Polysemous Han
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Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-first issue:
“The Multifaceted Saga of the Ethnonym Han,” by Sanping Chen. (free pdf)
ABSTRACT
The term Han designates one of the largest categories of collective identity in the world, representing the great majority of the population in both mainland China and Taiwan. However, this same Chinese character han has had persisting negative connotations in both literary and colloquial use, a long tradition that continues to this very day. After discussing the intimate relationship between this ethnic identity and the notion of China being the “central country,” this paper examines the paradox of the derogatory connotations associated with this proud endonym, tracing their origin to the “Barbarian” conquerors of northern China in the early medieval period. The seldom-noted fact that the descendants of these nomadic conquerors continued to dominate China for centuries sealed the Chinese language’s long memory of the Janus faces of the ethnic name Han.
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Selected readings
- "The historical phonology of 'Han', the main Chinese ethnonym" (4/14/20) — guest post by Chris Button
- "Guys and gals: Or, why the 'Chinese are called Han'"
- "What does the Chinese word '女漢子' mean?" (Quara)
- "Renewal of the race / nation" (6/24/17)
- Joshua A. Fogel, "New Thoughts on an Old Controversy: Shina as a Toponym for China", Sino-Platonic Papers, 229 (August, 2012), 1-25 (free pdf)
- Victor H. Mair, "The North(west)ern Peoples and the Recurrent Origins of the 'Chinese' State", in Joshua A. Fogel, The Teleology of the Modern Nation-State: Japan and China (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), pp. 46-84.
- Victor H. Mair, "The Classification of Sinitic Languages: What Is 'Chinese'?, in Breaking Down the Barriers: interdisciplinary studies in Chinese linguistics and beyond (Festschrift for Alain Peyraube), pp. 735-754 (free pdf), esp. pp. 739-741.
- "Huaxia: pre-Han cognomen of the Middle Kingdom" (7/3/24) — with very long bibliography,
Lucas Christopoulos said,
December 1, 2025 @ 7:52 pm
"Qin Barbarian" Qinhu (秦胡), "Lushui Qin Barbarian" Lushui Qinhu (盧水秦胡), "Qin man" Qinren (秦人) and "Greater Qin man" Da Qin Ren (大秦人), as mentioned in Han sources, are indeed puzzling terms. Why ‘Qin’ but not ‘Han’? Does this imply groups that were ethnically distinct yet somehow more closely associated with Qin than with Han? If so, why? (I already thought about that earlier; SPP 230). By contrast, the later term Tangren (唐人) simply came to mean ‘Chinese.’”
anon said,
December 1, 2025 @ 9:51 pm
Interesting Old Chinese form starts with consonant cluster hN- *hnaːns (zhengzhang), it could be related to hmar (name of the Hmar tribe in Northeast India which literally means "human"). Tentatively compared to Santali hɔɽ ("human"). There are many ethnonyms came or derived from the lexical root for "human" , so may be Hàn 漢 share the same story?
katarina said,
December 2, 2025 @ 4:07 pm
I always thought Greater Qin ( Da Qin 大秦） was the ancient Chinese name for the Roman empire.
Weiji Baike (Chinese Wikipedia) says:
大秦是中国古代对罗马帝国，尤其是其所统治的近东地区（如叙利亚等）的称呼.
Da Qin is the ancient Chinese name for the Roman empire , especially the Near East regions it ruled over (such as Syria, etc.).
（Further on:)
大秦王之名为“安敦”；延熹九年为公元166年，此时罗马皇帝为马可·奥勒留·安敦宁·奥古斯都，而奥勒留之养父及前任皇帝则名为安敦宁·毕尤（去世于161年）.
The king of Greater Qin (Da Qin 大秦) was named An Dun 安敦 (Antoninus）…At this time (AD 166) the Roman emperor was Makou Aoleliu Andunning Aogusidu (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus), and Aoleliu's adoptive father and the preceding emperor was named Andunning Biyu (Antoninus Pius) (d. 161).
The WP article does say however that there are other theories about the name Greater Qin.
Chris Button said,
December 2, 2025 @ 6:15 pm
I want to take 漢 back to ʰŋ- (from an earlier ˢŋ-) since that would regularly give x-. A reconstruction of original x- would work, but it doesn't fit the phonetic series very well.
The coronal feature of the s- on the velar ŋ- could reasonably account for 漢 as a name/loanword occurring in phonetic series where ˢn- > ʰn- (with coronal n-) rather than ˢŋ- (with velar ŋ-) would be expected.
