Laurent Sagart
According to the Han dynasty dictionary "Shuowen Jiezi", the Qiang were shepherds, and the Chinese character for Qiang () was thus formed from the characters for "sheep" (羊) and "man" (人), and pronounced like "sheep". "Fengsu Tongyi" also mentions that character of Qiang was formed from the words "sheep" and "man". Modern scholars have attempted to reconstruct the ancient pronunciation of Qiang: sinologist Edwin Pulleyblank reconstructs it to *kʰiaŋ in Middle Chinese, while William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart reconstruct the Old Chinese name of Qiang as *C.qʰaŋ.