避諱と字音

概要

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It has been recognized so far that sound change was not used in order to avoid using a taboo character. Nevertheless the character 治, name of the Tang emperor Gaozong, was read as li instead of chi. It is attested in the Tibetan transcription of the very character in the Dunhuang manuscript text of the Thousand Character Classics. Furthermore the pronunciation li was not a temporary substitute but used as one of the stable pronunciations of the character. It can be confirmed by the frequent use of the character for substituting other characters of li pronunciation in Dunhuang manuscripts. In addition to the character 治, we can find another example of sound change, in this case to avoid using a secular taboo. The character 裸 is often indicated to be pronounced as hwa instead of lwa in a few collections of phonetic and semantic gloses for the Chinese Tripitaka, such as Kehong's Zangjing Yinyi Suihanlu. The pronunciation lwa could mean "testicules" and had to be avoided, especially in Buddhist societies. These two characters, being rare examples of sound changes to avoid using taboo characters, deserve more attention.
2010-03-25