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113-672: The Kokel Culture (1st-5th centuries CE) is a post- Xiongnu culture, from Southern Siberia, in what is now the modern-day Tuva Republic . This culture is located temporally in the interval between the fall of the Xiongnu Empire (2nd century CE) and the rise of the First Turkic Khaganate (6th century CE). In Russian archaeology, it is considered as belonging to the "Hunno-Sarmatian period" (2nd century BCE and 5th century CE). The Kokel culture has also been named " Syyn-Churek culture ", or " Shurmak culture ", based on

226-724: A military campaign against the Xiongnu. Meng Tian defeated the Xiongnu and expelled them from the Ordos loop , forcing Touman and the Xiongnu to flee north into the Mongolian Plateau . In 210 BC, Meng Tian died, and in 209 BC, Touman's son Modu became the Xiongnu Chanyu . In order to protect the Xiongnu from the threat of the Qin dynasty , Modu Chanyu united the Xiongnu into a powerful confederation . This transformed

339-672: A minor syllable followed by a full syllable, as in modern Khmer , but still written with a single character. The development of characters to signify the words of the language follows the same three stages that characterized Egyptian hieroglyphs , Mesopotamian cuneiform script and the Maya script . Some words could be represented by pictures (later stylized) such as 日 rì 'sun', 人 rén 'person' and 木 mù 'tree, wood', by abstract symbols such as 三 sān 'three' and 上 shàng 'up', or by composite symbols such as 林 lín 'forest' (two trees). About 1,000 of

452-487: A "borrowed" character for a similar-sounding word ( rebus principle ). Later on, to reduce ambiguity, new characters were created for these phonetic borrowings by appending a radical that conveys a broad semantic category, resulting in compound xingsheng ( phono-semantic ) characters ( 形聲字 ). For the earliest attested stage of Old Chinese of the late Shang dynasty, the phonetic information implicit in these xingsheng characters which are grouped into phonetic series, known as

565-415: A Chanyu died, power could pass to his younger brother if his son was not of age. This system, which can be compared to Gaelic tanistry , normally kept an adult male on the throne, but could cause trouble in later generations when there were several lineages that might claim the throne. When the 12th Chanyu died in 60 BC, power was taken by Woyanqudi , a grandson of the 12th Chanyu's cousin. Being something of

678-607: A branch led by a "Huyan King" (呼衍王) continued to resist. The Huyan King was last mentioned in 151 when he launched an attack on Yiwu but was driven away by Han forces. According to the fifth-century Book of Wei , the remnants of Northern Chanyu's tribe settled as Yueban (悅般), near Kucha and subjugated the Wusun ; while the rest fled across the Altai mountains towards Kangju in Transoxania . It states that this group later became

791-535: A brother to Tuqi set himself up as Chanyu and was killed by Zhizhi. In 36 BC, Zhizhi was killed by a Chinese army while trying to establish a new kingdom in the far west near Lake Balkhash . In 53 BC Huhanye (呼韓邪) decided to enter into tributary relations with Han China . The original terms insisted on by the Han court were that, first, the Chanyu or his representatives should come to the capital to pay homage; secondly,

904-525: A dualistic system of political organisation with the left and right branches of the Xiongnu divided on a regional basis. The chanyu or shanyu , a ruler equivalent to the Emperor of China , exercised direct authority over the central territory. Longcheng (around the Khangai Mountains , Otuken ) ( Chinese : 龍城; Mongolian : Luut; lit. "Dragon City") became the annual meeting place and served as

1017-573: A language without tones, but having consonant clusters at the end of the syllable, which developed into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Most researchers trace the core vocabulary of Old Chinese to Sino-Tibetan , with much early borrowing from neighbouring languages. During the Zhou period, the originally monosyllabic vocabulary was augmented with polysyllabic words formed by compounding and reduplication , although monosyllabic vocabulary

1130-658: A major defeat to the Xianbei, who killed their chanyu Youliu and took his skin as a trophy. With the Northern Xiongnu in disarray, the Han general, Dou Xian launched an expedition and crushed them at the Battle of Ikh Bayan in 89. After another Han attack in 91, the Northern Chanyu fled with his followers to the northwest, never to be seen again, while the Northern Xiongnu that remained behind surrendered to

1243-713: A marquis of the Xubu clan as the new chanyu , but after his death, an elderly nominal king was put in his place. The cohesion of the Southern Xiongnu began to erode, and while the other tribes appear to distant themselves from the ongoing Han civil war, the Xiuchuge stayed on the offensive. In the 190s, the Xiuchuge allied themselves with the Heishan bandits of the Taihang Mountains before retreating west as

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1356-419: A military campaign against Modu Chanyu . At the Battle of Baideng , he was ambushed, reputedly by Xiongnu cavalry. The emperor was cut off from supplies and reinforcements for seven days, only narrowly escaping capture. The Han dynasty sent random unrelated commoner women falsely labeled as "princesses" and members of the Han imperial family multiple times when they were practicing Heqin marriage alliances with

1469-571: A range of purposes. As in the modern language, there were sentence-final particles marking imperatives and yes/no questions . Other sentence-final particles expressed a range of connotations, the most important being *ljaj 也 , expressing static factuality, and *ɦjəʔ 矣 , implying a change. Other particles included the subordination marker *tjə 之 and the nominalizing particles *tjaʔ 者 (agent) and *srjaʔ 所 (object). Conjunctions could join nouns or clauses. As with English and modern Chinese, Old Chinese sentences can be analysed as

