Are Chinese his-p'i and kuo-lo IE Loan Words?

Abstract

latter half of the first millennium s.c., the Chinese had contact not only with the Tokharians, but also with other IE peoples. In a letter to the present writer, dated August 29, 1938, E. Sapir wrote, 'I suspect strongly that at least two distinct IE languages appeared in Chinese Turkestan and West China at a quite early date and that these two languages belonged to distinct branches of IE.' If the two words discussed in this paper are IE loan words in Chinese, as I believe they are, they might be of some help in clarifying the problem of the IE languages spoken in the western Chinese borderlands. Bronze belt hooks in the shape of a lying S4 made their first appearance in China in the 5th century B.C. ; thus they appeared at a time when the art of the Eurasian steppes began to exert an ever-increasing influence on Chinese art.6 Most archeologists are, therefore, inclined to assume that the Chinese borrowed the belt hook from the nomadic tribes in the West and Northwest.7 The term under which it was known since the end of the 4th century B.C. is undoubtedly barbarian.8 The Chinese transcribed it as follows: A. hsi-p'i < siei-b'ji < *sier-b'jor;9 B. shih-p'i < fi-b'ji < *?ier-b'j9r;1 C.hsi-p'i < siwo-p'ji < *sjo-p'jor;11 D. hsien-pi < sian-pi < *sgan-pgg.', In Huai-nan-tzii, Ch. chu-shu-hsiin,18 the word appears under the transcrip-