When the Master sighed
Another entry from Kôko nichiroku:
Morohashi’s Dai Kan-Wa jiten defines “wuhu” as “the sound of a sigh,” and gives several early citations from it, including one from the Analects: 「子曰，嗚呼，曾謂泰山不如林放乎」(“The Master said, ‘Alas! Who would have thought that Mount T’ai would suffer in comparison with Lin Fang.’” Lau trans.). “Yixi” is defined as a sound of admiration, of frustration, or of disdain, but the only example given for the latter is the same source that Teikan cites, Lu You’s (1125–1210) Laoxuean biji, which seems a little suspicious. Both Ciyuan and the Wang Li gu Hanyu zidian take the safer route of simply defining it as a “exclamation/interjection” (歎詞).
Edwin Pulleyblank gives the Early Middle Chinese (ca. 5th-6th centuries C.E.) reconstructed pronunciation of “wuhu” as “?ɔxɔ”, where ɔ represents a “lower mid back rounded vowel”, so we get something like “ah-ha” but with a glottal stop at the beginning. “Yixi” is similarly “?ɨxɨ”, so the same opening consonants but with a close central unrounded vowel instead (ehe?). Of course, Early Middle Chinese is still centuries after the earliest recorded uses of these words, so we can only turn to Karlgren for a reconstruction of the Zhou-era pronunciation. He gives “˙o χo” (which is pretty much the same as Pulleyblank’s corresponding EMC version) and “˙ḭəg ngḭəg” (which is very different). I’m a little wary of the latter just because its hard to imagine a sigh ending with a guttural consonant, but maybe it’s something like “argh!”
As for Teikan’s theory about “ikisugimono”, which according to the Kinsei kamigatago jiten means someone forward, arrogant, or impudent, I guess it seems unlikely.
老学菴筆記曰、蜀人見人物之可誇者、則曰嗚呼。可鄙者則曰噫嘻。嗚呼の者、此間ノ書ニ古来ヨリ散見ス。俗言ニ、イキスギ者ト云ハ、噫嘻過〔イキスギ〕ナランカ。（好古日録・九十八）I too have seen wuhu/oko all over the place in contemporary Japanese writing. It’s usually glossed as “aa”, and according to the standard Sino-Japanese dictionaries I’ve checked, the second compound should be vocalized the same way.
The Laoxuean biji says, “When the people of Shu saw someone admirable, they would say ‘wuhu’ (J. oko). At something base they would say ‘yixi’ (J. iki).” I have been seeing this phrase “oko” all over the place in contemporary writing for a while now. The colloquialism “ikisugimono” is perhaps derived from “too yixi” (ikisugi).
Morohashi’s Dai Kan-Wa jiten defines “wuhu” as “the sound of a sigh,” and gives several early citations from it, including one from the Analects: 「子曰，嗚呼，曾謂泰山不如林放乎」(“The Master said, ‘Alas! Who would have thought that Mount T’ai would suffer in comparison with Lin Fang.’” Lau trans.). “Yixi” is defined as a sound of admiration, of frustration, or of disdain, but the only example given for the latter is the same source that Teikan cites, Lu You’s (1125–1210) Laoxuean biji, which seems a little suspicious. Both Ciyuan and the Wang Li gu Hanyu zidian take the safer route of simply defining it as a “exclamation/interjection” (歎詞).
Edwin Pulleyblank gives the Early Middle Chinese (ca. 5th-6th centuries C.E.) reconstructed pronunciation of “wuhu” as “?ɔxɔ”, where ɔ represents a “lower mid back rounded vowel”, so we get something like “ah-ha” but with a glottal stop at the beginning. “Yixi” is similarly “?ɨxɨ”, so the same opening consonants but with a close central unrounded vowel instead (ehe?). Of course, Early Middle Chinese is still centuries after the earliest recorded uses of these words, so we can only turn to Karlgren for a reconstruction of the Zhou-era pronunciation. He gives “˙o χo” (which is pretty much the same as Pulleyblank’s corresponding EMC version) and “˙ḭəg ngḭəg” (which is very different). I’m a little wary of the latter just because its hard to imagine a sigh ending with a guttural consonant, but maybe it’s something like “argh!”
As for Teikan’s theory about “ikisugimono”, which according to the Kinsei kamigatago jiten means someone forward, arrogant, or impudent, I guess it seems unlikely.
posted by Brian at 8:54 AM
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