A Study On Tribal Names Seen In Khitan Inscriptions

The Khitan scripts can be divided into two types,namely,Khitan large script and Khitan small script,both of which were created by the Khitan people in the early 10th century to record their language.There are 20 Khitan large script inscriptions with about 35,000 words that have been discovered so far.And nearly 250 Khitan large scripts and more than 600 words have been interpreted.There are 46 inscriptions in Khitan small script,with a total of more than 50,000 words,among which the already interpreted Khitan glyphs are about 300 and words are more than 3,000.According to statistics,there are 29 words indicating tribal names in the interpreted words in Khitan large and small scriptsIn the Khitan literatures,both Khitan large and small scripts indicating "bu"have appeared and have been interpreted by the academic circles.According to the author’s observation,in Khitan literature,Khitan scripts indicating tribal names often appear before the Khitan scripts indicating "bu".Predecessors have made some explorations and achieved a series of results.However,there are still many tribal names to be interpretedTherefore,referring to the previous research on tribal names,and combining the tribal names seen in Khitan literature,the present study focuses on the tribal names seen in Liao History,Chronicle of Khitan State and Chinese inscriptions of the same period to test the results that have been interpreted,and to study the tribal names that have not yet been interpreted.In the meantime,the names and citations of 259 tribes in Liao History,the names and citations of 29 tribes appeared in the Chronicles of Khitan State and contemporary Chinese inscriptions,the names,pronunciation,occurrence times and citations of 49 tribes occurred in the inscriptions in Khitan large and small scripts are comprehensively sorted out,and are listed into two tables,namely,The Table of Tribal Names Occurred in Liao History,Chronicles of Khitan State and Chinese Inscriptions and The Table of Tribal Names Occurred in Khitan Inscriptions.According to the known fact that(?)means the tribal name "chu te",which is also recorded as "chu lu de" in the epitaph of Liao Dynasty,the author reconstructs the pronunciation of(?)as t∫’/t∫-l-t’/t or t∫’/t∫-r-t’/t,and reads the glyph(?)as l or r.Accordingly,it is speculated that(?)(?)伏 denoting "yao nian" may be read as j-l-ol-n or j-r-ol-n.Based on the pronunciation of(?)t∫//t∫a-t’/t,the author proposes it corresponds to the tribal name "zha ti".(?)is interpreted as the tribal name "e pu kuo",and 公及(?)as the tribal name "ne bei",and(?)"a la".At the same time,by sorting out the tribal names seen in Chinese and Khitan inscriptions,the author observed that some tribal names can indicate numbers,such as "tu lu bu bu";some tribal names can indicate person names,such as "shu zhe da lu guo bu" and "yu gu li bu((?)平(?)伏(?)(?)Tu 10)";some tribal names are related to location,such as "he xi bu" and "bei dong bu(一(?)伏(?)币 Chao 11)";some tribal names can also indicate the names of mountains and rivers,such as "chang bai shan bu" and "hui ba bu".From the etymological point of view,there may be Western Xia language elements in the tribal names of Liao Dynasty,such as "he la tang gu bu" and Jurchen language elements,such as "pu lu mao duo bu".