Tangut fragments with Tibetan phonetic glosses: categorization, decipherment and application

Abstract

西夏語是11至13世紀西夏主體民族党項人的語言，屬漢藏語系藏緬語支，雖然約在 16 世紀已經消亡，但留下大量以西夏文寫成的文獻，是五種保存了早期書寫記錄的古典漢藏語之一，能為原始漢藏語的構擬提供証據。西夏文是一種表音程度甚低的方塊文字，因此必須利用西夏時期留下來的語音證據將西夏語重新構擬。存世的西夏文獻裏有大約 30 份附有藏文注音的西夏文殘片，裏面的西夏字旁邊有以藏文拼寫法標示的西夏字音，是構擬西夏語音系統和各西夏字字音的關鍵資料。這批殘片自 1920 年代初發現以來，由於部分曾經失踪，殘片內的手寫字體潦草、內容涉及大量藏傳佛教詞語，至今未得到完整的解讀和整理。本次演講將介紹這批殘片的發現經過和研究歷史，並討論如何將殘片分類、考證各類殘片內文本的出處，及如何利用藏文注音資料修正西夏語的語音系統構擬方案。

Tangut is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by Tangut people in the Xixia Empire between the 11th and 13th centuries. Although it became extinct around the 16th century, Tangut was one of the five classical Sino-Tibetan languages with early written records preserved, as a large number of Tangut manuscripts have been found and preserved. Comprehensive analysis of these valuable sources of evidence would provide useful information for linguists to reconstruct Proto-Sino-Tibetan. Tangut had a character-based writing system which provides little information on its pronunciation, the reconstruction of Tangut phonology therefore has to rely on other phonetic materials written over the centuries. Important insights into Tangut phonology were offered by studies looking at Tibetan phonetic glosses found in around 30 Tangut fragmentary manuscripts. The pronunciation of Tangut characters were hinted with phonetic glosses written in Tibetan. Due to difficulties such as getting hold of all the fragments, interpreting scratchy handwriting and understanding specific Tibetan Buddhism terms, the content in these Tangut fragments have not yet fully deciphered since they were discovered in the early 1920s. This talk will discuss (i) the discovery and academic history of these fragments, (ii) the categorization of the fragments, (iii) the examination of textual origins in the fragments, and (iv) the modification of Tangut phonological reconstruction scheme based on evidence from Tibetan glosses in these fragments.