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Xirong
Xirong () or Rong were various people who lived primarily in and around the western extremities of ancient China (in modern Gansu and Qinghai). They were known as early as the Shang dynasty (1765–1122 BCE), as one of the Four Barbarians that frequently (and often violently) interacted with the sinitic Huaxia civilization. They typically resided to the west of Guanzhong Plains from the Zhou Dynasty (1046–221 BCE) onwards. They were mentioned in some ancient Chinese texts as perhaps genetically and linguistically related to the people of the Chinese civilization. Etymology The historian Li Feng says that during the Western Zhou period, since the term ''Rong'' "warlike foreigners" was "often used in bronze inscriptions to mean 'warfare', it is likely that when a people was called 'Rong', the Zhou considered them as political and military adversaries rather than as cultural and ethnic 'others'." Paul R. Goldin also proposes that ''Rong'' was a "pseudo-ethnonym" meaning "bellic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by the royal house, surnamed Ji, lasted initially from 1046 until 771 BC for a period known as the Western Zhou, and the political sphere of influence it created continued well into the Eastern Zhou period for another 500 years. The establishment date of 1046 BC is supported by the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project and David Pankenier, but David Nivison and Edward L. Shaughnessy date the establishment to 1045 BC. During the Zhou dynasty, centralized power decreased throughout the Spring and Autumn period until the Warring States period in the last two centuries of the dynasty. In the latter period, the Zhou court had little control over its constituent states that were at war with each other until the Qin state consolidated power a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Four Barbarians
Four Barbarians is the common English translation of the Chinese term ''sìyí'' 四夷 for various peoples living outside the borders of ancient China, namely, the '' Dōngyí'' "Eastern Barbarians", '' Nánmán'' "Southern Barbarians", '' Xīróng'' "Western Barbarians", and '' Běidí'' "Northern Barbarians". Ultimately, the four barbarian groups were either partly assimilated through Sinicization and absorbed into the Chinese Civilization in the later Chinese Dynasties or emigrated away from the Chinese heartland. Terminology The Chinese mytho-geography and cosmography of the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1046–256 BCE) was based upon a round heaven and a square earth. '' Tiānxià'' 天下 " verywhereunder heaven; the world" encompassed Huáxià 華夏 "China" (also known as ''Huá'', ''Xià'', etc.) in the center surrounded by non-Chinese "barbarian" peoples. The ''Four Barbarians'' construct, or a similar one, was a logical necessity for the ancient ''tiānxià'' system. Li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by the royal house, surnamed Ji, lasted initially from 1046 until 771 BC for a period known as the Western Zhou, and the political sphere of influence it created continued well into the Eastern Zhou period for another 500 years. The establishment date of 1046 BC is supported by the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project and David Pankenier, but David Nivison and Edward L. Shaughnessy date the establishment to 1045 BC. During the Zhou dynasty, centralized power decreased throughout the Spring and Autumn period until the Warring States period in the last two centuries of the dynasty. In the latter period, the Zhou court had little control over its constituent states that were at war with each other until the Qin state consolidated power a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beidi
The Di or Beidi (Northern Di) were various ethnic groups who lived north of the Chinese (''Huaxia'') realms during the Zhou dynasty. Although initially described as nomadic, they seem to have practiced a mixed pastoral, agricultural, and hunting economy and were distinguished from the nomads of the Eurasian steppe (''Hu'') who lived to their north. Chinese historical accounts describe the Di inhabiting the upper Ordos Loop and gradually migrating eastward to northern Shanxi and northern Hebei, where they eventually created their own states like Zhongshan and Dai. Other groups of Di seem to have lived interspersed between the Chinese states before their eventual conquest or assimilation. Name The ancient Chinese, whose Xia, Shang, and Zhou states flourished along the Fen, Yellow, and Wei valleys, discussed their neighbors according to the cardinal directions. The "Four Barbarians" (''Siyi'') were the Di to the north, the Man to the south, the Yi to the east, and the Rong t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dongyi
The Dongyi or Eastern Yi () was a collective term for ancient peoples found in Chinese records. The definition of Dongyi varied across the ages, but in most cases referred to inhabitants of eastern China, then later, the Korean peninsula, and Japan. As such, the name "Yí" was something of a catch-all and was applied to different groups over time. According to the earliest Chinese record, the '' Zuo Zhuan'', the Shang Dynasty was attacked by King Wu of Zhou while attacking the Dongyi and collapsed afterward. Ancient inhabitants of Eastern China Oracle bone inscriptions from the early 11th century BCE refer to campaigns by the late Shang king Di Yi against the ''Rénfāng'' (), a group occupying the area of southern Shandong and Jianghuai (northern Anhui and Jiangsu). Many Chinese archaeologists apply the historical name "Dongyi" to the archaeological Yueshi culture (1900–1500 BCE). Other scholars, such as Fang Hui, consider this identification problematic because of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spring And Autumn Period
