Liu Jingfu: How should Chen Yinke's "恪" character be pronounced?

In the "Guoxue fever" at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, the predecessor scholars who were "discovered" led the way. It is undeniable that these Chen Yinkes, who have little to do with pure scholarship, have played a role in shaping the image of Chen Yinke, the "seed of Chinese reading", which cannot be played by pure academic works. However, the reason why Chen Yinke is regarded as a model for Chinese intellectuals in the second half of the twentieth century is mainly because he has made important contributions to China's scholarship from the old to the new and to the world's academic forest, and has adhered to the style and discipline of "not being flattering to learn" in personality.

Chen Yinke

After entering this century, the academic community began to study Chen calmly and rationally, and the era of palm as a hot topic has passed. In the face of the task of studying and promoting Chen Yinke's scholarship, personality, and thoughts, it seems that there is no need to be too persistent about the old pronunciation of his name in Chen Yinke's series of palms. However, some people who have direct and indirect relations with Chen Yinke (family, disciples, colleges and universities where Chen Yinke has taught, cultural academia), out of admiration for Chen Yinke and feelings for què yin, insist on the view that only què can be pronounced and not kè. The formation of the pronunciation of the standard sound kè has no culture, the pronunciation of the old pronunciation què is learned, is the consciousness of people in the academic circles, a simple linguistic problem has been artificially complicated and symbolized. The reason for this is worth exploring and analyzing. The predecessors were very concerned about the names of the great sages and great masters, and asked for the correct interpretation and reading. If a second reading is against etiquette. This is the main reason why I am concerned about the pronunciation of Chen Yinke's name.

In Xiushui County, Jiangxi, the hometown of Chen Yinke, many of the Chen clan relatives have been calling their clans "Kezi Generation" for many years according to the township sound ko (ancient sound) handed down from their ancestors. The county's readers and government officials have also been using ko to refer to the township sage Chen Yinke and his brothers. However, this situation did not last long, and some people, influenced by the scholarly atmosphere of chanting què outside the mountain, began to chant què, and the next step was bound to approach and influence the pronunciation of the Chen clan in the countryside. In order to continue the purity of the "grassroots dialect", I wrote an article entitled "On the Pronunciation of Chen Yinke's "Ke" Character" (Published in Literature and History Knowledge, No. 6, 2009). The purpose of the humble article is to clarify the arguments of those who advocate the recitation of què in order to break through the obstacle of the Xinhua Dictionary and the Modern Chinese Dictionary not to take the què pronunciation and only record kè sounds, to falsely spread the theories of "Chen Yinke's old dialect Hakka dialect recitation què" and "Chen Yinke himself pronounced què", to disclose the relationship between Chen Yinke's family history and the pronunciation of his name, to list the newly discovered materials on Chen Yinke's own signatures ke and ko, and to put forward the view that "the standard pronunciation kè is used in public to refer to Mr. Chen Yinke and his Kunzhong name".

After entering this century, the academic circles have excavated more than 50 cases of Chen Yinke's literature on various forms of documents, letters, and papers signed with the name ke and ko, which can be described as conclusive evidence. In the 1980s and 1990s, the popular "Chen Yinke himself pronounced què saying" gradually cooled down ("Chen Yinke's hometown dialect Hakka dialect pronounced què saying" is still being falsely rumored). However, in recent years, some people in the cultural circles have introduced the saying that he "signed ke in foreign languages, but said that he used què when Chinese" and that his family "three generations of his relatives all read 'què'". The Chen clan immediately responded, summoning nine elderly people from dozens of Kezi generations in Taoli Township to appear and speak, and using the township tone ko to pronounce their own names and the names of their brothers Chen Hengke and Chen Yinke, indicating the cultural stance of the Hakka. Made into a video disc, leaving a precious material (on September 11, 2018, the Guoxue Channel of Phoenix Network published "How to pronounce Chen Yinke's name?"). He himself only reads this sound" and "Township Sounds and Genealogy: How to Pronounce Names in Chen Yinke's Hometown", and Tencent Network broadcast it under the title of "How to Pronounce His Name in Chen Yinke's Hometown").

