The ''Ziyuan'' (; or "Essays on Chinese Characters") was a

Chinese dictionary There are two types of dictionaries regularly used in the Chinese language: list individual Chinese characters, and list words and phrases. Because tens of thousands of characters have been used in written Chinese, Chinese lexicographers have d ...

attributed to the

Eastern Jin Dynasty Eastern or Easterns may refer to: Transportation Airlines *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai * Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 192 ...

scholar

Ge Hong Ge Hong (; b. 283 – d. 343 or 364), courtesy name Zhichuan (稚川), was a Chinese linguist, philosopher, physician, politician, and writer during the Eastern Jin dynasty. He was the author of '' Essays on Chinese Characters'', the '' Baopu ...

. The original text was lost, and the small modern ''Ziyuan''

recension Recension is the practice of editing or revising a text based on critical analysis. When referring to manuscripts, this may be a revision by another author. The term is derived from the Latin ("review, analysis"). In textual criticism (as is the ...

has 34 headwords, mostly

Chinese Buddhist Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism ( zh, s=汉传佛教, t=漢傳佛教, first=t, poj=Hàn-thoân Hu̍t-kàu, j=Hon3 Cyun4 Fat6 Gaau3, p=Hànchuán Fójiào) is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism. The Chinese Buddhist canonJiang Wu, "The Chin ...

loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

terminology. The ''Ziyuan'' is notable for having the first occurrence of the Chinese borrowing ''ta'' ( 塔; ''tǎ''; ''t'a''; "tower;

pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...

"). Feng (2004:205) classifies ''ta'' as a "monosyllabic phonemic loanword," and notes:

塔/''ta''/=浮屠/''futu''/=浮图/''futu''/=佛图/''futu''/=数斗波/''shudoupo''/=兜婆/''doupo''/：Buddhist tower: "塔,佛堂也 he ''ta'' is Buddhist tower (字苑), "作九层浮图 To build the Buddhist tower with nine levels" (水经注), "塔亦胡言, 犹宗庙也. 'ta'' comes from languages of Hu nationalities, it means tower. (魏书). It was borrowed from ''buddhastupa'' of Sanskrit. The process of pronunciation change is as follows: ''Buddhastupa'' ''stupa'' ''tupa'' ''t’ap''.

References

*Feng Zhiwei,
The Semantic Loanwords and Phonemic Loanwords in Chinese Language
, ''Proceedings for 11th International Symposium, The National Institute for Japanese Language'', pp. 200–229, 2004, Tokyo.

External links

China Through a Lens Chinese dictionaries Chinese Buddhist texts Jin dynasty (266–420) literature {{dictionary-stub