1582-570: A result, the syntax and vocabulary of Old Chinese was preserved in Literary Chinese ( wenyan ), the standard for formal writing in China and neighboring Sinosphere countries until the early 20th century. Each character of the script represented a single Old Chinese morpheme , originally identical to a word. Most scholars believe that these words were monosyllabic. William Baxter and Laurent Sagart propose that some words consisted of

1695-606: A rich literature written in ink on bamboo and wooden slips and (toward the end of the period) silk. Although these are perishable materials, a significant number of texts were transmitted as copies, and a few of these survived to the present day as the received classics. Works from this period, including the Analects , the Mencius and the Commentary of Zuo , have been admired as models of prose style by later generations. As

1808-570: A role in defeating the Northern Xiongnu. However, with the decline of their northern counterpart, the Southern Xiongnu continued to suffer the brunt of raids, this time by the Xianbei people of the steppe. In addition to the poor living conditions of the frontiers, the Chinese court would also interfere in the Southern Xiongnu's politics and install chanyu s loyal to the Han. As a result, the Southern Xiongnu often rebelled, at times joining forces with

1921-404: A significant period of development prior to the extant inscriptions. This may have involved writing on perishable materials, as suggested by the appearance on oracle bones of the character 冊 cè 'records'. The character is thought to depict bamboo or wooden strips tied together with leather thongs, a writing material known from later archaeological finds. Development and simplification of

2034-521: A surprise attack on the Xiongnu at the border markets. In 127 BC, the Han general Wei Qing retook the Ordos. In 121 BC, the Xiongnu suffered another setback when Huo Qubing led a force of light cavalry westward out of Longxi and within six days fought his way through five Xiongnu kingdoms. The Xiongnu Hunye king was forced to surrender with 40,000 men. In 119 BC both Huo and Wei, each leading 50,000 cavalrymen and 100,000 footsoldiers (in order to keep up with

2147-463: A tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources , inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu , the supreme leader after 209 BC, founded the Xiongnu Empire . After overthrowing their previous overlords, the Yuezhi , the Xiongnu became the dominant power on the steppes of East Asia , centred on

2260-426: A usurper, he tried to put his own men in power, which only increased the number of his enemies. The 12th Chanyu's son fled east and, in 58 BC, revolted. Few would support Woyanqudi and he was driven to suicide, leaving the rebel son, Huhanye , as the 14th Chanyu. The Woyanqudi faction then set up his brother, Tuqi, as Chanyu (58 BC). In 57 BC three more men declared themselves Chanyu. Two dropped their claims in favor of

2373-510: Is believed to be a Chinese innovation arising from earlier prefixes. Proto-Sino-Tibetan is reconstructed with a six-vowel system as in recent reconstructions of Old Chinese, with the Tibeto-Burman languages distinguished by the merger of the mid-central vowel *-ə- with *-a- . The other vowels are preserved by both, with some alternation between *-e- and *-i- , and between *-o- and *-u- . The earliest known written records of

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2486-450: Is largely absent in later texts, and the *l- forms disappeared during the classical period. In the post-Han period, 我 (modern Mandarin wǒ ) came to be used as the general first-person pronoun. Second-person pronouns included *njaʔ 汝 , *njəjʔ 爾 , *njə 而 and *njak 若 . The forms 汝 and 爾 continued to be used interchangeably until their replacement by the northwestern variant 你 (modern Mandarin nǐ ) in

2599-410: Is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austronesian . Although Old Chinese is by far the earliest attested member of the family, its logographic script does not clearly indicate the pronunciation of words. Other difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of

2712-412: Is not always straightforward, as words were not marked for function, word classes overlapped, and words of one class could sometimes be used in roles normally reserved for a different class. The task is more difficult with written texts than it would have been for speakers of Old Chinese, because the derivational morphology is often hidden by the writing system. For example, the verb *sək 'to block' and

2825-624: Is that Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . The evidence consists of some hundreds of proposed cognate words, including such basic vocabulary as the following: Although the relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan

2938-690: Is the modern Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, from the Mandarin dialect spoken now in Beijing, which came into existence less than 1,000 years ago. The Old Chinese pronunciation has been reconstructed as * xiuoŋ-na or * qhoŋna . Sinologist Axel Schuessler (2014) reconstructs the pronunciations of 匈奴 as * hoŋ-nâ in Late Old Chinese (c. 318 BCE) and as * hɨoŋ-nɑ in Eastern Han Chinese ; citing other Chinese transcriptions wherein

3051-485: The Shuowen Jiezi , a dictionary compiled in the 2nd century, 82% of the 9,353 characters are classified as phono-semantic compounds. In the light of the modern understanding of Old Chinese phonology, researchers now believe that most of the characters originally classified as semantic compounds also have a phonetic nature. These developments were already present in the oracle bone script, possibly implying

3164-549: The xiesheng series , represents the only direct source of phonological data for reconstructing the language. The corpus of xingsheng characters was greatly expanded in the following Zhou dynasty. In addition, the rhymes of the earliest recorded poems, primarily those of the Classic of Poetry , provide an extensive source of phonological information with respect to syllable finals for the Central Plains dialects during

3277-407: The Chanyu should send a hostage prince; and thirdly, the Chanyu should present tribute to the Han emperor. The political status of the Xiongnu in the Chinese world order was reduced from that of a "brotherly state" to that of an "outer vassal" (外臣). Huhanye sent his son, the "wise king of the right" Shuloujutang, to the Han court as hostage. In 51 BC he personally visited Chang'an to pay homage to

