The History of the Si-Hia Language

Languages have changed dramatically over the centuries; some have changed due to outside influences and some have completely died out. With those that are no longer in use, linguistic specialists study the ancient language in the hope to bring them back to life. One of these recent discoveries is the Si-Hia language.

Si-Hia, also known as Tangut or Xixia, is an ancient language belonging to the Tibetan-Burman family. It was spoken in the Tangut Empire, also known as the Western Xia Empire by the ancient Chinese. The people, according to early scholars, were descendants of the Tang-hiang, in particular, the To-pa. Marco Polo, travelling through the region noted that the language was ‘peculiar’.

It seems apparent that there was much literature written in the Si-Hia language; the rulers of the empire in 1145 CE commissioned an academy founder after the Chinese model In 1150 CE, Wa Tao-chung was appointed professor of Chinese and Si-Hia literatures; he translated the Analects of Confucius, and provided them with a commentary in thirty books.

The latest text written in the Si-Hia language is a Buddhist text dated to around 1502 CE, showing that the language continued to be used well after the collapse of the Tangut Empire. The written form of the language seems to have been used mainly for writing religious texts and documents.

In the late 13th century, the Buddhist Tripitaka had been entirely translated into the Si-Hia language, and an edition of this translation was prepared in print in 1294 CE. “The interest in Buddhism awoke under Li Yuian-hao (1032-48), who procured a collection of Buddhist works from the Chinese Court in exchange for fifty horses. He constructed a monastery and high Stu-pas east of his capital, where the sacred canon was deposited. Uigur monks were called to this establishment to study and inter- pret these texts and to render them into the Si-Hia language”.

According to scholars, the Si-Hia written language was constructed in 1037 by Li Yuan-hao. One scholar states that it was probably based on the Khitan script, which, on its part, was derived from Chinese script in 920 CE.

In 1908 Gen. Kozlov found a small manual, incomplete, along with other Si-Hia books. The manual was dated to 1190 and written by a man named Ku-le or Ku-Io. The manual “consists of a vocabulary, arranged accord- ing to subject-matter, in Chinese fashion, - heaven, earth, man, body, costume, implements, fauna, flora, minerals, nutrition, abstract nouns, -measurements, adjectives, verbs, and numerals. Each word is given in Si-hia script (third column); it is accompanied by the pronunciation of the corresponding Chinese word in Si-hia charac- ters (first columun), by the Chinese rendering (second column), and by Chinese characters indicatinug the reading of the Si-hia word (fourth column)”.

There has been increasing interest by scholars in the Si-Hia language in recent decades and although the translation of the script is not completely finished, what is translated so far enables us to understand not only the history of the S-Hia language itself, but also the people and reasons why it continued to be used after the fall of the Tangut Empire.

Bibliography:

Laufer, Berthold (1916) The Si-hia Language, a Study in Indo-Chinese Philology, T'oung Pao, BRILL.