Tangut Language Research Articles

A Tangut Manuscript Fragment with a Description of the “Six Yogas” Tantric Practice. Preface, translation from the Tangut language and commentary

This article presents a Russian translation, commentary and brief textual research of the Tangut manuscript (10th–13th centuries) describing a tantric practice possibly related to the doctrine of “Six Yogas” of the famous Indian tantric master Naropa. Since the handwriting of this manuscript is nearly illegible, I have published here only part of this text which is more or less comprehensible due to its general meaning and structural completeness. Considering the fact that research aimed at the identification of the original specific traits of Tangut Buddhism which make it distinct from the neighboring Buddhist traditions that had, in their time, a strong impact on its formation is a most important trend in this field, the publishing of this textual source could be helpful in this context.

The Tangut Dictionary by E.I. Kychanov and the Study of the Shapes of the Tangut Script

The late Professor, Dr. Evgeny Ivanovich Kychanov not only created a solid academic foundation for the research on history, society, law, and religion of Xixia, but also made a significant contribution to the study of the Tangut language and script. One of them is the Tangut Dictionary (Kyoto University, 2006). The author, as a co-editor of the dictionary, typed Tangut characters in the special font, checked phonetic-reconstruc­tion forms, and worked on the arrangement of the characters in the index. Although the dictionary’s method to find the character index is unique, it is useful for the study of the shapes of the Tangut script from the viewpoint of current research. The author discusses some topics from the viewpoint of linguistics.

Nikolai Nevsky, Ishihama Juntarō, and the Lost “Extended Manual” of Tangut Characters with Tibetan Phonetic Glosses

Shortly before his return from Japan to Russia in 1929, the prominent Russian Orientalist and Tangutologist Nikolai (Nicolas) Aleksandrovich Nevsky (1892–1937), best known for his successful decipherment of the extinct Tangut language and script, prepared and left in Japan some kind of a glossary, an extended manual of Tibetan phonetic glosses for more than 500 Tangut characters, which was planned to be sent to the Tōyō Bunko for publication. However, this work was not published, and the manual was lost for decades and literally forgotten by scholars. This article is an investigation into the fate of this lost work prepared by Nevsky and a report on its re-discovery. Based on the study of his academic activities in Japan, it presents four photographic copies of Tangut fragments with Tibetan phonetic glosses and seven non-inventoried Nevsky’s notebooks from the Ishihama Collection of the Osaka University Library. Our careful examination and preliminary study of these notebooks reveals that three of them are most likely the complete lost manuscript of the extended manual and the four photographs are its integral part.

Analysis of the trends and cutting-edge developments of research in Tangut studies

Tangut studies is a broad discipline, generally consisting of three branches: Tangut language and literature, Tangut archaeology, and Tangut history. There are three new trends in Tangut studies in the new century: the publication of more Tangut written sources and artifacts, the gradual standardization of the interpretation of Tangut texts, and the continuous expansion of the subfields of Tangut historical research. Some issues could potentially hinder the further development of Tangut studies, such as cultivating new scholars in Tangut studies, avoiding the problem of “fragmentation” in research, supplementing the Khara-Khoto material, and the cooperation between Tangut studies and Tibetan studies. Finally, some future work plans are mentioned that cover various aspects, including language and literature, Tangut documents, and historical research.

Tangut verb agreement

Abstract The Tangut language is of particular importance to the field of Sino­Tibetan Studies, notably because of its morphological conservatism, which is unexpectedly correlated with a simplification of its syllable structure, a consequence of a process Miyake (2012) called “compression”. Such conservatism is evident in the syllable qualities reconstructed, which sometimes reflect proto­ Tangut’s ancient derivational processes. Verbs also exhibit various flectional phenomena, mainly due to conversion of agreement rules and referential hierarchy rules (Silverstein 1976), in a manner reminiscent of the indexation system of languages of the rGyalrongic taxon within the Qiangic family. The present paper attempts to explain the absence of indexation in the Tangut verb, a key phenomenon in the history of verb agreement analysis. First, I recall the main rules of the Tangut verb’s agreement system, as shown by Kepping (1975) and Gong (2001). Second, cases of non­agreement are analyzed. Apart from the case of non­local contexts, we see that the absence of agreement occurs in non­finite forms resulting from a dependency pattern, such as clause chaining, topic/comment context, and semantically dependent modality.1

Honorific personal pronouns in the Tangut language

There is an integral system of personal pronouns in the Tangut language. It is already known that there are pairs of general and honorific pronouns in the first- and second-person singular. Besides narrating the meaning of the honorifics in detail, it is pointed out in the present paper that a parallel distinction exists in the first-person plural as well, and if more than two pronouns of the same person appear successively in one phrase, only the preceding one may be expressed by an honorific form. There is no honorific form for the pronoun of the second-person plural.