The Spring and Autumn period was a period in Chinese history from approximately 770 to 476 BC (or according to some authorities until 403 BC) which corresponds roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou period. The period's name derives from the ''Spring and Autumn Annals'', a chronicle of the state of Lu between 722 and 479 BCE, which tradition associates with Confucius (551–479 BCE). During this period, the Zhou royal authority over the various feudal states eroded as more and more dukes and marquesses obtained ''de facto'' regional autonomy, defying the king's court in Luoyi and waging wars amongst themselves. The gradual Partition of Jin, one of the most powerful states, marked the end of the Spring and Autumn period and the beginning of the Warring States period. Background In 771 BCE, a Quanrong invasion in coalition with the states of Zeng and Shen — the latter polity being the fief of the grandfather of the disinherited crown prince Yijiu — destroyed th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nanman
The Man, commonly known as the Nanman or Southern Man (, ''lit. Southern Barbarians''), were ancient indigenous peoples who lived in inland South and Southwest China, mainly around the Yangtze River valley. In ancient Chinese sources, the term Nanman was used to collectively describe multiple ethnic groups, probably the predecessors of the modern Miao, Zhuang, and Dai peoples, and non-Chinese Sino-Tibetan groups such as the Jingpo and Yi peoples. It was an umbrella term that included any groups south of the expanding Huaxia civilization, and there was never a single polity that united these people, although the state of Chu ruled over much of the Yangtze region during the Zhou dynasty and was partly influenced by the Man culture. Etymology The early Chinese exonym ''Man'' ( 蠻) was a graphic pejorative written with Radical 142 虫, which means "worm", "insect" or "vermin". Xu Shen's (c. 121 CE) ''Shuowen Jiezi'' dictionary defines ''Man'' as "Southern Man are a sna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rgyalrong Language
Gyalrong or rGyalrong (), also rendered Jiarong (), or sometimes Gyarung, is a subbranch of the Gyalrongic languages spoken by the Gyalrong people in Western Sichuan, China. Lai et al. (2020) refer to this group of languages as East Gyalrongic. Name The name ''Gyalrong'' is an abbreviation of Tibetan , ''shar rgyal-mo tsha-ba rong'' , "the hot valleys of the queen", to which the queen being Mount Murdo (in Tibetan, ''dmu-rdo'').Prins, Marielle. 2011. A web of relations: A grammar of rGyalrong Ji omùzú, p. 18. Mount Murdo is in the historical region of Kham, now mostly located inside Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan. This Tibetan word is transcribed in Chinese as 嘉绒 or 嘉戎 or 嘉荣, ''jiāróng''. It is pronounced by speakers of Situ. It is a place-name and is not used by the people to designate their own language. The autonym is pronounced in Situ and in Japhug. The Gyalrong people are the descendents of former Tibetan warriorsat the borde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the Sichuan Basin and the easternmost part of the Tibetan Plateau between the Jinsha River on the west, the Daba Mountains in the north and the Yungui Plateau to the south. Sichuan's capital city is Chengdu. The population of Sichuan stands at 83 million. Sichuan neighbors Qinghai to the northwest, Gansu to the north, Shaanxi to the northeast, Chongqing to the east, Guizhou to the southeast, Yunnan to the south, and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the west. In antiquity, Sichuan was the home of the ancient states of Ba and Shu. Their conquest by Qin strengthened it and paved the way for Qin Shi Huang's unification of China under the Qin dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms era, Liu Bei's state of Shu was based in Sichuan. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tibeto-Burman Languages
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people speak Tibeto-Burman languages. The name derives from the most widely spoken of these languages, Burmese and the Tibetic languages, which also have extensive literary traditions, dating from the 12th and 7th centuries respectively. Most of the other languages are spoken by much smaller communities, and many of them have not been described in detail. Though the division of Sino-Tibetan into Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman branches (e.g. Benedict, Matisoff) is widely used, some historical linguists criticize this classification, as the non-Sinitic Sino-Tibetan languages lack any shared innovations in phonology or morphology to show that they comprise a clade of the phylogenetic tree. History During the 18th century, several scholars noticed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used by the ethnic group itself). As an example, the largest ethnic group in Germany is Germans. The ethnonym ''Germans'' is a Latin-derived exonym used in the English language. Conversely, the Germans call themselves the , an endonym. The German people are identified by a variety of exonyms across Europe, such as (French), ( Italian), ( Swedish) and ( Polish). As a sub-field of anthroponymy, the study of ethnonyms is called ethnonymy or ethnonymics. Ethnonyms should not be confused with demonyms, distinctive terms that designate all people related to a specific territory, regardless of any ethnic, religious, linguistic or some other distinctions that may exist within the population of that territory. Variations Numerous ethnonyms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Chinese
Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BC, in the late Shang dynasty. Bronze inscriptions became plentiful during the following Zhou dynasty. The latter part of the Zhou period saw a flowering of literature, including classical works such as the '' Analects'', the '' Mencius'', and the '' Zuo zhuan''. These works served as models for Literary Chinese (or Classical Chinese), which remained the written standard until the early twentieth century, thus preserving the vocabulary and grammar of late Old Chinese. Old Chinese was written with several early forms of Chinese characters, including Oracle Bone, Bronze, and Seal scripts. Throughout the Old Chinese period, there was a close correspondence between a character and a monosyllabic and monomorphemic word. Although the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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