Chu Language
Assimilation

The original language of the Chu state was not a dialect of Chinese; it was unrelated and non-Sinitic; for samples, see the Lexicon. The notes below mark stages in the loss of the Chu language, and its replacement by Chinese, as part of the long pre-Imperial Sinification process.

Spring and Autumn

1. Over many centuries, the intimate if adversative contact between Chu and the Sinitic states led to functional assimilation of Sinitic culture by the Chu palace elite. Nowhere is this Sinicization process clearer than with the Chu language. Chu language and literature nevertheless remained apart. Whenever the Fvng or "Local Songs" section of the Shr poetry repertoire was put together (our guess would be the early 05c, at the beginning of the Warring States period), Chu at that time was still regarded as an alien culture. It was therefore not included in the design, which was based on the traditions of the "Jou" culture states. It follows that Chu must have been regarded as alien in earlier centuries as well, as the northern states' response to Chu northward pressure in Spring and Autumn separately suggests.

Warring States

2. In the late 04c, as is shown by a few lines in the Dzwo Jwan commentary (completed c0312), a few names of persons and objects in the Chu language were known to northern courtiers. The Dzwo Jwan authors were able, but also felt obligated, to explain to their readers the meaning of the otherwise unintelligible name of a Chu historical figure. This attests factual knowledge on the commentator's part, but it also implies lack of mutual linguistic intelligibility between Chi and Chu. The gloss has the air of presenting a bit of linguistic curiosa.

3. The earliest poems in the Chu Tsz anthology are usually thought to date from c0300. They are the only surviving examples of Chu court poetry. They are written in Chinese, and moreover, they are knowledgeable in the textual learning of the Sinitic states (two of them, the Li Sau and Tyen Wvn, make allusions to the Yi or Classic of Changes, which was not at this time technically regarded as a classic by the leading Confucian schools). They represent the expert adoption of Sinitic language and learning by the Chu court. The Tyen Wvn in particular is a catechism of mixed Sinitic and Chu esoteric lore. The impression we get from reading these texts is of a Sinicized Chu court, fluent in Chinese as Russian courtiers under the Tsars were fluent in French, but still in possession of their own culture.

4. How individuals from Chu learned Chinese is an interesting question. One answer is given by this c0250 parable from the writings of the southern Mencian school, who seem to have been located in a place which would shortly be conquered by Chu:

Mencius said to Dai Bushvng, . . . Suppose some great officer of Chu wanted his son to learn to speak Chi. Should he have a Chi man teach him, or should he have a Chu man teach him? He answered, He should have a Chi man teach him. Mencius said, If a Chi man is teaching him, and if at the same time a crowd of Chu men are standing around gabbling at him, then even if he were beaten every day to improve his Chi accent, it wouldn't work. But if you put him in the Chi capital for a few years, then even if he were beaten every day to make him speak Chu, it wouldn't work. [MC 3B6]

It is clear that Chi and Chu were at that date two distinct spoken languages, and that the immersion method was thought to be the only good way to acquire either of them. Note that the story features the acquisition of Sinitic (Chi) by the non-Sinitic (Chu) elite, not vice versa, and implies a process of high-level linguistic assimilation in Chu in the middle of the 03c.

5. The same language-acquisition metaphor, but now with Rung "barbarian" opposed to Chu, occurs in the Lw-shr Chun/Chyou core text, which dates from about a decade later than the preceding story:

A Rung man is born among Rung and grows up among Rung, speaking Rung; he doesn't know how he has learned it. A Chu man is born in Chu and grows up in Chu, speaking Chu; he doesn't know how he has learned it. Let a Chu man grow up among Rung, or a Rung man grow up in Chu, and the Chu man will speak Rung, while the Rung man will speak Chu. [LSCC 4E]

The existence of a fully competent Chu language in the Chu territory seems again to be taken for granted by this writer (in c0241). Its eclipse was thus later. Though prepared by the elite Sinicization of the centuries of contact since early Spring and Autumn, it was probably precipitated by the loss of its center of political sovereignty in the Chu/Han showdown of the years 0206-0204.

 

8 Jan 2001 / Contact The Project / Exit to Results Page