The Kitan Language and Script Handbook of Oriental Studies Handbuch der Orientalistik section eight Central Asia Edited by Denis Sinor Nicola Di Cosmo VOLUME 19 The Kitan Language and Script By Daniel Kane LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009 This book is printed on acid-free paper. ISSN 0169-8524 ISBN 978 90 04 16829 9 © Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. 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Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS Preface ……………………………………………………………………. ix Chapter One: Introduction..............................................................................1 1.1 Background......................................................................................1 1.2 Kitan words in Chinese works..........................................................2 1.3 Creation of the Kitan scripts.............................................................3 1.4 Use of the Kitan script under the Jin................................................3 1.5 The Kitan inscriptions......................................................................4 1.6 Name of the Liao State.....................................................................4 1.7 The Yelü clan and the Xiao clan......................................................5 1.8 Names of Liao emperors..................................................................5 1.9 Reign titles of Liao emperors...........................................................6 1.10 Reign titles of Jin emperors..............................................................6 1.11 The ten stems and twelve branches..................................................7 1.12 The five colours or the five elements...............................................7 1.13 Cyclical stems; the five elements; the five colours..........................7 1.14 The twelve animals...........................................................................8 1.15 Sources.............................................................................................8 1.16 Early Chinese research...................................................................12 1.17 Arrangement of the small graphs to form words............................12 1.18 Japanese research...........................................................................14 1.19 Russian and other research.............................................................15 1.20 The Kitan Small Script Research Group........................................15 1.21 Research on Kitan words in Chinese sources.................................19 1.22 Research since Research................................................................20 1.23 Other research................................................................................25 1.24 Transcription of the small Kitan script...........................................26 1.25 Transcription of logographs...........................................................27 1.26 The dotted forms............................................................................27 1.27 Similar and probably identical graphs............................................27 1.28 Probably miswritten graphs............................................................27 1.29 Similar but different graphs............................................................28 1.30 Phonograms....................................................................................28 1.31 Graphs only used to write Chinese.................................................29 1.32 Symbols used for the Kitan vowels................................................29 1.33 Syllables of the VV type................................................................29 vi CONTENTS 1.34 Syllables of the VC type.................................................................30 1.35 Syllables of the C and CV type......................................................30 1.36 Vowel harmony..............................................................................30 1.37 Inherent vowels..............................................................................32 1.38 Possible multiple readings of Kitan graphs....................................33 Chapter Two: Analysis of the Kitan small graphs........................................35 Chapter Three: English-Kitan glossary........................................................83 Chapter Four: Morphology.........................................................................131 А 4.1 Accusative-instrumental in ‹er›................................................131 ã 4.2 The genitive in ‹an›..................................................................132 > 4.3 The genitive in ‹en›..................................................................132 ë 4.4 The genitive in ‹in›...................................................................133 Č 4.5 The genitive in ‹on›..................................................................134 Θ 4.6 The genitive in ‹un›..................................................................134 N 4.7 The genitive in ‹n›....................................................................135 n 4.8 The genitive in ‹iń›...................................................................135 i 4.9 The genitive in ‹i›.....................................................................136 ╓ 4.10 The dative-locative in ‹de›.......................................................136 ŏ 4.11 The dative-locative in ‹do›.......................................................137 ĥ 4.12 The dative-locative in ‹dú›.......................................................138 _ 4.13 The dative-locative in ‹iú›........................................................138 ╓i 4.14 The prolative (ablative) in ‹de.i›.............................................138 d 4.15 The plural in ‹d›.......................................................................138 t 4.16 The plural in ‹t›........................................................................140 ‚ 4.17 The plural in ‹ad›......................................................................140 ê 4.18 The plural in ‹od›......................................................................141 < 4.19 The plural in ‹ud›......................................................................141 s 4.20 The plural in ‹se›......................................................................141 4.21 Other plurals.................................................................................142 4.22 Order of suffixes...........................................................................142 4.23 Summary table of genitive, dative and plural suffixes.................142 4.24 Ordinal numbers used with masculine nouns...............................143 4.25 Ordinal numbers used with feminine nouns.................................143 4.26 Grammatical gender: past tense of verbs......................................144 4.27 Grammatical gender: the dotted forms.........................................144 4.28 Verbal morphology.......................................................................144 ˛ 4.29 The past tense in ‹ar›................................................................145 А 4.30 The past tense in ‹er›................................................................145 CONTENTS vii ΄ 4.31 The past tense in ‹or›................................................................146 4.32 The past tense in ‹l.un›.................................................................146 bn b¼ Ψ 4.33 The past tense in ‹bo.ń› ~ ‹b.ún› ~ ‹bun›...................147 lG l╗ 4.34 The causative/passive in ‹le.ha› ~ ‹le.ge›........................148 4.35 Causatives and passives in context...............................................149 4.36 The converb in vowel + i..............................................................149 Ĕe 4.37 The converb in ‹-s.ii›............................................................150 4.38 Converbs in context......................................................................151 ∟ 4.39 The converb in ‹al›...................................................................153 c Ć 4.40 The converbs in ‹ci› and ‹ji›.................................................153 4.41 Finite verbs and converbs in context............................................154 4.42 Verbal nouns in vowel + [n].........................................................155 bn 4.43 Verbal nouns in ‹bo.