WHO
DROVE BEASTS AT NAO HILL?
or
Some
Problems about Social Interpretation of Sources from Non-Indo-European
Languages
B. Lukács
lukacs@rmki.kfki.hu
CRIP RMKI, H-1525 Bp. 114.
Pf. 49.,
ABSTRACT
Recently gender/sex
has become a central matter
in communication. Shi Jing #97 is discussed as an example for texts from genderless
languages.
1. INTRODUCTION
Indo-Europeans believe
that their linguistic system is the last stage of linguistic evolution, and is
the most logical one. Western Indo-Europeans recently also have become very
sensitive about "gender equality". Since extant Indo-European
languages (excepting Armenian) do have a construction called "grammatic gender", they have some problems. Since
grammatical gender is quite atrophied in Modern English, Anglo-Saxon academic
people can help themselves by using a composite Sg3 pronoun he/she, which is,
however, clumsy & unnatural. (Physicist & sci-fi writer Poul Anderson suggested a much more natural "heesh" [1].) However in Romance languages some Perfectum verbal forms are gender-dependent, in Slavic ones
the Past Tense, and in almost all Indo-European languages the adjectives are
too. Very tricky linguistic forms are needed if you tries
to speak PC.
Now, according to
Modern belief, all Modern features came hand to hand in Social Evolution. In
the leading societies men & women (or should I write women & men?) are
handled more equally than 50 years ago; and also than in any other modern
society. The second half of the statement can easily be demonstrated, and for
the first we can remember or have sources. But assume that somebody wants to
make a wider comparison in time & space. E.g. what was the situation in
Ancient Ages?
Influential XIXth century scholars, e.g. Bachofen,
Marx & Engels believed in old Matriarchy. Bachofen believed that Eastern states as e.g. Lydia &
Phrygia were matriarchal; but even Etrury, moreover,
very early
At the middle of XXth century
Late XXth Century was not so idealistic; however it seems that
women had higher legal status in
Then came Lithuanian
(remember!) Marija Gimbutas with the Goddess society.
According to her (see e.g. Ref. [4]), Old Europe (before, say, 4500 BC) was not
Indo-European, and they honoured first of all the Goddess (of fertility &
such). Then arrived the warlike & patriarchal
proto-Indo-Europeans from the steppe (probably the Yamnaya
Culture). They invented horse-riding, later the war chariot, and via fast
transportation they defeated the neighbours. In, say, 2 millenia
they Indo-Europised Europe and their chief god of the
Thunder (Thor, Zeus, Iupiter &c.) took the
Goddess as wife for household duties.
Bachofen
& Graves worked from texts: mythology, poems, plays, ancient history books.
Gimbutas used a lot of archaeological information;
but even she used mythology too. But all of them relied on Indo-European texts.
And there they were at ease. This study is to show that they were in
exceptionally good situations.
2. GENDERS IN (NUCLEAR)
INDO-EUROPEAN
The term "Nuclear
Indo-European" comes from Garrett, who used it to denote {IE - Anatolian} [5].
Here I use the term slightly more narrowly, subtracting Armenian too. Anyways,
Armenian may be close relative of the Anatolian branch (we do not know for
sure).
The usual Indo-European
term is that (Nuclear) Indo-European has both natural and grammatical genders.
But "natural grammar" is not a grammatical notion at all. You may
form binary contrasts bull/cow, boy/girl, brother/sister, father/mother,
cock/hen; but the existence of such pairs has in itself no linguistic
consequence at all. (If this statement seems too bold, please continue reading.
The author is not Indo-European, seeing the IE system from outside, from a
perspective.)
Now, grammatical gender, in contrast to the natural
one, does have ample linguistic consequences. Grammatical gender in Nuclear IE
means that every noun has a gender.
The number of possibilities may go from 2 (male/female) in Romance to 6
({male/female/neuter}*{animate/inanimate}) in Slavic; and this gender has
further consequences. Adjectives have proper different forms for every gender;
many times also verbal endings differ too, &c. For Anglo-Saxon speakers the
depth of the influence of the grammatical gender may be unfamiliar: so let us
take 3 languages for comparison.
In English there are 3
grammatical genders: male, female and neuter. But most inanimate objects belong
to the neuter; big animals go according to their sex. However ships are
generally feminine, together with cars & airplanes (but bigger warships are
often male); also countries/nations. But this does not mean too much: the
system is atrophied.
Now, German is a close
kin of English. In German the definite article der/die/das
clearly indicates the gender, and that gender is by no means the biological
one.
Of course, man, "Mensch" is masculine: der Mensch.
Woman is feminine, die Frau (but
wait a moment!). Child is neuter: das Kind. But another word for "woman" is das Weib; and this seems to be the more generic word. At least "feminine" is "weiblich".
Also, the title for unmarried women
("Miss") is das
Fraulein. Also "girl-child" is das Mädchen.
For horses, there is a
triad: der
Hengst/die
Stute/das Pferd, the last one being the generic term. A "Pferd" can be of any sex, or none. Cat is generally die Katze; but the tomcat is der Kater.
And look: the gender works in grammar. "Brown horse" is
brauner Hengst/braune Stute/braunes Pferd,
so the adjective changes too.
And now take inanimate
objects. In English, spoon, fork and knife are all neuters. However the
corresponding German words, in the same order, are
der Löffel/die
Gabel/das
Messer
and if you think of a very nice aristocratic
silver tableware, then the adjective is trial too: silberner/e/es.
The nominal endings in
flection depend directly on the respective declension
group, however there is a strong correlation with
gender. Anglo-Saxon a thousand years ago still had this system:
(se) stan
= der
Stein = stone/(seo)
lufu = die
Liebe = love/(thaet) ham = das Heim = home
and, of course
sum stan = some stone/sumu lufu = some love/sum ham = some home
with a lot of other differences in declension.
So
indeed English is just losing the genders, but they still exist. Most IE
languages not only have them, but the gender system deeply
penetrate the language.
One may contemplate
what have selected the gender of a particular word. I, for my non-Indo-European
psychology, would take "knife" masculine, being aggressive,
"spoon" feminine, being rounded, and "fork" either neuter
(being only a helper of knife), or masculine, being able to penetrate; but we
saw that the roles are quite different in German. Also, I would classify
"spear" aggressive masculine (indeed, der Speer, but thaet spere; note also the similarly aggressive
"sword", das
Schwert and der Säbel); and the defensive
"shield" I would take feminine, while it is se scield/der
Schield, definitely masculine. Alas, I am not
Indo-European, originally from Asia. There must be some logic in the NIE gender
system, but it needs a super-Freud to find it.
Maybe we should go to
older/more archaic languages. So let us see Latin and Slovakian.