But I'm still lost as to the origin of the word. Any connection with 鬳/甗?
David Marjanović said,
December 2, 2025 @ 7:25 pm
The obvious obstacle here is that Santali is an Austronesian language, not a Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman/Transhimalayan one.
Chris Button said,
December 2, 2025 @ 10:16 pm
I didn't study Hmar when I was looking at six northern Kuki-Chin languages, but I did study closely related Mizo (Lushai).
The "Linguistic Survey of India" (1904) has the following note: "In the Lushai Hills the word Mhār is used to denote immigrants from the Manipur State, and its proper meaning is said to be 'north'."
Although I didn't personally note the Mizo word for "north", the Linguistic Survey of India seems to be correct in its claim. But I would like to confirm the tonal correlation.
I did personally note the Mizo word ʦʰɐk "east", which interestingly then means "east" in the other five languages with a reflex of either sɐk or sɐʔ depending on the language.
Chris Button said,
December 2, 2025 @ 10:18 pm
* [Correction in bold] I did personally note the Mizo word ʦʰɐk "east", which interestingly then means "north" in the other five languages with a reflex of either sɐk or sɐʔ depending on the language.
David Marjanović said,
December 3, 2025 @ 8:11 pm
While I don't have an explanation ready for how "north" could become "east" or vice versa, Latin auster "south wind", aurora "dawn" and aurum "gold" share a root, and the same root is found in… east. "Where the sun is bright at some point" can evidently mean one or the other.
Chris Button said,
December 3, 2025 @ 10:15 pm
The Mizo word for "west" means "south" in the other five languages.
Notably, the word for north/east can also mean upside/upland in the same way that the word for west/south can also mean downside/lowland.
For the notion of east instead of north as "up" and west instead of south as "down", compare Chinese among other languages. There's even a LLog thread all about it: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=12631
David Marjanović said,
December 4, 2025 @ 3:05 pm
A fascinating thread indeed! I didn't know any other order than NSEW in German (Norden, Süden, Osten, Westen) or English.
Also: "I think I’ve told before that in the valleys of Eastern Norway, the tradional system of directions had north up the valley. In some sidevalleys of sidevalleys, the sun rose in the west and set in the east, and the midday sun was due north."
Yves Rehbein said,
December 4, 2025 @ 4:11 pm
Han in use as suffix-man (p. 4) sounds to me like Japanese honorific -chan, a form of -san, from sama, 様 Go-on yō. The etymology is interesting, "Originally a compound of さ (sa, 'that', pronominal indicating a person, place, thing, or direct object) …" (Wiktionary: さま); even if perhaps not related to -han. Pronouns and particles are not trivial to check.
Following the article, at first, it is disappointing that the early medieval period is supposed to be very old. I would strike "very" (p. 4), but this is just a minor stylistic peeve in an otherwise very well written paper. Speculation about proto language reconstruction does not appear to be a topic, at all. The second section briefly touches on 中. In section three, to the side note about water could be added the Oder (river in Czech Republic, Poland and Germany) and probably more. The semantophore of 漢 barely suggests water and the Old Chinese meaning is usually considered as Han river (Hanshui 漢水) (p. 9):
Hence, I do not understand the question, @ Chris Button ("But I'm still lost as to the origin of the word. Any connection with 鬳/甗?").
Nor do I see how it matters for the remainder of the argument being made, or the syntactic alternation ("aforementioned grammar") of the Han river respectively the river Han. As Sanping Chen goes on, nota bene "Shuowen jiezi […] indicates that the character 水 itself likely also had a nasalized pronunciation (水, 準 *siuen
也)." citing Karlgren Karlgren 1964: 128 for Middle Chinesepronunciation of 隼.
Following my own prerogative, the sentence final particle 也 eludes me:「準也。」as comment on 水 seems to indicate pronounciation, but「平也。」as comment on 準 in turn indicates semantics. Since 也 appears in the 3rd person pronoun 他 I wonder if it is part of the etymology, though it simply seems to be part of the metalanguage of Shuowen Jiezi.
Chris Button said,
December 5, 2025 @ 6:47 pm
It was a less in reference to the article than just a general question about where *ˢŋánˢ or later *ʰŋánʰ (or perhaps just Early Middle Chinese xanʰ as projected backward into Old Chinese *xánʰ or even earlier *xánˢ) might have come from.