Huaxia: pre-Han cognomen of the Middle Kingdom

Iskandar Ding and the Scythians are well known on Language Log.  Now they come together in this reference to Christopher Beckwith's The Scythian Empire:

What an excitingly bold book! Finally got the paperback edition. pic.twitter.com/R7M11MCNQ2

— Iskandar Ding (@iskdin) July 1, 2024

[click on the illustration to go to the X post and then click again to embiggen the page so that it is easy to read]

These are audacious claims that only Chris Beckwith would dare to make.

"Huáxià 華夏", Wiktionary

Attested in the Zuo Zhuan:

楚失華夏，則析公之為也。

That Chu lost the allegiance of the flourishing and grand ("華夏") central states was the doing of the lord of Xi.

 

A line in the Zuo Zhuan features the words 夏 (OC *ɡraːʔ) and 華 (OC *ɡʷraː) used in a parallel structure.

裔不謀夏，夷不亂華。

The borderers may not plot against the grand ("夏") domains; the aliens should not sow chaos among the flourishing ("華") peoples.

"Huaxia", Wikipedia

Huaxia is a historical concept representing the Chinese nation, and came from the self-awareness of a common cultural ancestry by the various confederations of pre-Qin ethnic ancestors of Han people.

The earliest extant authentic attestation of the Huaxia concept is in the Zuo Zhuan, a historical narrative and commentary authored before 300 BCE. In Zuo zhuan, Huaxia refers to the central states (中國 zhōngguó) in the Yellow River valley, dwelt by the Huaxia people, ethnically equivalent to Han Chinese in pre-imperial discourses.

According to the Confucian Kong Yingda, xià (夏 'grand') signified the 'greatness' (大) in the ceremonial etiquettes of the central states, while huá (華 'flower', 'blossom') was used in reference to the beauty (美) in the hanfu clothing that the denizens from those states wore.

Thus have Confucianist Chinese traditionally believed for millennia.  Their interpretation of Huáxià 華夏 is completely at odds with Beckwith's.  If the traditional Confucianists are right, Beckwith is wrong; if Beckwith is right, the Confucianists are wrong.  So it is with many key terms in the history of Chinese civilization, e.g., Mair and the monosyllabistic nativist-nationalist traditionalists with regard to the name Dūnhuáng 敦煌.

 

Selected readings

• "The bearded barbarian" (8/26/15)
• "Perso-Arabic script for Mandarin, Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Taiwanese: sad cripples?" (5/11/24)
• "Ask Language Log: Syriac Christian tombstone inscription from Mongol period East Asia" (2/11/24)
• "Scythians between Russia and Ukraine" (3/23/24)
• "'The old man at the pass loses his horse'" (5/2/20)
• "The Wool Road of Northern Eurasia' (4/12/21)
• "The dissemination of iron and the spread of languages" (11/5/20)
• "Indo-European religion, Scythian philosophy, and the date of Zoroaster: a linguistic quibble" (10/9/20)
• "'Skin' and 'hide' ('pelt') in Old Sinitic and Proto-Indo-European" (11/7/20)
• "Of armaments and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 6" (12/23/17) — particularly pertinent, and also draws on art history as well as archeology
• "Of reindeer and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (12/23/18)
• "Know your Ossetians" (2/17/20)
• "Know your Narts: cattle rearing and cattle raiding" (6/6/20)
• "Blue-Green Iranian 'Danube'" (10/26/19)
• "Sword out of the stone" (8/9/08)
• "Horses, soma, riddles, magi, and animal style art in southern China" (11/11/19)
• "'Horse Master in IE and in Sinitic" (11/9/19)
• "'Horse' and 'language' in Korean" (10/30/19)
• "Of armaments and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 6" (12/23/17)
• "Of horse riding and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (4/21/19)
• "Of jackal and hide and Old Sinitic reconstruction" (12/16/18)
• "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 7" (1/11/21) — with extensive discussion of Indo-European horse sacrifice
• "Translating the I ching (Book of Changes)" (10/11/17)
• "Nomadic affinity with oracle bone divination" (11/25/20)
• "Headless men with face on chest" (9/28/20)
• "Tattoos as a means of communication" (9/1/12)
• "The importance of archeology for historical linguistics" (5/1/20)
• "The importance of archeology for historical linguistics, part 2" (5/11/20)
• "Revelation: Scythians and Shang" (6/4/23)
• "Paleographers, riches await you!" (10/28/16) — oracle bone script; evidence from Anyang
• "Ashkenazi and Scythians" (7/13/21)
• "Ukrainian at the edge" (10/30/22)
• "Old Ukrainian windmills and Old Sinitic reconstructions"(3/27/22)
• "Where did the PIEs come from; when was that?" (7/28/23)
• C. Scott Littleton, "Were Some of the Xinjiang Mummies 'Epi-Scythians'? An Excursus in Trans-Eurasian Folklore and Mythology." In Victor H. Mair, The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia (Washington D.C. and Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Man and the University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1998), vol. 2, pp. 746-766.
• C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor, From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail (New York and London: Garland, 1994; rev. pb. 2000). In the British journal, Religion, 28.3 (July, 1998), 294-300, I [VHM] wrote a review in which I pointed out that the celebrated motif of a mighty arm rising up out of the water holding aloft the hero's sword can also be found in a medieval Chinese tale from Dunhuang. That review is available electronically from ScienceDirect, if your library subscribes to it. Otherwise, I think this version on the Web is a fairly faithful copy.
• Miriam Robbins Dexter and Victor H. Mair, Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia (Amherst, NY: Cambria, 2010)
• Miriam Robbins Dexter and Victor H. Mair, "Sacred Display: New Findings", Sino-Platonic Papers, 240 (Sept. 2013), 122 pages
• Petya Andreeva, Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea:  Image-Making in Eurasian Nomadic Societies, 700 BCE-500 CE (Edinburgh:  University Press, 2024).
• "The 'whole mess' of Old Sinitic reconstruction" (12/14/20)
• Victor Mair, "Reflections on the Origins of the Modern Standard Mandarin Place-Name 'Dunhuang' — With an Added Note on the Identity of the Modern Uighur Place-Name 'Turpan'", in Li Zheng, et al., eds., Ji Xianlin Jiaoshou bashi huadan jinian lunwenji (Papers in Honour of Prof. Dr. Ji Xianlin on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday) (Nanchang: Jiangxi People's Press, 1991), vol. 2, pp. 901-954 (very long and detailed study).
• Victor H. Mair, with contributions by E. Bruce Brooks, " Was There a Xià Dynasty?", Sino-Platonic Papers, 238 (May, 2013), 1-39.

[Thanks to Geoff Wade]