Shiming

The ''Shiming'', also known as the ''Yiya'', is a Chinese dictionary that employed phonological glosses, and is believed have been composed . 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:
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, , 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 (; ) or the more famous (; ). The earliest reference to the ''Shiming'' is a criticism in the late 3rd-century '' Records of Three Kingdoms'' biography of Wei Zhao (; 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 (; ) questioned the difference in chapters and doubted the book's authenticity. The Qing-era commentator Bi Yuan (; 1730–1797), who published the 1789 ''Shiming shuzheng'' ( '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 (; 1728–1804) concurred that Liu Xi was the author based upon studies of his students' biographies. Based on internal evidence Bodman concludes " 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.

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 'explain'.

See also

* '' Xiao Erya''
* '' Guangya''
* '' Piya''

References

Citations

Works cited

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Further reading

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{{Dictionaries of Chinese

Chinese classic texts
Chinese dictionaries