Shiming

 ( Chinese Classic Texts ) 

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.

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Format The 1,502 attempt to establish semantic connections based upon between the word being defined and the word defining it, which is often followed with an explanation. For example, chapter 12 contains:

Here 愛 ( 'love') is glossed as 哀 ( 'sorrow'), which was similar in sound (and still is today). 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.

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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 "it 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.

+ List of Shiming chapters

Explaining Heaven

Explaining Earth

Explaining mountains

Explaining rivers

Explaining hills

Explaining roads

Explaining physical bodies

Explaining appearance

Explaining age-group terms

Explaining kinship terms

Explaining speech and language

Explaining food and drink

Explaining dyes and silk

Explaining hair ornaments

Explaining clothing

Explaining dwellings

Explaining beds and curtains

Explaining writing and documents

Explaining literature and art

Explaining utensils and implements

Explaining musical instruments

Explaining weapons

Explaining wheeled vehicles

Explaining boats

Explaining disease and illness

Explaining mourning ritual

From this table of contents, the Shiming clearly followed the Eryas organization into semantically arranged chapters and all their titles begin with the word 'explain'.

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See also

• Xiao Erya
• Guangya
• Piya

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Citations

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Works cited

• Roy Andrew Miller (1993). 9781557290434 ISBN 9781557290434

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Further reading

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