Personally, I think that Chen Yinke's statement that "ke is used for foreign signatures and què is used when saying Chinese" needs to be revised. According to the literal meaning of this statement, Chen Yinke insisted on using ke when signing the name on the written note, and on the other hand, he pronounced què verbally, which inevitably made people question his true attitude towards the pronunciation of his name. This ambiguous statement does not help solve the problem, and some linguistic experts have written that Chen Yinke had to acqué with the current situation in the Beifang dialect environment at that time, and he may also recite què in some social occasions to respect others, and his tolerance has had a great impact and is used as an important basis for those who insist on chanting què. In fact, Chen Yinke himself has never recognized the world's recitation of què as a custom. In the 1930s, it was common for teachers and students at Tsinghua University to pronounce his name què, and he said to librarian Bi Shutang that què was a misreading, but so many people did not pronounce it that way, and there was no need to correct it. If anyone thinks that this interview with Bi Shutang by Huang Yanfu, an expert in Tsinghua university history, is isolated evidence, then I can also cite a circumstantial evidence: When Chen Yinke's student Bian Shenghui was studying in the history department of Tsinghua University in the 1930s, he personally saw Bi Shutang in the library teaching què that "Mr. Chen's name has only one pronunciation kè." The reason why Bi Shutang was so confident was because he had asked Chen Yinke himself. This is also the reason why Bian Shenghui has always insisted on chanting kè. In Tsinghua, it is probably not only Bi Shutang, Bian Shenghui, and Huang Yanfu who know that Chen Yinke uses the kè sound, because in the Tsinghua archives, where Chen Yinke is signed in foreign languages, the two words yinke are Yin ko or Y.K. For example, in 1941, President Mei Yiqi wrote an English letter to Shao Xunzheng, a disciple of Chen Yinke of Tsinghua university stationed in Hong Kong, asking him to urge Chen Yinke, who was in Hong Kong, to return to school, and reminded Shao Xunzheng to note that Chen Yinke's name should be labeled Yin ko Chen. From 1942 to 1945, Chen Yinke taught at Yenching University, which was revived in Chengdu. At this time, it became common for Chengdu's cultural and intellectual circles to pronounce què, but Chen Yinke said to the student Shi Quan, "My name reads ké", and in the autumn of 1945, he filled in ke and ko on the passport visa to the United Kingdom. In 1946, Chen Yinke's wife Tang Yun ghostwrote a letter to Fu Sinian in which Chen Yinke's British address was marked ke. In 1956, Chen Yinke dictated and Tang Yun ghostwrote the questionnaire of Sun Yat-sen University experts with the signed marks ke and ko. It can be seen that although his wife is accustomed to reciting què, in important documents, she still takes Chen Yinke's attitude as the standard. All of this can show that Chen Yinke's treatment of the pronunciation of his name is "not unusual on the outside, not in the inside", and people who are looking for evidence to prove that they have no problem pronouncing què should be clear. After all, the signature of a document of a statutory nature is more convincing than oral information. More than ten years ago, a descendant of Chen Yinke said that "his foreign signature is k, which shows that he believes that he should pronounce kè", which I think is better than Chen Yinke's "ke for foreign signatures, and què when saying Chinese", which does not fold a causal thing into two sleighs that are not closely related to logic.

The reason why Chen Yinke's name has two readings is that its root is in the old reading of the Northern Square Dialect. After the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, the popular "Ke" character was pronounced kè in addition to the pronunciation què. We can imagine that if Chen Yinke had not worked in Beiping for ten years, his name might have only been pronounced kè. From a linguistic point of view, it is not natural for some to pronounce its name as the què of the Northern Dialect. Some of Chen Yinke's disciples and descendants love the old pronunciation of què, which is understandable, but it cannot be a reason why they can only pronounce què and cannot pronounce kè. Beginning in 1956, the Putonghua Pronunciation Committee under the State Language Commission conducted several reviews and revisions of the dialect of Beijing dialect, and published the "First Draft of the Mandarin Transliteration Table" in three batches, and the pronunciation of the word "恪" was abolished in the first batch (after 1959, the "Xinhua Dictionary" "恪" character no longer retained the què sound). In December 1985, the State Language Commission, the State Education Commission, and the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television jointly published the "Putonghua Pronunciation Table", which formally determined that the "ke" character "unified reading" is kè, that is, "this word is only pronounced kè in any word" (Xu Shirong, the scholar who presided over this work, gave a special example of "personal names such as modern scholar Chen Yinke" when interpreting the "Pronunciation Table"). It is rare for the competent state authorities to standardize the pronunciation of a word in such a clear and meticulous manner. I've always thought that a person's name, on certain occasions, especially in their own home, is their own business. However, in public, you should use a standard pronunciation.

