夷

Han character

夷 (Kangxi radical 37, 大+3, 6 strokes, cangjie input 大弓 (KN) or 難大弓 (XKN), four-corner 5003₂, composition ⿻大弓)

Glyph origin

More information Historical forms of the character 夷, Shang ...

Historical forms of the character 夷
Shang	Western Zhou	Warring States	Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Chu slip and silk script	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

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Originally ideogrammic compound (會意 / 会意): 矢 (“arrow”) + [Term?] (“rope”). Later forms ideogrammic compound (會意 / 会意): 大 (“person; big”) + 弓 (“bow”).

Etymology 1

According to Yuè Juè Shū (越絕書), 夷 (OC *lil) is also the Yue word for "sea" (1). Therefore, Schuessler (2007) proposes an Austroasiatic origin; compare Proto-Mon-Khmer *d(n)liʔ (“large river, sea”) (whence Khmer ទន្លេ (tŭənlei, “large river”) and Kuy thlèː (“sea”)). Meanwhile, Schuessler associates similar Hmong forms like Chuanqiandian Cluster Miao tl̥e (“river”) (< Proto-Hmong-Mien *gle) to *溪 (OC *kʰeː) "creek, rivulet, rill" instead.

In contrast, Ferlus (2009) reconstructs 夷's Old Chinese pronunciation as [lɨ] and connects 夷 to Proto-Kra-Dai *k-ri: (“Kra-Dai endonym”) (whence Thai ไท (tai, “"Tai endonym"”) and Hlai Hlai (“"Hlai endonym"”)). However, Ferlus concedes that such a derivation of 夷 from *k-ri: "remains speculative, [...] not as firmly established as for Hlai and Tai/Thai".

Meanwhile, Laurent Sagart (2008) instead suggested that the Yi languages were ancestral to Austronesian languages and formed a sister-group to Sino-Tibetan, probably related to Proto-Austronesian *i₃ (“personal article”).

Etymology 2

References

• “夷”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎, 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–