Re: references Henan and Hakka

["Dylan Sung" <dylanwhs@ukgateway.net>]

Dear SiuLeung,

In regard to the matter of Qieyun, a lengthy reply follows. As for the other
paragraphs, I am mostly in agreement that Chinese people irrespective of their
linguistic background are united under one superculture. Since the discussion
about whether Hakka people call themselves Hakka has already been discussed
earlier on this forum, I will not continue with that.

:I think Qieyun was said to be an invention of Xixia kingdom (occupying Gansu
:and neighboring regions), which is now perished. They left many relics in
:Gansu province in carvings. Few people can read Xixia writing now, although
:they look very similar to Hanzi.


Let me quote from Yu NaeWing's (§E°i¥Ã) "A New Revision of Kuangyün (=Guangyun
¼sÃý) (Sung Edition) a Dictionary of Rimes for Ancient Chinese Language-with
cross-referencing Pronunciations" (·s®Õ¤¬µù§º¥»¼sÃý).

Ch'ieh-yün (=Qieyun ¤ÁÃý) was written not just because of the requirement to
know more about rimes, but also because the change of political environment in
the Chin period (Jin Dynasty ®Ê´Â 265-316).

The invasion of the norther barbarians created polical disputes after the Chin
period. The Chin government was forced to move from north to south to establish
the Eastern Chin dynasty (ªF®Ê´Â 317-419). In order to preserve their noble
status, the south-moving nobles and scholars kept on the use of the Loyang
(=Luoyang ¬¥¶§) Dialect, a form of language formally accepted by officials,
scholars and noble classes, since the movement of the capital to (the) south in
317. The ability to use the Loyang Dialect became an indication of nobility. And
the realization of this formed an incentive for south-moving nobles and scholars
such as Yen Chih-t'ui (ÃC¤§±À 531-590?) and Hsiao Kai (¿½¸Ó)
to be more concerned with the Loyang Dialect and the use opf standard rime in
this dialect. A literary language known as ya-yen (=yayan ¶®¨¥). In order to
bridge the differences of proninciations between the south and the north and to
eliminate confusions, the masterpiece of Ch'ieh-yün was written by Lu Fa-yen
(=Lu Fayan ³°ªk¨¥ in 601) to serve this purpose.

The Xixia (HsiHsia or Tangut) kingdom had nothing to do with the creation of the
Qieyun.


:I can only go by what I have in hand as reference. Chen Yundong's book
:should be available from bookstores in Taiwan and Hongkong. It is up ther
:reader to decide whether it is convincing or not.



Chen's book (I am certain) is about the language of Northern China during the
Yuan period. When the migration of Hakkas have already occured from the north to
the south several times over, and a book on the northern dialects appear such as
Zhou DeQing's (=Chou Te-Ch'ing ©P¼w²M) ZhongYuan YinYun (¤¤­ì­µÃý) in 1324, it
makes you wonder if the dialect Zhou has wrote about in the Yuan period is
actually Hakka. There lies my concern.

As Yu points out above, the language of an older dialect at the time immediately
after the first migration of Chinese southward is encoded (if that is the
correct term) in Qieyun. It was a Chinese enterprise, and came the information
was gathered from several areas to where the Eastern Jin had come to reside.

Jerry Norman in Chinese says "all Chinese historical phonology pivots around the
language of the Qie4yun4 dictionary, which for all practical purposes is
identical to Middle Chinese".

Scholars such as Karlgren considered that Qieyun might in fact be the language
of the capital of the Sui dynasty (¶¦´Â 589-618), however, others views such as
Zhou Zumo prevailed when Norman's book was written, in which Qieyun is a
compromise between the pronunciation during the Nan-bei-Chao (Northern and
Southern Dynasties «n¥_´Â ~ 420AD to 581 AD). At the time of Sui unification,
Jinling (ª÷³® = modern Nanjing «n¨Ê) and Yexia (¿ó¤U in Henan ªe«n) were the
cultural capitals of the south and north of China. These where the
pronunciations that went in QY really came from.

"Middle Chinese" is also known in Chinese as zhongguyin (zung1gu3yim1 ¤¤¥j­µ).
Old Chinese is known as guyin (gu3yim1 ¥j­µ). The authors WANG Li, CHOU Fakou
(Zhou Fagao), TUNG T'ung-ho (Dong Tonghe), LI Fangkuei (Li Fanggui), are ¤ý¤O,
©Pªk°ª, ¸³¦P÷Ï, §õ¤è®Û respectively, as mentioned in the previous message. This
is so that Chou Fakao and Zhou DeQing are not confused.

Cheers,
Dylan.