Nasal Preinitials in Tangut Phonology

Gong Hwang-cherng proposed that the Tangut language has a distinction between short and long vowels. To date, however, no reliable correlates have been found regarding the actual phonological nature of the distinction. A careful examination of Chinese loanwords in Tangut and Sino-Tangut pronunciation reveals that the “vowel length” distinction should be revised to that of the presence vs. absence of a nasal preinitial. The pair “weed” vs. “tomb,” borrowed respectively from Chinese 蒲 bu and 墓 muH (the latter from a Northwest-type reflex with *mb-), hitherto reconstructed as buʶÅ {buÅ} vs. buʶ¹ {bu¹}, should be revised to buʶ¹ vs. mbuʶ². The reconstructed nasal preinitial not only has a close typological parallel in Modern West Rgyalrongic, but is equally reflected in other sources of evidence, most strikingly Sanskrit transcription and fǎnqiè. The revision solves a large number of problems in the historical phonology of Tangut, though not without raising some new ones, especially in connection with the treatment of Proto-Rgyalrongic preinitials before nasals.

On the Tangut prefix 2da:-

The Tangut language was spoken during the Xixia (Tangut) dynasty (A.D. 1038-1227) in the northwestern part of China.The first emperor (A.D. 1036) established the Tangut script for the language. Although the Tangut language and its script are now extinct, the many documents written in the Tangut script enable us to reconstruct its phonology and grammar. Tangut belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language group (Tangut-Qiang). Its grammar possesses unique features that are not found in either Old Tibetan or Old Burman. One of such features is a directional prefix. Six or seven morphemes function as prefixes. Previous works have discussed the change in the function of the prefix from directional to aspect (perfective). Some minor Tibeto-Burman languages have morphemes that are similar syllables or functions to Tangut. In this article, we present the outline of the prefixes and a description of the prefix 2da:- with sample sentences and discuss some remarks

Tangut Language and Manuscripts: An Introduction, written by Shi Jinbo and translated by Li Hansong

Tangut Language and Manuscripts: An Introduction, written by Shi Jinbo and translated by Li Hansong

Tangut as a West Gyalrongic language

Abstract This paper proposes that Tangut should be classified as a West Gyalrongic language in the Sino-Tibetan/Trans-Himalayan family. We examine lexical commonalities, case marking, partial reduplication, and verbal morphology in Tangut and in modern West Gyalrongic languages, and point out nontrivial shared innovations between Tangut and modern West Gyalrongic languages. The analysis suggests a closer genetic relationship between Tangut and Modern West Gyalrongic than between Tangut and Modern East Gyalrongic. This paper is the first study that tackles the exact linguistic affiliation of the Tangut language based on the comparative method.

Causatives and causativation in Tangut language

Abstract This paper focuses on the causative verb 𘃡 wji1 and 𗟻 phji1 in the Tangut language. Causatives can be subcategorized as adversity causatives, transitive verbs (lexical causatives of intransitive verbs), analytic causatives of intransitive verbs, and causatives of transitive verbs. I argue that adversity causatives are expressed by 𘃡 wji1, while 𗟻 phji1 serves as the verb marking causatives of transitive verbs. Causatives of intransitive verbs can be divided according the directness of the action: direct actions, which often apply on inanimate objects, are causativized by 𘃡 wji1 (or use other transitive verbs), and indirect actions, which usually apply on animate objects, are causativized by 𗟻 phji1.

Buddhism and Confucianism in the Tangut State

From a generic perspective, the Tangut ideological system can be represented as the conflation of three major factors: in the course of their history, the Tanguts were open to ideological inflows originating mainly on the Central Plains (1, Buddhism and Confucianism) and the Tibetan Plateau (2, Buddhism). These two inflows encountered the Tangut indigenous ideology (3), which had obviously emerged before the proclamation of the Tangut State, and is scarcely known. These elements developed into a unique amalgamation provisionally identified as ‘Tangut ideology,’ or the ‘Tangut tradition.’ This ‘tradition’ cannot be reconstructed in its entirety: our sources are limited to the surviving textual materials in the Tangut language and scattered evidence in a variety of Chinese sources, and, to an even lesser extent, in the Tibetan chronicles. This paper seeks to deal with just one aspect of the multifaceted Tangut ideological system: the relation between Buddhism and Confucianism in the Tangut State. The main conclusion is that despite the fact that the role of Confucianism is not clearly evident in existing sources, the ultimate importance of Confucian influence is the formation of the Tangut *wen* 文.

