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The latest issue of Sino-Platonic Papers:

James M. Hargett, "Anchors of Stability: Place-Names in Early China", Sino-Platonic Papers, 312 (April, 2021), 1-41.  (free pdf)

ABSTRACT:

The use of place-names in China predates its written history, which extends back at least 3,500 years. While the basic principles of toponym formation in ancient China are similar to those in other cultures around the world, early in its history a process took place that led to a standardization of the practices by which place-names were formulated. The central argument in this essay is that the essential features of place-name nomenclature in China were already in place before the Qin unification in 221 BCE.

Tíyào: Zài Zhōngguó shǐyòng dìmíng de lìshǐ yào zǎo yú qí shǐyòng shūmiànyǔ de lìshǐ. Gāi lìshǐ zhìshǎo kěyǐ zhuīsù dào 3,500 nián qián. Jǐnguǎn Zhōngguó gǔdài dìmíng xíngchéng de jīběn yuánlǐ yǔ shìjiè qítā wénhuà zhōng de dìmíng xiāngsì, dàn zài qí lìshǐ de zǎoqí què yǒu yīgè fāzhǎn guòchéng. Gāi guòchéng dǎozhì dìmíng zhìdìng de guīfànhuà. Běnwén de zhōngxīn lùndiǎn shì, gǔdài Zhōngguó dìmíng de jīběn tèzhēng zǎo zài xīyuán qián 221 nián Qín tǒngyī zhīqián jiù yǐjīng cúnzài.

提要: 在中國使用地名的歷史要早於其使用書面語的歷史。該歷史至少可以追溯到3,500年前。儘管中國古代地名形成的基本原理與世界其他文化中的地名相似，但在其歷史的早期卻有一個發展過程。該過程導致地名制定的規範化。本文的中心論點是，古代中國地名的基本特徵早在西元前221年秦統一之前就已經存在。

Keywords: diming 地名 (place-names), oracle-bone inscriptions, Shijing 詩經, “Tribute to Yu” (Yugong 禹貢), Fangma tan 放馬灘maps, Mawang dui 馬王堆maps

Now, when you start to study the origins of Sinitic toponyms in earnest, you will find that many of them are very hard nuts to crack.  For example, the name of Wúxī 無錫, a large city 84 miles northwest of Shanghai, ostensibly means "without tin", but many place names in that region inexplicably have wú 無 as a prefix, so one would suspect that it comes from a non-Sinitic substrate language, such as a Vietic or a Kra-Dai language.

Even more labyrinthine is the tale of the Taiwanese city name Keelung:

According to early Chinese accounts, this northern coastal area was originally called Pak-kang (Chinese: 北港; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Pak-káng). By the early 20th century, the city was known to the Western world as Kelung, as well as the variants Kiloung, Kilang and Keelung. In his 1903 general history of Taiwan, US Consul to Formosa (1898–1904) James W. Davidson related that "Kelung" was among the few well-known names, thus warranting no alternate Japanese romanization.

However, the Taiwanese people have long called the city Kelang (Chinese: 雞籠; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ke-lâng/Koe-lâng; lit. '“rooster cage", "hencoop” or “chicken coop”'). While it has been proposed that this name was derived from the local mountain that took the shape of a rooster cage, it is more likely that the name was derived from the first inhabitants of the region, as are the names of many other Taiwanese cities. In this case, the Ketagalan people were the first inhabitants, and early Han settlers probably approximated "Ketagalan" with Ke-lâng (Hokkien phonetics).

In 1875, during the late Qing era, a new official name was given (Chinese: 基隆; pinyin: Jīlóng; lit. 'base prosperous'). In Mandarin, probably the working language of Chinese government at the time, both the old and new names were likely pronounced Kīlóng (hence "Keelung").

Under Japanese rule (1895–1945), the city was also known to the west by the Japanese romanization Kīrun (also written as Kiirun).

In Taiwanese Hokkien, native language of the area, the city is called Ke-lâng. In Hanyu Pinyin, a system created for Mandarin Chinese in Mainland China, the name of Keelung is written as Jīlóng (the shift from initial K to J is a recent development in the Beijing dialect*, see Old Mandarin).

[*VHM:  the palatalization of the velars in Pekingese / Beijingese topolect and other northern languages, which took place roughly within the last three centuries, which I've often written about on Language Log and elsewhere.]

And, no, the name "Taiwan" (台湾 / 臺灣)  does not mean "Terrace / Platform Bay", even though superficially that's what it looks like it means, which I've also written about on many occasions (see the Selected readings below).

 

Selected readings

• "Questionable Sino-Mongolian toponymy" (1/18/18)
• "Sino-Mongolian toponymy, part 2" (2/12/18)
• "Surprising Transformations of a Beijing Street Name" (1/29/11)
• "Xina" (11/26/18)
• "Japanese readings of Sinographic names" (9/26/18)
• "The geo-, socio-, ethno-, and politicolinguistics of Taiwan" (7/24/18)
• "Precious Isle Taiwan" (2/23/18)
• "The sociolinguistics of the Chinese script" (8/20/17)
• "Water control" (5/30/15)
• "The Opacity and Difficulty of the Chinese Script" (9/18/08)
• "Vitally worst: 'Chinese' sounds like 'to tear you to die'" (4/7/07)
• "How to Forget Your Mother Tongue and Remember Your National Language"
• "Kunlun: the origins and meanings of a mysterious place name" (2/24/21)
• James M. Hargett, "會稽: Guaiji? Guiji? Huiji? Kuaiji? Some Remarks on an Ancient Chinese Place-Name", Sino-Platonic Papers, 234 (March, 2013), 1-32. (free pdf)

April 8, 2021 @ 11:22 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and archeology, Language and geography, Language and history, Toponymy, Writing

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