A Note on T'Ang Dialects [antikvár]

A NOTE ON T'ANG DIALECTS 287 W. Thomsen (2), "Dr. M.A. Stein's Manuscripts in Turkish 'Runic' Script," JRAS 1912, 181-227. Texts used K — the Kin kang king in Tibetan transcription. 0. Oa — the O-mi-t'o-king in Tibetan transcription, two versions. T — the Ta sheng chung tsung kien kiai with partial Tibetan transcription. TTW — the Ts'ien tzu wen in Tibetan transcription.^ The Sino-Tibetan Lhasa inscription of 821-822, as edited by Li Fang-kuei in TP XLIV, 1956, 1-99. VPP — the Chinese Vajra-prajnâ-pâramitâ in Brâhmi script, cf. F.W. Thomas.^ KMYH — the K'ai-meng yao hsUn S ^ HI. edited by Lo Ch'ang-p'ei.^ Tun-huang and Turfan texts and glosses in foreign scripts offer an unprecedented possibility for the survey of T'ang Chinese dialects. These possibilities, however, are at the same time rather limited, on account of the rather uneven and incomplete informations contained in the material. To paint a fully-tinted picture of the Tun-huang dialect during the T'ang period is unfortunately beyond hope. The colours are too blurred, there are too many interferences. But perhaps it is just these interferences that are worthy of a closer investigation. Maspero in his basic work gave a detailed picture of the language that he thought to be that of Ch'ang-an. Lo Ch'ang-p'ei pointed out similarities between Tun-huang material and modern North-western dialects. Both treated the problem as the question of a basically uniform dialectal area. It seems, however, that in spite of the scarce data some differences can be traced inside the basically uniform picture. Of course, there is a danger of too hastily drawn conclusions. We learn from W. Simon (1) that in Paris there are nine more Chinese texts in Tibetan script waiting for publication. Other re- 1) For a critical study of these four texts cf. Csongor (3). 2) For the identification of the introductory prayer I am indebted to Professor W. Simon. 3) As for the text, cf. Liu Fu .glj Tun-huang to-so fi jf ffi ig, Peking 1957, No. 76.—I had to restrict my studies to the texts already published. Unfortunately, I had no access to the Sino-Tibetan phrase-book edited by L. Giles and F.W. Thomas in BSOAS 1947/48.