Khitan large script
Encyclopedia
The Khitan large script was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language
. It was used during the 10th-12th centuries by the Khitan people
, who had created the Liao Empire in north-eastern China. In addition to the large script, the Khitans simultaneously also used a functionally independent writing system known as the Khitan small script
. Both Khitan scripts continued to be in use to some extent by the Jurchens
for several decades after the fall of the Liao Dynasty, until the Jurchens fully switched to a script of their own
. Examples of the scripts appeared most often on epitaph
s and monuments, although other fragments sometimes surface.
Many scholars recognize that the Khitan scripts have not been fully deciphered
, and that more research and discoveries would be necessary for a proficient understanding of them. The large Khitan script is part of the Chinese family of scripts
.
Our knowledge of the Khitan language
, which was written by the Khitan script, is quite limited as well. Although there are several clues to its origins, which might point in different directions, the Khitan language is most likely a descendant of Pre-Proto-Mongolic (and thus related to the Mongolic languages
).
of the Yelü clan
, founder of the Khitan, or Liao
, Dynasty, introduced the original Khitan script in 920 CE. “Large script”, or “big characters" (大字), as it was referred to in some Chinese sources, was established to keep the record of the new Khitan state
. The Khitan script was based on the idea of the Chinese script.
as the Chinese has been traditionally written. Although large script mostly uses logogram
s, it is possible that ideogram
s and syllabograms
are used for grammatical
functions. The large script has a few similarities to Chinese
, with several words taken directly with or without modifications from the Chinese (e.g. characters 二,三,十,廿,月,日, which appear in dates in the apparently bilingual Xiao Xiaozhong muzhi inscription from Xigushan, Jinxi
, Liaoning Province). Most large script characters, however, cannot be directly related to any Chinese characters. The meaning of most of them remains unknown, but that of a few of them (numbers, symbols for some of the five elements and the twelve animals
that the Khitans apparently used to designate years of the sexagenary cycle
) has been established by analyzing dates in Khitan inscriptions.
While there has long been controversy as to whether a particular monument belong to the large or small script,
there are several monuments (steles or fragments of stelae) that the specialists at least tentatively identify as written in the Khitan large script. However, one of the first inscriptions so identified (the Gu taishi mingshi ji epitaph, found in 1935) has been since lost, and the preserved rubbings
of it are not very legible; moreover, some believe that this inscription was a forgery in the first place. In any event, the total of about 830 different large-script characters are thought to have been identified, even without the problematic Gu taishi mingshi ji; including it, the character count rises to about 1000. The Memorial for Yelü Yanning
(dated 986 CE) is one of the earliest inscriptions in Khitan large script.
s have similarities to Khitan large script. According to some sources, the discoveries of inscriptions on monuments and epitaphs give clues to the connection between Khitan and Jurchen. After the fall of the Liao Dynasty, the Khitan (small-character) script continued to be used by the Jurchen people for a few decades, until fully replaced with Jurchen script and, in 1191, suppressed by imperial order.
was identified in the collection of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
. Then, in 2010 a manuscript codex
held at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
in Saint Petersburg
was identified by Viacheslav Zaytsev as being written in the Khitan large script.
The main source of Khitan texts are monumental inscriptions, mostly comprising memorial tablets buried in the tombs of Khitan nobility. There are about 17 known monuments with inscriptions in the Khitan large script, ranging in date from 986 to 1176.
In addition to monumental inscriptions, short inscriptions in both Khitan scripts have also been found on tomb murals and rock paintings, and on various portable artefacts such as mirrors, amulets, paiza
(tablets of authority given to officials and envoys), and special non-circulation coins. A number of bronze official seals with the seal face inscribed in a convoluted seal script
style of Khitan characters are also known.
Khitan language
The Khitan language is a now-extinct language once spoken by the Khitan people . Khitan is generally deemed to be genetically linked to the Mongolic languages. It was written using two mutually exclusive writing systems known as the Khitan large script and the Khitan small script...
. It was used during the 10th-12th centuries by the Khitan people
Khitan people
thumb|250px|Khitans [[Eagle hunting|using eagles to hunt]], painted during the Chinese [[Song Dynasty]].The Khitan people , or Khitai, Kitan, or Kidan, were a nomadic Mongolic people, originally located at Mongolia and Manchuria from the 4th century...
, who had created the Liao Empire in north-eastern China. In addition to the large script, the Khitans simultaneously also used a functionally independent writing system known as the Khitan small script
Khitan small script
The Khitan small script was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language. It was used during the 10th-12th century by the Khitan people, who had created the Liao Empire in north-eastern China. In addition to the small script, the Khitans simultaneously also used a...