Conjunction wja1 in Tangut Language

Tangut wja1 is considered as a verb, a noun or a pronoun, which is ambiguous in current dictionaries. This paper makes it clear that wja1 is a conjunction in grammatical words of the Tangut language, and can be used to translate the conjunction na in Tibetan language. This conjunction usually occurs at the end of a former clause in a compound sentence, and expresses progressive, hypothetical, conditional and sequenced relations with the latter clause. Moreover, the latter clause is usually an interrogative sentence, in which there are mostly rhetorical questions in the progressive relation complex sentences, while it can be rhetorical questions or general questions in other complex sentences. However, there are some individual exceptions without using interrogative sentences.

An introduction to the Tangut Homonyms

This paper discusses a printed edition of a hitherto unknown Tangut linguistic text called Homonyms, which was sold at auction in Beijing in 2014. The book is complete in 14 folios, and comprises two prefaces on three folios; an initial section on two folios showing the cursive forms of sample Tangut characters, ordered by components; and a main section on nine folios which lists 577 groups of homophone characters, listed under head characters that derive from the Tangut books Synonyms and Mixed Characters. The homophone groups do not closely correspond to homophones in other Tangut linguistic texts such as Homophones and Sea of Writing, and so this text may represent the phonetic system for a different dialect or historical stage of the Tangut language.

Synthetic Sample Extension in Implementation of Tangut Character Databases

The Tangut script was a logographic writing system used for the extinct Tangut language of the Western Xia Dynasty, which spanned 1038 to 1227. The technic of optical character recognition, machine learning, and computer vision will help greatly in the unscrambling of the character in the ancient scripts. But all these technics are based on the character database, which provides learning samples and test standards. In the process of building the Tangut Character Databases using the ancient Tangut scripts as a data source, it is found that the problem of imbalanced class distribution significantly compromises the performance of learning algorithms. A method of synthetic sample generation was proposed in this paper to improve the performance of learning and recognition of Tangut characters. The comparison of recognition accuracy between the learning base in the original data set and the synthetic generated data set was demonstrated, and presented an impressive superiority utilizing the researchers’ method. The organization of Tangut character databases was also introduced in this paper.

Textual research on decipher of"prescriptions for treating children's head sore"from Zhi re bing yao lun (Essentials on Treatment of Febrile Diseases) in the Western Xia regime

There were 3 prescriptions for treating children's head sore, инв6476-28, 29, 30 preserved in Russia, included in the Zhi re bing yao lun (Essentials on Treatment of Febrile Diseases), a medical literature of the Western Xia regime. Based on the correlated relationship between the Tangut language and the Chinese characters, the 3 prescriptions were translated into Chinese, and then compared with Chinese medical documents. It could be seen that medical system in the Western Xia regime had an inseparable relationship with that of the Han nationality, while keeping the features of the northwestern nomadic nationalities at the same time.

Tangut (Xi Xia) Studies in the Soviet Union: Quinta Essentia of Russian Oriental Studies

Grace to the famous discovery of Piotr Kozlov’s expedition, a very rich collection of various Tangut books in a mausoleum in the dead city of Khara-Khoto was found in 1908, and almost all the texts in the Tangut language were then assembled in Saint-Petersburg. Because of this situation Russian Tangutology became one of the most important in the world very fast, and Russian specialists, especially Alexej Ivanov, did the first steps to understanding the Tangut language and history, which had for a very long time been hidden from humanity.This tradition persisted in the Soviet Union. Nikolaj Nevskij in 1929 returned to Russia from Japan, where he had stayed after 1917, mainly to continue his Tangut researches. But in 1937, during Stalin’s Purge, he was arrested and executed, Ivanov too. The line of tradition was broken for almost twenty years, and only the 1960s saw the rebirth of Russian Tangutology. The post-War generation did a gigantic work, raising Tangut Studies to a new level. Unfortunately, they almost had no students or successors.The dramatic history of Tangut Studies in Russia could be viewed like a real quinta essentia of the fate of Oriental Studies in Russia – but all the changes and tendencies are much more demonstrative of this example.Mongolian Journal of International Affairs Vol.19 2014: 178-196