it is that put forward by Aoki Bunko copious references to the original authorities, (see Kychanov, 21) that it was a geographical, from their first shadowy appearance at about not an ethnical, name and represented the the beginning of the Christian era to their Tibetan phrase thai rgod 'wild steppe'. The final disappearance (unless some of them still Tiirkii xagans were at this time in diplomatic survive as the Minyak tribe in the border relations with the kings of Tibet, who used country between Tibet and China) in the late to send delegations headed by ministers (blon) Middle Ages. The last specimen of the script to their royal funerals, and they may well is a side-note to a Chinese version of the have adopted a Tibetan name for an area Tripitaka printed between A.D. 1573 and inhabited by people akin to the Tibetans 1620 (Kychanov, 329). It is likely to remain which lay squarely between their two do- the standard book on the subject for a long minions and was not permanently controlled time to come. I am not competent to check by either. The theory, also mentioned by it with the original authorities, but it reads Kychanov, that the name was tang, the first entirely convincingly. I have found only one half of the unexplained Chinese name for the error, and that a minor second-hand one. In Tangut tang-hsiang, with the Mongolian a discussion of the existence of slavery in the plural suffix -ut, should be flatly rejected. It Tangut kingdom (p. 106) he quotes a sentence derives from Pelliot's unhappy conjecture, from the inscription of Bilge: Xa~an (east since accepted as gospel by too many scholars, side, 1. 24) as 'I routed the Tangut people that t'u-kileh, the Chinese representation of and captured their children, slaves (yutuzi:n), Tilrk~i should be transcribed tUrket and livestock and property'. But yutuz means analysed as Tiurk with the Mongolian plural 'wives' not 'slaves'; apart from its occur- suffix -it; there are several reasons why this rence, alternating with the synonymous word cannot possibly be so. There are extensive kisi:, in the same phrase elsewhere in Tiirkii references to the Tang-hsiang and the Hsi inscriptions, it occurs by itself elsewhere in Hsia kingdom in the Chinese histories, and contexts which leave no doubt that it meant specimens of the peculiar Tangut script came a (legitimate) wife. to the attention of European scholars in the Meanwhile Sofronov in Moscow has been nineteenth century, but no real progress devoting himself to a profound study of the could be made with its until language, an unusually difficult subject. the fortunate discovery by Col. Kozlov in Tangut is written, like Chinese, not in an 1909 of an extensive but damaged monastic alphabetic script but in nearly 6,000 characters library in a ruin at Kara Khoto in Inner (). His first task was to arrange Mongolia, and its removal to St. Petersburg these characters in a logical order so that (as it then was). Since then several Russian, they could easily be found in a list. The start Chinese, and Japanese scholars have been was inevitably to analyse them into a number working away at this material and a good of components which could be used in the many books and articles on various aspects same way as the letters of an alphabet. of and history have appeared Several attempts at this have been made. in these languages. The pace has quickened a Nevsky's pioneering attempt produced a good deal in recent years, and the publication system which led to the same character of the two books under review, by two young sometimes appearing two or three times in Russian scholars who have been working in different places in his list. Kolokolov and close co-operation for some years, marks the Kychanov in Kitayskaya klassika v tangutskom most important stage that has yet been perevode, Moscow, 1966, devised a system by reached in Tangut studies. which the order was determined by the For some years now Kychanov in Leningrad bottom or right-hand component. In the has been devoting himself primarily to the present book Sofronov has adopted a system study of Tangut history in all its aspects, by which it is determined by the top or left- basing himself on a sound knowledge of the hand component. Both have their advan- Chinese and Tangut languages and a compre- tages, but the main disadvantage of any hensive familiarity with the relevant literature system is that it is mechanical and arbitrary in these and other languages. It is hardly too and that a small distortion in a character much to say that, if Barthold had had the (and distortions are not unusual) can send same interests and knowledge, this 'Outline the seeker to the wrong place in the list. For of the history of the Tangut kingdom' is the example in Sofronov's list of 5,819 characters kind of book that he would have written; at the end of vol. II, the first components of and there could be no higher praise than that. nos. 0163 to 0256 and 3301 to 3343 are barely Although modestly described as an 'outline', distinguishable from those of 5148 to 5188 it deals comprehensively with the whole and 3508 to 3550 respectively. A small slip political, economic, and cultural history and of the pen would make all the difference. In 418 REVIEWS