. Both Khitan scripts continued to be in use to some extent by the Jurchens
Jurchens
The Jurchens were a Tungusic people who inhabited the region of Manchuria until the 17th century, when they adopted the name Manchu...
for several decades after the fall of the Liao Dynasty, until the Jurchens fully switched to a script of their own
Jurchen script
Jurchen script was the writing system used to write Jurchen language, the language of the Jurchen people who created the Jin Empire in the northeastern China of the 12th–13th centuries. It was derived from the Khitan script, which in turn was derived from Chinese...
. Examples of the scripts appeared most often on epitaph
Epitaph
An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...
s and monuments, although other fragments sometimes surface.
Many scholars recognize that the Khitan scripts have not been fully deciphered
Decipherment
Decipherment is the analysis of documents written in ancient languages, where the language is unknown, or knowledge of the language has been lost....
, and that more research and discoveries would be necessary for a proficient understanding of them. The large Khitan script is part of the Chinese family of scripts
Chinese family of scripts
The Chinese family of scripts are writing systems descended from the Chinese Oracle Bone Script and used for a variety of languages in East Asia...
.
Our knowledge of the Khitan language
Khitan language
The Khitan language is a now-extinct language once spoken by the Khitan people . Khitan is generally deemed to be genetically linked to the Mongolic languages. It was written using two mutually exclusive writing systems known as the Khitan large script and the Khitan small script...
, which was written by the Khitan script, is quite limited as well. Although there are several clues to its origins, which might point in different directions, the Khitan language is most likely a descendant of Pre-Proto-Mongolic (and thus related to the Mongolic languages
Mongolic languages
The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in East-Central Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas plus in Kalmykia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongolian residents of Inner...
).
History
AbaojiEmperor Taizu of Liao
The Emperor Taizu of Liao was the first emperor of the Liao Dynasty . His given name was Abaoji . Some sources also suggest that the surname Yelü was adopted during his lifetime, though there is no unanimity on this point....
of the Yelü clan
Yelu clan
The Yelü clan of the Khitan people assumed leadership of the Khitan nation in 907 when Abaoji became khan of the Khitan nation. The clan, written "i.ra.u.ud" in the Khitan language, maintained that leadership through the fall of the Liao Dynasty in the 1120s...
, founder of the Khitan, or Liao
Liao Dynasty
The Liao Dynasty , also known as the Khitan Empire was an empire in East Asia that ruled over the regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and parts of northern China proper between 9071125...
, Dynasty, introduced the original Khitan script in 920 CE. “Large script”, or “big characters" (大字), as it was referred to in some Chinese sources, was established to keep the record of the new Khitan state
Liao Dynasty
The Liao Dynasty , also known as the Khitan Empire was an empire in East Asia that ruled over the regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and parts of northern China proper between 9071125...
. The Khitan script was based on the idea of the Chinese script.
Description
The Khitan large script was considered to be relatively simple. The large script characters were written equally spaced, in vertical columns, in the same wayHorizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts
Many East Asian scripts can be written horizontally or vertically. The Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts can be oriented in either direction, as they consist mainly of disconnected syllabic units, each occupying a square block of space...
as the Chinese has been traditionally written. Although large script mostly uses logogram
Logogram
A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...
s, it is possible that ideogram
Ideogram
An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.Examples of...
s and syllabograms
Syllabary
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...
are used for grammatical
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
functions. The large script has a few similarities to Chinese
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
, with several words taken directly with or without modifications from the Chinese (e.g. characters 二,三,十,廿,月,日, which appear in dates in the apparently bilingual Xiao Xiaozhong muzhi inscription from Xigushan, Jinxi
Huludao
Huludao is a prefecture-level city in southwestern Liaoning Province, China. It is one of the two principal cities in the Liaoxi Corridor . Known as Jinxi until 1994, Huludao has a total area of 10,415 square kilometers and a population of 2.87 million, of which some 531,000 live in the city proper...
, Liaoning Province). Most large script characters, however, cannot be directly related to any Chinese characters. The meaning of most of them remains unknown, but that of a few of them (numbers, symbols for some of the five elements and the twelve animals
Earthly Branches
The Earthly Branches provide one Chinese system for reckoning time.This system was built from observations of the orbit of Jupiter. Chinese astronomers divided the celestial circle into 12 sections to follow the orbit of Suìxīng . Astronomers rounded the orbit of Suixing to 12 years...
that the Khitans apparently used to designate years of the sexagenary cycle
Sexagenary cycle
The Chinese sexagenary cycle , also known as the Stems-and-Branches , is a cycle of sixty terms used for recording days or years. It appears, as a means of recording days, in the first Chinese written texts, the Shang dynasty oracle bones from the late second millennium BC. Its use to record years...
