Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
From: liuyh@vis.toronto.edu (Yuanhui Liu)
Subject: Re: How Turkic are the "Uygurs" (Was Re: Russian in Xinjiang)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Distribution: na
Date: 15 Dec 92 22:42:43 GMT

In article <42565@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> chen@cs.ucsd.edu (Jim Ron Chen) writes:
>liuyh@vis.toronto.edu (Yuanhui Liu) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Dec14.225235.18907@news.acns.nwu.edu> carl_@nwu.edu  writes:
>>>In article <92Dec14.161558est.114@orasis.vis.toronto.edu> liuyh@vis.toronto.edu  
>>>(Yuanhui Liu) writes:
>>>> hmmm, I don't know.  when early Manchurians took over Northern China
>>>> from Song Dynasty and founded the Jin, their written language was
>>>> very close to written Chinese, although the meaning of the words
>>>> are lost today, and very few expert can figure out a couple of characters.
>>>> 
>>>> then again, same thing happened to the Tibetan-related Western Xia Kingdom
>>>> during that period.   To modern day Chinese, words from those two 
>>>> lost written language looks exactly like Chinese, but they are just
>>>> not recognizable.   
>>>
>
>According to Britannica, Liao (QiDan), a subtribe of Mongol, did not have

Liao(QiDan) is probably mongoloid, but to say it's a "subtribe" of Mongol
is kind of pushing it.  We know the mongolian founded the great khanates
and Yuan dynasty are really originate from MengGu branch of "Shi4Wei3",
Shi4Wei3 was cited in Tang Dynasty records, they are north-east of
today's mongolia, and wasn't bothering anyone then, while QiDan and
others were already pretty advanced roaming around bugging & raiding
everybody.  

>their own written language but they devised a written system for their 
>own to retain their own tribal rites. This happend when they set up a 
>southern government for the Chinese part of their territoty, modelled 
>after the Tang system, and adopted a Chinese dynasty name Liao.
>
>Jin, originally a subject of Liao and ancestor of Qin, on the other hand,
>did have their own alphabets.

the Manchurians do have their own script, but the ruler of Jin also
used chinese style square letters, which meanings were long lost,
guess it wasn't very popular then, likewise they also adopted chinese
style government in conquered territories, and Emperor's Miao4 Hao4
is definitely chinese style.  
>
>>>I think Western Xia kingdom is a Khitan kingdom and Khitan is more Mongolian  
>>>than Tibetan.
>>>
>>Liao was the QiDan Kingdom, after it got wiped by the Manchurians, the 
>>remanants marched west and founded western Liao, while Western Xia is
>>separate Kingdom, it lasted until the mongolians destoried in 1227.
>
>>I am not too sure about the origin of Western Xia, it's royal blood
>>line probably related to Tibetans, but not closely related, and the
>>royal family had adopted the last name "liu".
>
>Again from Britannica, Western Xia is a kindom of the Tibetan-speaking 
>Tangut tribes (which does not say if they are ethnically Tibetans 
>or not).  The name Xia is no coincidence - a new leader Li Yuan-Hao
>named his dynasty after the ancient Xia and changed his own name to
>Chao - that of the Sung royal family, in an attempt to conquer China.
>The "western" part was added by the then Chinese to distinguish the two.
>They also adopted a new writing system for their own people, as
>Yuanhui Liu stated.  Xia is a buddhism state, which I think is not
>quite the same as Tibetan Buddhism.

of course, Tibetan buddhism only got started around then.