3390-512: The Han period and the subsequent Northern and Southern dynasties . Old Chinese verbs , like their modern counterparts, did not show tense or aspect; these could be indicated with adverbs or particles if required. Verbs could be transitive or intransitive . As in the modern language, adjectives were a special kind of intransitive verb, and a few transitive verbs could also function as modal auxiliaries or as prepositions . Adverbs described

3503-462: The Hephthalites . Coincidentally, the Southern Xiongnu were plagued by natural disasters and misfortunes—in addition to the threat posed by Punu. Consequently, in 50 AD, the Southern Xiongnu submitted to tributary relations with Han China. The system of tribute was considerably tightened by the Han, to keep the Southern Xiongnu under control. The chanyu was ordered to establish his court in

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3616-728: The Laoshang Chanyu (and older sister of Junchen Chanyu and Yizhixie Chanyu) was married to the Xiongnu General Zhao Xin , the Marquis of Xi who was serving the Han dynasty. The daughter of Qiedihou Chanyu was married to the Han Chinese General Li Ling after he surrendered and defected. Another Han Chinese General who defected to the Xiongnu was Li Guangli , general in the War of

3729-536: The Late Shang period. Bronze inscriptions became plentiful during the following Zhou dynasty . The latter part of the Zhou period saw a flowering of literature, including classical works such as the Analects , the Mencius , and the Zuo Zhuan . These works served as models for Literary Chinese (or Classical Chinese ), which remained the written standard until the early twentieth century, thus preserving

3842-497: The Mongolian Plateau . The Xiongnu were also active in areas now part of Siberia , Inner Mongolia , Gansu and Xinjiang . Their relations with adjacent Chinese dynasties to the south-east were complex—alternating between various periods of peace, war, and subjugation. Ultimately, the Xiongnu were defeated by the Han dynasty in a centuries-long conflict , which led to the confederation splitting in two, and forcible resettlement of large numbers of Xiongnu within Han borders. During

3955-640: The Ongi River ( Mongolian : Онги гол ) in Mongolia and suggests that it was originally a dynastic name rather than an ethnic name. The territories associated with the Xiongnu in central/east Mongolia were previously inhabited by the Slab Grave Culture ( Ancient Northeast Asian origin), which persisted until the 3rd century BC. Genetic research indicates that the Slab Grave people were

4068-537: The Qin ty . Qin's campaign against the Xiongnu expanded Qin's territory at the expense of the Xiongnu. After the unification of Qin dynasty, Xiongnu was a threat to the northern board of Qin. They were likely to attack the Qin dynasty when they suffered natural disasters. The first known Xiongnu leader was Touman , who reigned between 220-209 BC. In 215 BC, Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang sent General Meng Tian on

4181-461: The Qin , Zhao and Yan states were encroaching and conquering various nomadic territories that were inhabited by the Xiongnu and other Hu peoples. The Zhao–Xiongnu War is a notable example of these campaigns. Pulleyblank argued that the Xiongnu were part of a Xirong group called Yiqu , who had lived in Shaanbei and had been influenced by China for centuries, before they were driven out by

4294-542: The Sixteen Kingdoms era, listed as one of the " Five Barbarians ", their descendants founded the dynastic states of Han-Zhao , Northern Liang and Helian Xia in northern China. Attempts to associate the Xiongnu with the nearby Sakas and Sarmatians were once controversial. However, archaeogenetics has confirmed their interaction with the Xiongnu, and also possibly their relation to the Huns . The identity of

4407-464: The Tang period. However, in some Min dialects the second-person pronoun is derived from 汝 . Case distinctions were particularly marked among third-person pronouns. There was no third-person subject pronoun, but *tjə 之 , originally a distal demonstrative , came to be used as a third-person object pronoun in the classical period. The possessive pronoun was originally *kjot 厥 , replaced in

4520-648: The War of the Heavenly Horses against the Kingdom of Dayuan . As a result, the Han gained many Ferghana horses which further aided them in their battle against the Xiongnu. As a result of these battles, the Han Empire controlled the strategic region from the Ordos and Gansu corridor to Lop Nor . They succeeded in separating the Xiongnu from the Qiang peoples to the south, and also gained direct access to

4633-562: The Warring States period , writing became more widespread, with further simplification and variation, particularly in the eastern states. The most conservative script prevailed in the western state of Qin , which would later impose its standard on the whole of China. Old Chinese phonology has been reconstructed using a unique method relying on textual sources. The starting point is the Qieyun dictionary (601 AD), which classifies

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4746-622: The Western Regions and launched raids on the Han borders. In 73, the Han responded by sending Dou Gu and Geng Chong to lead a great expedition against the Northern Xiongnu in the Tarim Basin . The expedition, which saw the exploits of the general, Ban Chao , was initially successful, but the Han soon had to temporarily withdraw due to matters back home in 75. For the next decade, the Northern Xiongnu had to endure famines largely in part due to locust plagues. In 87, they suffered

4859-578: The Western Regions . Because of strong Han control over the Xiongnu, the Xiongnu became unstable and were no longer a threat to the Han Empire. Ban Chao , Protector General (都護; Duhu ) of the Han dynasty, embarked with an army of 70,000 soldiers in a campaign against the Xiongnu remnants who were harassing the trade route now known as the Silk Road . His successful military campaign saw the subjugation of one Xiongnu tribe after another. Ban Chao also sent an envoy named Gan Ying to Daqin (Rome). Ban Chao