In Latin the number of
gender groups is 3. 5 declensions existed, but the majority of nouns belonged
to Declensions 1 & 2. Now I shift to Present Tense, because Latins are extinct, but Latin does live, if somewhat
artificially. Let us take a simple adjective:
friendly = amicus/a/um
The masculine and neuter forms follow 2nd Declension, the feminine one
1st Declension. In SgNom the
situation is easy enough:
friendly hound/cat/city =
amicus canis/amica felis/amicum oppidum,
but now let us put the expressions into
Accusative. I cannot translate this to English, only circumscribe: that is the
difference of he/him; but can show something in Anglo-Saxon:
the hound (Nom.) = se hund, but
the hound (Acc.) = thone
hund
Not too much of a declension but still...
Now our Latin examples
in Accusative become
amicum canem/amicam felem/amicum oppidum
Concentrate on the adjectives, they follow Declensions II/I. All
Accusatives, so when the expressions are Objects,
end in -m. On the other hand,
Nominatives, when they are Subjects,
strongly differ according to gender. And a Subject is generally more active
than an Object. Furthermore the Neuter Accusative is the same as the Nominative
(while not in masculine and feminine), and indeed, looks like a masculine
Accusative. The next paragraph will be a mere speculation; but not impossible.
It looks as if Latin
distinguishes 3 kinds of nouns/adjectives. The first two are active, their
Accusatives are different from the Nominative, but the third is not active, its
natural form is in dependent cases, and its "fundamental form" is
really an Accusative. Neuters are then passive. Now the active ones show a
dichotomy, according some dichotomy in Old Society.
We can go further with
this speculation after the Slovakian examples. I chose Slovakian as a
demonstration, because it is better to avoid Cyrillics.
Even Slovakian is heavily accented, sometimes raising an Internet problem, but
I try to find simple orthographies. But now we need 6 words, 3 animate and 3
inanimate, in 3 cases. Let they be
hound/cat/girl-child = pes/macka/dievca
table/school/window = stol/skola/okno
and the Cases Nom/Acc/Gen. Then
|
Case |
M. An. |
M. Inan. |
F. An. |
F. Inan. |
N. An. |
N. Inan |
|
Nom. |
pes |
stol |
macka |
skola |
dievca |
okno |
|
Acc. |
psa |
stol |
macku |
skolu |
dievca |
okno |
|
Gen. |
psa |
stola |
macky |
skoly |
dievcat'a |
okna |
A pattern emerges. For
Masculine Animates it is easy to distinguish Accusative from Nominative, but
not from Genitive; while for Inanimates Accusative is
the same as Nominative. The same is true for Neuters. But for Feminines Nominative, Accusative and Genitive are all
clearly indicated.
Now again speculation
comes. As if it would be equally natural for a Feminine to act or to be acted
on. (To be Subject and Object.) On the other hand, Masculines are par excellence actors (the clumsy
distinction for Animates seems to be an afterthought; I must indicate the
difference, but there is no Accusative; then I take Genitive), while for
Neuters Nominative and Accusative always coincide, maybe because there is
really no Nominative, as in Latin, because they cannot be active.
You may call such a
language family sexist; then you criticise not my language but all my
neighbours' ones. My language does not follow the above logics. Among the
official languages of the European Union there are only 3 languages where the
above logic is totally absent: in decreasing order of population in Magyar
(which you perhaps call Hungarian, but that is the State), in Finnish and in
Estonian. But do not forget Basque even if that language is not official; and
look: Turkish is also a unisex language albeit the Turkish society is often
accused to be sexist.
In the IE family this
absurdity is absent in Armenian; but it was absent in the Anatolian branch too,
i.e. in Hittite.
In 1741, when Vienna
was encircled by the troops of the German Empire led by the Bavarian Elector,
the young King of Hungary (Rex Hungariae), Maria
Theresa, with her first, baby child Joseph (the later Emperor Joseph) in her
hands stood up in the Hungarian Parliament, and asked help and troops from the
Hungarians. I do not confuse Indo-European grammar or gender system; the
Hungarian Parliament answered in good Latin: "Vitam
et sanguinem pro rege nostra,
Maria Theresia", so "Our life and blood
(acc.) for our King, Maria
Theresa". For a male King it would have been "pro rege nostro", and for a Queen of
Hungary, speaking for her husband, absent, it would have been "pro regina nostra". Rex is the ruling King,
crowned with the Holy Crown of Hungary, Regina is the wife of the King, a Queen
(and husband Francis of Lorraine, father of baby Joseph was a mere Prince
Consort). Our King is Rex noster if male and Rex nostra if female. Magyar is a unisex
language, Latin is not, but the Hungarian State used it in a rational way.
And now back to Marija Gimbutas and the
Goddess. I cannot make an argumentation in Lithuanian, so Latin must suffice. A
Divine Power can be masculine as well as feminine. (Interestingly, Divinity can
even be neuter, but then it is a Numen.) Now the par
excellence masculine nominative ending is -us,
and the feminine one is -a. So the
Father of Gods is Deus Iuppiter, and his wife is Dea Iuno.
Nominative is a full-fledged member of the declension sequence, so you must
apply the proper Nominative ending, masculine or feminine. Therefore the
daughter of Servius
Tullius
was Tullia.
It was impossible to call a lady Tullius, because -us is not the masculine Nominative
ending.
Similarly in Slovakian
for Slovakian women some endings are
impossible. If a lady's father is Nagy (a quite frequent family name, meaning
"Great" in Magyar), then she is registered as Nagyová. This is the name of a
well-known Slovakian female politician. But the system was so silly for unisex
Magyar language that Magyars in Slovakia heavily protested. Now the matter is
settled. Each lady may apply for the removal of the -ová ending if she declares
herself Magyar. Slovakians must
tolerate the -ová;
but they are Indo-European, so it is natural for them.
Now, a Lithuanian lady
can hardly be Gimbutas
in Lithuania, because the feminine Nominative ends cca.
with -e (or
-a, or similar; I guess her correct
name would have been cca. Gimbutaite). My guess is
that she got the wrong ending abroad. But nevermind;
the morale is that Marija
Gimbutas,
inventor/discoverer (or must I write inventress/discoveress?)
of the old Goddess culture used her name in contrary to the Nuclear
Indo-European logic of genders.
There are other
languages with different gender logics as well. E.g. look at the more than 2
dozen of Eastern Caucasian languages. (Surely you heard about Chechen, at
least.) In the majority of them there are 4 nominal groups: men, women,
animals, things. But there, at least, things and abstract ideas are not
classified partly with men, partly with women, partly with children. Swahili
classifies the nouns 8-fold.
But maybe the nicest
example comes from Nyambiquara through Lévi-Strauss [6].
The anthropologist interviewed a small girl, leading a small dog. The girl told
him that "When I grow up, I will beat down all the monkeys and boars with
the digging rod; I kill them when the dog barks." Now in Nyambiquara verbal conjugation is gender dependent too.
This in itself is not against in European logic. In Slovakian "I wrote a
letter" is "Ja pisal som pis'mo"
if the person is masculine and "Ja pisala som pis'mo"
if female. In the present case the girl used "ihondaje"
instead "tilondaje", because she wanted to
grow up as a hunter/male. Good; but she still wanted to kill the boars with the
feminine digging stick, not with the masculine bow & arrow. There are
limits even in fantasy.
