THE LAST NOTE ON THE ARAMAIC WORD FOR ‘MONASTERY’ IN EAST ASIA AND SIMILAR ENCOUNTERS OF THE FOURTH KIND1 A response to Beckwith 2017
Alexander Vovin
Vote for us, we will think for you American saying
Reading through Christopher Beckwith (hereafter: (2017: 221). In this passage CB managed to demonstrate CB)’s response (2017) to Laurent Sagart (hereafter LS) several points: a) that although the Nihonshoki indeed and Alexander Vovin (hereafter: AV) critique (2016) of includes the description of events that took place in the his article (2014) was indeed entertaining but by no sixth century AD, he is unaware of the fact that the means instructive or enlightening. There is very little I Nihonshoki was finally compiled in 720 AD, although can add to what we have already said, so the following the actual work on its compilation started with the work is just putting all dots over i. The title is inspired by on the no longer extant Teiki (帝紀) ‘Imperial Records’ Stefan Georg’s excellent, but unfortunately still unpub- in 681 AD, so this chronicle cannot by any means be lished presentation Encounters of the Third Kind (an contemporaneous to “several decades earlier” than 590 obvious allusion at Spielberg’s famous movie) at the AD; b) that he is oblivious to the fact that the man’yō- PIAC 2006 meeting in Berlin, where he proposed that in gana variety used in the Nihonshoki is man’yōgana B, historical linguistics there are three types of encounters: based on Late Middle Chinese, and even in most cases of the first kind, when one deals with real data, second, specifically on Chang’an Late Middle Chinese, so it can- when one deals with loanwords presented as evidence for not possibly reflect pre-Old Japanese of the fifth or sixth genetic relationship, and third, when one has to confront centuries AD, c) and most importantly, although the the data that were simply invented. CB new publications character 寺 is attested in the Nihonshoki, there are, to of 2014 and especially 2017, unfortunately, open the next the best of my knowledge no phonographic man’yōgana dimension, namely encounters of the fourth kind, as the transcriptions of Old Japanese tera ‘Buddhist temple’ in it. readers will shortly see below.69 There is actually a slightly earlier Western Old Japanese First, CB once again demonstrated his lack of exper- attestation of tera (天良) from 752 AD in TDJYR (Tsut- tise in East Asian historical linguistics and philology, sui 1982: 57) than CB’s tera (弖羅) attested in KKHS whether it would be Chinese, Japonic, Koreanic, or Tun- 6b.1 (772 AD), but cited by CB from the first line of gusic. It is very well known that before becoming a spe- the dictionary entry in JDB 484. Thus, no sixth or even cialist in historical linguistics in any language family that seventh century phonographic attestations are available. has a written history, it is necessary to acquire philological CB failure or lack of desire to understand the most basic ability of dealing with actual texts. With one exception in facts about the Middle Korean and Old Korean language 2017, one would try to search in vain for any discussion history outlined in AV and LS (2016: 119-122) reveal of real data from texts in these languages, as all CB’s his lack of familiarity with this discipline. Incidentally, research is clearly based on dictionaries and other sec- the lack of citations not only to any front-line Korean ondary sources. Two examples will suffice. CB says research on Old and Middle Korean, as well as to any (quoting verbatim): “V claims that according to Miyake classics written by Korean scholars (with the sole excep- (2003), raising of pre-Old Japanese ✩e to Old Japanese tion of a dictionary of pre-Modern Korean by Nam ✩i “occurred around 590 AD. But 寺 ‘Buddhist monas- Kwangwu (2006) where these facts could be easily tery’ is attested several decades earlier in the Nihon learned from, is quite revealing. Shoki, the main Japanese chronicle for this period” Second, although CB must be given his due as one of the staunch opponents of ‘Altaic’, surprisingly his schol- 69 I would like to thank Etienne de la Vaissière for his comments arly discourse has the same pitfalls as that of Altaicists. on an earlier version of this note. Any mistakes or shortcomings remain Not only CB demands his readers to make leaps of faith, my own responsibility. he constantly misquotes, miscites, and manipulates in all