4972-619: The Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn periods . Similarly, the Chu Ci provides rhyme data for the dialect spoken in the Chu region during the Warring States period . These rhymes, together with clues from the phonetic components of xingsheng characters, allow most characters attested in Old Chinese to be assigned to one of 30 or 31 rhyme groups. For late Old Chinese of the Han period,

5085-568: The Wuhuan and receiving support from the Xianbei. Meanwhile, the Xiuchuge people, a branch of Xiongnu within China not attached to the Southern Xiongnu, was gaining momentum during the mid-2nd century. During the late 2nd century AD, the Southern Xiongnu were drawn into the rebellions then plaguing the Han court. In 188, the chanyu sent troops to help the Han suppress a rebellion in Hebei —many of

5198-613: The Xianyun and the Xirong nomadic peoples. In later Chinese historiography, some groups of these peoples were believed to be the possible progenitors of the Xiongnu people. These nomadic people often had repeated military confrontations with the Shang and especially the Zhou , who often conquered and enslaved the nomads in an expansion drift. During the Warring States period , the armies from

5311-500: The 1980s usually propose six  vowels : Vowels could optionally be followed by the same codas as in Middle Chinese: a glide *-j or *-w , a nasal *-m , *-n or *-ŋ , or a stop *-p , *-t or *-k . Some scholars also allow for a labiovelar coda *-kʷ . Most scholars now believe that Old Chinese lacked the tones found in later stages of the language, but had optional post-codas *-ʔ and *-s , which developed into

5424-626: The Chinese general Li Ling , grandson of the famous Han dynasty general Li Guang . Li Ling was captured by the Xiongnu and defected in the first century BCE. And since the Tang royal Li family also claimed descent from Li Guang, the Kirghiz Khagan was therefore recognized as a member of the Tang Imperial family. This relationship soothed the relationship when Kyrgyz khagan Are (阿熱) invaded Uyghur Khaganate and put Qasar Qaghan to

5537-479: The Chinese language were found at the Yinxu site near modern Anyang identified as the last capital of the Shang dynasty , and date from about 1250 BC. These are the oracle bones , short inscriptions carved on turtle plastrons and ox scapulae for divinatory purposes, as well as a few brief bronze inscriptions . The language written is undoubtedly an early form of Chinese, but is difficult to interpret due to

5650-468: The Han court with tribute. But having failed to pay homage personally, he was never admitted to the tributary system. In 36 BC, a junior officer named Chen Tang , with the help of Gan Yanshou, protector-general of the Western Regions, assembled an expeditionary force that defeated him at the Battle of Zhizhi and sent his head as a trophy to Chang'an. Tributary relations were discontinued during

5763-657: The Han court, but at this time the Han court was in disorder from the clash between Grand General He Jin and the eunuchs, and the intervention of the warlord Dong Zhuo . The chanyu had no choice but to settle down with his followers around Pingyang , south of the Fen River in Shanxi . In 195, he died and was succeeded as chanyu by his brother Huchuquan . North of the Fen River, the rebels prevented Yufuluo and his family from returning to their home. They initially elected

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5876-512: The Han envoys did not remove their tallies of authority, and if they did not allow their faces to be tattooed, they could not gain entrance into the yurts. Wang Wu and his company removed their tallies, submitted to tattoo, and thus gained entry. The Shanyu looked upon them very highly. The ruler of the Xiongnu was called the Chanyu . Under him were the Tuqi Kings . The Tuqi King of the Left

5989-404: The Han. In 94, dissatisfied with the newly appointed chanyu, the surrendered Northern Xiongnu rebelled and acclaimed Fenghou as their chanyu, who led them to flee outside the border. However, the separatist regime continued to face famines and the growing threat of the Xianbei, prompting 10,000 of them to return to Han in 96. Fenghou later sent envoys to Han intending to submit as a vassal but

6102-547: The Heavenly Horses , who also married a daughter of the Hulugu Chanyu. The Han Chinese diplomat Su Wu married a Xiongnu woman given by Li Ling when he was arrested and taken captive. Han Chinese explorer Zhang Qian married a Xiongnu woman and had a child with her when he was taken captive by the Xiongnu. The Yenisei Kyrgyz khagans of the Yenisei Kyrgyz Khaganate claimed descent from

6215-455: The Meiji district of Xihe Commandery and the Southern Xiongnu were resettled in eight frontier commanderies. At the same time, large numbers of Chinese were also resettled in these commanderies, in mixed Han-Xiongnu settlements. Economically, the Southern Xiongnu became reliant on trade with the Han. The Southern Xiongnu served as auxillaries to defend the northern borders for the Han and played

6328-573: The Middle Chinese rising and departing tones respectively. Little is known of the grammar of the language of the Oracular and pre-Classical periods, as the texts are often of a ritual or formulaic nature, and much of their vocabulary has not been deciphered. In contrast, the rich literature of the Warring States period has been extensively analysed. Having no inflection , Old Chinese was heavily reliant on word order, grammatical particles , and inherent word classes . Classifying Old Chinese words

6441-478: The Northern Chanyu . In 49 AD, the Northern Xiongnu was dealt a heavy defeat to the Southern Xiongnu. That same year, Zhai Tong , a Han governor of Liaodong also enticed the Wuhuan and Xianbei into attacking the Northern Xiongnu. Soon, Punu began sending envoys on several separate occasions to negotiate peace with the Han dynasty, but made little to no progress. In the 60s, the Northern Xiongnu resumed hostilities as they attempted to expand their influence into

