Shìmíng 釋名
Explaining Names by 劉熙 (Liú Xī, 撰)
About the work
The Shìmíng is the earliest extant Chinese etymological work to argue systematically that the names given to things were not arbitrary but motivated by sound — that míng 名 (name) and shí 實 (object) match because words historically derive from the phonetic resemblance of their referents. Compiled by Liú Xī 劉熙 (zì Chéngguó, of Běihǎi 北海) at the end of the Eastern Hàn, the work explains some 1,500 names in 27 thematic chapters covering Heaven and Earth, yīnyáng, the seasons, states and capitals, vehicles, dress, mourning rites, and (working downward) the ordinary objects of common life.
Tiyao
Shìmíng, eight juàn; composed by Liú Xī of the Hàn, zì Chéngguó, a man of Běihǎi. The book has twenty piān. Liú employs same-sound resonance to expound the meaning behind the appellation of things and the differentiation among objects. In its midst it sometimes leans toward forced etymology, but on the strength of it one can discern ancient sound-values; further, since the author was not yet far removed from antiquity, the implements he describes can also be used to recover something of the institutional remains of the ancients. For example: in the Jiǔgē of the Chǔcí “薜茘拍兮蕙綢” — Wáng Yì 王逸 glosses: “pāi, bóbì 搏壁.” What this bóbì might be is no longer known; but if one consults this book’s chapter “Bed-and-Curtains” 釋牀帳, one learns that pressing matting to the wall was called bópì 搏辟. Kǒng Yǐngdá’s Lǐjì zhèngyì, on the shēnyī having all twelve panels diagonally cut and called rèn 衽, can be cross-checked with this book’s chapter “Clothing” 釋衣服: “rèn, the panel” — at the side it falls “chānchān 襜襜然” — which agrees exactly with the Yùzǎo statement that “the rèn falls beside [the body].” The “Weapons” chapter 釋兵 says: “the knife-sheath is called xuē 削; the ornament at the mouth of the sheath is called běng 琫; the ornament at the lower tip is called bǐng 琕” — which directly demonstrates the corruption in Máo’s Shī gǔxùnzhuàn. Such use as documentation runs throughout the work. Wú-state Wéi Zhāo 韋昭 once wrote a Biànshìmíng in one juàn to point out errors in Liú; that book is not transmitted, but in the Jīngdiǎn shìwén one entry survives: “Shìmíng says: in antiquity the pronunciation of chē 車 was like jū 居, because [the carriage] is what man dwells in. Today it is read chǐzhē fǎn, [meaning] dwelling.” (The Shìmíng itself says: “In antiquity chē 車 was sounded like jū 居 — said because traveling is how one dwells in it. Today it is chē, [meaning] dwelling: a traveller’s lodging being like a residence.” This is Lù Démíng’s 陸德明 paraphrase, with the four characters of pronunciation-gloss “chǐzhē fǎn” inserted for clarity.) Wéi Zhāo says: “chē in antiquity was always chǐshē fǎn; the reading jū arose from the Later Hàn.” But the Shī, “Hébǐnóngyǐ” 何彼穠矣 rhymes chē with huá 華; the Táoyāo rhymes huá with jiā 家. Since jiā old-sounded gū, huá old-sounded fū, then chē old-sounded jū without question. Liú’s reading is therefore not in error; Wéi Zhāo’s correction does not in this case strike home. — Some other editions title the book Yìyǎ 逸雅 — this is from Míng-period Láng Kuíjīn 郎奎金, who took this book together with Ěryǎ, Xiǎoěryǎ, Guǎngyǎ, and Píyǎ, calling them collectively the Wǔyǎ 五雅, and renaming this one Yìyǎ to make the set uniform — not its true title; we do not adopt it. The HòuHànshū biography of Liú Zhēn 劉珍 says he wrote a Shìmíng in 50 piān on the names of the ten thousand things; the title is the same and the surname is the same, and Zhèng Míngxuǎn 鄭明選 in his Bìyán expressed some doubts; but no one in the historical transmission has ever cited Liú Zhēn’s Shìmíng, and the work has long been lost — the present text is not it. Zhèng Míngxuǎn also calls this book “27 piān,” which does not agree with the present text [of 20 piān]; he was a Wàn-lì-period person who could not have seen a different ancient copy — perhaps a momentary slip, twenty being mistaken for twenty-seven. (Translated from the Sìkù tíyào via Zinbun digital tíyào 0083701.html.)
Abstract
The Shìmíng exemplifies the shēngxùn 聲訓 method — explaining a word by another word with which it shares (or is taken to share) phonetic identity, on the principle that the original motivation of a word was its sound. The dating is conventionally given as roughly 200 CE on the basis of internal references; the present notBefore–notAfter bracket 196–220 spans the late Jiànān years through the formal end of the Hàn. Of the 27 thematic chapters listed in the surviving text, the chief substantive contributions are not the etymologies themselves (many of which are tendentious by modern standards) but the implicit lexicon of late-Hàn material culture: chariots, fittings, weapons, clothing, vessels, mourning customs, etc. As the Sìkù tíyào emphasizes, the Shìmíng is therefore valuable as a window onto Hàn institutions and as evidence for Eastern-Hàn pronunciation, particularly as combined with the Shuōwén jiězì (where Xǔ Shèn already records pronunciations sporadically). Wéi Zhāo’s 韋昭 lost BiànShìmíng survives only in fragments quoted in Lù Démíng’s Jīngdiǎn shìwén. The work was admitted into the Sìkù from a Nèifǔ holding (內府藏本); the Míng Wǔyǎ recompilation under the alternative title Yìyǎ 逸雅 is rejected as spurious by the Sìkù compilers.
Translations and research
- Bodman, Nicholas C. 1954. A Linguistic Study of the Shih-ming. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. — The standard Western linguistic monograph; reconstructs Late-Hàn phonology from the shēng-xùn glosses.
- Coblin, W. South. 1983. A Handbook of Eastern Hàn Sound Glosses. Hong Kong: CUHK. — Treats Shìmíng alongside other Hàn phonological data.
- Wáng Xiānqiān 王先謙. 1896. Shìmíng shū-zhèng bǔ 釋名疏證補. Reprinted Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1984. — The standard Chinese variorum.
- Endymion Wilkinson. 2022. Chinese History: A New Manual, §6.2.1.4 and §6.3.4.
Other points of interest
The Shìmíng preserves the only sustained pre-Tang treatment of the connection between sound and sense in Chinese, anticipating both the medieval fǎnqiè tradition and the Qing-era reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology by way of rhyme-group analysis.