The origin of 學(学)
and
Ash attends the “Research into Integrating Old Chinese Phonology and Paleography” conference in Hangzhou, China 9-10 March 2024

by Ash Henson

March 9^th and 10^th of 2024, dozens of scholars interested in the intersection of Chinese paleography (the study of the origin and evolution of the Chinese script), and Old Chinese phonology (reconstruction of the sounds of the Chinese language as of roughly 3000 years ago) convened at Westlake University (西湖大學) for two days of presenting papers and academic discussion.

The conference was done in honor of Dr. William Baxter's 75th birthday and his lifetime of work on Old Chinese. Congrats Dr. Baxter!

古文字與上古音整合研究：慶賀白一平先生七秩晉五華誕國際學術研討會 is the conference's official name in Chinese.

Image 1: Westlake University 西湖大学

The Setting

West Lake of Hangzhou is a famous lake that has gone by several names over the years, but ended up with the name West Lake as of the Song Dynasty (960 to 1279 AD). It has inspired many poets and writers with its natural beauty over the centuries. As such, it's an apropos location for conversations about historical phonology. The university is about an hour drive from the lake itself.

Image 2: Dr. Baxter presenting his recent findings

One of the goals of the conference was to honor the 75^th birthday of Dr. William Baxter (白一平) of the University of Michigan, and to honor his lifetime of research into Old Chinese phonology.

I first met Dr. Baxter back in 2007 at Leiden University for a two-week seminar on Old Chinese phonology and Paleography.

Having known Dr. Baxter the past 17 years, I can say that he is truly a scholar and a gentlemen. He is originally from Alabama, but hasn't lived there in decades. My parents are both from Mississippi, so we share a common, and very Southern, background!

Other scholars that attended include (in no particular order): 葉玉英、李守奎、來國龍、野原將揮、王志平、張富海、顧史考 (Scott Cook)、陳家寧、金理新、程薇.

Image 3: The Preliminary Conference Proceedings

The paper I presented (which is listed under my Chinese name: 李艾希) is a discussion of how 爻 yáo can be used to represent 學(学) xué in the Oracle Bone script, which from a phonological perspective, does not really seem to make sense (on the surface!).

Not only can 爻 be used to represent 學(学), but 爻 is tightly related to the origin of the character 學(学) itself. One very interesting part of this discussion is related to whether early versions of 學(学) contain the component 六 liù or the component 宀 mián (which became 冖 in the modern form), referring to early forms like this:

The question at hand here is whether the bottom part of the above image (合8304) is 六 liù or 宀 mián.

In reality, these two components look very similar in the ancient script. Some scholars even think that the two are a single character. There are scholars, like 季旭昇 Jì Xùshēng, that think it's 宀, representing the building in which children learn, i.e., a school.

Others, such as 黃德寬 Huáng Dékuān, think that it is 六. It's important to note that the reason 黃德寬 thinks the form is 六 is due to reasons purely related to the character's form, and not its sound.

But, let's look at the Old Chinese reconstructions for the characters / components involved:

學(学):	*m-kˤruk
六:	*k.ruk
宀:	*men

It's not important to understand all of the symbols, but we can see that the sounds for 學(学) and 六 are very similar. The initials (*kˤ- & *k-) are related, the main vowels (*-u-) are the same, and the finals (*-k) are the same.

That makes 六 a very good sound component for 學(学). If the form is actually 宀, then it would be giving a meaning instead of a sound.

Another clue that this form isn't 宀 is that 宀 generally appears on the top of a character, and not on the bottom.

So, the combination of the phonological similarity and the form appearing on the bottom of the character indicate that the form is indeed 六 and is giving a sound!

And what's really interesting about this is that the *k.- in the reconstruction has nothing to do with this character. Dr. Baxter and Dr. Sagart reconstruct it as *k.ruk due to the internal rules of their reconstruction system, and not due to any paleographic considerations.

It's also noteworthy that “six” is *kruk in proto Hmong-Mien and *d-k-ruk in proto Tibeto-Burman.

Another hint that this is the correct interpretation is related to another very early form, namely this one:

This character (花東473) is a variant of the character above (合8304). This one is composed of 爻 yáo and 𦥑 jǔ (NOTE: This is character is “two hands reaching down from above,” not the similar looking 臼 jiù “mortar”).

Once again, if we look at the Old Chinese, we get:

學(学):	*m-kˤruk
𦥑:	*k(r)uk

 

Once again, we have a very suitable sound component. The reason the “r” is in parentheses is because there is not enough evidence available to determine if there is an “r” present here or not. But, this character has the same structure as 合8304 above, which also provides additional confirmation that our analyses are correct.

This is a very good example of how Old Chinese phonology can inform paleographic analysis: independent evidence from multiple fields come together to solve a longstanding problem!