yī

By Luo Yi, Zou Xinsheng

yī

By Luo Yi, Zou Xinsheng

伊

The Chinese character 伊 (yī) sounds like the letter E in English. Originally,this character had something to do with people. To find out the original meaning of 伊, we need to have a look at how it was written in Jiaguwen (1700 B.C. – 1100 B.C., inscriptions on animal bones and tortoise shells and considered one of the oldest written languages in the world).

The character伊 originated from a similar Chinese character尹 .尹 in its Jiaguwen form seems like a high official holding a scepter tightly, which is the original meaning of the character 尹 . Later the usage of 尹 was extended.Over time, it lost its original meaning of “a high official holding a scepter,” and was mostly used as a surname instead. Then a new character was created by adding the component 人 to 尹 and thus the character伊 came into being. From 伊in its Jiaguwen form, we can tell that this word originally referred to respectable people with great power, symbolized by the scepter.

After伊 was created, it was used mostly in spoken language, functioning as an auxiliary word of tone or as a demonstrative. The few times it was used in writing, it served the same grammatical function. For example, in Book of Poetry (《 诗 经 》770-476B.C., the earliest collection of poems in China, compiled in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period), 伊 was used 43 times either as an auxiliary word of tone or as a demonstrative. Some verses in Book of Poetry that use this character are well-known to us, such as “The reeds and the rushes grow green;the dew is changed to rime. That person of whom I think, is on the water somewhere...”(蒹葭苍苍，白露为霜。所谓伊人，在水一方。)

As the Chinese language was developing, 伊began to be used popularly as the 3rd person pronoun following the Wei, Jin, and Northernamp; Southern Dynasties (220-589). It also shifted from use in spoken language to use in written language. 伊 was frequently used in poems at that time. When used in the spoken language, it was confined only to a few dialects in eastern China in places like Shanghai, Jiaxing,Shaoxing, etc.

伊’s usage kept developing as time went by. During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the word broadened to include 1st and 2nd person, while still holding onto its function as a 3rd person pronoun.In some poems, we find伊 functioning as a 3rd person pronoun, such as in the famous lines by the poet Liu Yong (984-1053) “My clothes hang loose on my emaciated body. But regrets I have none,it is because of her” (衣带渐宽终不悔，为伊消得人憔悴); while in others, 伊serves as a 1st person pronoun, such as in another line by the same poet: “That person did promise me last night that he would be together with me forever”(那人人，昨夜分明，许伊偕老). Still in others,伊 serves as a 2nd pronoun, such as the line “My parents are getting old, and I do hope you could take good care of them”(我年老爹娘，望伊家看承) by the poet Gao Ming (1305-1371).

Gradually,伊 was confined to be a 3rd person pronoun again. This usage gained a lot of popularity and most of the time it referred to women. This was true until,during the time of the Republic of China(1912-1949), 伊 was replaced by 他 (tā,he) and 她 (tā, she) as the 3rd pronoun in Chinese. Now 伊 is seldom used by people in spoken or written language, except in a few dialects in eastern China or in some female names, for with its historical association with so many romantic poems in the history of China, the character 伊,whenever mentioned, still brings people pleasant feelings. ♦