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Introduction Introduction 1 The Purpose of Studying Tangut Western Xia, also referred to as Xixia or the Tangut Empire, was an important dynastic regime in medieval China, its population composed mainly of the Dangxiang-Qiangic people, and ruled by as many as ten emperors throughout its 190 years of recorded history. The early phase of Tangut history was marked by its standoff with Northern Song and Liao, later with Southern Song and Jin, and the three powers in each case constituted a Three-Kingdom dynamic. Western Xia prided itself on impressively large and stably controlled terri- tory, detailed institutional laws, and is known for both its cultural prosper- ity and the largely successful military campaigns. Geographically, the state is precariously situated between Song, Liao, Jin, Tibet and Huihu, and was thus inevitably involved, in a significant way, in the intricate diplomatic entan- glements between dynastic powers. But what mainly concerns this book is the wonderful fact that the Tangut people created their own script and lan- guage, later known as Tangut, which makes possible the wealth of historical and cultural records of Western Xia bequeathed to us today. As time moved on, with Tangut power ruined at the hands of the Mongols, and as the Dan- gxiang ethnics pined away from history throughout Yuan and Ming dynas- ties, Tangut became what most of us would call “a dead language.” Unsurpris- ingly, texts documented in Tangut have also disappeared: as recent as a hun- dred years ago, not a single Tangut publication was circulated on this planet, and, of course, nor was there any single person versed in the Tangut Lan- guage. Due to the lamentable fact that imperial scholars of Yuan Dynasty compiled only the History of Song, History of Liao and History of Jin, thus left the history of Western Xia alone unrecorded, there is generally very little commentary on the Tanguts in Han Chinese documents. As a consequence, the picture of Tangut culture and history appears vague, but it is precisely due to this lack of histori- cal records that Western Xia came to be known as the “mysterious dynasty” in both historical studies and popular culture. Fortunately, a plethora of Tangut texts have resurfaced since modern times, and the history of Western Xia, once buried deep under earth, blossomed in renaissance. Worthy of note is the Russian exploration team led by Kozlov (П.К. Козлов) in 1908 and 1909, twice excavating and discovering thousands of Tangut texts and artefacts, giving much momentum to the project of rethink- ing the history of Western Xia. With tremendous efforts by scholars from a wide © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004414549_002 2 introduction array of countries, Tangut the dead language has come to be decoded. From those manuscripts that have hitherto been revealed, we see an increasingly demystified panorama of the history and culture of the Tangut state, enough to convince us that the interpretation of Tangut texts is of vital importance to research in Tangutology in general. Tangutology as a field of study is enmeshed in many riddles in history, for many notable modern Chinese scholars, such asWang Guowei (1877–1927), Luo Zhenyu (1866–1940), Chen Yinke (1890–1969), and Yuen Ren Chao (1892–1982), just to name a few, have all to various degrees engaged in Tangut studies in the earliest years of the birth and growth of this discipline, and have made ground- breaking contributions to the field. Particularly worthy of mentioning is Wang Jingru (1903–1990), whose persistent efforts brought about a much more sys- tematic method and established the foundation of Tangutology. For all of these scholars we have reverence, for their enormous passion and exceptional schol- arship still remind us of the value of Tangut. Tangut manuscripts are an important cultural heritage. It is only possible to decipher the mysteries of the Dangxiang Tanguts and their dynastic regime through the medium of these texts, to fill in the vacancy of cultural history, and to view medieval Chinese history from a holistic and comprehensive stand- point. Younger students interested in studying Tangut history and culture can accomplish a great deal upon having learnt and examined Tangut texts and other historical sources. Two purposes of studying the Tangut language are here suggested. 1.1 In Order to Investigate the Tangut Language and Script Given that the native speakers of the Tangut language have literally gone extinct, and that there remains no such thing as a live Tangut, it is fair to say that this language is virtually dead. Thereupon it is only feasible to take up the project to investigate the Tangut language and script scientifically, using the existing Tangut manuscripts that are still luckily available to us. A student may wonder: which linguistic branch and language group does Tangut belong to? In what ways is it related to Chinese and Tibetan? What are the characteristics of the pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar of Tangut? How are the Tangut characters structured? Are there any rules to consult and stick to? How are they related to Chinese characters? How to interpret Tangut texts in the most accu- rate way possible? All of them are good topics of research. That Tangut as a language was alive hundreds of years ahead of our time sug- gests that it may be able to provide us with valuable insights on other approxi- mately contemporaneous languages, some of which were linguistically closely related, others geographically or culturally. Given that a vast number of ethnic.
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