6554-420: The Qin general Meng Tian. Under Modu's leadership, the Xiongnu became so strong that they began to threaten the Han dynasty. In 200 BC, Modu besieged the first Han dynasty emperor Gaozu (Gao-Di) with his 320,000-strong army at Peteng Fortress in Baideng (present-day Datong, Shanxi). Gaozu (Gao-Di) after agreed to all Modu's terms, such as ceding the northern provinces to the Xiongnu and paying annual taxes, he

6667-649: The Shang and early Zhou but was already in the process of disappearing by the Classical period. Likewise, by the Classical period, most morphological derivations had become unproductive or vestigial, and grammatical relationships were primarily indicated using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese and its southern neighbours Kra–Dai , Hmong–Mien and the Vietic branch of Austroasiatic have similar tone systems, syllable structure, grammatical features and lack of inflection, but these are believed to be areal features spread by diffusion rather than indicating common descent. The most widely accepted hypothesis

6780-456: The Xiongnu capital. The ruins of Longcheng were found south of Ulziit District, Arkhangai Province in 2017. North of Shanxi with the Tuqi King of the Left was holding the area north of Beijing and the Tuqi King of the Right was holding the Ordos Loop area as far as Gansu . When the Xiongnu had been driven north, to today's Mongolia. In the winter of 200 BC, following a Xiongnu siege of Taiyuan , Emperor Gaozu of Han personally led

6893-448: The Xiongnu empire in all directions. To the north he conquered a number of nomadic peoples, including the Dingling of southern Siberia. He crushed the power of the Donghu people of eastern Mongolia and Manchuria as well as the Yuezhi in the Hexi Corridor of Gansu , where his son, Jizhu, made a skull cup out of the Yuezhi king. Modu also retook the original homeland of Xiongnu on the Yellow River , which had previously been taken by

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7006-476: The Xiongnu feared that it would set a precedent for unending military service to the Han court. At the time, the Xiuchuge had rebel in Bing province and kill the Chinese provincial inspector. The rebellious faction among the Southern Xiongnu allied with the Xiuchuge and killed their chanyu as well. His son Yufuluo , entitled Chizhisizhu ( 持至尸逐侯 ), succeeded him, but was then overthrown by the rebels in 189. He travelled to Luoyang (the Han capital) to seek aid from

7119-430: The Xiongnu in one liezhuan (arrayed account) of his Records of the Grand Historian ( c.  100 BC), wherein the Xiongnu were alleged to be descendants of a certain Chunwei , who in turn descended from the "lineage of Lord Xia", a.k.a. Yu the Great . Even so, Sima Qian also drew a distinct line between the settled Huaxia people (Han) to the pastoral nomads (Xiongnu), characterizing them as two polar groups in

7232-443: The Xiongnu in order to avoid sending the emperor's daughters. The Han sent these "princesses" to marry Xiongnu leaders in their efforts to stop the border raids. Along with arranged marriages, the Han sent gifts to bribe the Xiongnu to stop attacking. After the defeat at Pingcheng in 200 BC, the Han emperor abandoned a military solution to the Xiongnu threat. Instead, in 198 BC   , the courtier Liu Jing  [ zh ]

7345-505: The Xiongnu into a more formidable polity, able to form larger armies and exercise improved strategic coordination. Two years later, in 207 BC, the Qin dynasty fell, and after a period of internal conflict , it was replaced by the Western Han dynasty in 202 BC. This period of Chinese instability was a time of prosperity for the Xiongnu, who adopted many Han agriculture techniques such as slaves for heavy labor and lived in Han-style homes. After forging internal unity, Modu Chanyu expanded

7458-447: The Xiongnu were distinguished from other nomadic peoples; namely, the Hu people ; yet on other occasions, Chinese sources often just classified the Xiongnu as a Hu people , which was a blanket term for nomadic people . Even Sima Qian was inconsistent: in the chapter "Hereditary House of Zhao", he considered the Donghu to be the Hu proper, yet elsewhere he considered Xiongnu to be also Hu. Ancient China often came in contact with

7571-461: The Xiongnu, however, Huduershi was never able to establish unquestioned authority. In contravention of a principle of fraternal succession established by Huhanye, Huduershi designated his son Punu as heir-apparent . However, as the eldest son of the preceding chanyu , Bi (Pi)—the Rizhu King of the Right—had a more legitimate claim. Consequently, Bi refused to attend the annual meeting at the chanyu ' s court. Nevertheless, in 46 AD, Punu ascended

7684-424: The Zhou area. Although their language changed over time, it was highly uniform across this range at each point in time, suggesting that it reflected the prestige form used by the Zhou elite. Even longer pre-Classical texts on a wide range of subjects have also been transmitted through the literary tradition. The oldest sections of the Book of Documents , the Classic of Poetry and the I Ching , also date from

7797-462: The borrowed character would be modified slightly to distinguish it from the original, as with 毋 wú 'don't', a borrowing of 母 mǔ 'mother'. Later, phonetic loans were systematically disambiguated by the addition of semantic indicators, usually to the less common word: Such phono-semantic compound characters were already used extensively on the oracle bones, and the vast majority of characters created since then have been of this type. In

7910-414: The classical period by *ɡjə 其 . In the post-Han period, 其 came to be used as the general third-person pronoun. It survives in some Wu dialects, but has been replaced by a variety of forms elsewhere. There were demonstrative and interrogative pronouns , but no indefinite pronouns with the meanings 'something' or 'nothing'. The distributive pronouns were formed with a *-k suffix: As in

8023-424: The combination *-rj- to explain the retroflex and palatal obstruents of Middle Chinese, as well as many of its vowel contrasts. *-r- is generally accepted. However, although the distinction denoted by *-j- is universally accepted, its realization as a palatal glide has been challenged on a number of grounds, and a variety of different realizations have been used in recent constructions. Reconstructions since

