Tang and Song Notebooks Lexicon and Explanation

Author: Wang Ying
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-04-18
Features: "Regarding the etymology of vernacular literary studies, it is still in a state of destitution."① Here, the term "ancient books" refers to the classics of the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, while "vernacular literary studies of the near past" include poetry, drama, and fiction from the Tang and Song dynasties onwards, as well as transcribed vernacular tales, folk lectures, and colloquial stories. The author's remarks refer to the situation before the 1930s. On one hand, he fully acknowledges the remarkable achievements of traditional etymology in studying the "ancient meanings of refined terms" in pre-Qin and Han classics. On the other hand, he expresses deep dissatisfaction with the neglect of modern times by traditional etymology, which has led to an imbalance in the field. This assessment, in its fundamental aspects, should be correct. Over the past half-century, due to the gradual attention and joint efforts of scholars both within and outside China, the etymology of "vernacular literary studies of the near past" has made significant progress. Even from the perspective of domestic research alone, it is evident in at least three aspects:
1. A number of specialized monographs have emerged. After the founding of the People's Republic of China (mainly after 1949), works such as Xu Jiarui's A Study of Vernacular in Jin and Yuan Drama, Zhu Jiuyi's Examples of Vernacular in Yuan Drama, Zhang Xiang's A Glossary of Colloquialisms in Poetry, Drama, and Lyric Poetry, and Jiang Lihong's Comprehensive Interpretation of the Meaning of Dunhuang Transcribed Vernacular Tales were published successively. In recent years, Lu Tan'an's A Glossary of Colloquialisms in Fiction and A Glossary of Colloquialisms in Drama, as well as Gu Xuejie and Wang Xueqi's An Interpretation of Yuan Quatrain (Vol. ), have been released. Among these, Zhang's and Jiang's works are particularly outstanding for their extensive collection and precise explanations, making them influential both domestically and internationally.
2. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially after the overthrow of the "Gang of Four," numerous single-authored papers on the interpretation of colloquial terms from the modern period have been published, appearing in specialized journals such as Chinese Language and various university publications.
3. In the annotations of various literary works from this historical period, the colloquial terms encountered are often interpreted, with many insightful observations. Wang Jisi's Annotations to the Romance of the West Chamber, Qian Nanyang's Colophons to the Yuan Edition of the Pipa Ji and Annotations to Three Plays from the Yongle Dadian, serve as examples. In foreign academia, primarily led by Japanese sinology, in addition to compiling a large number of lexical indexes and reference materials, new works have also emerged, such as Takashima Toshio's A Draft Lexicon of Words in the Water Margin and Shiozawa Kunihiko's A New Interpretation of Colloquialisms in Tang Poetry. The Selected Yuan Quatrain with Interpretations by Yoshikawa Koshirō and others stands out as a model among similar annotated works. From the above incomplete examples, it is clear that the "state of destitution" has been greatly improved.
However, due to the long duration and vast number of works covered by this historical period, the linguistic phenomena presented are extremely rich. Therefore, the achievements made so far are merely a good start for research in this field, and there are still many problems to be addressed and virgin ground to be explored.
Within a single language, the development of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary is uneven: grammar changes slowly, phonology changes faster, and vocabulary, particularly non-core vocabulary, changes rapidly. Taking Chinese as an example, even some words from the Tang and Song dynasties have disappeared with the passage of time, becoming historical relics; others persist in various forms in modern dialects; while some retain their forms but have completely changed in meaning. What is the significance and value of studying these words that have already disappeared or are no longer widely used? On this point, the author has discussed some preliminary views in the article On the Significance and Role of the Study of Ancient Colloquial Vocabulary, and here summarizes the key points as follows:
1. This is necessary for the scientific and systematic development of the discipline of the history of the Chinese language. When discussing the historical development of the Chinese language, vocabulary cannot be ignored, and when discussing the history of vocabulary, the modern period cannot be overlooked. Previous scholars, due to historical and political reasons, focused on the ancient period while neglecting the modern, leaving a gap in vocabulary research that should be filled by us. This is closely related to the study of modern Chinese vocabulary (including Mandarin and major dialects), which is self-evident.
2. Large-scale dictionaries are direct manifestations of research achievements in the history of Chinese vocabulary. The quality of newly compiled dictionaries must surpass the old ones, and to a large extent, this depends on the study of modern vocabulary and how well the research findings in this field are summarized and absorbed. The Great Han Dictionary compiled by Japanese scholars and the Great Chinese Dictionary compiled by Taiwanese scholars are monumental works, but they have not made significant breakthroughs in the inclusion and interpretation of modern vocabulary. Although the new edition of Ciyuan by the Commercial Press has made efforts, it still has some issues, primarily because there is too little research to summarize and absorb.
3. The study of modern vocabulary is also closely related to the inheritance of cultural heritage from this historical period. The numerous literary, historical, philosophical, and even scientific works from this time directly or indirectly reflect spoken language, with some recorded purely in colloquial form. To analyze and utilize them requires first understanding them, and to truly understand them, one must overcome the obstacles posed by writing and vocabulary. Japanese sinologist Iori Yoshikawa once lamented the difficulty of reading The Conversations of Chu Hsi, noting that the key lies in its colloquial style, which cannot be overlooked by those studying the history of philosophy, thought, politics, or even literature.
4. The study of modern Chinese vocabulary also helps improve the quality of ancient texts. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, many annotated editions or collated and annotated editions of ancient texts from this period have been published. Overall, their quality has greatly surpassed that of previous works, but errors still occur in collation, punctuation, and annotations. Tracing the causes of these errors, they are mostly related to misunderstandings of colloquial terms.
It is clear that the study of modern Chinese vocabulary is not merely a personal hobby of researchers in search of novelty, but rather has significant and undeniable value.