Kuāngmiù zhèngsú 匡謬正俗
Correcting Errors and Rectifying Vulgar [Usage] by 顏師古 (Yán Shīgǔ, 撰)
About the work
A philological miscellany in eight juàn by the Táng exegete Yán Shīgǔ 顏師古 (581–645), best known as the author of the standard Hànshū commentary. The first four juàn, fifty-five entries, deal with the xùngǔ and yīnshì of the various Classics; the second four, 127 entries, treat character-meanings and -readings in other texts and inconsistencies in popular usage. Presented to court posthumously in Yǒnghuī 2 (651) by his son Yán Yángtíng 顏揚庭. From the early Sòng onward, the work circulated under the title Kānmiù zhèngsú 刋謬正俗, the kuāng 匡 having been altered to kān 刋 to avoid the personal name of Sòng Tàizǔ Zhào Kuāngyìn 趙匡胤.
Tiyao
Your servants etc. report: Kuāngmiù zhèngsú in eight juàn; composed by Yán Shīgǔ of the Táng. Shīgǔ’s given name was Zhòu 籀, but he went by his zì [Shīgǔ]; he was a man of Wànnián 萬年 in Yōngzhōu, and rose to the office of Mìshū jiàn; his life is in his Tángshū biography. The book was presented to court in Yǒnghuī 2 (651) by his son the Fúxǐláng Yángtíng 揚庭; Gāozōng commanded that copies be lodged in the Imperial Library. The opening of the book carries Yángtíng’s Memorial of Presentation, which states: “the draft was barely half done; the volume not yet brought to completion” — that is, this is an unfinished work; he also says: “respectfully following my late [father’s] formal scheme, I have divided it into eight juàn and finalized it as one set” — so the present text is Yángtíng’s edition. Sòng-period bibliographies generally call the book Kānmiù zhèngsú, the kān substituting for kuāng on the Sòng Tàizǔ taboo. The first four juàn are 55 entries, all on glosses and pronunciations in the Classics; the latter four are 127 entries, all on word-meanings, readings in various texts, and the persistence of vulgar usages — the documentation is exceptionally precise. Shīgǔ was the leading rú of his age. He held to current habits, did not realize that pronunciation has [a chronological dimension] gǔ and jīn, and did not realize that before the Qí–Liáng there was no four-tone level/oblique distinction; hence in his Hànshū notes he repeatedly invokes “matching-sound” (合聲) — and so opened the road to the later xiéyīn 叶音 theory of jièyīn — for example, zàng 葬 read zāng 臧, yí 誼 read yì 議, fǎn 反 read fúwàn fǎn, gē 歌 read gǔhè fǎn, yí 彛 read in upper-tone, nù 怒 having upper- and going-tones, shòu 夀 having two readings shòu and shòu, jiǒng 迥 read hùyíng fǎn — these all wrongly take modern rhyme-readings for ancient sound. Conversely, ráng 穰 read érchéng fǎn, shàng 上 read shèng, again read shìyǐng fǎn, xiān 先 read xī, péng 逄 read at face value (not as páng 龎) — these all wrongly take ancient pronunciation for modern rhyme-reading. These are the proverbial single lapses of a thousand-thoughts. The works of the ancients on small-school criticism are now all lost; apart from Yán Zhītuī’s Yánshì jiāxùn “Yīnzhèng” chapter, in fact none is older than this book. Its discussion of qiū / qū / yǔ / yǔ 邱區禹宇 is the very thing Hán Yù 韓愈 cites in his Huìbiàn — showing the Táng held the book in special esteem already. Jièshāntáng Dúshǐ mànbǐ 戒山堂讀史漫筆 explained the words dū 都 and bǐ 鄙 and treated the explanation as fresh, not knowing it had already been corrected here; Máo Qílíng 毛奇齡, citing Shūxù’s “fú jué bǎoyù” 俘厥寳玉 to gloss the Chūnqiū’s “Wèifú” 衛俘 as a unique insight, did not know the present work has already covered it — proving that later attestation cannot match the depth of the ancients. Respectfully edited and presented in the twelfth month of Qiánlóng 41 (1776). Editors-General: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Editor-in-chief: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The Kuāngmiù zhèngsú is the principal Táng-period work of pure philological criticism between Yán Zhītuī’s 顏之推 Yánshì jiāxùn “Yīnzhèng” 音證 chapter and the great Sòng efforts (Jiǎ Chāngzhāo, Jiǎn Píng, etc.). It survives in the configuration prepared by Yán Yángtíng from his father’s drafts. Yán Shīgǔ — better known for his canonical Hànshū zhù (645) — assembled here a battery of corrections to ordinary scholarly mistakes: misreadings of the Classics, false vulgar etymologies, contemporary errors of pronunciation. The Sìkù tíyào notes that Yán’s lack of historical awareness about pronunciation — he treats medieval and Hàn rhyme-categories as continuous — paradoxically gave rise to the later doctrine of xiéyīn 叶音 that the Qing scholar Gù Yánwǔ 顧炎武 had to combat in establishing diachronic phonology. Despite these errors of method, the bulk of Yán’s specific corrections were validated by Hán Yù and the Qing critics, and the book remains a touchstone of the Táng xiǎoxué tradition. The dating bracket here uses Yán’s late career (630s) through the year of his death (645) as the bracket of composition; the Yǒnghuī 2 presentation date refers to the posthumous editorial completion by his son.
Translations and research
- McMullen, David. 1988. State and Scholars in T’ang China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — Treats Yán Shīgǔ’s place in the Táng commentarial tradition.
- Pulleyblank, Edwin G. 1984. Middle Chinese: A Study in Historical Phonology. Vancouver: UBC Press. — Discusses Yán Shīgǔ’s pronunciation glosses.
- Endymion Wilkinson. 2022. Chinese History: A New Manual, §6.3.
Other points of interest
The Sòng-era retitling Kānmiù zhèngsú (with kān 刋 for kuāng 匡 to avoid the Sòng Tàizǔ taboo on Zhào Kuāngyìn 趙匡胤) persisted into many later prints and bibliographies; the Sìkù compilers restored the original kuāng 匡 in the WYG recension.