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

Chinese dictionary Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Han dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for the Chinese language, and this article discusses some of ...

attributed to the

Eastern Jin Dynasty Eastern may refer to: Transportation *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 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air ...

scholar

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

. 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 Latin ''recensio'' ("review, analysis"). In textual criticism (as ...

has 34 headwords, mostly

Chinese Buddhist Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism ( zh, s=汉传佛教, t=漢傳佛教, p=Hànchuán Fójiào) is a Chinese form of Mahayana, Mahayana Buddhism which has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including Chinese art, art, politics, Ch ...

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...

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

pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to 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 sometimes Taoist, ...

"). 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

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