Miscellanea III. The Everlasting Sound of the Partridge (千古鹧鸪声)

My previous notes seemed a bit too obscure and baffling, so this time I will attempt to write about something more relatable. The cry of the partridge (Francolinus pintadeanus) has always been a favorite topic among the literati. Besides the widely popular interpretation "Xing bu de ye ge ge" (Brother, you must not go), there is another version known as "Ao nao ze jia" (Vexed by the in-laws). Wei Zhuang wrote in a poem: "The people of Qin only understand it as a song title, while the girls of Yue weave it into their robes in vain. 'Vexed by the in-laws' harbors no true hatred; year after year, it longs to return to the Phoenix City." Huang Shan'gu (Huang Tingjian) also wrote: "The True Man dreams of leaving the Great Locust Palace, washing the vast skies of Cangwu clean for ten thousand miles. All day long, worrying that his brother cannot travel, the partridge must surely be the Lord of Biting."

Additional Notes:

• "Xing bu de ye ge ge" (行不得也哥哥): The most classic onomatopoeic interpretation of the partridge's call. It implies advising someone to stay and is often used to express the hardships of travel or the longing of a wife for her husband's return.
• "Ao nao ze jia" (懊恼泽家): Another onomatopoeic interpretation of the partridge's call, popular in the Wu and Yue regions. The Song Dynasty text Nanbu Xinshu records: "The partridge; Southerners call it 'Ao nao ze jia'." It means being vexed by the suffering caused by one's husband's family (Ze Jia), filled with hidden resentment.
• Wei Zhuang's Poem: From Wei Zhuang's The Partridge. The poem contrasts the people of Qin (Northerners), who only know "The Partridge" as the name of a musical tune, with the girls of Yue (Southerners), who embroider partridges on their clothes and understand the mournful cry of "Ao nao ze jia."
• Huang Shangu's Poem and the "Lord of Biting" (庳亭公): From Huang Tingjian's (styled Shangu Daoren) Listening to Lord Chongde Playing the Zither. This cites a legend from Yiyuan: The Lord of Biting, a minister of Chu, turned into a partridge after death. Because he constantly worried about his older brother being banished to the south during his lifetime, his cry sounds like "Brother, you must not go."

Regarding this distinction, the Song Dynasty text Yushutang Shihua states: "The partridge, its voice is ge-zhe (harsh and fragmented), yet listenable. Commoners imagine its sound; likely because dialects differ, their chants and songs vary accordingly." Attributing this to dialectal differences, however, seems inappropriate to me. Explaining it from the perspective of historical phonology: "Xing" (travel) had an ancient pronunciation similar to "Hang." In Old Chinese, the modern "h" sound was almost silent, or arguably close to a null initial /ʔ/, making it sound like "Ang." Meanwhile, the "i" sound before "Ao" and "Nao," when read continuously as a nasal, also resembles "Ang." As for the "Ze" sound, according to the principle "Ancient Chinese had no supradental sounds" (Gu Wu She Shang Yin), its pronunciation was similar to "De" (get/obtain). As for "Ge" (brother) and "Jia" (family/home), my current knowledge seems insufficient to explain them fully, and I lack reference books at hand; however, these two characters belonged to the same rhyme group in ancient rhyme books, so their readings should have been similar. Nevertheless, problems remain; for instance, my impression is that the silent "h" might be a feature of Middle Chinese, and whether Tang Dynasty pronunciation falls into this category or retains this rule remains questionable. Both interpretations of the partridge's cry appear in Tang poetry, so it is not necessarily due to phonetic similarities.