Taking a step back, even if dictionary reference books such as "Cihai" still retain the old pronunciation of què, according to the literary and historical connotations provided by the Chen family history and the reciprocal meaning of Chen Yin's name and characters, it is also advisable to choose kè between the two pronunciations of kè and què. The reason for this is that "恪" is a generational word used by the Chen clan. In the first year of Qing Xianfeng (1851), Enke Township Examination, Chen Wenfeng and Chen Baozhen (Chen Yinke's grandfather) were lifted. The Xiushui Hakka surname Chen rejoiced and took advantage of this celebration to urge Erchen to compile a "hexiu genealogy". The two new keju people formulated the "Three Seals of Yu, the Good Family Re-established the Sea State." Feng Fei occupied the far away yao, Zhencai Fu Xijiang", the line of the characters used (Xiushui folk called "Pai Number"). The "Three Seals of Yu Hou" is a ceremonial system in ancient China (see "Zuo Chuan Xiang Gong Twenty-five Years"), and the ancient new dynasty, in order to consolidate its rule, granted fiefs to the descendants of the nobles of the former dynasty as a sign of honor. After King Wu of Zhou destroyed shang and gained the world, fengxia, shang, yuqi, song, and yushun, and then concubines were in Wanqiu, the homeland of the Chen Feng tribe, and married the eldest daughter Taiji to Concubine Man, establishing the state of Chen, and her descendants took the surname of guo. Therefore, the "Three Ke Feng Yu Hou" faction formulated by Chen Wenfeng and Chen Baozhen summarizes the honor and historical source of the Chen family name, and also shows the homologous common relationship between the shape, sound, and meaning of the "Ke" character and the "guest" character. Xiushui also has a chen yin ke to take the word "jingbin", which accurately explains the mutual training relationship between the words "恪" and "guest".

According to the original meaning of the word "恪", "respectful", "Poetry, Shang Song , That": "Gentle and respectful, deacons have a kei." The word "寅" also has a respectful meaning, "Shang Shu Gao Tao Mo": "Tong Yin Xie Gong, and SincereLy." Erya Shiyi: "俨,恪,祗、翼、諲、恭、钦、寅,敬也。 Therefore, the words "恪" and "恭" are often mutually exclusive, and the former Yan general Murong Ke of the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Eastern Jin Dynasty is a famous character Xuan Gong. Hunan modern calligrapher and painter Lei Kezi Gongfu. "White Tiger Pass Name": "To be famous is to know its words, and to smell the words and to know its name." This is the source of Chen Yin's name Yin Ke and Zi Yan Gong (his brother Heng Ke Zi Shi Zeng, Long Ke Zi Yan He, Brother Fang Ke Zi Yan Tong, Deng Ke Zi Yan Shang. Heng Ke, Long Ke, Fang Ke name, word are used. Yin Ke and Deng Ke did not use the word because they had studied abroad for a long time).