Journal Asiatique 305.2 (2017): 225-227 doi: 10.2143/JA.305.2.3262805 226 ALEXANDER VOVIN other possible ways the work not only of his direct oppo- so we might have here another case of a donkey in a nents, but also of other scholars, if it suits his purposes. panther’s skin. In any case, if -an is a suffix, what is Several brief examples will suffice. CB accuses LS and exactly its function? By leaving this unanswered, one AV of not reading most of his 2014 paper (2017: 12), in would be tempted to view this explanation as a typical spite of the fact that they extensively cite CB 2014: how case of Nostratic methodology producing ad hoc unac- can one cite anything without reading it first? CB also counted for segments. Furthermore, CB also falsely announces that LS and AV are ignoramuses who do not claims that (citing verbatim): “Old Jurchen has tairan know that Aramaic was one of the official languages in
References Note de la Rédaction du Journal Asiatique concluant les échanges des Professeurs Primary sources: Beckwith et Vovin Japanese La Rédaction du Journal Asiatique, après avoir reçu KKHS Kakyō hyōshiki (歌經標式), 772 AD TDJYR Tōdaiji yōroku (東大寺要録), Tōdaiji daikai (東大寺 les articles si stimulants du professeur Beckwith, a estimé 大會), 752 AD70 qu’il était souhaitable, dans l’intérêt du débat scienti- fique, de susciter des réponses fondées aux hypothèses Jurchen proposées, et a publié avec gratitude les textes rédigés KW Kyengwen inscription, between 1138 and 1153 AD en réaction aux premiers. Tous les auteurs doivent être remerciés d’avoir accordé une part considérable de leur Secondary sources: temps à l’approfondissement de ces questions délicates. Il est cependant apparu, dans les échanges qui ont suivi Baxter, William H. & Sagart, Laurent 2014. Old Chinese. A ces publications, que la vigueur de la discussion dépas- New Reconstruction. Oxford & New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press. sait de façon quelque peu embarrassante la modération Beckwith, Christopher I. 2007 (2004). Koguryǒ: The Lan- qui devrait être la norme dans une controverse acadé- guage of Japan’s Continental Relatives. Leiden: Brill. mique, du moins dans le monde francophone. Il n’était Beckwith, Christopher I. 2014. The Aramaic source of the East bien sûr pas question de demander à nos collègues de Asian word for ‘Buddhist monastery’: On the spread of modifier leurs textes selon des règles auxquelles ils ne Central Asian monasticism in the Kushan period’. Journal souscriraient pas. C’est pourquoi nous les publions tels Asiatique 302.1: 111-38. qu’ils nous ont été envoyés, mettant ainsi un terme à un Beckwith, Christopher I. 2017. Once Again on the Aramaic échange d’opinions à l’évidence incompatibles. Toute- Word for ‘monastery’ in East Asia. Journal Asiatique 305, fois, nous comptons sur les contributeurs futurs du Jour- 000-000. nal pour respecter autant que possible les limites d’une Durkin-Meisterernst, Desmond 2004. Dictionary of Man- ichaean Middle Persian and Parthian Corpus Fontium Man- courtoisie que nous voulons ne pas croire surannée. ichaeorum Subsidia: Dictionary of Manichaean Texts III: Texts from Central Asia and China 1. Turnhout: Brepols 2004. JDB -- Omodaka, Hisataka (ed.) 1967. Jidai betsu kokugo dai- jiten. Jōdai hen [A Big Dictionary of the National Language by Periods. Volume on Old Japanese]. Tokyo: Sanseidō. Miyake, Marc H. 2003. Philological evidence for *e and *o in Pre-Old Japanese. Diachronica 20.1: 83-137. Nam, Kwangwu 2006 (1997). Kyohak koe sacen [Kyohaksa’s dictionary of the pre-modern Korean language]. Seoul: Kyo- haksa. Pellard, Thomas 2005. Review of Beckwith 2004. Korean Studies 29: 167-69. Tsutsui, Hidetoshi 1982. Tōdaiji yōroku kōtei (Annotated Tōdaiji yōroku). Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai. Vovin, Alexander & Sagart, Laurent 2016. No Aramaic Word for ‘Monastery’ in East Asia: Reflections on Christopher I. Beckwith’s Recent Publication. Journal Asiatique 304.1: 117-124.
70 Cited according to Tsutsui Hidetosi (筒井英俊) edition of Tōdaiji yōroku (1982: 57).