Author: Yan Wanli
Source: Reading Leting Cultural Research Association Journal
Caption photo: Pei Xinmin. Source: Leting Hometown People website information archive
"Le Ting", foreigners see these two words, all subconsciously read le (lè) pavilion, but locals have been reading le (lào) pavilion.
Going to Nanpi, Cangzhou, Hebei Province, I learned that there is a Leling County in Shandong opposite, Le also read lào, I suddenly thought, the two may be related, Leting and Leling both read lào, perhaps showing a history of population migration and cultural exchanges.
Lào – the ancient sound of the Jilu region
Leting is located in the south of Yanshan Mountain, for the Luan River to impact the plain, the name of Leting first seen in the Northern Wei, when it was Le'anting, not yet a county, the first time called the county was in 1123 AD (the first year of the Jin Tianhui, the third year of Liaobao, the fifth year of Song Xuanhe), officially established Leting County, belonging to Luanzhou.
In terms of paleophony, ancient music is likely to have lào sounds. In the State of Qi and the State of Yan, the names of people and places may be pronounced lào.
Remember the Book of Poetry? Inside the "jagged lettuce, left and right lettuce." Ladies and gentlemen, bells and drums. The words "芼" and "樂" in the poem rhyme, from which it can be inferred that the word "樂" is pronounced "yao" (see Wang Li's "Han Phonetic Rhyme"), and with this pronunciation are "Wise Man Leshui, Benevolent Leshan" in the Analects of Yongye, "Say What He Enjoys" in the Book of Rites and Fortunes, and "Then Get His Pleasure" in Lü Shi Chunqiu Wuda, where the word "Le" is pronounced "to yao". The Northern Song Dynasty official's rhyme book "Guangyun" pronounces the word "le" as "five teachings cut", that is, yào. Zhu Xi of the Southern Song Dynasty also marked this pronunciation into the Annotations on the Analects of the Analects, which has been passed down to this day. Today I opened a Buddhist sutra with pinyin, and the musical inscription of "Wishing to Be Happy" in it is still yào.
So lè becomes yào, and how can yào be pronounced lào?
In ancient times, "le" was pronounced as "want", and the ancient pronunciation of "want" and "law" was superimposed, that is, the pronunciation of "lao" and "yao", which was "ancient sound through false". Therefore, some experts believe that : "In the Warring States period, happy music and musical music rhymed, and later the pronunciation was differentiated, and it did not rhyme." If the above experts' claims are well-founded and reasonable, then the lào of Leting and the lào of Leling have become one of the few living fossils left by the ancient sounds.
Là – a relic of art and place names
Le Ting has a big drum book, a big song, shadow puppet, commentary, the original Le Ting people, one or more of these art forms are called "lào zi", this lào is now more written "fall", Cangzhou area including Leling also has the name of "fall", some tunes are also very famous, such as "jasmine", "kite flying", "embroidered handkerchief" and so on.
This "fall" comes from the lotus flower fall, which is a very ancient art, but the correct way to write the lotus flower fall at the beginning is "lotus music", music (pronounced lào).
In the twelfth year (1252) of The Twelfth Year (1252) of the Chinese Buddhist Zen History Book "Five Lantern Society Yuan", volume 1, there is a record of Jinling Yu Daobo: "Yu Daobo, Jinling people also. The city is in business. One day, the hearer sang Lotus Hua Leyun: "If you don't pass on the letters from Liu Yi, why did you get Dongting Lake?" 'Suddenly enlightened. From this text, it can be seen that in the Song Dynasty, "Lotus Fall" was written as "Lotus Music", and the music in it was called lào.
Lotus fall is a variation of the writing of lotus music, we forget the glyphs, just from the pronunciation to find, this is the remnants of the word music. Moreover, the use of music is closer to the original meaning of music and entertainment, and the expression is many times more accurate and vivid than "falling".
Turning to the "Concise Historical Atlas of China" edited by Tan Qijun, it was found that since the Northern Wei Dynasty and all the way to the Sui, there has always been a county called Anle County in the southeastern area of Yanshan mountain centered on Jixian County, from Anle County to Le An Ting to Leting. Before this, in the last years of the Western Han Dynasty, Wang Mang changed Jinan to Le'an, and was this Le'an related to today's Le'an Pavilion? There is a street in Jinan today called "Le'an Street", is it a remnant of the renaming? In addition, in the Han Dynasty, Shandong also established Le'an County, Cangzhou's XianXian county was Lechengyi in Qin, lecheng county in the early Western Han Dynasty, and renamed Lecheng in the Jin Dynasty. I think the pronunciation of the above few musical words is most likely lào. Even the great general Le Yi of the Yan Kingdom was likely to read lào Yi.
lào – the context and reason for the naming
With the le character cut read as lào place name, basically distributed in the North China Plain nine rivers in the lower reaches of the area, from south to north, there are Le'an County, Le Ling, Le Cheng, An Le County, Le Ting, etc., now only Le Ling and Le Ting still read ancient sounds, the rest have been changed to other names, lào pronunciation is roughly from the south to the north coast of the ring line spread, the name of Le Ting is likely to be named from Shandong immigrants.
Historical conquests certainly had an impact on Le Ting. During the Period of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms, there were frequent wars in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Former Yan, Later Zhou, and Northern Qi; during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Yang Guang and Li Shimin conquered Goryeo; in the late Tang Dynasty, the Han People of heshuo three towns, Huhua; later song jin and Song Liao went to war, and the Ming and Mongolia and Manchu wars began, and this place was repeatedly affected, because of the war, trade, and the Chinese culture represented by Shandong, assimilated ethnic minorities, and also spread the pronunciation of Chinese characters and Chinese characters more widely, and I think the name and pronunciation of Leting were produced in this context.
Each time the region is changed, it is a node with a change in speech. From a small environmental point of view, compared with neighbors - Luanzhou, Changli and other counties, Leting is more close to the sea, the terrain formation is definitely later, and it is not a traffic rush, it is a corner by the sea. When the agricultural civilization of the North China Plain communicated with the nomadic civilization on the north side of yanshan Mountain, it was not a place to rush, but a relatively conservative and closed area. It is precisely because of this that it is possible to maintain the ancient sound of music lào.
Until now, the accents of Chang, Luan and Le are still called "Old Er" flavor. Le Ting dialect, say things are done well, the craftsmanship is good, will say "Theo ah", this Austrian word, very ancient meaning, the local pronunciation is not ào but a pinyin spell can not be pinyin can not be pinyin sound, similar to the local boiling sound of boiling vegetables. There are some similar tones. If it is not in the corner, but the traffic rushes, these ancient sounds must have disappeared in the exchange.
Leting's music reading lào is not only a pronunciation problem, exploring its origin, it can be seen that the relationship between geography and history of Laoting is a specific and micro-person for the flow of people and cultural exchanges in eastern Hebei, and it is also a key to understanding Leting.
(The author is Yan Wanli, a native of Laoting, a former reporter of Yanzhao Metropolis Daily)