Vocabulary Research On The Bamboo Slips Of The Eastern Han Dynasty Unearthed In Changsha

There had not been much bamboo slips of the Eastern Han Dynasty until three batches of bamboo slips were unearthed in the area of Wuyi Square in the city of Changsha,namely the bamboo slips of DongPailou,Wuyi Square and ShangdeJie.With those,academics were able to start researches on the official documents of the Eastern Han Dynasty.These three batches of bamboo slips were unearthed in the same area and close in times.They were all application documents and had strong links with each other.A holistic research on the three batches of material could help us to grasp the features of Changsha language in the Eastern Han Dynasty.Since all the materials are new,we first tried to revise the interpretation of the three batches of bamboo slips,and put forward our opinions about the meaning of some words.On the basis of that,we did some research on the vocabulary of the bamboo slips.Through a synchronic as well as a diachronic comparison with handed-down literature,other bamboo slips of the Qing and Han Dynasties unearthed in Hubei and Hunan as well as bamboo slips in the Northwest,we tried to uncover the characteristic features of the Changsha bamboo slips vocabulary representing their time and region.For common vocabulary,we looked into them in three ways.First,we described the word clustering of five concepts,namely “mobilize”,“immediately”,“judicial proceedings”,“conflict and fights”,and “market activities”,in an effort to explore the system of the meaning of words of the Changsha bamboo slips in the executive,judicial and economic fields.Secondly,we teased out new factors of the vocabulary on the materials,gave exegeses to the ancient spoken words on the Changsha bamboo slips,and provided supplementary entries,meaning items and documentary evidence for the compilation of large dictionaries like the Great Chinese Dictionary.Thirdly,since there is a rich system of measure words on the Changsha bamboo slips that were hardly seen on the bamboo slips or silk manuscripts unearthed earlier,we described thoroughly 50 measure words as nouns and 2 measure words as verbs,and analyzed new writing forms and new usages of these words,in an effort to enrich current research on the measure words.For proper nouns,we produced an index table for the geographical names and official position titles that are found on the Changsha bamboo slips for ease of reference by academics.We also examined some nouns,including the names of some farmlands,weapons and commodities.In addition,we studied commodity prices that were recorded on the Changsha bamboo slips.Prices of things like shops,fish and paper,which were rarely seen before,were recorded on the Changsha bamboo slips.This will help us to know about the standard of living in the era of the Eastern Han Dynasty.Through the above-mentioned study,we found four features in the vocabulary system of the Changsha bamboo slips.First,they had a strong oral nature and reflected lots of new factors.Secondly,there was an obvious tendency of formulating a word with two characters.Thirdly,there were quite a number of proper nouns.Fourthly,there was a dialect feature.In general,the Changsha bamboo slips reflected very well new changes of the Chinese language going from ancient times to mid-ancient times.