the list of characters used to represent Chinese those which end with the same 'rhyme', to words in Kolokolov and Kychanov, op. cit., adopt the terminology of Chinese, the total 125 ff., the characters representing rong and number of initials (36) and 'rhymes' (107) yong (two alternative pronunciations of the being known. Until recently it was supposed same Chinese character) are at first sight that all this material was homogeneous, but different and both look perfectly normal it now appears that in fact between A.D. 1036, Tangut characters. But in fact apart from when the script was invented, and the last one and a different placing of one quarter of the twelfth century, when most of sub-component they are identical. That for the surviving transcriptions in Chinese charac- rong is Sofronov's 1785; that for yong, if it ters or were made, the phonetic existed, would come between 2428 and 2429. structure of the language was decaying in When the Tangut dictionary finally comes to much the same way as that of Chinese (loss be written it will presumably be in Sofronov's of initial consonantal clusters and plosive order, but a good deal of careful cross- finals and the like) but much more rapidly. referencing will be necessary if the seeker is The phonological works, even those written to be saved from many wild goose chases; fairly late in the period, seem to reflect the better still, an index based, like Kolokolov phonetic structure of the language as it was and Kychanov's, on the bottom or right-hand in A.D. 1036, with rather more initials and a component might be added as an appendix, great many more different 'rhymes', than so that a seeker would have a double chance could be deduced from the late transcriptions. of finding the character. There are very By co-ordinating all this heterogeneous occasionally errors in Sofronov's list, for material Sofronov has succeeded in producing example 1348 should precede 1346, which is (I, 136 ff.) a provisional table of the pronuncia- the same character with an additional com- tion of the initials and rhymes in the last ponent in the bottom right-hand corner, and quarter of the twelfth century. The raw 1347 should come before both of them. There material is presented in a manageable form in are, oddly enough, two blank spaces in the Ii, 6-273, and on this basis a provisional list, 1349 and 3895. I think that the first pronunciation at this date is set against missing character is made up of the two nearly all the characters in his comprehensive vertical lines and the whole of 0241, but can- list. For a few characters no evidence is not suggest what the other is. Once the available since all the Tangut works on characters had been reduced to a manageable phonology are more or less incomplete. order, three tasks emerged, to establish the This is a considerable feat, but it is only a pronunciation of as many characters as beginning if Tangut is to be placed in its possible, to compile a grammar, and to com- rightful position in the Sino-Tibetan language pile a dictionary. The last is reserved for a group. The next stage is to see what can be future volume, the present work deals with got out of the Tangut transcriptions of the first two. Establishing the pronunciation Chinese and Indian words, which probably of words in an unknown language written come from fairly early in the period. There entirely in logograms is obviously an uphill are obvious difficulties about this since the task. As Sofronov points out, it must start exact pronunciation of northern Chinese and from the available external evidence. The the phonetic value of some Tibetan letters at main part of this is the transcriptions of this period is uncertain. Moreover it is likely individual characters in or that the Indian and names were Tibetan script in a few books and documents. transcribed not fromdhran.is the original There are also in Tangut translations of but from intermediate translations in Tibetan Buddhist scriptures and Chinese classics or Chinese. A preliminary test is not wholly some transcriptions in Tangut characters of encouraging. There is in Kolokolov and Chinese words and Indian and Kychanov, op. cit., 125 ff., a list of Tangut names. By themselves these woulddharan.?s not have transcriptions of Chinese words in translations taken us very far, but fortunately some of the classics. Eight of these characters end Tangut scholars were enthusiastic lexico- in rhyme 58, reconstructed by Sofronov (I, graphers and phonologists, well acquainted 137) as -ion. The pronunciation of these with Chinese works on these subjects, which words in 'Middle Chinese' (Pulleyblank) in they used as their models, making appro- four cases ended in -iang, in three in -iung, priate adjustments to fit them to their own and in one in -jong. These suggest that the language. The Tangut collection contains a final consonant of this rhyme was originally number of works on lexicography and pho- -ng, but the vocalization is chaotic. Nor are nology which provide material from which it is these transcriptions likely to help with the possible to group the characters in three ways, final plosives, which had probably disappeared those which are completely homophonous, from northern Chinese by this time. The only those which begin with the same initials and scrap of evidence on this subject (Sofronov, REVIEWS 419

