習字諧聲考

Investigating the Xiéshēng Series for xí 習

Guo Moruo viewed the character xí 習 as a combination of yǔ 羽 and rì 日 and interpreted the meaning by using an image of a bird flapping its wings, practicing flying in the sunny sky. But Tang Lan viewed xí 習 as a combination of huì 彗 and rì 日 based on oracle bone script and said that huì 彗 is a sound sign. Although Guo Moruo’s theory is more widely known, Tang Lan’s theory corresponds to the ancient shape of Chinese characters. In the academic circle of Chinese characters, Tang Lan’s theory is generally accepted. But nothing clear has been discovered about the similarity between xí 習 and huì 彗 in terms of their ancient pronunciation. For this reason, this study attempts to reconstruct the ancient sounds of xí 習 and huì 彗 by using the Zhengzhang-Pan system and the Baxter-Sagart system, both of which are the latest systems to reconstruct ancient sounds. The result of this study is as follows. The ancient sounds of huì 彗 and xí 習 are /*sɢʷibs/ and /*sɢʷɯb/, respectively.