Shiming

For other uses, see Shiming (disambiguation).

Shiming
Traditional Chinese	釋しゃく名めい
Simplified Chinese	释名
Literal meaning	Explanation of names
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Shìmíng Wade–Giles Shih4-ming2 IPA [ʂɨ̂mǐŋ] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Sīk-mèhng Jyutping Sik1 meng4 Southern Min Tâi-lô Sik-miâ
Yiya
Chinese	逸いっ雅みやび
Literal meaning	Lost Erya
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Yìyǎ

The Shiming, also known as the Yiya, is a Chinese dictionary that employed phonological glosses, and is believed have been composed c. 200 CE. Because it records the pronunciation of an Eastern Han Chinese dialect, sinologists have used the Shiming to estimate the dates of sound shifts, such as the loss of consonant clusters that took place between the Old Chinese and Middle Chinese stages.

Format

The 1,502 definitions attempt to establish semantic connections based upon puns between the word being defined and the word defining it, which is often followed with an explanation. For example, chapter 12 contains:

愛あい哀あい也愛乃思念しねん之の也
Love is sorrow. If you love, then you remember fondly.

The Chinese call these paronomastic glosses shengxun 'sound teaching', which goes back to the Rectification of Names, which hypothesized a connection between names and reality. The Shiming preface explains this ancient Chinese theory of language.

In the correspondence of name with reality, there is in each instance that which is right and proper. The common people use names every day, but they do not know the reasons why names are what they are. Therefore I have chosen to record names for heaven and earth, [yin and yang], the four seasons, states, cities, vehicles, clothing and mourning ceremonies, up to and including the vessels commonly used by the people, and have discussed these terms intending to explain their origin.

Authorship and internal organization

There is controversy whether this dictionary's author was Liu Xi (劉りゅう熙; fl. c. 200 CE) or the more famous Liu Zhen (劉りゅう珍ちん; d. 126 CE). The earliest reference to the Shiming is a criticism in the late 3rd-century Records of Three Kingdoms biography of Wei Zhao (韋昭; 204–273); while in prison, Wei wrote a supplement to Liu Xi's Shiming because it lacked information on official titles. The next reference is in the mid-5th century Book of the Later Han biography of Liu Zhen, which notes that he wrote an otherwise unknown Shiming in 30 chapters. The received text has 8 volumes and 27 sections that the Shiming preface, written in Liu Xi's name, calls 27 chapters. Bibliographies in official histories simply listed the Shiming as having eight fascicles without mentioning the number of chapters. The Ming dynasty scholar Zheng Mingxuan (鄭てい明あきら選せん; fl. 1572–1620) questioned the difference in chapters and doubted the book's authenticity. The Qing-era commentator Bi Yuan (畢沅; 1730–1797), who published the 1789 Shiming shuzheng (釋しゃく名めい疏證 'Exegetical evidence for Shiming') critical edition, believed that the work was begun by Liu Zhen and completed by Liu Xi who added his preface. Another Qing scholar Qian Daxin (錢ぜに大だい昕; 1728–1804) concurred that Liu Xi was the author based upon studies of his students' biographies. Based on internal evidence Bodman concludes "[i]t is not impossible that Liu Zhen did compose such a work and that Liu Xi might have used some of its material in his work, but the chance of this having happened is very small". The date of the Shiming is almost as controversial as its author. However, it is undisputed that Liu Xi lived at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty and was a refugee who fled to Jiaozhou (present-day Hanoi) from the turmoil between the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 and the dynasty's collapse in 220.

List of Shiming chapters

No.	Chinese	Translation
1	釋しゃく天たかし; Shìtiān	Explaining Heaven
2	釋しゃく地ち; Shìdì	Explaining Earth
3	釋山しゃくやま; Shìshān	Explaining mountains
4	釋しゃく水みず; Shìshuǐ	Explaining rivers
5	釋しゃく丘たかし; Shìqiū	Explaining hills
6	釋しゃく道みち; Shìdào	Explaining roads
8	釋しゃく形體けいたい; Shìxíngtǐ	Explaining physical bodies
9	釋しゃく姿容しよう; Shìzīróng	Explaining appearance
10	釋しゃく長幼ちょうよう; Shìzhǎngyòu	Explaining age-group terms
11	釋しゃく親ちかし屬ぞく; Shìqīnshǔ	Explaining kinship terms
12	釋しゃく言語げんご; Shìyányǔ	Explaining speech and language
13	釋しゃく飲食いんしょく; Shìyǐnshí	Explaining food and drink
14	釋しゃく綵帛; Shìcǎibó	Explaining dyes and silk
15	釋しゃく首くび飾かざり; Shìshǒushì	Explaining hair ornaments
16	釋しゃく衣服いふく; Shìyīfú	Explaining clothing
17	釋しゃく宮室きゅうしつ; Shìgōngshì	Explaining dwellings
18	釋しゃく床ゆか帳ちょう; Shìchuángzhàng	Explaining beds and curtains
19	釋しゃく書契しょけい; Shìshūqì	Explaining writing and documents
20	釋しゃく典のり藝げい; Shìdiǎnyì	Explaining literature and art
21	釋しゃく用よう器き; Shìyòngqì	Explaining utensils and implements
22	釋しゃく樂器がっき; Shìlèqì	Explaining musical instruments
23	釋しゃく兵へい; Shìbīng	Explaining weapons
24	釋しゃく車しゃ; Shìchē	Explaining wheeled vehicles
25	釋しゃく船せん; Shìchuán	Explaining boats
26	釋しゃく疾病しっぺい; Shìjíbìng	Explaining disease and illness
27	釋しゃく喪も制せい; Shìsàngzhì	Explaining mourning ritual

From this table of contents, the Shiming clearly followed the Erya's organization into semantically arranged chapters and all their titles begin with the word shì 'explain'.

See also

• Xiao Erya
• Guangya
• Piya

References

Works cited

• Miller, Roy Andrew (1993) [1980]. "Shih ming". In Loewe, Michael (ed.). Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. ISBN 1-557-29043-1.
• Bodman, Nicholas Cleaveland (1954). A Linguistic Study of the "Shih Ming": Initials and Consonant Clusters. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Further reading

• 釋しゃく名めい [Shiming] (in Chinese). Retrieved 2024-04-04 – via the Chinese Text Project.