In Xiushui, Jiangxi, and the neighboring counties of Tonggu County and Fengxin County, since the promulgation of the Hakka Chen surname Tongpu Sect, there are more than 960 Ke characters recorded on the genealogy, of which 60 are Ke Zi of the Chen Yin Ke family. Among these nearly 1,000 people, there were 6 "Chen Yinke". Therefore, how to pronounce Chen Yinke's name cannot but consider that "Ke" is a sect number of the Chen clan, and many members of the Ke character generation do not pronounce their own sect number as què, which is an objective historical fact. Since 960 Of the 960 Ke Zi Generations 959 do not pronounce què, 59 of the 60 Ke Zi Ancestor Brothers who are related to Chen Yin Ke do not pronounce què, and 6 Chen Yin Ke 5 do not pronounce què, then, according to the logical common sense reasoning that the line number cannot be read differently, this Chen Yin Ke of the same root and common origin should not pronounce què. In the final analysis, how to pronounce Chen Yinke's name, the most authoritative is the genealogical school of the Chen clan. Before Chen Yinke's birth, the spectral significance of "Three Ke Fengyu Hou" had long been indicated that it should be pronounced "Three Kè Fengyu Hou" and not "Three Què Fengyu Hou", and què, a different reading from the Northern Square dialect, could not accurately carry the classic original meaning of conveying the "guest" ceremony to honor Yu Shun, Xia, and Shang descendants, and was not closely related to the scripture of "Ke Gong". When our predecessors recited the words "three ke" and "ke gong" in the scriptures, could they read the words "three kè", "three què" and "kè gong" and "què gong" in parallel? Obviously not.

When we understand the origin of Chen Yinke's name, we will understand that since "Ke" is a generation of the Chen clan, it is a question of how to pronounce the name of a generation. If you insist that you can only pronounce què and not kè, it will not only go against the wishes of Chen Baozhen, the founder of the contrarian spectral school, but also against the wishes of Chen Yinke and his brothers.

In the ninth year of qing tongzhi (1870), Chen Baozhen took office in Hunan and settled in Changsha. The best of the Chen family has since walked out of the mountain. Their grandchildren were all born in Changsha and speak Changsha dialect (the Changsha dialect "恪" character is not pronounced què), but the old dialect is also innately integrated into their memories. After Chen Baozhen and his wife and Chen Sanli left their hometown, they have always insisted on speaking the old dialect. Chen Baozhen's office often had visitors from his hometown. Since childhood, the Chen brothers have lived with their grandparents and relatives, in-laws and domestic workers from their hometown, and are naturally familiar with the old dialect in the strong language environment. Due to his old age, the elder Heng Ke has more contact with his grandparents (Mr. and Mrs. Chen Baozhen) and his ancestors, and can use the old dialect to talk with his father and grandfather. Xiushui dialect native language because the phonemic system does not have a round lip to pinch the mouth to exhale, so the què pronunciation of the northern accent is quite awkward and the ko tone is smoother, and the old Sifang Kezheng calls itself ko because he can also speak the old dialect, which is exactly the same as the pronunciation of the old home. Lao San Yin Ke signed with ke, koh, ko phonetics, the latter two are Xiu Shui LaoJia into the sound. In 1955, Fang Ke used the Phonetic alphabet of the Republic of China to mark the household registration book with the "恪ㄎㄜ". In 1956, Yin Ke used foreign languages to mark ke and ko on the expert questionnaire of Sun Yat-sen University. In the 1940s, Yin Ke said to his student Shi Quan that his name should be pronounced kè, and Fang Ke also said to Hou xue Shi Xuehong at the same time that he should pronounce ko. This shows that the Attitude of the Chen Brothers to the pronunciation of their names is consistent, and it also shows that they have not forgotten the pronunciation of the Characters brought out of their hometown by their fathers and grandfathers from their childhood to old age. In the winter of 1989, Chen Longke's daughter Chen Xiao returned to her hometown to find her roots and recognize her ancestors, and wrote a letter to her uncle Yu Dawei (Chen Yinke's brother-in-law) about the trip to repair water. Shi Yu Dawei was more than ninety years old, and he replied to the letter asking " Do the Laojia people still speak Hakka dialect", which shows that the Old Folk Dialect is deeply impressed in their generation. Therefore, I think that the so-called Chen Yinke family's statement that "three generations of relatives all pronounce the northern accent 'què'" still needs to return to the historical scene, investigate and analyze from a longer time and a larger space, and participate in the examination and approval.

Transferred from China Reading Daily