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The Fickle Brush: Chinese Orthography in the Age of Manuscripts: A Review of Imre Galambos's Orthography of Early Chinese writing: Evidence from Newly Excavated Manuscripts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

Matthias L. Richter
Matthias L. Richter*
Affiliation:
Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Colorado at Boulder 279 UCB Boulder, CO 80309, USA
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Extract

In the past decade, it seems, the study of early Chinese manuscripts has at last begun to move from its rather marginal position as a highly specialized subject into the mainstream of scholarship on the Warring States and early imperial periods. This is certainly due in part to the impressive quantity of manuscripts found so far. A still more important factor is probably the fact that the manuscripts recovered to date now include a significant number of politico-philosophical texts. While literature of a more technical nature has attracted attention only in smaller circles of scholars, these more generally appealing finds have spurred a markedly increased interest in early Chinese manuscripts both in China and in the West. This is also reflected by the vast improvement in the quality of publications with regard both to photographic reproduction and to transcription and/or interpretation. The field of palaeography has accordingly gained visibility and esteem. It hardly need be mentioned that orthography is a vital concern in reading manuscripts. Many books and articles on the manuscripts consequently touch upon the subject of orthography when they interpret manuscripts or discuss special palaeographic issues, or when they address the Chinese writing system in a more general way. Yet, to my knowledge, Imre Galambos’s Orthography of Early Chinese Writing is the first monograph ever to elevate the question of early Chinese manuscript orthography to the status of its central subject matter.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early China , Volume 31 , 2007 , pp. 171 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 2007

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References

1. Budapest: Department of East Asian Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, 2006. viii + 184 pp. The book is based on the author's dissertation, “The Evolution of Chinese Writing: Evidence from Newly Excavated Texts (490–221 bc)” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 2002)Google Scholar.

2. Lan, Tang , Zhongguo wenzixue (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1949)Google Scholar and Guwenzixue daolun (Jinan: Qi Lu, 1981)Google Scholar; Gong, Qi , Gudai ziti lungao (Beijing: Wenwu, 1979)Google Scholar; Xigui, Qiu , Wenzixue gaiyao (Beijing: Shangwu, 1988)Google Scholar, English edition Chinese Writing, translated by Mattos, Gilbert L. and Norman, Jerry (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2000)Google Scholar; Boltz, William G., The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1994)Google Scholar; Ming, Gao , Zhongguo guwenzixue tonglun (Beijing: Beijing daxue, 1996)Google Scholar; Linyi, He , Zhanguo wenzi tonglun (dingbu) (Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu, 2003)Google Scholar.

3. E.g., Ming, Gao, Guwenzi leibian (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1980)Google Scholar.

4. E.g., Linyi, He, Zhanguoguwen zidian: Zhanguo wenzi shengxi (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1998)Google Scholar; Zhanguo wenzi bian , ed. Yuhui, Tang (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin, 2001)Google Scholar.

5. E.g., Jiagu wen bian , ed. yanjiusuo, Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1965)Google Scholar; jinwen bian , ed. Geng, Rong et al. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1985)Google Scholar; Gu xiwen bian , ed. Fuyi, Luo (Beijing: Wenwu, 1981)Google Scholar; Gu taowen huibian , ed. Ming, Gao (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1990)Google Scholar; Xian-Qin huobi wenzi bian , ed. Liangbao, Wu (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin, 2006)Google Scholar.

6. E.g., Shoukui, Li , Chu wenzi bian (Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue, 2003)Google Scholar; or–further specified with regard to writing support–Teng Rensheng , Chu xi jianbo wenzi bian (Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu, 1995)Google Scholar; Eikai, Katsu [Ge Yinghui], Kō, Hō [Peng Hao], So kanpaku moji hen Tōkyō: Tōhō shoten, 1992)Google Scholar.

7. E.g., Guangyu, Zhang and Guohua, Yuan , Baoshan Chujian wenzi bian (Taibei: Yiwen, 1992)Google Scholar; Songchang, Chen , Mawangdui jianbo wenzi bian (Beijing: Wenwu, 2001)Google Scholar.

8. Existing corpus-based studies of character forms do not account for all occurrences of character forms and analyze them statistically, as Galambos does. See, e.g., Guiyuan, Wang , Mawangdui boshu hanzi gouxing xitong yanjiu (Nanning: Guangxi jiaoyu, 1999)Google Scholar, Kyōzō, Yokota , “Hosan Sokan no moji to sono shofū: Bokusei saitō kiroku kan wo chūshin to shite” , in Chūgoku kodai no moji to bunka (ronshū) , ed. iinkai, Ronshū henshū (Tōkyō: Kyūko shoin, 1999)Google Scholar, or Kuen, Hung , Shangbo Chu jian shufa yanjiu (Ph.D. diss., Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004)Google Scholar.

