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Orthography of Early Chinese Writing: Evidence from Newly Excavated Manuscripts

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Orthography of Early Chinese Writing: Evidence from Newly Excavated Manuscripts IMRE GALAMBOS ORTHOGRAPHY OF EARLY CHINESE WRITING: EVIDENCE FROM NEWLY EXCAVATED MANUSCRIPTS BUDAPEST MONOGRAPHS IN EAST ASIAN STUDIES SERIES EDITOR: IMRE HAMAR IMRE GALAMBOS ORTHOGRAPHY OF EARLY CHINESE WRITING: EVIDENCE FROM NEWLY EXCAVATED MANUSCRIPTS DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES, EÖTVÖS LORÁND UNIVERSITY BUDAPEST 2006 The present volume was published with the support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. © Imre Galambos, 2006 ISBN 963 463 811 2 ISSN 1787-7482 Responsible for the edition: Imre Hamar Megjelent a Balassi Kiadó gondozásában (???) A nyomdai munkálatokat (???)a Dabas-Jegyzet Kft. végezte Felelős vezető Marosi Györgyné ügyvezető igazgató CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. vii Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER ONE FORMER UNDERSTANDINGS ..................................................................................... 11 1.1 Traditional views ........................................................................................... 12 1.1.1 Ganlu Zishu ........................................................................................ 13 1.1.2 Hanjian .............................................................................................. 15 1.2 Modern views ................................................................................................ 20 1.2.1 Noel Barnard ...................................................................................... 21 1.2.2 Cheng Te-k’un ................................................................................... 23 1.2.3 William G. Boltz ................................................................................ 24 1.2.4 Matsumaru Michio ............................................................................. 25 1.2.5 Qiu Xigui ........................................................................................... 28 1.3 Conclusions .................................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER TWO THE QIN AND HAN CREATION OF THE STANDARD .................................................... 31 2.1 The Hanshu and the Shuowen accounts ......................................................... 33 2.2 The Shuowen small seal script ....................................................................... 34 2.3 Structural variability within the Qin small seal script .................................... 39 2.4 Structural variability within the Han small seal script ................................... 40 2.5 The reality of the Qin reforms ........................................................................ 42 2.6 Inconsistency as a moral issue in the Han ...................................................... 45 2.7 The liushu 六書 ............................................................................................. 54 2.8 Conclusions .................................................................................................... 61 CHAPTER THREE IDENTIFICATION OF CHARACTER FORMS .................................................................. 65 3.1 Components ................................................................................................... 65 3.1.1 The derivation of components from characters .................................. 67 3.1.2 Character structure across styles; clericization ................................... 69 3.2 Words ............................................................................................................. 77 3.2.1 The identification of a character ......................................................... 77 3.2.2 Relationship between a word and its graphical representation ........... 78 CONTENTS CHAPTER FOUR THE STANDARD ...................................................................................................... 89 4.1 The concept of standard in the Chinese script ............................................... 90 4.2 The concept of standard in written English ................................................... 95 CHAPTER FIVE VARIATION ............................................................................................................. 105 5.1 The local corpus ............................................................................................ 106 5.2 Degree and nature of dissimilarity ................................................................ 114 CHAPTER SIX PATTERNS OF VARIABILITY ..................................................................................... 127 6.1 Introduction to the corpus ............................................................................. 127 6.2 Analysis ........................................................................................................ 131 6.2.1 Zhi “will, intention” (志) ................................................................... 132 6.2.2 Fu “to restore” (復) ........................................................................... 133 6.2.3 Fu “abdomen” (腹) ........................................................................... 136 6.3 Orthographic patterns ................................................................................... 140 Inconsistency of variability ........................................................................... 140 Dominant form .............................................................................................. 141 Phonetic consistency ..................................................................................... 141 Semantic relevancy ....................................................................................... 141 CHAPTER SEVEN CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................... 143 7.1 Findings ........................................................................................................ 143 7.2 Implications .................................................................................................. 146 7.3 Further speculations ...................................................................................... 148 Appendix I. Comparison of the Hanshu and Shuowen accounts .......................... 151 Appendix II. Character forms selected from the Houma covenant texts ............... 165 Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 177 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book grew out of my Ph.D. dissertation. First of all, I wish to thank my advisers, Professors Jeffrey K. Riegel, Stephen H. West, and David N. Keightley. I thank them here not only for their guidance while writing this dissertation but also for their patience and support during the seven years that I spent at the University of California, Berkeley as their student. I especially would like to thank Professor David N. Keightley, who rigorously dissected my drafts over and over, correcting the multi- tude of mistakes and inconsistencies in both my thinking and writing. Among the people who helped me revise the dissertation and shape it into a book, I am also most grateful to Susan Whitfield from the British Library for proofreading the manuscript and inspiring me to continue working on it. I also thank Haida Liang from the National Gallery, London for calling my attention to numerous problems hitherto unnoticed. Special thanks to Erzsébet Tóth for typesetting and preparing the manuscript for publication. The main bulk of this book was written at the University of Califor- nia at Santa Barbara while I was teaching there as a lecturer. I wish to thank the entire Department of East Asian Languages, the faculty and staff of which had been kind and supportive, rushing to offer help whenever I needed. I especially would like to thank in this respect Professor Sharon Yu. I also want to thank Cecilia Chu from the Chinese Language Program at UC Berkeley, without whom I probably would not have been able to finish this work. She gave me support and encouragement when I needed it most and I am grateful to her for this. I also wish to thank the staff and faculty of the East Asian Library at UC Berkeley for their kind support. Among the staff of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at UC Berkeley, I would like to express my gratitude to the Student Af- fairs Officer, Karen Ralls Mayers, who has been helping me with admin- istrative affairs for the past few years. Among the other people who helped me with their input and sugges- tions, I am thankful to Dr. Mathias Richter from Hamburg University, Tim Mansfield, Dr. Péter Vámos from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Professor Michael Lewis from Michigan State University; Dr. Mie Lewis; Professor Eugenio Menegon from Boston University; Professor Christoph Harbsmeier; Gábor Kósa from ELTE University, Budapest; Vika and Tom Rendall; and last but not least, Márta Vajda and my father, Imre Galambos. I wish to thank the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, especially Professor Wang Ch’iu-kui, for their generous grant that made the publication of this book possible. I am also grateful to Professor Imre Hamar from ELTE University, Budapest for his continuous encouragement and support for publication. viii INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION The archaeological discoveries of the last few decades have provided an unprecedented amount of Warring States 戰國 (453–221 BC) texts in the form of manuscripts and inscriptions
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