) has been established by analyzing dates in Khitan inscriptions.
While there has long been controversy as to whether a particular monument belong to the large or small script,
there are several monuments (steles or fragments of stelae) that the specialists at least tentatively identify as written in the Khitan large script. However, one of the first inscriptions so identified (the Gu taishi mingshi ji epitaph, found in 1935) has been since lost, and the preserved rubbings
Gravestone rubbing
Stone rubbing is the practice of creating an image of surface features of a stone on paper. The image records features such as natural textures, inscribed patterns or lettering. By rubbing hard rendering materials over the paper, pigment is deposited over protrusions and on edges; depressions...
of it are not very legible; moreover, some believe that this inscription was a forgery in the first place. In any event, the total of about 830 different large-script characters are thought to have been identified, even without the problematic Gu taishi mingshi ji; including it, the character count rises to about 1000. The Memorial for Yelü Yanning
Memorial for Yelü Yanning
The Memorial for Yelü Yanning is the oldest known Khitan inscription of significant length and for now the oldest major written attestation of a Mongolic language. Dated 986, it is written in the Mongolic Khitan language using the Khitan large script. With 19 lines and 271 characters it was found...
(dated 986 CE) is one of the earliest inscriptions in Khitan large script.
Jurchen
Some of the characters of the Jurchen scriptJurchen script
Jurchen script was the writing system used to write Jurchen language, the language of the Jurchen people who created the Jin Empire in the northeastern China of the 12th–13th centuries. It was derived from the Khitan script, which in turn was derived from Chinese...
s have similarities to Khitan large script. According to some sources, the discoveries of inscriptions on monuments and epitaphs give clues to the connection between Khitan and Jurchen. After the fall of the Liao Dynasty, the Khitan (small-character) script continued to be used by the Jurchen people for a few decades, until fully replaced with Jurchen script and, in 1191, suppressed by imperial order.
Corpus
There are no surviving examples of printed texts in the Khitan language, and aside from five example Khitan large characters with Chinese glosses in a book on calligraphy written by Tao Zongyi (陶宗儀) during the mid 14th century, there are no Chinese glossaries or dictionaries of Khitan. However, in 2002 a small fragment of a Khitan manuscript with seven Khitan large characters and interlinear glosses in Old UyghurOld Uyghur alphabet
The Old Uyghur alphabet was used for writing the Old Uyghur language, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in the Tarim basin, which is an ancestor of the modern Uyghur language. It was descendant of the Sogdian alphabet, used for texts with Buddhist, Manichaean and Christian content for 700–800 years in...
was identified in the collection of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
The Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften is the academy of sciences of the German states Berlin and Brandenburg. As the word "Wissenschaft", in German includes both the natural sciences and the humanities, the academy's title is best translated as Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of...
. Then, in 2010 a manuscript codex
Codex
A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...
held at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts
Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences , formerly Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, is Russia's leading research institution for the study of the countries and cultures of Asia and North Africa...
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
was identified by Viacheslav Zaytsev as being written in the Khitan large script.
The main source of Khitan texts are monumental inscriptions, mostly comprising memorial tablets buried in the tombs of Khitan nobility. There are about 17 known monuments with inscriptions in the Khitan large script, ranging in date from 986 to 1176.
In addition to monumental inscriptions, short inscriptions in both Khitan scripts have also been found on tomb murals and rock paintings, and on various portable artefacts such as mirrors, amulets, paiza
Paiza
Paiza or Gerege is a tablet of authority for the Mongol officials and envoys...
(tablets of authority given to officials and envoys), and special non-circulation coins. A number of bronze official seals with the seal face inscribed in a convoluted seal script
Seal script
Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...
style of Khitan characters are also known.
Further reading
- Činggeltei (Chinggeltei, 清格尔泰), Chen Naixiong (陈乃雄), Xing Fuli (邢复礼), Liu Fengzhu (刘凤翥), Yu Baolin (于宝林). Qidan xiao zi yanjiiu (契丹小字研究, 'Research on the Khitan small script'), China Social Science Publishers 中国社会科学出版社), 1985.
- Daniel KaneDaniel Kane (linguist)Daniel Kane is an Australian linguist, one of the world's foremost authorities on the extinct Jurchen and Khitan languages and their scripts.-Biography:...
, The Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary of the Bureau of Interpreters. (Uralic and Altaic Series, Vol. 153). Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies. Bloomington, Indiana, 1989. In particular, Chapter 3, "Khitan script" (pp. 11–20).