On Mì ‘Honey’ (說 “蜜”)

Abstract

It has been known for nearly 100 years (since Polivanov 1916) that the Chinese word for ‘honey’ is most likely to be of Indo-European origin (probably via Tocharian B):Chin. mi 【蜜】 ‘honey’ MC mjit OC * mit (Baxter and Sagart 2014)Toch. B mit ‘honey’ m’ət - PIE * medhu -.The Chinese word can also be compared with Skt. madhu , Gr. μeθυ (methu)/μeθη (methē) , OCS . medŭ , Lith. midus/medus , OE . meodu , OHG . metu , Ger. met , and Eng. mead . The present article will focus on mi ‘honey’ and fēng 蠭 ‘bee’ in ancient Chinese books and unearthed texts. It is deduced that honey was probably introduced into China before the 1 st millennium B.C .“蜜”[mi ‘honey’ MC mjit OC * mit ] （Baxter and Sagart 2014）是極少數有確切證據源于印歐語的漢語外來詞，它可能即源自吐火羅語B（即龜茲語）的 mit 。一個世紀以前，俄國語言學家Polivanov（1916）已撰文證明“蜜”可追溯到原始印歐語*medhu。這個詞還可與梵語madhu（蜜，蜂蜜酒）、希臘語μeθυ（methu，葡萄酒）/μeθη（methē，烈性酒）、古教堂斯拉夫語medŭ（蜜）、立陶宛語midus/medus（蜜）、古英語meodu（蜂蜜酒）、古高地德語metu（蜂蜜酒）、德語met（蜂蜜酒）、英語mead（蜂蜜酒）比較。 1  本文重新檢討古典文獻及出土文獻中所見的“蜜”字和“蠭”字，推測蜂蜜很可能在西元前一千年之前已傳入中國。(This article is in Chinese.)