The Chinese names of the four directions.

• Author: Sagart, Laurent

1. INTRODUCTION

   The Chinese characters for the four directions: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "east," [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "west," [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "south," and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "north" are attested in epigraphy from the Shang inscriptions (ca. 1400-1100 B.C.) onward. The corresponding words in reconstructed Middle Chinese (based on the rhyme dictionary Qie yun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], ca. A.D. 600; transcribed here in Baxter's Middle Chinese notation, see Baxter 1992) were *tuwng, *sej, *nom, *pok. Other Sino-Tibetan languages use different terms for the same notions, hence these four terms are probably Chinese innovations. Here I use the framework presented in Sagart (1999) to discuss their etymology. In that work, I proposed that Old Chinese words consist of a root (consisting of a consonant, plus a vowel, plus an optional second consonant, and an optional glottal stop: CV[C][?]), and various affixes (pre-fixes, suffixes, and infix), each of which had specific grammatical or lexical functions. Words with the same root but different affixes have related meanings and similar pronunciations: they form a Chinese word family. One should also keep in mind that Chinese is a SinoTibetan language, (1) and that evidence for both the roots and the affixes under discussion may be found in languages like Tibetan or Burmese.

   Since semantic change tends to follow very similar paths across languages, it will serve us first to review the most common etymologies of the terms for the four directions in the Indo-European languages:

   The majority of words for the main points of the compass are based either on the position of the sun at a given time of day ("sunrise, dawn, morning" = "east," "sunset, evening," = "west"; "midday" = "south"), or on one's orientation, which among the Indo-European- speaking peoples was usually facing the sunrise ("in front" = "east"; "behind" = "west"; "right" = "south"; "left" = "north"), though there are also traces of orientation towards the north or south (the latter in the Avesta, where "in front" = "south"; "behind" = "north"). (Buck 1949: 870-71) The glosses in the Shuowen jiezi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ca. A.D. 100) for [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] *tuwng 'east' and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] *pok 'north' suggest etymologies along the same lines as those indicated by Buck for Indo-European. The Shuowen relates [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] *tuwng to [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] *duwngX 'move' and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] *pok 'north' to [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] *pojH 'the back' respectively. Especially in the last term, one recognizes a close analog of the designation of the west in Irish, Church Slavonic, and Sanskrit, which in these languages is derived from a word meaning "behind" (Irish iarthar 'west'

   In the following sections, I turn to each of the Chinese terms for the four directions. In an earlier work (Sagart 1988), I discussed the etymology of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'south' and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'north'. I have little of substance to add at present to the conclusions of that paper. I will first summarize these conclusions in sections 2 and 3, reformulating them in the terms of the "roots and affixes" framework in Sagart (1999), and adding detail where necessary. Then, in sections 4 and 5, which form the core of this paper, I will investigate the etymology of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'west' and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'east'.

2. NORTH

   The origin of the word for "north" is quite transparent. The difference in pronunciation between [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'north', Middle Chinese *pok, and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'the back', Middle Chinese, *pojH, is due to morphology: both words are based on an Old Chinese verb root *[.sup.a]pik 'to turn the back', evolving regularly to Middle Chinese *pok 'north' (the direction one turns the back on) on the one hand, and to a body-part noun derived by means of the nominalizing-s suffix *[.sup.a]pik-s, to Middle Chinese *pojH 'the back' on the other hand.

3. SOUTH

   In Sagart (1988), I argued that *nom [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'south' is based on an Old Chinese root *nim, designating the belly or front part of the body. That root occurs in the verbs [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], both from Old Chinese *[.sup.b]nim. The first means "to be pregnant," which can be understood as "to carry inside the belly"; the second means "to carry a burden," especially on the front of the body. (3) Note also Cantonese naam[.sub.4] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'belly (esp. of an ox)', from Old Chinese *nim?. The term *nom [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'south', from an earlier notion of "front of the body," is then symmetrical in its etymology to [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], from "back of the body." In the same work, I proposed that the character [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] itself is a drawing of the front of a house. Compare in fig. 1 some representative Shang exemplars of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (top row, marked "a") and of radical 40 ("[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]"), once an independent character meaning "roof" (bottom row, marked "b):

   The Shang graphs for radical 40 (bottom row) show a simple building structure with roof. The graphs in 1a (top row) are similar in their general shape, but the added detail (the three-pronged element at the top; (4) the horizontal and vertical strokes inside the main frame) could represent architectural details, such as openings, characteristic of the front of houses. A picture of the front of a house would have been evocative of the south to the early Chinese, for the reason that, at least in the Anyang region, Chinese houses were in antiquity commonly built facing south, as shown by the excavations at Xiaotun (Chang 1977: 246). This architectural trait aimed at minimizing loss of heat in winter; it is still prevalent in rural north China. I would suggest that the south became the direction of reference in Chinese culture precisely as a result of that architectural custom.

   [FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

   I should add that a Sino-Tibetan cognate of the Chinese word for "south" can now be cited: the form *nam 'ribs, chest, breast, sides of the body', reconstructed by Benedict (1972) for his Proto-Tibeto-Burman, corresponds regularly to the Old Chinese root *nim 'front of the body'. There exists a well-known tendency among body-part terms to shift their meaning from one part of the body to another which is next to it: semantic interchange between 'belly', 'chest' and 'breast', between 'chest' and 'ribs', and between 'ribs' and 'sides of the body', is commonplace. I consider Benedict's *nam 'ribs etc.' to be the true cognate of Old Chinese *[.sup.ab]nim 'front of the body', and, further, of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'south'. Benedict's own view of the etymology of [TEXT NOT...