Everybody speaks as he
(he/she? heesh?) wants; but be also tolerant.
3. OTHER UNISEX LANGUAGES
Now come some further
examples for unisex languages. The Indo-European reader may be surprised: these
languages belong to societies which she generally accuses with sexism. Instead
of too much explanation, I start.
Turkish. This is not only the
language of the Republic of Turkey, or of the Republic of Northern Cyprus; lots
of related languages are spoken in Central Asia as e.g. Kazak, or in Siberia,
as e.g. Yakut. Now, among Turks in the Early Middle
Ages life was much more unisex than in Medieval Europe. For example, Turkisk women generally wore breeches and so they rode
"man-style". Indeed if one must use horses daily, she will not ride sidesaddles.
Also, some young girls
fought in battles. Look, to be a mounted archer is not absurd for a girl, while
fight in heavy armor with a two-handed sword is near
to impossibility (and so Joan of Arc was really a miracle). Of course, the
majority of Turkish ladies did not fight if they did not absolutely have to. (An attack against the tribal heartland, e.g.) Still, the
Turkish society was so strange for Chinese in the VIth
& VIIth centuries that Chinese sources often
formulated the opinion about Turkish matriarchy. A recent Hungarian lady
valiantly argues against [7], since she knows that this was an accusation from
the Chinese. And it seems that the famous girl warrior of China, Mulan, came from a conquering Turkish tribe. As the famous Hungarian male Sinologist, F. Tôkei,
writes [8]: [For the horserider nomads] "if the
daughter goes into war substituting the old father, that is not so sensational
that a song should be made about". So he guesses that the Mulan poem arose from a Nomadic-Chinese interaction (e.g. a
Chinese author and a Nomadic heroine).
Of course, the wife of
the ruler, the Khagan, was the Katun.
I do not know about a single female Khagan; maybe
never existed one. I mentioned a Hungarian female King; there were only two in
a millenium. Even at the coronation of Maria Theresa
some previous training was needed to be able to make the prescribed sword cuts.
(But finally she succeeded.)
Now let us go to the
Far East. In Japan the Emperor, the Tenno, is a god.
That in itself is not a big thing; there are thousands of gods there. But the
Emperor descends from Amaterasu Omikami;
as it is told in Europe, the Goddess of Sun. One of the greatest
Divine Powers.
Now, for a Japanese something here is wrongly emphasized. Amaterasu is a female Divine Power; but she is just a kami, as for
example her brother Sosa no O is. Not a Goddess and a God; both are gods, one
is female, one is male. Similarly, the descendant, the Emperor, is generally
male, but sometimes female. (Not an Empress. That would be the wife of the
Emperor, and Japanese rather would call her a Princess.)
Not too much female
Emperors ruled; up to now 10 of the 125 total, according to the traditonal count [9]. Still, Japan produced something
unheard of even in Hungary. The last female Emperor was Go-Sakuramachi
between 1762 and 1771. Now, "Go" means "Second", so it is
not the name but a signal that the name is taken second time. The first Sakuramachi ruled between 1735 and 1747; and was the father of Sakuramachi
II.
Look; the Japanese
Emperor has no family name. The Emperor has a single name more or less
analogous to the Louises of the eighteen French Louises. But all the 18 French Louises
were male. Also, Maria Theresa did not
take the name Stephen VI, when ascending the Hungarian throne. But in Japan
even the single name of a male and a female Emperor may be the same.
Proto-feminists tried
this in Europe; e.g. "George Sand". But in Europe this was
unofficial. Not so in
4. ARTEMIS AND HER
HUNTRESSES
We are at the final
doorstep; but let us make a last excursus. No doubt, Ancient Greece was rather
sexist; and still...
There were the
Argonauts. Hardy young lads, with one exception.
Princess Atalanta was a girl.
True, she did not use
the sword & shield of her comrades, but bow & arrow. During the Hunt of
Kalydon kings, princes & heroes scolded her
telling that it is improper to hunt boars with arrow. They were right enough;
she could blood the boar, but the wound was not fatal. However bow & arrow
was her style; and remember about Turkish mounted archresses
2 millenia later. It is irrelevant if Atalanta was really in Colchis
(or if even Prince Jason went there); the story was told and retold for at
least a millenium, and people did not call the story
impossible.
Similarly, the Greeks
believed in Amazons: mounted woman warriors somewhere just behind the last
well-known hills. Maybe they existed, maybe not; the story was not
unimaginable. And there were Artemis' maidens; not the nymphs as Callisto, the Ursa Major, but
some companies of virgin girls hunting wild goats and whatnot in the wild. (Atalanta is told to be one of them.) Greek rules did not
tell anything about maiden huntresses; they forbad mixed hunting companies.
It seems as if Athens
were stricter. But Athens was not Hellas, but Hellados
Hellas, the Hellas par excellence (according to Attic writers), so the
distilled Hellas. Maybe no maiden of Athens was permitted to hunt. But surely
Spartan girls might; and also it was not unheard of in "rural"
Greece, as Thessaly, Epirus & such. And it was conform with
the religion.
Still, in Greece a
youth and a maiden could not hut together.
Roman ladies were less restricted, and the satyres of
Juvenal mention some gladiatresses [10]. But even in
Rome a hunting pair would have been a sensation, except for some poor
households, who lived in forests as they wanted, without litterary
attention.
And now we cross the
doorstep.
5. SHI JING: PATRIARCHAL
POEMS OF A PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY
Shi Jing is the first known Chinese anthology. It comes from
the second half of the Zhou dynasty: tradition tells that Master Kung-ci himself selected the 305 poems. That is too nice to be
true; but his followers may have made the selection. According to scholarly
consensus of Western World, they were super-patriarchal intelligentsia of a
patriarchal enough society; so the selected poems must reflect the Ideal
Patriarchal Society.
Now I took the
Hungarian edition of the book [11], and after reading less than 1/3, I was
shocked at #97. It is the second of the 10 Poems of the State of Qi; Qi being a "feudal"
state about the mouth of Hoang Ho. All the raw translations for the book were
produced by F. Tôkei himself, and then the artistic
retouch was made by first-class Magyar poets & poetesses. For #97 the
poetess was Zsuzsa Rab. Of
course she did not know Chinese; but Tôkei did, and
his Notes show that he commented if he noted something strange. E.g. for the
previous #96 (the first Qi poem) he explains who are
the two persons in the poem. He did not find necessary to comment anything in
#97.
Now I put here the
Magyar translation of Strophe 1; I duely refer to the
book [11], and the artistic translator Zsuzsa Rab, and of course the aim is research. So:
Erôskarú
kedvesem, te!
Vadásztál
a domb tövén, találkoztam én veled,
űztünk agancsos vadat ott a zöld
Nao-domb alatt.
Azt mondtad, hogy jó vagyok,
hogy a másom nem leled.
There are two more strophes, going about the same pattern. Maybe you do
not understand a word, but here am I to explain. The general pattern is: the
narrating person meets a great hunter about Nao Hill,
the first line of each strophe is some positive exclamation about the hunter,
the second tells that they hunted together, the third always defines the prey.