9. I follow the practice, Introduced by Qiu Xigui in his Wenzixue gaiyao, of indicating by braces “{}” that I am referring to a word, whereas characters without brackets signify characters as elements of the writing system, regardless of which word they stand for (e.g., the character was used to write the word ting ).

10. Cf. Guodian Chu mu zhujian , ed. bowuguan, Jingmen shi (Beijing: Wenwu, 1998), 62, 179, 182Google Scholar; Ling, Li , Guodian Chu jian jiaoduji: zengding ben (Beijing: Beijing daxue, 2002), 45, 47Google Scholar.

11. For discussions of the methodology of transcribing manuscript characters, see Barnard, Noel, The Ch'u Silk Manuscript: Translation and Commentary, Monographs on Far Eastern History 5 (Canberra: Australian National University, 1973), 19–54 Google Scholar; Boltz, William G., “The Study of Early Chinese Manuscripts: Methodological Preliminaries,” in The Guodian Laozi: Proceedings of the International Conference, Dartmouth College, May 1998, ed. Allan, Sarah and Williams, Crispin (Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2000), 40–41 Google Scholar; Richter, Matthias, “Suggestions Concerning the Transcription of Chinese Manuscript Texts—A Research Note,” in International Research on Bamboo and Silk Documents: Newsletter 3.1 (2003), 1–12 Google Scholar, and Wen, Xing , “Towards a Transparent Transcription,” in Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques 59.1 (2005), 31–60 Google Scholar.

12. See Hanyu da zidian , ed. Zhongshu, Xu et al. (Chengdu: Sichuan cishu, 1990)Google Scholar.

13. Cf. Yucai, Duan , Shuowen jiezi zhu (1807; ed. Shanghai: Guji, 1981), 592b and 741aGoogle Scholar. Although the Shuo wen names as phonophoric for , and only for names (ting), the latter is ultimately phonophoric in as well.

14. He Linyi Zhanguo guwen zidian, 810, suggests (ting) as phonophoric for .

15. Reconstructed pronunciations are taken from Schuessler, Axel, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007)Google Scholar. Only in these two cases of ren and ting, they are my conjectures of what they might be according to Schuessler's system.

16. There is a possibility that some characters evolved into punctuation marks, e.g., the character may be the origin of the so-called “tadpole mark” (e.g., ), used to signal the end of a text. The distinction between the areas of characters and punctuation marks is in those cases not entirely clear, so that arguably some manuscript characters are used to represent other aspects of language than words, e.g., caesurae. And, of course, in the case of bisyllabic words written with two characters, each of them only represents part of a word.

17. There are many more examples of this kind, e.g. , which can stand for wèn or wén .

18. In one instance (p. 114), the inappropriate term “written dialects,” which the author had used in his dissertation, has found its way into the revised version. It should be understood in the sense of “local scripts.”

19. Cf. He Linyi, Zhanguo guzven zidian, 836.

20. To my knowledge, this abbreviation mark was first described in the unpublished Ph.D. dissertation of Suqing, Lin , “Zhanguo wenzi yanjiu” (Taiwan daxue, 1983)Google Scholar.

21. For information on the Houma find as well as for reproductions and transcriptions of the texts, see Houma mengshu , ed. weiyuanhui, Shanxi sheng wenwu gongzuo (Beijing: Wenwu, 1976)Google Scholar; Weld, Susan, “The Covenant Texts from Houma and Wenxian,” in New Sources of Early Chinese History: An Introduction to the Reading of Inscriptions and Manuscripts, ed. Shaughnessy, Edward L. (Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1997), 125–60Google Scholar.

22. If we, for instance, choose to consider a corpus all manuscripts found in one particular tomb, the unity of the corpus lies primarily in the intention of whoever made the decision to assemble just these manuscripts and inter them together. Or, if a group of texts collected by—or at least in the possession of—the deceased was laid in his or her tomb unedited, the unity must be sought in circumstances of the tomb occupant's life. In both cases part of what we are inclined to interpret as meaningful may just be due to happenstance. By no means should we assume without any positive proof that manuscripts excavated from one tomb must all stem from the same temporal or spatial background. E.g., in the case of the Guodian manuscripts it has been proposed that two groups of slips are not written in Chu script, which implicitly suggests that they were not just written in a different script, but actually produced in a different region. Cf. The Guodian Laozi: Proceedings of the International Conference, Dartmouth College, May, 1998, ed. Allan, Sarah and Williams, Crispin (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2000), 178 Google Scholar.

