Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
Volume/Issue:
Volume 78: Issue 1
Mole Crickets and Ants, Reconsidered
Author:
Imre Galambos Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, P.R. of China

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Pages:
69–84
Online Publication Date:
07 Mar 2025
Publication Date:
24 Mar 2025
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/062.2025.00464
Keywords:
louyi; ants; mole crickets; disyllabic words; lexicography; commentaries
Restricted access

A range of early Chinese texts features the term louyi 螻蟻, which modern scholars and translators often interpret as signifying mole crickets and ants. This essentially means that they understand the two characters as standing for two different words, each denoting a different animal. However, a closer look at the examples in early Chinese texts shows that this was probably a disyllabic word referring to a single insect, namely, ants, with no involvement of mole crickets. Understanding what the term actually meant is important because it demonstrates how we, basing ourselves on pre-modern commentarial and lexicographic traditions, often unnecessarily separate compound words into their constituents. Although few specialists of pre-modern China today would subscribe to the much-criticized one-character-one-word model, translations still often treat the two components of disyllabic words as separate entities, even when the context makes it clear that they probably stand for a single word. More interestingly, this phenomenon sheds light on the development of the core vocabulary of sinology, revealing its cumulative and often highly conservative trajectory.

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Cover Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
Print ISSN:
0001-6446
Online ISSN:
1588-2667

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Editor(s)-in-Chief: Gábor KÓSA

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  • Benedek PÉRI (Eötvös Loránd University)
  • Ágnes BIRTALAN (Eötvös Loránd University)
  • Csaba DEZSŐ (Eötvös Loránd University)
  • Peter B. GOLDEN (Rutgers University)
  • Arlo GRIFFITHS (École française d'Extrême-Orient)
  • Imre HAMAR (Eötvös Loránd University)
  • Zoltán SZOMBATHY (Eötvös Loránd University)
  • István VÁSÁRY(Eötvös Loránd University)
  • Yutaka YOSHIDA (Kyoto University)
  • Peter ZIEME (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities)

 

Dr. Gábor Kósa
Editor-in-Chief
Institute of East Asian Studies
Eötvös Loránd University
Múzeum krt. 4/F
H-1088 Budapest, Hungary
kosa.gabor@btk.elte.hu

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Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
Language English
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