Some historical Chinese characters for non-Han peoples were graphically pejorative ethnic slurs, where the racial insult derived not from the Chinese word but from the character used to write it. For instance, written Chinese first transcribed the name "the Yao people (in southwest China and Vietnam)" with the character for "jackal". Most of those terms were replaced in the language reforms shortly after the establishment of the People's Republic; for example, the character for the term yáo was changed, replaced this graphic pejorative meaning "jackal" with another one – a homophone meaning "precious jade".中央人民政府政务院. 《关于处理带有歧视或侮辱少数民族性质的称谓、地名、碑碣、匾联的指示》. 1951年5月16日.
Linguistic background Graphic pejoratives are a unique aspect of Chinese characters. In alphabetically written languages such as English, orthography does not change ethnic slursbut in logographically written languages like Chinese, it makes a difference whether one writes Yáo as "jackal" or with its homophone "jade". Over 80% of Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds, consisting of a radical or determinative giving the logographic character a semantic meaning and a "rebus" or phonetic component guiding the pronunciation. The American linguist James A. Matisoff coined the term "graphic pejoratives" in 1986, describing autonym and exonym usages in East Asian languages. Human nature being what it is, exonyms are liable to be pejorative rather than complimentary, especially where there is a real or fancied difference in cultural level between the ingroup and outgroup. Sometimes the same pejorative exonym is applied to different peoples, providing clues to the inter-ethnic pecking-order in a certain region. ... the former Chinese name for the Jinghpaw, [] lit. 'wild men', was used by both the Jinghpaw and the Burmese to refer to the Lisu. ... The Chinese writing system provided unique opportunities for graphic pejoratives. The 'beast-radical' used to appear in the characters for the names of lesser peoples (e.g., 'Yao'), though now the 'person-radical' has been substituted (). Disparaging characters for certain ethnic groups depend upon a subtle semantic aspect of transcription into Chinese characters. The Chinese language writes exonyms, like other foreign loanwords, in characters chosen to approximate the foreign pronunciation – but the characters themselves represent meaningful Chinese words. The sinologist Endymion Wilkinson says, At the same time as finding characters to fit the sounds of a foreign word or name it is also possible to choose ones with a particular meaning, in the case of non-Han peoples and foreigners, usually a pejorative meaning. It was the practice, for example, to choose characters with an animal or reptile signific for southern non-Han peoples, and many northern peoples were given characters for their names with the dog or leather hides signific. In origin this practice may have derived from the animal totems or tribal emblems typical of these peoples. This is not to deny that in later Chinese history such graphic pejoratives fitted neatly with Han convictions of the superiority of their own culture as compared to the uncultivated, hence animal-like, savages and barbarians. Characters with animal hides, or other such significs were generally not used in formal correspondence. On and off they were banned by non-Han rulers in China culminating with the Qing. Many were systematically altered during the script reforms of the 1950s ( , 'Tatar', is one of the few, to have survived). Wilkinson compared these "graphic pejoratives selected for aborigines and barbarians" with the "flattering characters chosen for transcribing the names of the Western powers in the nineteenth century", for instance, "United States" can be read as "beautiful country".
The most common radical among graphic pejoratives is Radical 94 or , called the "dog" or "beast" radical, which is ordinarily used in characters for animal names (e.g., "cat", "dog", "pig"), although the traditional characters for "cat" and "pig" use Radical 153 豸 "badger/animal" instead. Dutch historian Frank Dikötter explains the significance. Physical composition and cultural disposition were confused in Chinese antiquity. The border between man and animal was blurred. "The Rong are birds and beasts" [Zuozhuan]. This was not simply a derogatory description: it was part of a mentality that integrated the concept of civilization with the idea of humanity, picturing the alien groups living outside the pale of Chinese society as distant savages hovering on the edge of bestiality. The names of the outgroups were written in characters with an animal radical, a habit that persisted until the 1930s: the Di, a northern tribe, were thus assimilated with the dog, whereas the Man and the Min, people from the south, shared the attributes of the reptiles. The Qiang had a sheep radical.
The late American anthropologist and linguist Paul K. Benedict described covert ethnic slurs as the "pejorativization of exonymized names". In a discussion of autonyms, Benedict said, a leading Chinese linguist has remarked that the name 'Lolo' is offensive only when written with the 'dog' radical. There is undoubtedly here some reflection of the underlying Chinese equation of 'word' with 'written character', providing a clue to the 'pejorativization' of 'exonymized' names of this kind: by writing my name with a 'dog' alongside it you are calling me a 'dog' (and in Chinese this is a unisex epithet). The modern Chinese practice is to write these tribal names with the 'human being' radical, thereby raising their level of acceptance.
Radical 9 or , the "person" or "human" radical, is considered a semantically unprejudiced graphic element. It was used in a few early exonyms, such as "Bo people" (depicting a person in "thorns") in southern China (especially Sichuan).