23. But Guo yu 10 (“Jin yu” , 4) even has such a combination that suggests the closeness of zhi ”intention” and xin “heart” in similar contexts: “Ziyu (addressed the Earl of Qin and) said: ‘On the strength of the Son of Heaven's mandate does my lord give his command to Chonger. Would Chonger dare to have an idle spirit? Would he dare not to step down and bow in reverence?’ … Ziyu (addressed the Earl of Qin and) said: ‘My lord has pronounced the words with which one assists the Son of Heaven and rectifies the king's state, using these to give his command to Chonger. Would Chonger dare to have an indolent heart? Would he dare not to follow the virtuous?’” Cf. Guo yu, Jin yu 4 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1978), 360 Google Scholar.

24. Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 29 (1957), 1–332 Google Scholar.

25. For these works, see n. 2 and 4 above.

26. Hefei: Anhui daxue, 2002.

27. Beijing, Zhonghua, 2002.

28. Cf. Linyi, He, Zhanguo guwen zidian: Zhanguo wenzi shengxi (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1998), 1135–36Google Scholar.

29. Cf. the previously mentioned discussion of on p. 118.

30. For more variant forms, see He Linyi, Zhanguo guwen zidian, 1137–38.

31. The reason for neglecting this element is apparently that in many cases it can reasonably be explained as part of the upper half of . However, there are cases where just this part is written in the same complexity, and yet there is an additional or below. The phonetic component should, according to Xu Shen's analysis of in the Shuo wen, actually be identified as only the upper half of , i.e., or just (in the Shuo wen rendered as a ). This phonophoric is, of course, the same for the entire xiesheng series. Only this fact is obscured in the Shuo wen entries of other members of this series by the pragmatic principle of arranging characters under section headers (bushou ). The character is placed under the section header and is correctly analyzed as consisting of a semantic component and an abbreviated form of as phonophoric. However, as occurs under the section header , it is analyzed as consisting of a semantic classifier and a phonophoric , instead of the two semantic components and the phonophoric . Yucai, Duan, Shuowen jiezi zhu (1807; ed. Shanghai: Guji, 1981), 76a and 232bGoogle Scholar; cf. also He Linyi, Zhanguo guwen zidian, 251–54.

32. According to my estimate, a considerable portion, possibly up to fifty per cent, of the characters presented on pp. 167–68 and 170–71 as the dominant forms used to write the words fu and fu differ in the presence or absence of an additional component or that Galambos does not mention. My different way of analyzing the characters would strengthen the author's claim of variability and would in turn lower the degree to which some few dominant forms prevail.

33. The apparent phonophoric of (*lû?/*lûh? > dad) is (*lhu?> shou), cf. Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 75b.

34. The phonophoric is ting (not ren ). The Shuo wen names as phonophoric of , but names ting as the phonophoric in his analysis of the former. Cf. Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, pp. 58b and 592a. If we follow William Boltz's (Origin and Development, 115) disputed proposal that could act as the phonophoric in this character, this example needs to be excluded.

35. The phonophoric of is the middle portion of the left part (i.e., ). Cf. He Linyi, Zhanguo guwen zidian, 1036–40, and Guwenzi gulin , ed. Pu, Li (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu, 2004), 10.947 Google Scholar.

36. Cf. Shanghaibowuguan cang Zhanguo Chu zhushu I , ed. Chengyuan, Ma (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2001), 18–19 Google Scholar.

37. Cf. Keightley, David N., Sources of Shang History: The Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978)Google Scholar, fig. 12.

38. Cf. Richter, Matthias, “Towards a Profile of Graphic Variation: On the Distribution of Graphic Variants within the Mawangdui Laozi Manuscripts,” Asiatische Studiën / Études Asiatiques LIX.1 (2005), 185–89Google Scholar.

39. Cf. Xi, Zhu , Sishu zhangju zhu , in Xinbian zhuzi jicheng (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1983), 3 Google Scholar: “Only if one understands when to stop will one be firm; only if one is firm can one be tranquil. … When one understands what needs to be put first and what after, one has come close to the Way” .

40. The respective parts of the original silk manuscripts are even stored in different formats in the Hunan Provincial Museum. The individual fragments of the texts De and Dao were rejoined and mounted as one piece, whereas the fragments of the preceding four texts (the so-called Huangdi sijing) are mounted as twenty individual sheets.

41. Cf. Xigui, Qiu, “Mawangdui boshu Laozi yiben juanqian gu yishu bing fei Huangdi sijing ” , in Daojia wenhua yanjiu 3 (1993), 249–55Google Scholar.