Now each fourth line repeats some nice saying of the hunter about the narrating
person; and the very last line of the poem even records (joyfully) a marriage
proposal.
There is no doubt that
according to the opinion of both translators the narrating person is a girl;
and the poetess arranged definitely so the fourth line of the second strophe,
with no criticism from the Sinologist at all. This is the proper place for me
to mirror-translate Zsuzsa Rab's
Magyar [11] translation to English for the average reader. I do not have any
artistic aim before me: I want to translate word by word, with only minimal
attention on English grammar. Please restrain yourself for a moment from asking
me why not the original is used or a direct English translation.
My darling of strong
arms, you!
You hunted at the
bottom of the hill, I met with you,
we
drove antlered beast there below the Nao Hill.
You told that I was good, you could not find my double.
My darling of silver
tongue, you!
There beside the green
Nao you drove boar with me,
we
drove clattering game, our hound was on good track.
You told that I was nice, no nicer girl could be found.
My darling of radiant
face, you!
We hunted swift game
at the bottom of green Nao Hill,
Breeze played, Sun
shone, our good hound drove the wolf.
You told that you
wanted only me forever.
I think everybody
agrees that this is an exceptional poem in a super-patriarchal collection of
patriarchal Ancient China selected by Confucionist
patriarchs. Not the love motif. Really, the majority of the Qi
Poems is about love; but also a lot of other poems too. True, lot of them are
about love of husband & wife; but not all. The previous Qi
Poem tells about a secret meeting of lovers in the ducal court. Or Poem #82
(not from Qi) tells an idyll; the youth is going to
hunt, the girl tells how nice it will be to eat together,
and afterwards so lifelong. Indeed Poem #82 comes nearest to #97 above; but
even in #82 the girl remains at home, waiting obediently for the hunter, not
going with him to drive wolves. What a patriarchal China is where maidens drive
beasts with youths without family elders, permissions (even how to ask
permission to go for hunting boar first alone, then with a nice guy she met at
random; shocking!) & such. OK, such things may
perhaps happen sometimes; but imagine Confucian wise men to choose this for an
official anthology!
If our ideas about
Ancient China are correct even approximately, then this poem could not go into
Shi Jing; or the translation is a complete error; but
it was done by the best sinologist of Hungary. Or is here a third possibility?
I continue the
analysis; maybe something will come out.
6. WHAT MADE A TEXT A POEM
IN ANCIENT CHINA?
This was a question of
Tôkei from 1956 upwards, and he arrived at some
results [12]. But first observe that Chinese civilisation may be old, but
Chinese litteracy is cca. as early as the Greek one, and Chinese theories about poems
are much younger. Classical Greeks had sane ideas about the tricks of Homer,
but no Chinese theoretician knew say a millenium and
half ago, what had been the poetical rules one more millenium
earlier. No surprise: language changed much more than Greek [13], albeit the
hieroglyphic writing conserved the meaning.
Now, Tôkei found regularity in the pattern of voiced/unvoiced
initial consonants of words in the oldest poems, belonging to Old Chinese
linguistic stage [12]. He believed that unvoiced consonants were
"higher"; and indeed acoustic analysis of sounds of speech proved it afterwards. For Magyar consonants see [14]
and [15]; the results are language-dependent, but not the statement. Namely,
take a voiced/unvoiced pair, say g/k. The status of the sound channel is
roughly the same for both, but in the second case the vocal chords do not
produce their regular oscillating component. That would relatively be a
low-frequency component; instead for "k" a noise band occurs,
reaching up to 4.5 kHz.
Tôkei
started with Shi Jing 8. If this is not the most
ancient poem, it should at least be so. Namely, it is a "work tune";
women are collecting some wild plants while telling that they are collecting
wild plants. There are 3 strophes, but there might be 30 either; it is highly
repetitive. The voiced-unvoiced pattern in each strophe is
xxoo
ooxx
xxoo
ooox
as you can see from the Old Chinese word
reconstructions [13], [16].
Of course, Shi Jing #8 can be found in [11], again in the artistic
translation of Zsuzsa Rab.
Since the 3 strophes are identical except for two syllables in each [16], it is
enough again to take the first strophe:
Szedd,
szedd az
útifüvet
Nosza
szedegesd
Szedd,
szedd az
útifüvet
Nosza, hogy
legyen.
or, mirror translating to English:
Collect, collect
plantain!
Go ahead!
Collect, collect
plantain!
Go it to get.
or something such.
In the original, Old
Chinese phonetics (reconstructed by Karlgren [13], [16])
it takes the form
1,1,2,3
4,5,A,6
1,1,2,3
4,5,B,6
where the respective syllables
are as follows
1 = ts`ög
2 = b`iug
3 = ziög
4 = b`ak
5 = ngian
6 = t'iög
I did not show length, but when two vowels appear, both are very short;
and "ö" stands for a swa-like sound, you
may approximate it with the "i" of
"girl". The two syllables changing between strophes are
A = ts`ög, twat, kiöt
B = giug, lwat, g`iöt
Now we can answer a
double question. Was Tôkei correct about the poetic
structure; and was the translation of Rab keeping
meaning & form?
For the first question
the answer is: who knows what was in the head of the Confucian aesthete
selecting this poem. But at last, this poem is regular for the rule suggested
by Tôkei. Namely, the autocorrelation function of 3
strophes of this form (putting e.g. 1's for x and 0's for o) is significantly nonzero at some shifts [17],
so big accidents would be needed to produce this regularity if the poem had
been created according to another, unknown, rule. I put the formulae into
Appendix A. And for the second question: no, the translation does not quite
keep the original form, but it keeps well enough the meaning.
Namely, you can take
first the raw translation of Tôkei [11]. Now he keeps
the structure only partially. An invariable line; in the next the second half
is varied, again the first line, and one which repeats the first half of Line
2, with again a variation at the end. However, the lines do not contain either
4-4-4-4 syllables or words. So nothing can keep the voiced/unvoiced pattern of
the original. But for meaning; it is exact.
Then came Zsuzsa Rab, and tried to make the
text somewhat more interesting (I can understand, really). During this she got
a very long 2nd line in Strophe 3 (the syllable numbers are there 4-8(!)-4-7);
but the meaning is still OK.
Now I take the
challenge and retranslate Strophe 1; everybody with some time may try to create
similar Strophes 2 & 3. My translation is 4-4-4-4 syllables, keeping the
original voiced/unvoiced pattern, and the meaning. It goes as follows:
Szedj,
szedj zöl-det!
No-de tép-kedj!
Szedj,
szedj zöl-det
No-de lép-kedj!
where the hyphens simply show
syllable boundaries within words. (I admit that my translation is not artistic.
But Shi Jing #8 is not artistic either. I think, my translation can compete with the original.) The mirror
translation to English will not keep the structure (I am not an English poet),
but you can check the meaning. It is:
Gather, gather greens!
Well, well, keep
plucking!
Gather, gather greens!
