Chinese
5 min readChinese, as a language, belongs to the Chinese subgroup of the Sino-Tibetan family.
The Chinese script was the earliest script that was found in the Western Regions. Despite the vicissitudes in languages in the Western Regions throughout its history, Chinese was present almost all the time.
In the 21d century BC, Zhang Qian was sent by the Han Dynasty as an envoy to the Western Regions, which began the history of the Chinese language in that region. In 60 BC(the 2d year of Shenjue reign), the Han government set up Office of Protector of Western Regions; as a result,”decrees of Han reached the Western Regions”, and Chinese becam the official spoken and written language among states in that region. According to the chapter on the Western Regions in Book of Han,”the total number of such states was fifty.
and from the director of translation, director of the city, jun, jian, li, dalu, baizhang to noble and king, all wore seals and ribbons issued by the Han government”. This was the official record of the acceptance of Han rule by states in the Western Regions and the installation of directors of translation to ensure the use of Chinese. Numerous discovered materials provided further evidence for the use of Chinese in all aspects. The use of Chinese script in local governments, military strongholds and commercial goods was exemplified by the”Seal of Guiyi(Allegiance) Qiang in the Han Dynasty”discovered in the old city of Yushgeti in Xayar County, over 70 slips recording the agricultural activities of the military discovered in the site of Tuyin on the northern bank of Lop Nur, and brocade found in the Eastern Han tomb at Niya, with Chinese characters reading “longevity and good luck to posterity”on it. There was another piece discovered in Niya, which was probably a wood slip for presenting gifts, with Chinese words of “Xiuwusongye wishes to pay regards through this jade”on the front and “held by Xiaodazi Jiujian”on the back aswell as “Madame Qiemo”on it, showing the penetration of Chinese into the life of average local residents there.
After the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties, Chinese was still prevalent in the Western Regions. In Gaochang region (today’s Turpan), the Han people was a major ethnicgroup and hence the consistent dominant role of Chinese in local language system. Even after the Uighur began their rule there in the 91h century, Chinese still remained important.
Chinese-Uighur/Huihu bilingual tablet inscriptions of that period were found in that area, such as the Memorial at the Tudumsari Temple of Gaochang, Memorial to Gaochang Idikut, Loyakadlurhachi Memorial, and Ulanhom Memorial. Other such bilingual data included Shanbin’s enslavement indenture dated the 13th or 14th century and remarks about the patron in Cave No.9 of Bezklik grottoes.
From the Han to Wei and Jin Dynasties, Shanshan region(today’s Ruoqiang) was the seat of the Senior Official of Western Regions. Chinese was the main language in Loulan,a city in this region. From here a lot of Chinese-script slips were found, which recorded local military, political, economic, cultural, criminal law and social developments. This is also where the famous Li Bai Documents were found, Li was a Senior Official of the Western Regions in the Former Liang Dynasty. Other places in Shanshan region also saw the excavation of many Chinese slips and textiles with such Chinese words as “ForeverHappiness and Brightness”and “Longevity”on them. In 1987, Chinese texts of the Yuan Dynasty were discovered here, which testified to the prolonged use of Chinese in the region.
Yutian region (today’s Khotan) used Kharosthi-script Gandhara from the late 2d century to the 4th century AD, and shifted to Yutian Sakic between the 5th and 1oth centuries. Tubo language was in vogue from the late 91h century to the 101h century.
However, despite all the changes, Chinese remained in wide use, which was proved true by a huge number of discovered materials, including Chinese texts, Chinese-and Kharosthi-denominated coins, Chinese-Yutian bilingual texts and Tubo-script documents of the same period.
A number of people who translated Buddhist Sutras into Chinese lived in Qiuci area(today’s Kuqa) since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, whose magnificent comprehension and appreciation of the Chinese language represented the highest level in that area. At Qiuci grottoes, there were many Chinese inscriptions of the Tang Dynasty and number of years recorded in the Ten Celestial Stems and Twelve Branches system, including one about 100 years after the retreat of the Tang government from the Western Regions, which was theyear of Dingwei(the 3″d year of Guangqi reign, or 887 AD). In Kumutura caves, there were inscriptions written in three languages, Chinese, Qiuci and Uighur/Huihu, which proved that Chinese script was still in use even under the Uighur reign.
The use and development of Chinese in the Western Regions was made possible by the promotion efforts of the united or centralized regime in China after the Han Dynasty. The unification of the Western Regions by the Tang Dynasty provided a strong boost to the useof Chinese, making it not only an official language of local governments at all levels but also a tool of communication among the public. Ethnically Khitan, the Western Liao Dynasty was deeply Han-ized, as it was profoundly influenced by the Han people. It made big efforts to promote the Chinese language in the Western Regions, which led to its spread to wider areas. During the Yuan Dynasty, the Western Regions saw many famous scholarswell-versed in Chinese, such as Chopasari from Beshbalik, who was said to be “good at many foreign languages, including Chinese”, and Sheng Ximing from Quxian(today’s Kuqa),who wrote a book(Study on Calligraphy) on Chinese calligraphy as well as the Phags-pascript and Sanskrit. The Ming government had comparatively fewer connections with the Western Regions, yet it did once have Hami under its control and issued Chinese-scriptseals to the Wala tribe. After the Qing government unified the Western Regions, Chinese became the official language together with Manchu language, and was extensively used among the ordinary people. Since modern times, Chinese has always been a significant lingua franca among all ethnic groups in Xinjiang no matter they have their own languages or not. Since the People’s Republic was founded in China, while paying attention to minority languages, the government has also worked vigorously to improve the Chinese language education, hence considerable development of Chinese in Xinjiang.
In short, over the past 2000-plus years since it first arrived in Xinjiang in the 2nd century BC, Chinese has remained in uninterrupted use there in spite of changes in prevalence scope and degree at different times. It is the only language that has seen through the history of Xin jiang since recorded history began there.
