Readers 读者
Etymology and Palaeography of the Yellow River hé 河
“河”的词源学及古文字学阐释
Ken-ichi Takashima 高嶋谦一
Abstract 摘要
The paper reviews some representative etymologies so far suggested for Hé 河 ‘the Yellow River’. It pays particular attention to the methodologies involved in etymological enquiries. There are basically two of them. One is the comparative method as developed in the Indo-European languages and applied to the Sino-Tibetan and Tibeto-Burman languages. Another one is a traditional method based on the evidence available in Chinese itself. It has roots in Sòng 宋 times (ca. 13th c.). Known widely as Chinese word-family studies (漢語同族詞之研究), the first systematic work is by a Japanese scholar Tōdō Akiyasu 藤堂明保 (1914-1985) in his D.Lit. thesis entitled Jōko Kango no tango kazoku no kenkyū (上古漢語の單語家族の研究, Tokyo University, 1962). Its revised and enlarged version (1965) and other notable works are critically discussed. There is no doubt that Chinese language was used before the emergence of oracle-bone inscriptions
(abbreviated hereinafter as OBI) ca. 1230 B.C. (lasting to ca. 1046 B.C.), but the phonological and morphological reconstructions we have for Old Chinese cannot be considered to precede the date of the emergence of OBI. We have thus redefined etymology: it studies the earliest attested meanings of words, of their relationship to those in different languages thought of the same origin, and in the case of many words, but not all of them, be considered in terms of the interface of palaeography and etymology. This paper thus attempts to bridge the two disciplines. Even though the Shāng scribes may not have been the creators of the graphs themselves, they must have continued the traditions of the original graph makers. The Shāng scribes lived more than a thousand years earlier than the users of the clerical script of Hàn time. Many bone and bronze graphs reflect the words they were writing, often subtly mirroring their meanings. How this last aspect has bearing on the etymology of Hé is
the major theme of this paper. Not only linguistic but also palaeographical and archaeological analyses in this paper have led to a conclusion that the etymology of Hé is related to both the phonetic and shape of an adze handle, kē/*khâi 柯. This in and of itself is not new, but other details are novel including a finer analysis of the predecessors of 河 written like and , as well as that of such Zhōuyuán 周原 graphs as and . The former graph consists of the water element and a standing human figure with its head turning backward and carrying a pole with some load. The latter one consists of the water element and a similar human figure, but the carrying pole and the load are abbreviated. The DT of the former is , the latter 𣲪. These forms reflect a scribal tradition different from the predecessors of 河, and the word represented by these forms is hè/*gâiB 荷 ‘to carry on the shoulder’ and because the sound was close to hé/*gâi 河, actually closer than kē/*khâi 柯 was to it, the graph was
loaned to express the Yellow River, Hé 河.
本文回顾了迄今为止有关名词“河”（黄河）的一些有代表性的词源观点，尤其关注词源学探究所涉及之方法。词源学探究基本上有两种方法：其一为印欧语研究中采用之比较法，此法适用于藏语与藏缅语。其二乃内部比较法，主要基于汉语本身之证据，起源于宋代（大约公元13世纪），被泛称为汉语同族词研究。日本學者藤堂明保（1914-1985）在其文學博士學位論文《上古漢語の單語家族の研究》（東京大學，1962）中第一次做了系統研究。其增订本（1965）与其他名著被审慎地讨论着。 毫无疑问，在甲骨文（约公元前1230）出现之前，语言已经使用着，然我们对上古音和形态之拟构不能认为是早于甲骨文的。因此我们重新定义词源学：它是单个词语最早可证意义之研究，是同根语言间的词语关系之研究。在很多情况下，但不是全部，是从古文字学和词源学界面探求汉语词汇。本文试图弥合这两种研究。尽管商代书手自己可能并非图象文字之创造者，但他们一定延续着初文设计者的传统。这些书手的年代比汉代隶书使用者早了约一千多年。许多甲骨文和金文图象文字反映出它们记录的语词，映射着它们的意思。这点如何关系到“河”字词源，此乃本文之主旨。不仅语言学，古文字学和考古学之证据也推论出：“河”字词源跟于锛斧手柄（柯）之音韵与形体有关系。
Subject Keywords 關鍵詞
Yellow River 黄河 Hé 河 Etymology 词源 Palaeography 古文字 Graphic design 造字意图