Well, well, along!
Is it not nice?
And now we can compare
the translations with the old Shi Jing translation of
Legge [18]; the Legge
translations are on the Internet too [19], and for Strophe 1 it goes as
We gather and gather
the plantains;
Now we may gather
them.
We gather and gather
the plantains;
Now we have got them.
No voiced/unvoiced pattern; and the syllable structure is 9-6-9-5, very
far from the original, definitely farther than even the translation in [11].
But the meaning is correct.
7. BUT TELL ME, WHO DID
DRIVE THE WOLVES AT THE NAO HILL?
This is the proper
moment to check the Tôkei-Rab translation of #97. But
I do know that I am no Sinologist, so I do it step by step.
The original is again
3 strophes, with lots of repetitive elements. Each strophe has the form
2, 3, A, 4, 5,15, 6,
7, 3, B, 4
9,10,11,12,C,
4,14,15,16,15, D, 4
Here the repetitive elements are
2 = zi3
3 = zhi1
4 = xi1
5 = zao1
6 = hu1
7 = Nao
9 = bing4
10= qu1
11= cong1 (or 2?)
12= liang3
14= ji1
15= wo3
16= wei4
20= hao3 (or 4?)
Let us wait a moment with the changing syllables/words.
There are two
elements, which are hard to translate. You may use [19]'s own dictionary
resources, can turn to Wiktionary [20], or can
utilise the immense literature of sinology. [19] has
told that 4=xi1 is "a particula" and that
6=hu1 is an "interrogative particle". So I went first for 4=xi1, as a
"particula". Ref. [21] tells that xi1 can
even be a pronoun "where?" or something such; while [22], listing
onomatopoeic words, tells that it is "the sound of giggling".
Similarly, for hu1 [21] gave "a preposition" with multiple spatial
meaning, while [22] "the sound of wind blowing". [22] is much more conform with [19] and [20], than [21] is, and
more definite. Unfortunately, at least in modern
Chinese, the kanjis of the onomatopoeic xi1 & hu1
are different from the kanjis in the text; at least a
dozen different kanjis are read as xi1. For the
situation 2500 years ago my knowledge is insufficient.
Now, in a strophe
4=xi1 appears four times, and it is an "exclamation", so let us take
the strophe into 4 parts, each ending with xi1, first not translating it. (In
Magyar poems the analogon is "hej", which do not mean anything at all, except high
spirit.) For structure the short first line is clear enough. The word 2=zi3 has
various meanings, but one is child/small thing/egg; the other is
A is hard to understand in the first strophe. The kanji has double
reading: hai2 & huan4. Now, hai2 is "more", "in
addition", "still" and a lot similar while huan4 can be e.g.
"return"; maybe we can guess something: Darling, again, xi1; or, with
more meaning: Darling, you have returned, xi1. But in the next 2 strophes A is cca.
"luxuriant" and then "prosperous";
ending maybe with a giggling, maybe with other exclamatory particle. So the
narrating person is happy that the other is again/still there, and that is
good/nice/prosperous. Or maybe "talented" [21].
No problem; as Faustin I, Emperor of Haiti told in
1849 to Comte de Limonade, his Grand Panetier (which would be Chief Baker, if not in a
Francophone Imperial court). The Grand Panetier did
not understand his own title. The Emperor was uncertain too,
and finally told: "C'est quelque
chose de bon", i.e. "This is something good."
Now let us see the
first lines in the translation of Legge [18], [19]:
How agile you are/How admirable your skill/How
complete your art! I do not see anything even similar to agility, skill and art
in the text. In the same time Rab's first lines at
least have a comparable structure: a positive adjective (of strong arms; of
silver tongue; of radiant face), then "my darling", then an
exclamatory "you". (The Magyar word order is correct in this way!)
You may tell that in the original "the child" is the possessor; yes; the
possession is the nice property; and in Magyar it would be rather ungrammatical
to exclamate without "my", or something
similar. So Lines 1 are at least not in contradiction with the text, while Legge's constructions cannot be seen there.
Now come
Lines 2. 5,15,6,7,3,B; and an end-giggling or another
exclamation. 7,3,B is the "B of Nao", 5,15 is "meet (by
chance) me, and 6=hu1 is either a mere interrogative or the wind blowing, so we
do not have to translate.
Now what is B? It is [19] jian1 (4?)/dao4/yang2. The first is "besides" or
"space", the second is the famous "path", and the third is
the again famous yang from yang/yin, so probably "southern side".
Although Chinese is not in kinship with Magyar, the structure is familiar. It
is not easy to translate into English, but besides/path/sunny side of Nao. Legge reserves quite well
both the repetitive structure, and the meaning of the lines: "You met me
in the neighbourhood of/in the way to/on the south of Nao".
Exclamation "xi1" is consequently absent at Legge.
Rab breaks the line into 2 halves. In the first
strophe the meeting goes to the end of Line 2, while the place to the end of
Line 3. In the second and third strophes the meeting is absent, and the
location remains in Line 2. But at least the exclamation (giggling?) is
implicitly there, via the excited lines.
Line 3 is 9,10,11,12,C and the exclamation. That is surely a hunting
line. Each word has a multiplicity of meanings, but 9,10
at least permits "drive together", while 11,12 ,C is consistent with "follow
two/a few C's". And the 3 C's are shoulder/male animal/wolf. I do
not understand the first, but no problem with the other two. The line tells
that the actors, two, together, hunted, following two (or a few) animals; 3
different kinds in the 3 strophes. Legge keeps the
structure and puts boars of three years (why just? A rare
meaning of jian3?) into Strophe 1. Rab must make it in a more complicated way, because she
already has used up half of Lines 3 in Strophes 2 & 3; but the wolf is
there in Strophe 3. In Strophe 1 she tries with "antlered beast"; I
again have not the slightest idea about the zoological status of
"jiang4".
And now come the last lines. 14,15,16,15,D;
and a final exclamation xi1. According to vocabulary [19], 14+15 is clearly
"greeting me with both hands raised", or something such. 16+15 seems
to be "speaking of me" and then D.
D is again some good thing:
ingenious/good/lucky. I cannot resist to interpret
16+15+D as "telling that I [am] D"
or, what is the same, "speaking of me as D". In Magyar the line then would be without any forced
translation, but of course tense endings inserted, "kezedet
magasra tartva üdvözöl{14}tél{15} [és] mondtad{16}, D vagyok{15}",
i.e. "[you] greeted{14} me{15} with raised hands{14} [and] told{16} [that]
I{15} [am] D". "Én"="I" is not there for the Magyar
translation; but "vagyok"="am"
is there, and in Magyar "I" would be superfluous besides "vagyok".
