Onoma 51 Journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences ISSN: 0078-463X; e-ISSN: 1783-1644 Journal homepage: https://onomajournal.org/ Lunar mansion names in South-West China: An etymological reconstruction of ancestral astronomical designations in Moso, Pumi, and Yi cultures compared with Chinese and Tibetan contexts DOI: 10.34158/ONOMA.51/2016/6 Xu Duoduo National University of Singapore (NUS), Asia Research Institute (ARI), Singapore
[email protected] To cite this article: Xu Duoduo. 2016. Lunar mansion names in South-West China: An etymological reconstruction of ancestral astronomical designations in Moso, Pumi, and Yi cultures compared with Chinese and Tibetan contexts. Onoma 51, 113–143. DOI: 10.34158/ONOMA.51/2016/6 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.34158/ONOMA.51/2016/6 © Onoma and the author. Lunar mansion names in South-West China: An etymological reconstruction of ancestral astronomical designations in Moso, Pumi, and Yi cultures compared with Chinese and Tibetan contexts Abstract: The present study aims at an etymological reconstruction of lunar mansion designations of the Moso, Pumi, and Yi people from South-West China. Those lunar mansions are generally named after animals. A systematic examination on these astronomical names reveals frequent borrowing processes among these cultures, extended to Tibetan and Chinese contexts. Three patterns of direct borrowing of the lunar mansion names can be highlighted in addition to compatible morphological structures in some designation. This comparative research also provides innovative 114 XU DUODUO solutions to several issues still unsolved from the current studies on lunar mansions focused on specific ethnic groups.