Notes on the graphic origin of 中

At the time of writing this post, the explanation text shown in the “Glyph origin” section of the Wiktionary entry of 中 is as follows:

Pictogram (象形) – a flagpole. Based on archaeological evidence, the middle box has been interpreted as a drum (建鼓). This flagpole with a drum was placed in the center of a field to gather people and to detect the direction of the wind. In addition, the pronunciation of 中 (OC *tuŋ, *tuŋs) is reminiscent of the beating of a drum.

Shuowen interprets the character as a vertical stroke 丨 passing through the center of 口, indicating the center.

It has also been interpreted as an arrow in the center of a target.

(You probably need to get familiar with the historical forms in question—if you haven’t already—before any of this post will make sense. The ones listed on Wiktionary are a decent place to start.)

I think I recognize where the first paragraph is from. If I’m correct, it is just paraphrased from Jì (2014: 63). While a generally reliable source, I think Jì did a patchy job in his entry of 中, in which he seems to have combined/conflated several previous interpretations, the main ones including

• that the early forms of 中 represented a flagpole for “marking the centre”;
• that the early forms of 中 represented a decorated gnomon (first proposed in Xiāo 1983, and independently in Wēn & Yuán 1983: p. 14 ff.);
• and that the early forms of 中 represented an instrument used to detect the presence and direction of the wind (first proposed by 黃德寬 Huáng Dékuān in 1988, see Yú ed. 1999 pp. 2941–2).

What he says is basically that these are all true, actually! It was a single sort of multipurpose thing that could serve as all of them. I am unaware of any evidence that can back this up. All the proposals above are rather speculative in the first place.

Another problem with Wiktionary’s (and Jì’s) explanation is the implication that the forms with the “ribbon” shapes (traditionally interpreted as flying flags or decorated fringes on said flags) were earlier than the ones without the ribbon shapes, and that the latter was a reduced form of the former. Though still commonly held as true (e.g. in the usual reference books such as Lǐ ed. 2012 and Jì 2014), Qiú (2019) has pointed out that neither is necessarily the case. (I have just been made aware of Qiú’s article today; this post was mostly prompted by it.)

There were three main forms used in early inscriptions to write the word [*truŋ, “centre, middle”] (we’ll call this word [centre] below):

• those with the circle/box in the middle and the ribbons (Qiú’s “form B”);
• those with only the circle/box (“form C”);
• those with only the ribbons (“form A”); for an example of this see e.g. 合35347. ^[1]

All three forms were quite old. Qiú (2019) is of the opinion

• that form C was created precisely for the word [centre], and it was simply made by marking the middle of a line segment, thus an indicative (指事字 zhǐshì zì) of the idea “centre, middle”;
• that form A must have originally been a pictographic representation of whatever object (he considers it to be an instrument that shows the direction of the wind, after Huáng 1988), unrelated to form C;
• and that form B was in fact a variant form A, differing simply by an added phonetic element—form C.

In his account, forms A and B originally wrote a word “[wind detector]”, which was etymologically derivative (as Qiú implies in the article) or at least phonetically close to [centre]; the use of forms A and B to write [centre] is then to be considered a process of phonetic loaning (假借 jiǎjiè).

Qiú’s proposal is attractive, though not as solid as one would like: it is indeed common for early characters to have variants with additional phonetic elements, and it is not unheard of to have the phonetic and semantic elements merge into one inseparable whole, but it is still quite a leap to conclude that form B was phonosemantic. The central point of Qiú’s article, viz. Qiú’s identification of the 中 in the words {設中} (in the 盤庚 Pán Gēng chapter of 尚書 Shàngshū) and {立中} (in the oracle bone divinations) with [wind detector], a good and plausible reading as it is, seems nevertheless circular.

(sidenote) When I said that the identification of the {中} in {立中} with [wind detector] seemed circular (that is, I thought that it was a story justified mainly by the argued graphic interpretation of 中, while itself being the main justification for that interpretation), it was unfair of me to make this claim without acknowledging that this interpretation is in fact quite grounded in context, however limited that context is (again see Huáng 1988): when the word {立中} appears in the charge (命辭 mìngcí) of the divination, in several instances the term {亡風} “no wind” appears in the verification (驗辭 yàncí) section of the divination; the word {易日} (difficult, perhaps “a change in weather”, after Chén 2007) also appears several times. This seems to suggest that {立中} is an action or event that anticipates the presence/absence of the wind and/or a change in weather, and reading {立中} as “to erect/set up the wind detector” makes a lot of sense here. (2024-7-16 update)

The third paragraph of Wiktionary’s explanation says:

It has also been interpreted as an arrow in the center of a target.

This probably needs a [by whom?] tag. It was the proposal of 郭沫若 Guō Mòruò, I think; see Zhōu (ed. 1975: p. 322).

Now I am very sleepy, and have no more thoughts on this at this moment. If there are any egregious mistakes I will probably notice and correct later (and if you notice any—please tell me). I wish you a happy life. See you later.

reference #

• 季旭昇 Jì Xùshēng, 2014, 說文新證 Shuōwén xīnzhèng. 藝文印書館
• 李學勤 Lǐ Xuéqín (chief ed.), 2012, 字源 Zìyuán. 天津古籍出版社
• 裘錫圭 Qiú Xīguī, 2019, 説《盤庚》篇的「設中」——兼論甲骨、金文「中」的字形 Shuō Pán Gēng piān de “shèzhōng”—jiānlùn jiǎgǔ jīnwén “zhōng” de zìxíng. In 復旦大學出土文獻與古文字研究中心 (ed.), 出土文獻與傳世典籍的詮釋. 中西書局
• 溫少峰 Wēn Shàofēng & 袁庭棟 Yuán Tíngdòng, 1983, 殷墟卜辭研究——科學技術篇 Yīnxū bǔcí yánjiū: kēxué-jìshù piān. 四川省社會科學院出版社
• 蕭良瓊 Xiāo Liángqióng, 1983, 卜辭中的「立中」與商代的圭表測景 Bǔcí zhōng de “Lìzhōng” yǔ Shāngdài de guībiǎo cè yǐng. In 中國天文學史整理研究小組 (ed.), 科技史文集 vol. 10: 27–44. 上海科學技術出版社
• 于省吾 Yú Xǐngwú (chief ed.), 1999, 甲骨文字詁林 Jiǎgǔ Wénzì gǔlín. 中華書局
• 周法高 Zhōu Fǎgāo (chief ed.), 1975, 金文詁林 Jīnwén gǔlín. 香港中文大學