Legge
translates the last lines as "You bowed to me, and said that I was active/skillful/dexterous." It is not important if the other
person "bowed" or "greeted with raised hands". But I do not
see "active/skilful/dexterious". D's readings are given as
"xuan1/hao3 (or 4)/zang1", so again for first meanings
"ingenious/good (being fond of)/good (lucky). As for Zsuzsa
Rab, I see her "good" not in Strophe 1 but
in 2. I do not see anywhere the "nice girl" of her strophe 2; but
surely the "fond of" meaning there permits "told me being
favoured" or such. And in the final line I see another laudation, but
nothing about marriage proposition. If not that is ackowledged
in the final, victorious giggling. If
"xi1" is really a giggling; but only the reading is that, not the
kanji.
9. THE CHILD, THE FLOWER,
THE SMALL THINGS AND SUCH TOPICS
It seems that none of
the 69 kanjis of the original of #97 of Shi Jing in itself indicates the sexes of the two actors. And
not even in the English translation of Legge! Today's
English is rather clumsy in sex/gender discrimination, if not in Sg3.To see
that it is far from trivial in Indo-European, let us take a variety of
languages, just for discussion accept Rab's
interpretation, but translate word by word (as far as this is possible between
Chinese & Indo-European) Line 4 of Strophe 1:
Chinese
ji1,wo3,wei4,wo3,xuan1,xi1
English
You congratulated and told that I was ingenious (ha-ha).
Latin
Tu salutabas, et dicebas mihi
ingeniosa.
Slovakian
Ty blahozelal mi i
povedal sto ja som [or: byla] obratná.
French
Tu saluas me et dis que
je fus ingénieuse.
German
Du grüsstest und sagtest
And so on. The
femaleness of the narrating person ("I") is unequivocally indicated
on the adjective: Latin ingeniosa(/us), Slovakian obratná(/ny), French ingénieuse(/eux) and German geschickte/t.
Slovakian, in addition, indicates te gender of the
other person too. See, according to the genders of Sg1 & Sg2:
|
Sg1 & Sg2 |
Line 4 |
|
Female & Female |
Ty si blahozelala i povedala sto ja som obratná. |
|
Female & Male |
Ty si blahozelal i povedal sto ja
som obratná. |
|
Male & Female |
Ty si blahozelala i povedala sto ja som obratny. |
|
Male & Male |
Ty si blahozelal i povedal sto ja
som obratny. |
Chinese & Magyar
cannot do anything else than to greet with both hands raised (yi1) the
Indo-Germans for such an ability. And I tell you that the laxity of Magyar in
matters of gender goes so far that numerous Magyar folk songs can be sung
either by men or by women (or by both together) without changing even a letter of the text. Still, in Magyar
emotional poetic texts a Magyar reader can unequivocally tell the genders/sexes
of the players. The inner logic of the text shows it.
Now, I think, in #97
of Shi Jing the matter is not so unequivocal. I
think, nobody ever suggested that both persons were female; it would have been
too much Amazons for the patriarchal sages. Legge
seems to suggest that both persons were male, via the lack of any other emotion
than prestige in his translation. But Tôkei & Rab in [11] suggest a mixed hunting team of two. Is it possible/suggested by the texts?
I think, Lines 2 &
3 are silent in this context. They inform us only
about the preys. The "adjectives" in Lines 4 (xuan1/hao3,4/zang1) could be keys because in each language there are
adjectives which are rather used to one sex than for the other. However if they showed clearly the sexes, Legge
would not contradict Tôkei & Rab;
and also, such stylistic rules can change even in a mere couple of centuries.
Now we are confronted with a text of 2500 years old.
But maybe Lines 1 offer some keys. Let us see again:
zi3,zhi1,huan2/mao4/chang1,xi1
It seems that the most modest to regard xi1 as an exclamation,
and it is very probable that zhi1 is the grammatical particula
for possessive structures. The "adjectives" huan2/mao4/chang1 seem a "property" of zi3, and again I would not be
convinced about the stylistics, because of the great antiquity of the text. So
there remains zi3, if any.
The word zi3 is in
clear connection with the Japanese "ko";
the kanjis are the same. Japanese "ko" and Chinese "zi3" both have a meaning cca. "child". In Chinese
zi3 can be "child". In this case the person, on whom the word is
applied, is small & dependent.
Indeed, the "egg" meaning is practically the same. But zi3 can also
be a title for ruler; in which case
the person is big & dominant.
Also, it seems that zi3 is the clan name of the old Yin rulers. Also a zodiacal sign.
Now, in Japanese the
meaning of "ko" seems to be much more
unambiguous; but wait a moment. The primary meaning of "ko" as a noun is "child" (also "kodomo"). However "ko-"
is also a prefix indicating
"child of", or "little"; for example "inu"="dog", "koinu"="little
dog, puppy". But again, "-ko" appears at the
end of a lot of female names (Akiko,
Makiko, Mariko &c.). My guess is that in this position its primary meaning
is also "little", although Japanese sometimes tell that it is
"flower". Finally, there is a meaning when it combines the two
"contrary" Chinese meanings: "prince", so a child
(small/dependent) of a ruler (big/dominant).
Then what to do? I do
not know; but we may keep in mind both elementary meanings; and also I refer to
Appendix B for further discussion of diminutive suffixes.
But then one can argue
for almost any translation of Lines 1. Look: if we accept the
"little/child" meaning, then in Shi Jing
#97 the narrating person is the "bigger". However the narrating
person is proud that the other tells positive things about the narrating
person's hunting ability. The "contradiction", however, vanishes, if
the narrating persion is a male with weaker ability,
while the other is an Amazon. Then the narrating person may tell: "Baby,
you are fantastic, when hunting wolves!".
But we may start also
with the "title of ruler". Then a female narrating person may tell (I
think, to another females): "Look, I met with a
great hunter; and even he told me that I am good!"
And what if females
use diminutive words in connection to grown
males? While this seems meaningless for males, it does happen in the present
Magyar society. The probable explanation is dual: first, females may confuse
their sexual & maternal instincts. See the sci-fi of anthropologist B. Kurtén, about grown Homo sapiens males seen
"cute" by Neanderthal females [23], because of the very orthognathous face. Second, as the Manyshi
example shows, the aspects of "gladly" and "itsy-bitsy" are kins in Ugric
languages.
Of course, there is a
strong inhibition in females against visualize this or, definitely, against
verbalising. The attached male wants to be big/strong, and not small/cute.
However a female expression in Hungary is "cuki fiú", which is cca. "sugar boy" (cukor fiú), but in a diminutive form. Without diminutive the
expression is practically not used by females, while, interestingly enough,
males apply "cukorbaba"="sugar
baby" to females, without diminutive in
the adjective.
10. HOW TO RECOGNIZE
SOMEBODY WITH XX CHROMOSOMES IN A POEM?
It is interesting to compare translations of Shi Jing. Here I compare 3 translations. The oldest is Legge [18], from Victorian Great Britain; Indo-European.
The second is Granet, a Frenchman from the beginning
of XXth century [24], also an Indo-European, whose
language is even stricter about genders. (He did not translate all poems.) And
the third is on unisex Magyar [11]. According to Hungarian standard of
translating poems always two persons are needed: one who is sure in the foreign
language, and one familiar with the art of poetics. Now, as I told above, the
master of Chinese was always F. Tôkei; the poetic
fellow will always be indicated, together with the genders.