8136-418: The core issues. For example, the Old Chinese initial consonants recognized by Li Fang-Kuei and William Baxter are given below, with Baxter's (mostly tentative) additions given in parentheses: Various initial clusters have been proposed, especially clusters of *s- with other consonants, but this area remains unsettled. Bernhard Karlgren and many later scholars posited the medials *-r- , *-j- and

8249-468: The derived noun *səks 'frontier' were both written with the same character 塞 . Personal pronouns exhibit a wide variety of forms in Old Chinese texts, possibly due to dialectal variation. There were two groups of first-person pronouns: In the oracle bone inscriptions, the *l- pronouns were used by the king to refer to himself, and the *ŋ- forms for the Shang people as a whole. This distinction

8362-496: The early Zhou period, and closely resemble the bronze inscriptions in vocabulary, syntax, and style. A greater proportion of this more varied vocabulary has been identified than for the oracular period. The four centuries preceding the unification of China in 221 BC (the later Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period ) constitute the Chinese classical period in the strict sense. There are many bronze inscriptions from this period, but they are vastly outweighed by

8475-536: The emperor on the Lunar New Year . In the same year, another envoy Qijushan (稽居狦) was received at the Ganquan Palace in the north-west of modern Shanxi . On the financial side, Huhanye was amply rewarded in large quantities of gold, cash, clothes, silk, horses and grain for his participation. Huhanye made two further homage trips, in 49 BC and 33 BC; with each one the imperial gifts were increased. On

8588-609: The ethnic core of Xiongnu has been a subject of varied hypotheses, because only a few words, mainly titles and personal names, were preserved in the Chinese sources. The name Xiongnu may be cognate with that of the Huns and/or the Huna , although this is disputed. Other linguistic links—all of them also controversial—proposed by scholars include Turkic , Iranian , Mongolic , Uralic , Yeniseian , or multi-ethnic. The pronunciation of 匈奴 as Xiōngnú [ɕjʊ́ŋnǔ]

8701-404: The imperial retreat at Yong. In 158 BC, his successor sent 30,000 cavalry to attack Shangdang and another 30,000 to Yunzhong . The Xiongnu also practiced marriage alliances with Han dynasty officers and officials who defected to their side by marrying off sisters and daughters of the Chanyu (the Xiongnu ruler) to Han Chinese who joined the Xiongnu and Xiongnu in Han service. The daughter of

8814-544: The last trip, Huhanye took the opportunity to ask to be allowed to become an imperial son-in-law. As a sign of the decline in the political status of the Xiongnu, Emperor Yuan refused, giving him instead five ladies-in-waiting. One of them was Wang Zhaojun , famed in Chinese folklore as one of the Four Beauties . When Zhizhi learned of his brother's submission, he also sent a son to the Han court as hostage in 53 BC. Then twice, in 51 BC and 50 BC, he sent envoys to

8927-466: The limited subject matter and high proportion of proper names. Only half of the 4,000 characters used have been identified with certainty. Little is known about the grammar of this language, but it seems much less reliant on grammatical particles than Classical Chinese. From early in the Western Zhou period, around 1000 BC, the most important recovered texts are bronze inscriptions, many of considerable length. These texts are found throughout

9040-427: The maintenance of a large scale government sponsored market system. While the Xiongnu benefited handsomely, from the Chinese perspective marriage treaties were costly, very humiliating and ineffective. Laoshang Chanyu showed that he did not take the peace treaty seriously. On one occasion his scouts penetrated to a point near Chang'an . In 166 BC he personally led 140,000 cavalry to invade Anding , reaching as far as

9153-499: The mobility of the Xiongnu, many of the non-cavalry Han soldiers were mobile infantrymen who traveled on horseback but fought on foot), and advancing along different routes, forced the chanyu and his Xiongnu court to flee north of the Gobi Desert . Major logistical difficulties limited the duration and long-term continuation of these campaigns. According to the analysis of Yan You (嚴尤), the difficulties were twofold. Firstly there

9266-575: The modern Southern Min languages, the oldest layer of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary , and a few early transliterations of foreign proper names, as well as names for non-native flora and fauna, also provide insights into language reconstruction. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differed from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids . Most recent reconstructions also describe Old Chinese as

9379-431: The modern language, localizers (compass directions, 'above', 'inside' and the like) could be placed after nouns to indicate relative positions. They could also precede verbs to indicate the direction of the action. Nouns denoting times were another special class (time words); they usually preceded the subject to specify the time of an action. However the classifiers so characteristic of Modern Chinese only became common in

9492-695: The names of the sites of various archaeological discoveries. Carbon dates for the Kokel sites generally range from the 2nd to the 4th centuries CE. Kokel culture graves (2nd-4th century CE) tend to be found in conjunction with earlier graves of the Early Iron Age (9th century BCE-) Saka cultures, and the later graves of the Turkic period (5th century CE-). Seleucid Empire : Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Xiongnu The Xiongnu ( Chinese : 匈奴 , [ɕjʊ́ŋ.nǔ] ) were

9605-702: The northern tribes was left to their vassal, the Qin state . To the west, the Pazyryk culture (6th-3rd century BC) immediately preceded the formation of the Xiongnus. A Scythian culture, it was identified by excavated artifacts and mummified humans, such as the Siberian Ice Princess , found in the Siberian permafrost , in the Altay Mountains , Kazakhstan and nearby Mongolia . To