I, 122) is that the second character of the defined very clearly, though not always very Tangut national name Mi-ifag, no. 5745 briefly, with the result that the exposition is niaw, ends in rhyme 21, which therefore very clear. This form of presentation, how- presumably originally ended in -g, modified ever, applied to a Sino-Tibetan language, does to -w by the late twelfth century. sometimes involve some unreality. For Sofronov (I, 64) points out that the inventor example to describe (5283) as a dative of the script, taught by his experience of suffix both in 'to look"in at him' and in ('in) Chinese, constructed, as well as the characters 'my (nga only wish' and ndo (2114) as a "in) representing Tangut words, some purely locative suffix in both 'to live at (ndo) the phonetic characters to represent foreign ruler's court' and 'to go to (ndo) the ruler' sounds. To the extent that the phonetic is a bit Procrustean. It might have been values of these characters can be determined better to approach this subject from the quite firmly they have a double value. They opposite direction, listing the suffixes rather fix the pronunciation of the rhymes to which than the cases and describing their functions they belong, and they prove that no other in the traditional terminology, with an intro- rhymes could have been pronounced in exactly ductory paragraph on the circumstances in the same way. They may also help in another which an unsuffixed noun is governed by a way. In addition to two pitches, high, verb in meanings in which it would, in an associated with unvoiced initials, and low, inflected language, have been in one of the associated with voiced initials, there were oblique cases. Another possible criticism is in Tangut proper two, and only two, tones, that, although there are sufficient, and not level and rising; but there are also in the too many, grammatical examples with the case of a few characters puzzling references original Tangut, transcription, and trans- to a falling and an entering tone, associated lation, it is difficult, in the absence of a respectively with the level and the rising vocabulary, to see which word has which tones. It would be worth investigating meaning. There are, for example, several whether the characters concerned are pho- words translated 'Buddha', and a good deal netics representing Chinese sounds, since these of cross-comparison is required to identify are specifically Chinese tones. Speaking with them. All in all, however, it is doubtful all the advantages of hind-sight, one might whether anyone could have made a better suggest that in any future list of Tangut job of Tangut grammar than Sofronov, and characters purely phonetic ones might be this too will be an indispensable work of marked with an asterisk. reference for some time to come. Even a tentative reconstruction of the early The whole book is produced in a very clear eleventh-century pronunciation would open reproduction of typescript with the characters the door to another possibly fruitful line of written in by hand, and seems to be practically research. There have been discovered, mainly free from errors. I have noticed only one; at Tunhuang, a few texts, tentatively dated in the last line but two of I, 66 the substitution to the eighth and ninth centuries, in Tibetan of 3978 for 3971 makes nonsense of the characters but not in the Tibetan language. sentence. A particular word of commendation Some of these are in Chinese, one or two in is due to the calligrapher (Sofronov himself?) Turkish, the others in unknown languages. who has developed such an admirable Tangut There seems to be a good chance that one of hand. The grammatical examples in the text these may be Tangut written before the are in a rather smaller hand, and the more invention of the script. Translating a text complicated characters are occasionally on an unknown subject in an unknown ambiguous, but the characters in the list at language would involve some hard guessing, the end of vol. 11are beautifully clear. but if one or two sentences could be made to GERARD CLAUSON give sense if the words in them were trans- lated as Tangut, the case that the language was in fact Tangut would be a strong one, KLAUS SAGASTER (tr.): Subud erike and much light might be thrown on the 'Ein Rosenkranz aus Perlen'. Die phonetic structure of pre-eleventh-century Biographie des 1. Pekinger ICahi skya Tangut, since these texts have a richer array Khutukhtu Nag dbaiA blo bzah 6'os of initials and finals than reconstructed Idan, verfasst von Nag dbaih 'os Idan twelfth-century Tangut. alias Res dar After rab rgyas. (Asiatische the phonetics have been disposed of + the rest of vol. is devoted to Forschungen, Bd. 20.) 435 pp. I grammar proper, 164 morphology, and syntax. This is described, pp. facsims. Wiesbaden: Otto 1967. DM 96. very sensibly, in the traditional European Harrassowitz, way with the traditional Russian grammatical This ambitious publication is an enlarged terminology, the various terms used being version of the author's doctoral dissertation