I will compare the
translations of four poems, all in some relation with #97; and then I will have
a very brief remark about a fifth. 3 of them (##96, 98 & 99) are from the
Songs of Qi, as #97.
#82.
In the Magyar translation this is the second lest patriarchal poem. In all
translation it is a dialogue between a female & a male; the male starts to
hunt, the female will wait for the prey and will cook. However let us see the
differences. As far as I see in the original the actors are: “woman” &
“warrior” (hunter?). At Legge they are wife &
husband. Now at the non-Victorian French Granet they are
definitely not: fille et
garcon. And in the Magyar of Tôkei(m) & Károlyi(f)? They are “lány & legény”, so wench
& lad. 2 to 1 majority against patriarchal &
Victorian morals.
#96,
from Qi. Two lovers
somewhere in a corner of the ducal court, in the night. Legge definitely refrains himself to guess which is which. Tôkei(m)
& Károlyi(f) very weakly seem to feel as if the
second actor were the female; but in a Note Tôkei
refrains himself to state this.
#98,
from Qi. Both at Legge
and at Tôkei(m) & Szabó(f) a female
narrates something about a male. But the masculine gender is grammatically
indicated in the English, while it is rather subtle in Magyar, so much that you
could play it also with inverted roles (true, with a humorous twist).
#99,
from Qi. In all the 3
translation an amorous meeting, in the flat of one. But here the
agreements end. In the two Indo-European translations the meeting starts at
sunup (Sun on East) and ends at moonup; the visitor
comes & goes. In the Magyar of Tôkei(m) & Lator (m) indeed the
visitor arrives when the Sun stands on East; but does not depart when Moon is
on the Eastern sky. In the Magyar text Sun & Moon do not act as “temporal
pointers” but rather as mere “scenes of Nature”. And look: at the two
Indo-European translators the host is male, the
visitor is female, while it is just inverted in Magyar! Obviously again the
Indo-Europeans interpret zi3/ko as she/elle, while
the Magyars interpret it as “ífjú”=”youth”, as in
#97. (But note that now the artistic translator is a poet instead of poetess Rab.)
#245 is the myth of
the birth of Millet Prince Hou Ji.
It seems that in the last 3000 years Hou Ji, an ancestor of the Zhou kings, was always considered a
forefather. But look: ji4 is millet, and hou4 is: “queen, empress, souvereign” [20]. Gender inversion? I do not think so
(albeit fertility would be rather a feminine role); Chinese is an unisex language.
11. CONCLUSION?
Can I conclude? Not
about the sociologic question. True, if
the narrating person in Shi Jing #97 is a girl, then
our picture about Ancient China is in ruins. But is it she? Cannot the
narrating person a young lad? He meets a mature hunter, they drive trice prey,
and the older one congratulates thrice the beginner, who is very happy. This is
possible; but with the mentioned problems about zi3/ko. And it seems
that the overwhelming majority of the 10 Qi poems are
about amorous situations. It is better to tell simply that it is nontrivial who
is male and who is female in a Shi Jing poem, as seen
in the translations of #96 & #99. So if and when added information is
absent, we cannot reconstruct the social status of genders from Shi Jing.
As far as I know, our
information is rather hazy about 5th century BC Qi.
So it may have been strictly patriarchal & sexist (anything this means), or may have not been.
However we can learn
something else from Poems #96, #97, #98, #99 & #245. Marija
Gimbutas tried hard to imagine the ideology of Old
Europe before the arrival of Indo-Europeans. Her conclusion was matrifocality,
not matriarchy: women were in the focus, but men also had their place under the
Sun. Well, in most societies every group had some place, and lots depend on the details, but nevermind.
As it is known, originally the title of her first book was Gods and Goddesses
in Old Europe; in the second edition she inverted it to Goddesses and Gods. But
now we can see that, read it in any direction, this title is still deeply
Indo-European, as you may expect for a Lithuanian.
Is Divine Hou Ji,
the Sovereign of Millet, a God or A Goddess? In historical times he was a forefather of the Zhou, but I would be
surprised if originally Hou Ji
had not been rather feminine. Spirits of plant abundance rather connected with
birth, so they tend towards the feminine pole .Also, agriculture rather
originates from gathering women, and animal husbandry from hunting men. So originally (much earlier than the
pseudo-historical time of Hou Ji
in mid-second millennium BC) most of the attendants of the Sovereign of Millet
probably were women. And then? Hou
Ji is a great kami (using
the Japanese term), and the translation of kami is
neither God, nor Goddess, but Divinity (although you may say, if you want, that
Amaterasu is a Goddess, and Sosa no O is a God).
According to an
American joke a white Catholic priest dies, then is resurrected. His colleagues
then ask him if he saw God. The answer is: Yes; she is black. Now, this joke
demonstrates genuine Indo-European thinking.
Magyars have lived
long enough in
When Ms. Gimbutas/Gimbutaite’s Old Europe flowered, the ancestors of
Magyars were still in
When the President of
USA speaks to the people, he (he/she?, heesh?) starts with cca. “Men & Women of
Maybe this aspect is
interesting for some Indo-Europeans.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Useful discussions
with colleagues Dr. Katalin Barlai
& Agnes Holba are acknowledged; but all
responsibility is mine.
APPENDIX A: AUTOCORRELATIONS
IN SHI JING #8
F. Tôkei
suggested that in Old Chinese times the regular pattern of verses was in the
voiced/unvoiced pattern of word initials [12]. This is theory; but if it is
true, in Shi Jing we must find poems which are not
regular for rhymes or for tones, but are regular in the initials.
Tôkei
took some verses with Karlgren’s Old Chinese
reconstructed forms [13] and in a few he saw regular patterns in the initials.
However at the end he gave up the attempt [8], telling that the regularity was
quite probable, but he was unable to prove it rigorously. However
physicists do know methods to decide if a regularity is accidental or not.
Shi Jing #8 was the favourite example of Tôkei
for voiced/unvoiced initials; the pattern for one strophe is given in Sect. 6,
and it is the same for all the 3 strophes. We can turn this pattern to an
one-dimensional numerical series by representing voiced initials (o) by 0’s and
unvoiced ones (x) by 1’s. Then we have a series of 48 numbers (and we can make
the sample cyclic by a Born-Kármán boundary condition).
If a series is
accidental, it cannot show autocorrelation. Exactly 0 autocorrelations are
statistically very improbable, but the method gives a significance level too. The
series is very probably regular if its autocorrelation differs
moiré from 0 than the significance level. You may turn to Ref. [17] for
details, or to any good textbook about Statistics.
There is the original
series ai;
in our case 0<i<49. From the series ai
we can calculate an average <a>
(A.1) <a> = (1/n)∑r ar; 0<r<n+1
and a mean spread σa
(A.2) σa2 = (1/n)∑r (ar-<a>)2
In experimental physics there are good arguments to substitute n with
n-1 in (A.2) [25]. These arguments are not exactly rigorous, but really there
is one linear dependence in (A.2), so I accept the correction.