In addition to having linguistically unique graphic pejoratives, Chinese, like all human languages, has typical disparaging terms for foreign peoples or "ethnophaulisms". Wilkinson lists three commonly used words: "slave" (e.g., "fierce slaves; Xiongnu people"), "devil; ghost" ( or Cantonese Gweilo "devil men; Western barbarians"), and "captive; caitiff" ( "unkempt caitiffs; Tuoba people", now officially written "develop pull"). Unlike official Chinese language reforms, Wilkinson notes, "Unofficially and not infrequently graphic pejoratives were added or substituted" in loanword transcriptions, as when (with "orchid; moral excellence") "France" was written (with "wolf").
History Magnus Fiskesjö suggested that
Over time, the term Qiang would be repurposed to describe different groups of "barbarians to the west". In ancient and medieval China, other groups of barbarians received names that were written with characters that mean dog, wolf, bug, snake or similar.
Wa was the earliest written name of Japan, and the first graphic pejorative to be replaced by another character. Han dynasty (206 BCE – 24 CE) scribes initially wrote the exonym "Japan" as 倭 (Japanese Wa, modern Mandarin Wō), meaning "submissive, dwarf". The Japanese adopted this kanji as their autonym, but replaced it with 和 Wa "harmony; peace" circa 756, and convinced the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) Chinese to adopt the new autonym, 日本 (Japanese Nihon, modern Mandarin Rìběn), literally "root of the sun".
The American sinologist Herrlee Glessner Creel said some early exonyms "may have been given by the Chinese as terms of contempt—this is hard to determine—but it is unlikely that all of them were". Pejorative Chinese characters, especially semantically negative ones replaced with semantically positive characters, unmistakably determine ethnic contempt.
Despite Creel's warning about the complications of determining which early Chinese exonyms were derogatory, the first character dictionary, Xu Shen's (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi說文解字 provides invaluable data about Han dynasty usage. Take for example, definitions of the "Siyi" "Four Barbarians" surrounding ancient China – the Dongyi, Nanman, Xirong, and Beidi – where two are defined militarily and two bestially. Yi 夷: "平也. 從大從弓. 東方之人也." "Level; flat. From 大 'big (person)' and 弓 'bow' radicals. Eastern people." (11/20) Man 蠻: "南蠻, 蛇穜. 從虫䜌聲." "Southern Man, a snake species. From 虫 'insect' radical and 䜌 luán phonetic." (14/5) Rong 戎: "兵也. 從戈從甲." "Weapons, warfare. From 戈 'dagger axe; halberd' and 甲 'helmet' radicals." (13/21) Di 狄: "赤狄, 本犬種. 狄之為言淫辟也. 從犬,亦省聲." "Red Di, originally a dog species. Calling the Di dogs refers to licentiousness and depravity. From 犬 'dog' radical, which is also phonetic." (11/8)
While graphic pejoratives appear to have originated in the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE), they continued to be used into the Qing dynasty (1644–1912 CE). The anti-Manchu revolutionary Zhang Binglin (1868–1936) blended traditional Chinese imagery with fashionable Western racial theory; Dikötter quoted Zhang's writing on the topic such as "Barbarian tribes, unlike the civilized yellow and white races, were the biological descendants of lower species: the Di had been generated by dogs, and the Jiang could trace their ancestry back to sheep." Historian John K. Fairbank says this type of imagery was not officially endorsed by the central authorities in China at that time: in fact the kǎozhèng movement of the Qing scholars (consisting of "Song Learning" and "Han Learning") as supported by the government was opposed to this to the point that out of some 2,320 resultingly suppressed works many were banned for having a perceived critical, "antibarbarian tone".
During the Chinese Civil War, both sides arrived at the conclusion that modern China should be a unitary state with some recognition of minority nationalities; this was related to the fact that at that time both sides of the conflict were looking for allies and attempted to mobilize and win to their cause various minority groups. As such, both groups started to introduce new regulations and reforms related to replacing old, derogatory terms with new ones. This begun with the Nationalist language reform in 1939 and was eventually taken up and continued by the communist authorities. Many revised names that became the modern names for the non-Chinese peoples were proposed by the Chinese anthropologist (pinyin: Ruì Yìfū). Ruey's pioneering work also traced the origins of such names, noting that early on, they were related to superstitions linking barbarian and animal lifestyles, with claims such that these people supposedly speak and/or live like animals; and later were transformed into prejudicial stereotypes about the innate character of these people.
During World War II, some Japanese propaganda in Chinese used graphic pejoratives, proposing new spellings of words such as America or England, written with the same dog (quan) qualifier as used for by Chinese language for various historical groups of barbarians.
Fiskesjö suggests that while the language has changed, conceptually, connection of concept of barbarians/minorities to primitive life style and wild nature still persists in modern China, and is reinforced and exploited by the tourist industry.
Examples Although most characters for modern ethnic groups have been bowdlerized, some historical terms, such as 狄 Dí "northern barbarians", remain in written Chinese.
Dog radical As described above, the "dog", "beast", or "quadruped" radical 犭 is especially common among graphic pejoratives for Chinese exonyms. The Dutch sinologist Robert van Gulik describes this practice as "the unkind Chinese habit of writing the names of the 'barbarians' surrounding their territory with the classifier 'quadruped. The German anthropologist explains that calling outsiders "wild beasts, jackals, and wolves" linguistically justified using brutality against them.