Aspects of early Chinese global lexical copies surviving in Modern
Uyghur
The Modern Uyghur language has a large number of lexemes copied
from Chinese in different periods of Uyghur. Amongst them, there is a special
group of lexemes globally copied from Chinese first into the Old Uyghur literary
language which is documented in the texts written in various scripts from the
8th to the 14th centuries. Some of these global lexical copies were transmitted
to the next stages of Uyghur and are established in Modern Uyghur as part of its
lexicon. This paper discusses aspects of this special group of lexemes from the
four points, semantic reinterpretation, fusion in form and meaning, multiple
copying of the same lexeme, and additions to the lexicon. The aim is to
illustrate some important aspects of the historical Sino-Uyghur linguistic and
cultural contact reflected in these copies and to provide Uyghur examples to
understand aspects of diachronic development of copied lexemes in the recipient
language.
Article outline
- Introduction
- 1.A brief sketch of Chinese lexical copies in Old Uyghur and Sino-Uyghur linguistic
contact
- 2.Semantic reinterpretation of global copies
- 2.1
Baxšï: From teacher to healer and shaman
- 2.2
Bäg: From official to husband and honorific title of
men
- 2.3
But: From Buddha to emotionless figure
- 3.Fusion in form and meaning
- 3.1
Čay and ǰam: Fusion of ‘tea’ with ‘banquet’
and ‘small cup’ with ‘wine cup’
- 3.2
Bo:run: Fusion of two bondsmen?
- 3.3Words for mulberry: Fusion or two different words?
- 4.Multiple copying of the same word: Words for incense and real
- 4.1Copies of the word for incense
- 4.2Doublet for real
- 5.Additions to the lexicon
- 5.1
Küy ‘melody’ and two further words for music
instruments
- 5.2Four words dealing with architecture: Lim ‘pillar’,
čäŋzä ‘rafter’, pän ‘board’, and sir ‘lacquer’
- 5.3Five words dealing with daily life: Xapan ‘wooden hopper’, čoka ‘chopsticks’,
kimxap ‘brocade’, ünčä ‘pearl’, and upa ‘face powder’
- 5.4Globally copying of adjectives: Čoŋ ‘big’ and täŋ ‘equal’
- 6.Final remarks
-
References