Now, we can form
another series from ai, by shifting it with Δ elements. So:
(A.3) b(Δ)i = ai+Δ
Then the correlation coefficient of a and b(Δ),
denoted as r(Δ), shows the internal repetition in the series ai.
The autocorrelation coefficient is defined as
(A.4) r(Δ)
= {(<a2>-<a>2)(<b2>-<b>2)}1/2/σaσb
You can verify directly that if there is a complete periodicity in the
series ai
with period D, then r(D)=1. If there is total
inversion after D elements (all o to x and vice versa), then r(D)=-1.
In all other cases
(A.5) -1<r(Δ)<1
The normal statistical fluctuation of r, called now σr, can be estimated (it
really weakly depends on the construction of the series).
In our case the null
hypothesis (when Tôkei is wrong) is that
voiced/unvoiced initials had no role at all in the construction. Then according
to the null hypothesis
(A.6) <r>=0
(A.7) σr = 0.14
Now, for Δ=1 and 3 r is at 4σ from 0 and at Δ=4 it is
beyond 5σ. So it is very improbable that these repetitions were
accidental. For even more
rigorous study we should compare Shi Jing
#8 with texts of similar age which never
were considered poems; but for the present this analysis may suffice.
APPENDIX B: ON SOME
DIMINUTIVE SUFFICES
As we saw, Japanese
seems to have a diminutive suffix "-ko". A diminutive
suffix expresses the smallness of the thing/person; but generally not in purely
physical sense. A Fraulein is not necessarily smaller than a Frau; rather
weaker, younger, or needs more attention or care. Or simply one is fonder of
her.
This is exactly
Japanese "-ko", forming female names. Male instinct is that
a female is smaller, weaker, and needs more care. This in reality may or may
not true; but both sides generally play as if it were true.
Now, there is a
similar Ugric suffix: Manyshi –kwe
[26], Magyar -ka/-ke (or -cska/-cske).
(In Magyar the suffix obeys Vowel Harmony.) The Magyar suffix operates quite
widely: for example fa->fácska
(tree/small tree), kutya->kutyácska
(dog/little dog), ház->házacska
(house/small house), fiú->fiúka,
fiúcska (boy/small boy; also: fióka:
young bird), leány->leányka
(girl/small girl, girl-child), anyó->anyóka (old woman/little old woman) &c. At given names
(István/Istvánka, Péter/Péterke,
Jolán/Jolánka, Katalin/Katalinka/Katinka/Katika/Katóka
&c. where the original names mean Steven, Peter, Jolanthe
& Catherine, to show that the suffix is as gender-independent as the end of
a Magyar given name) it may indicate young age, but also emotional connection.
Some (strictly female) names end with -kó/-kô, as Ildikó, Anikó & Enikô (roughly, but not exactly Hilda, Anette
& Enid).
Now, for the Manyshi –kwe/-ke both
nominal and verbal examples can be mentioned. As nominal diminutive, see e.g.
"pighkwe"="little
boy", "angkw"="little
old woman", "taremsiskwe"="little god" &c. However Manyshi has a verbal mood expressing emotional involvement:
then -ke-/-kwe is put between the root and
the personal suffices (-kwe
only at absolute word end). E.g. "toti"="carries",
"totikem"="I
carry gladly". (The final –m is the Praes. Sg1 verbal suffix, just as in Magyar.)
Any connection between
Ugric -ka/-ke/-kwe and Japanese -ko is very doubtful, and
this is the reason that the Ugric suffix went to the Appendix. However, there
are further similarities. There is a Slavic suffix -ka, forming feminine words from masculine ones. Using again
Slovakian examples, the pattern is as "sekretár/sekretárka"="male/female
secretary". Magyar speakers often feel Magyar -ke/-ka behind Slavic -ka,
which seems incorrect, because Slavic -ka
definitely do not indicate smallness/youngness. Still
Magyar "macska"
= Slovakian "macka"
= "cat" is told to came from "Mariska"="little
Mary"; the original Slavic root for "cat" is cca.
"kot'", see
Slovakian "kocúr"="tomcat".
Now, behind the Magyar
female name "Ildikó"="Hilda"
it is almost hopeless to search for an Ugric diminutive, because the name of
the last wife of Great King Attila was recorded in the form "Ildico" even already by Iordanes,
the Goth. However the end of the name is a mystery. "Ildico"="Ildikó" is routinely identified with Krimhilde of
Burgundy, and Hilde/Hilda is the equivalent of Ildikó/Ildico,
without any explanation of the final -co
at Iordanes.
Also, observe the word
"little bear", which is "mackó" in Magyar and "macko"
(neuter) in Slovakian. Magyar & Slovakian are, of course, not related
genetically.
REFERENCES
[1] P. Anderson: The Shield of Time.
[2] J. J. Bachofen: Das
Mutterrecht. Krais &
Hoffmann,
[3] R. Graves: The Greek Myths. Penguiun,
Harmondsworth, 1955
[4] Marija Gimbutas:
J. Indo-Eur. Studies 1, 163 (1973)
[5] A. Garrett: to be published in J. Clackson,
P. Forster & C. Renfrew eds.): Phylogenetic
Methods and the Prehistory Of Languages. McDonald Inst.
of Arch. Res.,
[6] C. Lévi-Strauss: Tristes tropiques. Librairie Plon, Paris, 1955
[7] Ildikó Ecsedy:
AOH XXV, 245 (1972)
[8] F. Tôkei: Sinológiai
műhely, Magvetô,
[9] J. E. Morby: Dynasties of the World.
Oxford University Press, 1989
[10] U. Knoche
(ed.): Iuvenalis saturae.
[11] F. Tôkei
(ed.): Dalok könyve (Si King), Európa Kiadó,
[12] F. Tôkei:
Notes prosodiques sur quelques chants de travail chinois,
AOH 6, 53 (1956)
[13] B. Karlgren:
Grammata Serica Recensa, BMFEA 29,
[14] G. Olaszy:
in Proc. 8th Colloq. On Acoustics,
[15]
[16] B. Karlgren:
The Book of Odes. Stockholm, 1950
[17] B. Lukács:
KFKI-1998-02
[18] J. Legge:
Chinese Classics. Hong-Kong –
[19] The Book of Odes.
http://afpc.asso.fr/wengu/wg/wengu.php?l=Shijing
[20] Wiktionary.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Main_Page
[21] B. Tung:
Classical Chinese. http://www.isi.edu/~brian/chinese/classical.html
[22] Shun Ha Sylvia Konecna Wong: http://www.fi.
muni.cz/usr/wong/teaching/chinese/notes/node27.html
[23] B. Kurtén:
The Dance of the Tiger.
[24] M. Granet:
Fetes et chansons anciennes
de la Chine. Leroux, Paris, 1929
[25] L. Jánossy:
Theory and Practice of the Evaluation of Measurements. Clarendon Press,
[26] B. Kálmán:
Chrestomathia Vogulica. Tankönyvkiadó,
My HomePage, with some other studies, if you are curious.