You xuan shi zhe jue dai yu shi bie guo fang yan 輶軒使者絕代語釋別國方言 [The Imperial Light Carriage Emissary Explaining Discursively the Regional Words in Different States through the Ages] [with]: Xu fang yan 續方言 [A Sequel to "Regional Words"] [&] Xu fang yan bu 續方言補 [A Supplement to "A Sequel to 'Regional Words'"]

Three vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. stitching. [Changsha]: Sixian jiangshe 思賢講舍, 1891.




Critical edition by Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩 (1844-96) of this key lexicographical work from the Han dynasty, published along with two sequels. Yang Xiong's (53 BCE-18 CE) The Imperial Light Carriage Emissary...through the Ages, commonly referred to as Regional Words, or Fangyan 方言, is one of the foundational texts of the Chinese lexicographical tradition. The book "collected synonyms taken from different dialects and languages, gathered by court messengers who had been sent to various regions of China" (Bottéro, "Ancient China," 57). In Yang Xiong's time, China was united under the Han dynasty, which ruled a vast territory of great linguistic diversity. Yang documented this diversity. In his own words:

Whenever Presenters of Annual Accounts and the "Filial and Incorrupt" from the various parts of the empire as well as the interior commandery military officers convened at the capital, I always took my three-inch soft brush, provided myself with a four-foot piece of oiled white silk in order to ask them about unusual expressions. As soon as I returned home I used lead to make extracts and arrange them on tablets. It has now been twenty-seven years that I have been doing this. (translated in Knechtges, "The Liu Hsin/Yang Hsiung Correspondence," 316-17).

The resulting book "is the oldest known Chinese documentation on languages other than Chinese" (Bottéro, 57).


Yang Xiong's text is published here along with the commentary of Guo Pu 郭璞, the famous medieval Chinese commentator on lexicographical texts. The editor, Guo Qingfan, explains in his Preface that this critical edition is based on two editions from the heyday of Qing philological scholarship in the 18th century: the edition by the polymath Dai Zhen 戴震 (1724-77) and that by classical scholar and official Lu Wenchao 盧文弨 (1717-96), whose Preface from 1782 is included here. There is also a Preface by Wang Xianqian 王先謙.


The notes by Dai and Lu have been included in a subcommentary in this edition. The subcommentary moreover contains original notes added by Guo Qingfan. At the end of Yang Xiong's text, Guo has included an Afterword by Li Mengchuan 李孟傳 (1136-1219), and a colophon written for Li's edition by Zhu Zhi 朱質, both dated 1200.


Yang's Fangyan is followed by Hang Shijun's 杭世駿 (1696-1773) Sequel and Chen Jisheng's 程際盛 (1739-96) Supplement to Hang's work.


Our copy (WorldCat 846443264) was printed by Sixian jiangshe, an academy in Changsha, Hunan, that specialized in classical and historical learning, (Deng, Hunan shuyuan shigao, 433).


Fine set.



References


Bottéro, Françoise. "Ancient China." In The Cambridge World History of Lexicography. Edited by John Considine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.


Deng Hongbo 邓洪波. Hunan shuyuan shigao 湖南书院史稿. Changsha: Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, 2013.


Knechtges, David R. "The Liu Hsin/Yang Hsiung Correspondence on the Fang yen." Monumenta Serica 33 (1977/1978): 309-25.