9718-586: The oracle bone characters, nearly a quarter of the total, are of this type, though 300 of them have not yet been deciphered. Though the pictographic origins of these characters are apparent, they have already undergone extensive simplification and conventionalization. Evolved forms of most of these characters are still in common use today. Next, words that could not be represented pictorially, such as abstract terms and grammatical particles, were signified by borrowing characters of pictorial origin representing similar-sounding words (the " rebus strategy"): Sometimes

9831-605: The pattern for relations between the Han and the Xiongnu for sixty years. Up to 135 BC, the treaty was renewed nine times, each time with an increase in the "gifts" to the Xiongnu Empire. In 192 BC, Modun even asked for the hand of Emperor Gaozu of Han widow Empress Lü Zhi . His son and successor, the energetic Jiyu, known as the Laoshang Chanyu , continued his father's expansionist policies. Laoshang succeeded in negotiating with Emperor Wen terms for

9944-438: The primary ancestors of the Xiongnu, and that the Xiongnu formed through substantial and complex admixture with West Eurasians. During the Western Zhou (1045–771 BC), there were numerous conflicts with nomadic tribes from the north and the northwest, variously known as the Xianyun , Guifang , or various "Rong" tribes, such as the Xirong , Shanrong or Quanrong . These tribes are recorded as harassing Zhou territory, but at

10057-455: The reading pronunciation of each character found in texts to that time within a precise, but abstract, phonological system. Scholars have sought to assign phonetic values to these Middle Chinese categories by comparing them with modern varieties of Chinese , Sino-Xenic pronunciations and transcriptions. Next, the phonology of Old Chinese is reconstructed by comparing the Qieyun categories to

10170-445: The reign of Emperor Wen , the break did not come until 133 BC, following an abortive trap to ambush the chanyu at Mayi . By that point the empire was consolidated politically, militarily and economically, and was led by an adventurous pro-war faction at court. In that year, Emperor Wu reversed the decision he had made the year before to renew the peace treaty. Full-scale war broke out in autumn 129 BC, when 40,000 Han cavalry made

10283-555: The reign of Huduershi (18 AD–48), corresponding to the political upheavals of the Xin dynasty . The Xiongnu took the opportunity to regain control of the western regions, as well as neighboring peoples such as the Wuhuan . In 24 AD, Hudershi even talked about reversing the tributary system. The Xiongnu's new power was met with a policy of appeasement by Emperor Guangwu . At the height of his power, Huduershi even compared himself to his illustrious ancestor, Modu. Due to growing regionalism among

10396-574: The rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry (early 1st millennium BC) and the shared phonetic components of Chinese characters, some of which are slightly older. More recent efforts have supplemented this method with evidence from Old Chinese derivational morphology , from Chinese varieties preserving distinctions not found in the Qieyun , such as Min and Waxiang , and from early transcriptions and loans. Although many details are still disputed, recent formulations are in substantial agreement on

10509-469: The scope of a statement or various temporal relationships. They included two families of negatives starting with *p- and *m- , such as *pjə 不 and *mja 無 . Modern northern varieties derive the usual negative from the first family, while southern varieties preserve the second. The language had no adverbs of degree until late in the Classical period. Particles were function words serving

10622-467: The script continued during the pre-Classical and Classical periods, with characters becoming less pictorial and more linear and regular, with rounded strokes being replaced by sharp angles. The language developed compound words, though almost all constituent morphemes could also be used as independent words. Hundreds of morphemes of two or more syllables also entered the language, and were written with one phono-semantic compound character per syllable. During

10735-636: The sense of a civilization versus an uncivilized society: the Hua–Yi distinction . Sima Qian also mentioned Xiongnu's early appearance north of Wild Goose Gate and Dai commanderies before 265 BCE, just before the Zhao-Xiongnu War ; however, sinologist Edwin Pulleyblank (1994) contends that pre-241-BCE references to the Xiongnu are anachronistic substitutions for the Hu people instead. Sometimes

10848-735: The smaller languages are poorly described because they are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, including several sensitive border zones. Initial consonants generally correspond regarding place and manner of articulation , but voicing and aspiration are much less regular, and prefixal elements vary widely between languages. Some researchers believe that both these phenomena reflect lost minor syllables . Proto-Tibeto-Burman as reconstructed by Benedict and Matisoff lacks an aspiration distinction on initial stops and affricates. Aspiration in Old Chinese often corresponds to pre-initial consonants in Tibetan and Lolo-Burmese , and

10961-621: The south, the Ordos culture had developed in the Ordos Loop (modern Inner Mongolia , China ) during the Bronze and early Iron Age from the 6th to 2nd centuries BC, and is of unknown ethno-linguistic origin, and is thought to represent the easternmost extension of Indo-European-speakers. The Yuezhi were displaced by the Xiongnu expansion in the 2nd century BC, and had to migrate to Central and Southern Asia. Western Han historian Sima Qian composed an early yet detailed exposition on

11074-582: The sword. The news brought to Chang'an by Kyrgyz ambassador Zhuwu Hesu (註吾合素). The Han dynasty made preparations for war when the Han Emperor Wu dispatched the Han Chinese explorer Zhang Qian to explore the mysterious kingdoms to the west and to form an alliance with the Yuezhi people in order to combat the Xiongnu. During this time Zhang married a Xiongnu wife, who bore him a son, and gained

