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Analysis and history of 罵

❇
罵
罵倒する batōsuru scold; revile
罵倒メール batōmēru flame email
罵る nonoshiru to curse at

The earliest known meaning for the word 罵 is to scold.¹ The element on top is net 罒/网. 馬 is horse and lends its sound. Some scholars theorize that the phonetic 馬 suggests meaning in addition to sound. Some suggest a horse charging forward without regard with the signifc net 罒/网 representing the idea of covering or entangling an opponent.² Others propose that the phonetic 馬 expresses the meaning anger³ and create an image of uttering angry words and surrounding (someone) with them.⁴ Other scholars think that net 罒/网 suggests to catch or be caught but do not attach additional meaning to the phonetic.⁵

Mnemonic: scold at the horse that escapes the net

The layout of the box above follows the style of an entry in Henshall’s 1988 book.⁶
1. Schuessler, 2007. p. 373, meaning taken from 左傳 (Zuǒzhuàn) [ca. 300 BCE].
2. Tōdō et al., p. 1264. Tōdō et al. do not clarify how they came to know the additional meaning of “horse” 馬 (or “net” 罒/网 for that matter).
3. Katō (p. 423-424).
4. Katō (ibid.) connects his analyses to the expression 罵詈 “to insult and curse”. Note that both characters that are used to write this expression have the “net” signifc 罒/网.
5. Outlier, accessed 22 November 2024. It has in full: “to catch or be caught (like criminals, prisoners, etc.)” (my emphasis). I’m curious if there was a practice to catch criminals with a net, or keep prisoners in a net, in ancient China. Intuitively it seems implausible to me. They reference Lǐ et al., p. 686, but that page to does not have this claim. Perhaps the compilers of Outlier used some other source. Outlier does not suggest that 馬 lends additional meaning besides its sound.
6. Henshall’s book doesn’t have an entry on 罵.

Verbose explanation and references

There are no oracle bone inscriptions or bronze inscriptions of 罵. The oldest usage is in the writing 左傳 (Zuǒzhuàn) which dates to ca. 300 BCE, for which Shuessler has the meaning “to schold”.¹

罵 has the straightforward form of a phonogram: signific “net” 罒/网 on top, and 馬 as phonetic on the bottom. Here is a list of characters that are categorized by the signific “net” 罒/网.²

Literal meaning of a net:

Figurative meaning of casting a net

Figurative meaning of envelop or catch;

The Outlier team agrees with Lǐ et al. that 馬 only acts as phonetic, lending only its sound. However, certain Japanese scholars like to discover that a phonetic does more work than simply hinting at the pronunciation. With regard to 罵 both Katō and Tōdō et al. have something to say about an additional meaning that 馬 expresses besides its pronunciation.

There are two obvious reasons why a phonetic might express more than just sound.

(1) The first reason has to do with how a lot of complex characters were created. It happens when the original graph (the “protoform”) for a word gets loaned to write another unrelated word with the same pronunciation. Often the original graph subsequently gets reinforced in its meaning or simply marked (differentiated) from the loaned graph by adding a signific or some other element.

A classical example is “winnowing basket”, originally written 其. The graph was loaned to write a grammatical word (a “modal particle”). Subsequently 其 was used as phonetic in a new character 箕, which adds the signific “bamboo” to write the original word “winnowing basket”. However, 其 already expressed the meaning “winnowing basket” through its pictographic form. So, 其 lends both sound and meaning.

(2) The second reason is when one word is derived from another word. Since the words are related and have similar pronunciations using the graphs of these words as signific or phonetic in a phonogram will create components that express both meaning and sound.

An example that I took randomly from Schuessler is the word xiàng “look at, inspect” written with the graph 相, and the “endoactive” form of that word xiǎng written with the graph 想.

The phonetic 相 in 想 now obviously expresses its original meaning in addition to sound.⁴.

A component that expresses both sound and meaning is called 亦聲 (literally “also sound”). The compound as a whole can be categorized as 會意兼形聲 (meaning “both semantic compound and phonogram”).

While many instances of 亦聲 are really clear, there are also many instances that are ambiguous because the phonetic in the graph is not the protoform (type one), and the words in question are seemingly not part of a word family (not linguistically related) (type two).

In the instance of 罵, Tōdō et al. categorize it as 會意兼形聲 (a graph that is “both semantic compound and phonogram”). They write that 馬 expresses the meaning “a horse charging forward without regard”. Unfortunately they don’t explain how 馬 expresses that meaning. Is it because of its pictographic form (a representation of a horse)? Or is there some idiom attached to the word “horse” that brings this image to one’s mind? It’s not clear to me.

Katō categorizes 罵 as a phonogram, but insists that the pronunciation of the phonetic expresses a relevant meaning even though the words involved are not related. The words “horse” and “to scold” are unrelated. But according to Katō the sound of 馬 expresses “anger”. How does Katō know that? Because Xǔ Shèn glosses 馬 with “anger”.⁵ Well, actually with “anger” and “strength”.⁶ but Katō conveniently leaves out the second part of the gloss.⁷

I’m doubtful that Xǔ Shèn’s intention with the gloss allows for the way that Katō uses it. But I’m not the expert here.

In any case, Katō complicates his analysis by bringing up the compound word 罵詈 “to insult and curse”⁸ but defines it as “uttering angry words ”. Combining this with the meaning of the signific he creates for 罵 the image “uttering angry words and surrounding (someone) with them”.

This “method” of analyzing a graph looks like a kind of magic.

Notes

1. Schuessler, 2007, p. 373.
2. The list is from Outlier, accessed 24 November 2024. It didn't include 詈. The ordering and comments are mine.
3. Meanings for 詈 from Kroll’s A student’s dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese.
4. Schuessler, 2007, p. 531.
5. While it may seem strange that Xǔ Shèn glosses a character that clearly was created to write the word “horse” with “anger” and “strength” it is important to keep in mind that Xǔ Shèn’s book is not a regular dictionary, but “a dictionary of graphic etymology” and “provides only meanings that are relevant to the explanation of the graphs used to write words” (Bottéro & Harbsmeier, 2008, p. 249)
6. 怒也。武也。
7. Katō, p. 423-424.
8. MoEDict, accessed 24 November 2024.

References

First published: Friday 11 November 2016
Nearly complete rewrite: 25 November 2024

CC BY-SA 4.0

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