ń›..........................................................155 q g À 4.44 Verbal npouOns and adbjecOtives in ‹hu› ‹gi› ‹ho›..................155 4.45 Copula: ‹p.u› ~ ‹b.u› ‘to be’ (是)...................................156 I 4.46 Copula: ‹ei› ‘to have, to exist’ (有)..........................................156 í 4.47 The copula: ‹iú› ‘not to exist, to die (無)..................................157 a 4.48 The copula: ‹a›..........................................................................158 4.49 Supplement: Reign titles..............................................................158 4.50 Notes on Liao reign titles.............................................................159 4.51 Some comments on the word for Kitan........................................162 4.52 Some comments on the word for Jurchen....................................165 Chapter Five: The Kitan large script..........................................................167 5.1 The nature of the Kitan large script..............................................167 5.2 Sources.........................................................................................168 5.3 Early research (until 2000)...........................................................169 5.4 Recent research (since 2000)........................................................171 5.5 The five elements / five colours...................................................176 5.6 The four seasons...........................................................................176 5.7 The four directions.......................................................................176 5.8 The twelve zodiac animals...........................................................176 5.9 Numerals......................................................................................177 5.10 List of graphs used to write Chinese titles in the large script.......177 5.11 Glossary of basic words in the Kitan large script.........................182 Chapter Six: Texts in the Kitan small script...............................................185 6.1 The Langjun inscription...............................................................185 6.2 Chinese text of the Langjun inscription........................................186 6.3 Kitan text of the Langjun inscription............................................186 6.4 The Epitaph of Yelü Dilie............................................................190 viii CONTENTS 6.5 Biography of Yelü Dilie from the Liaoshi....................................190 6.6 Kitan text of the Epitaph of Yelü Dilie........................................191 6.7 Partial translation of the Epitaph of Yelü Dilie............................211 6.8 Kitan text of the Eulogy for Empress Xuanyi..............................214 6.9 Translation of Chinese text of the Eulogy for Empress Xuanyi....223 Chapter Seven: Liao Chinese.....................................................................227 7.1 The Chinese language beyond Hebei...........................................227 7.2 Northeastern China during the Late Tang....................................228 7.3 Possible altaic influence on Chinese............................................228 7.4 Middle Chinese.............................................................................229 7.5 Synoptic chart of transcription symbols for MC initials.............230 7.6 Transcription of MC finals...........................................................231 7.7 The rhyme groups of LMC...........................................................231 7.8 Late Tang North-western Chinese................................................232 7.9 The Sisheng dengzi.......................................................................232 7.10 The Qieyun zhizhangtu.................................................................233 7.11 The Huangji jingshi shu...............................................................234 7.12 The fanqie spellings of Zhu Xi.....................................................235 7.13 Rhymes in Northern Song poetry.................................................235 7.14 Xixia transcriptions......................................................................236 7.15 The Zhongyuan yinyun.................................................................237 7.16 The Menggu ziyun........................................................................238 7.17 Uighur and Xixia transcriptions of Chinese.................................239 7.18 Kitan and hP’agspa transcriptions of Liao-Yuan Chinese............239 7.19 Rhymes in Liao poetry.................................................................240 7.20 Development of rhyme groups from Late Tang to Yuan.............241 7.21 Finals in Liao Chinese..................................................................243 7.22 The question of the glottal stop....................................................252 7.23 Finals derived from MC final stops in Kitan transcription...........253 7.24 Kitan transcriptions of characters with MC final stops................253 7.25 Initials of Liao Chinese................................................................255 7.26 Conclusions..................................................................................260 7.27 The phonological system of Liao Chinese...................................261 7.28 Suggested Liao Chinese readings.................................................262 Postscript....................................................................................................265 Bibliography ..............................................................................................269 Index……………………………………………………………………. . 295 Index of graphs ……………………………………………………..….... 301 PREFACE There are many reconstructions, and not all of them can be correct. This is an obvious fact. Then is only one reconstruction accurate? Hard to say. For each reconstruction, there will always be other researchers who disagree. This situation is troublesome not only for the general reader and for novices in the field; even such a famous grammatologist as Nishida Tatsuo could only sigh: “To tell you the truth, the Kitan script is becoming more and more incomprehensible. Things which we were not able to understand before we are even less able to understand now.” - Speech at Kyoto Conference 1991. Quoted in Chinggeltei 2002:15. Kitan is a largely undeciphered language preserved in about forty epitaphs from the 11th century. It is also one of the most intriguing riddles in the field of Altaic linguistics. In theory, it cannot be deciphered: the script cannot be read; it has no known cognate languages. These statements, however, are not entirely true: many Chinese words have been identified in the Kitan script, and these have given approximate values to about one third of the known graphs. Using these values, a large number of Chinese official titles and placenames can be deciphered. However, most of the graphs used primarily to write Kitan words have not been deciphered - only those which are also used in the Chinese transcriptions. Again, that is not entirely true: some native Kitan words have been tentatively identified on the basis of these transcriptions, possible cognates in other languages, and more often than not, educated guesswork. Nevertheless, even when Kitan words, and whole sentences, are transliterated, they do not yield anything resembling Mongol, Jurchen, Turkic or any other attested language. This situation has lead to some researchers suggesting that Kitan graphs had two ‘readings’: one set for transcribing Chinese and another set of values when writing Kitan. The first set is partially known, the second set remains to be discovered. This is unlikely, but the fact remains that the transcription of Kitan is by no means straightforward, or even settled. Much remains to be discovered. As for cognate languages, some of the numerals, the seasons and the names of some animals are clearly similar to Mongol, whether through affinity or borrowing we cannot tell. Kitan is indisputably ‘Altaic’ in the broad sense, with vowel harmony, agglutination, case markers and subject- object-verb syntax. There is no Kitan-Chinese glossary extant, such as those available for Middle Mongolian or Ming dynasty Jurchen. There is only one short bilingual, and even that cannot be completely deciphered. The