11187-483: The third who was defeated by Tuqi in that year and surrendered to Huhanye the following year. In 56 BC Tuqi was defeated by Huhanye and committed suicide, but two more claimants appeared: Runzhen and Huhanye's elder brother Zhizhi Chanyu . Runzhen was killed by Zhizhi in 54 BC, leaving only Zhizhi and Huhanye. Zhizhi grew in power, and, in 53 BC, Huhanye moved south and submitted to the Chinese. Huhanye used Chinese support to weaken Zhizhi, who gradually moved west. In 49 BC,

11300-645: The throne. In 48 AD, a confederation of eight Xiongnu tribes in Bi's power base in the south, with a military force totalling 40,000 to 50,000 men, seceded from Punu's kingdom and acclaimed Bi as chanyu . This kingdom became known as the Southern Xiongnu . The rump kingdom under Punu, around the Orkhon (modern north central Mongolia) became known as the Northern Xiongnu , with Punu, becoming known as

11413-582: The time of Modu's death in 174 BC, the Xiongnu were recognized as the most prominent of the nomads bordering the Chinese Han empire According to the Book of Han , later quoted in Duan Chengshi 's ninth-century Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang : Also, according to the Han shu , Wang Wu (王烏) and others were sent as envoys to pay a visit to the Xiongnu. According to the customs of the Xiongnu, if

11526-573: The time the Zhou were expanding northwards, encroaching on their traditional lands, especially into the Wei River valley . Archaeologically, the Zhou expanded to the north and the northwest at the expense of the Siwa culture . The Quanrong put an end to the Western Zhou in 771 BC, sacking the Zhou capital of Haojing and killing the last Western Zhou king You . Thereafter the task of dealing with

11639-475: The trust of the Xiongnu leader. While Zhang Qian did not succeed in this mission, his reports of the west provided even greater incentive to counter the Xiongnu hold on westward routes out of the Han Empire, and the Han prepared to mount a large scale attack using the Northern Silk Road to move men and material. While the Han dynasty was making preparations for a military confrontation since

11752-459: The velar nasal medial -ŋ- , after a short vowel, seemingly played the role of a general nasal – sometimes equivalent to n or m –, Schuessler proposes that 匈奴 Xiongnu < * hɨoŋ-nɑ < * hoŋ-nâ might be a Chinese rendition, Han or even pre-Han, of foreign * Hŏna or * Hŭna , which Schuessler compares to Huns and Sanskrit Hūṇā . However, the same medial -ŋ- prompts Christopher P. Atwood (2015) to reconstruct * Xoŋai , which he derives from

11865-499: The vocabulary and grammar of late Old Chinese. Old Chinese was written with several early forms of Chinese characters , including oracle bone , bronze , and seal scripts . Throughout the Old Chinese period, there was a close correspondence between a character and a monosyllabic and monomorphemic word. Although the script is not alphabetic, the majority of characters were created based on phonetic considerations. At first, words that were difficult to represent visually were written using

11978-425: The warlords Cao Cao and Yuan Shao established control over the north. The Xiuchuge were eventually defeated by Cao Cao in 214. Old Chinese Old Chinese , also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese , and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese . The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BC, in

12091-471: Was allowed to leave the siege. Although Gaozu was able to return to his capital Chang'an (present-day Xi'an), Modu occasionally threatened the Han's northern frontier and finally in 198 BC, a peace treaty was settled. Xiongnu in their expansion drove their western neighbour Yuezhi from the Hexi Corridor in year 176 BC, killing the Yuezhi king and asserting their presence in the Western Regions . By

12204-465: Was created the Marquess of Dingyuan (定遠侯, i.e., "the Marquess who stabilized faraway places") for his services to the Han Empire and returned to the capital Luoyang at the age of 70 years and died there in the year 102. Following his death, the power of the Xiongnu in the Western Regions increased again, and the emperors of subsequent dynasties did not reach as far west until the Tang dynasty . When

12317-406: Was dispatched for negotiations. The peace settlement eventually reached between the parties included a Han princess given in marriage to the chanyu (called heqin ) ( Chinese : 和親 ; lit. 'harmonious kinship'); periodic gifts to the Xiongnu of silk , distilled beverages and rice ; equal status between the states; and a boundary wall as mutual border. This first treaty set

12430-401: Was normally the heir presumptive. Next lower in the hierarchy came more officials in pairs of left and right: the guli , the army commanders, the great governors, the danghu and the gudu . Beneath them came the commanders of detachments of one thousand, of one hundred, and of ten men. This nation of nomads, a people on the march, was organized like an army. After Modu, later leaders formed

12543-530: Was rejected. The Northern Xiongnu were scattered, with most of them being absorbed the Xianbei. In 118, a defeated Fenghou brought around a mere 100 followers to surrender to Han. Remnants of the Northern Xiongnu held out in the Tarim Basin as they allied themselves with the Nearer Jushi Kingdom and captured Yiwu in 119. By 126, they were subjugated by the Han general, Ban Yong , while

12656-439: Was still predominant. Unlike Middle Chinese and the modern Chinese languages, Old Chinese had a significant amount of derivational morphology. Several affixes have been identified, including ones for the verbification of nouns, conversion between transitive and intransitive verbs, and formation of causative verbs. Like modern Chinese, it appears to be uninflected, though a pronoun case and number system seems to have existed during

12769-410: Was the problem of supplying food across long distances. Secondly, the weather in the northern Xiongnu lands was difficult for Han soldiers, who could never carry enough fuel. According to official reports, the Xiongnu lost 80,000 to 90,000 men, and out of the 140,000 horses the Han forces had brought into the desert, fewer than 30,000 returned to the Han Empire. In 104 and 102 BC, the Han fought and won

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