Additional Notes:

• "Yushutang Shihua" (《娱书堂诗话》): The original manuscript might have mistakenly written "Yuletang"; it should be Yushutang Shihua by Zhao Yuyan of the Song Dynasty. The second volume indeed contains discussions on the "ge-zhe" sound of the partridge and dialectal differences.
• Ge-zhe (格磔): An onomatopoeic term describing bird calls (mostly the partridge) as raspy, like sawing wood, sounding fragmented and piercing.
• "Xing" anciently pronounced like "Hang": "Xing" belongs to the Box Initial (/ɣ/ or /h/) in the Guangyun rhyme dictionary. In the colloquial readings of Southern dialects like Wu Chinese, the Box Initial often drops or weakens, making the pronunciation indeed close to "Ang."
• Null Initial /ʔ/: The Glottal Stop. The author believes that in Old Chinese, the weakening of "h" (Box or Dawn Initials) led to this sound, causing a loss of the audible initial consonant, leaving only the vowel part of the rhyme.
• "Ancient Chinese had no supradental sounds": A famous theory proposed by the Qing Dynasty phonologist Qian Daxin. It states that in Old Chinese, the supradental series (Zhi, Che, Cheng) did not exist and were pronounced as the alveolar stop series (Duan, Tou, Ding). Therefore, "Ze" (Middle Chinese Cheng Initial, supradental) would have sounded close to "De" (Duan Initial, alveolar) in Old Chinese and some conservative dialects. This explains why "Ze Jia" sounded like "De Ge."
• "Ge" and "Jia" in the same rhyme: In Guangyun, "Ge" is in the Ge rhyme and "Jia" is in the Ma rhyme. However, in Old Chinese (Ge group) and subsequent phonetic evolution, the relationship between the Ge and Ma rhymes was extremely close. In many dialects (such as Cantonese and Hakka), the main vowels of the two are very similar, making them easily confused in auditory perception.

Another reasonable hypothesis is "forced interpretation." I do not know if Tang people actually heard the partridge's cry as those two phrases, but at least to my ears, it sounds like neither. Judging by Yushutang Shihua, it did not sound like them back then either. Thus, the use of these phrases in Tang poetry might be, firstly, an adoption of even more ancient sayings. Alternatively, it could be a process of "rationalization and semantic attribution" based on a vague phonetic resemblance—essentially "forced interpretation," or what is known in internet slang as "Soramimi." A key criterion for "Soramimi" lies not in perfect phonetic identity, but in whether the "transliterated" meaning is coherent and logical. The two reconstructions of the partridge's cry likely contain elements of "Soramimi."

Additional Notes:

• Soramimi (空耳): Derived from the Japanese "sora-mimi," originally meaning auditory hallucination. In modern internet culture, it refers to deliberately mishearing lyrics or speech in one language as a sentence in another language (usually one's native tongue) with a completely different, often absurd or humorous meaning. Here, the author borrows this concept to describe how ancients forced a semantic meaning consistent with human emotional logic (like "You must not go") onto the meaningless syllables of a bird's call.

I have composed a poem to conclude my writing for today:

Vexed by the in-laws, a mournful plea, Yet sighing for the brother, "Do not flee." Though logic claims to know the self, ‘Tis but a "Soramimi" of sentimentality. Crying in the evening rain by the Bamboo Temple,① Mourning the ruined grave by the Miluo River.② Because it is tied to the poet's will, It sings the ancient sounds, yong-yong.

① and ② are both allusions related to the partridge.

Additional Notes:

• Crying in the evening rain by the Bamboo Temple: An allusion. Tang poet Liu Yuxi's Lyrics to the Stamping Song: "Singing new lyrics until joy is unseen, the partridge cries as red clouds reflect on the trees." And Zheng Gu's The Partridge: "Passing by the grassy lake in the dim rain, crying inside the Temple of Yellow Emperor's Wives as flowers fall." The Huangling Temple (Temple of Yellow Emperor's Wives) is dedicated to Ehuang and Nüying; it is surrounded by bamboo (mottled bamboo) and is often associated with the mournful cry of the partridge.
• Mourning the ruined grave by the Miluo River: The Miluo River is where Qu Yuan drowned himself. Partridges are native to the southern Chu region, and ancients often used the partridge's cry to lament the past and grieve for the present, mourning the loyal soul of Qu Yuan.
• Yong-yong (嗈嗈): An onomatopoeic term describing the harmonious or mournful sound of birds. From the Book of Songs, Odes of Bei: "The wild geese cry yong-yong." Here, it is transferred to the partridge to describe its cry as ancient and distant.