What is the relationship between loquat and pipa? Why do you pronounce it the same?

Loquat and pipa have the same pronunciation, but they are two completely different things, one is fruit and the other is musical instrument. So is there a reference relationship between the two in naming? Historically, loquat appeared earlier than pipa, so if there is any reference, it is the latter that draws on the former. However, their shapes do not seem to be similar. Why does pipa borrow the pronunciation of loquat? In fact, this is a complete misunderstanding. Let's reveal the true relationship between loquat and pipa and the story of the name of pipa. Come and have a look.

Every year in May of the solar calendar, it is the day when Jiangnan loquat goes on the market. I'm from the north. I didn't eat loquat when I was a child. When I eat it when I am older, frankly speaking, I think it's just so much-although it's a little cold and sweet, on the one hand, I have to peel off the skin, on the other hand, I have to spit out the huge core, and the pulp is thin, and the taste inside is still hard and uncomfortable. However, during the short-term listing of loquat, it is really an interesting and interesting experience to taste this southern fruit.

Speaking of the name of loquat, there are two old jokes in Jiangnan. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, a "floating white vegetarian" compiled a joke collection called Ya Jie, in which it was recorded that a man named Mo visited Yuan Lushan, a celebrity, and happened to meet a countryman who offered loquat fruit. Unexpectedly, the loquat was mistakenly written as the instrument name "Pipa" on the confession list, and the two of them laughed. At this time, another county magistrate (said to be the order to kill dragons in Qingpu) visited. When I saw the two smiling, I asked what was going on. Yuan Lvshan told me what had just happened. The county magistrate then casually recited two doggerel sentences: "Pipa is not this loquat, just because I didn't know much about it." Mo Hanting immediately replied, "If the pipa can blossom and bear fruit, the flutes in all cities will blossom." The county magistrate repeatedly praised and praised Mo's quick wits, so he became friends with him.

Chu Renhuo, a writer in the early Qing Dynasty, also wrote in the first episode of Jian Xuan: Shen Zhou, a painter of the Ming Dynasty, was given a box with the words "Pipa" written on the outside. Shen Zhou opened it, but it was a loquat, so he quipped in the thank-you letter: "Thank you for the pipa. Open it and listen silently. It tastes delicious. I know that Sima shed tears in Jianggan and wrote complaints about traffic jams, all of which are needed. " Translated into modern Chinese, it means: "Thank you for giving me the pipa. When I opened the box, it sounded quiet, but it tasted good. When Bai Juyi was demoted to Jiangzhou Sima, he shed tears for pipa. After Wang Zhaojun married Saibei, he used pipa to express his resentment. It turned out that he wanted to take a bite. "

Loquat and pipa, two homonyms, are similar in shape, and both use the sound symbols of "Bi" and "Ba", which naturally makes people wonder whether they are homologous. The traditional view in the field of materia medica is that pipa comes first; There is a loquat in the back, named after its leaves are shaped like pipa. Putting the leaves of today's musical instrument pipa and loquat together, we can really see that their shapes are similar, so this view seems very reasonable. However, if you carefully research, you will find that this is not the case.

In the ancient books handed down, "loquat" appeared earlier than "pipa". There is a phrase "Loquat and Persimmon" in Sima Xiangru's "Shanglin Fu", which is the earliest record of loquat as a plant name. According to textual research, Shanglin Fu was finalized in the first year of Yuan Guang (BC 134), when Zhang Qian had just started to communicate with the western regions. It was not until Liu Xi wrote Ming Shi in the Eastern Han Dynasty that the earliest record of pipa appeared. But this work is not the word "pipa", but the word "loquat" next to the wooden character: "Loquat was born in Hu and immediately played drums. When you push your hand, you say loquat. When you pull your hand, you say loquat, just like playing drums, because you think it is famous. " It can be seen that the name of loquat is by no means derived from the name of pipa. The musical instrument pipa borrowed the name "loquat" at first, and later created the word "pipa" specially for it.

So, loquat is named not because its leaves are like pipa, but because it is shaped like loquat leaves? This is still not the case. In the field of music history, the history of pipa is studied in great detail, and it is found that "Pipa" is actually a general term for ancient vertical plucked instruments in China, which can be divided into three categories: Qin Pipa, Han Pipa and Quxiang Pipa. The original name of Qin Pipa is Tao, which is a rattle. Qi Xian is a simple musical instrument tied with strings on a fiddle similar to a rattle, which is the predecessor of the three strings in later generations.

There are two theories about the origin of Chinese pipa. Liu Xi's explanation of names in the Eastern Han Dynasty means that names are musical instruments imported from Huzhong (the Western Regions). Liu Xi also believes that this instrument is called "Loquat" because its two main playing techniques are called "Loquat" and "Loquat" respectively. Fu Xuan, a writer in Wei and Jin Dynasties, wrote in the Preface to Pipa Fu: "Han sent Princess Wusun to marry Kunmi, and read her thoughts on the way, so that she could cut the piano, Zheng, floor and grace, and she was happy at once. Judging from the dialect, it is a cloud pipa, which is easy to spread abroad. " That is to say, in the sixth year of Yuanfeng in the Western Han Dynasty (BC 105), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty made his granddaughter Liu Xijun a princess and married the king of Wusunguo in the western regions. Before leaving, he asked the musicians to refer to four musical instruments, such as Qin and Zheng, and specially made a new musical instrument suitable for her to play while riding, and named it "Pipa" in dialect (western languages).

The right and wrong of these two statements has been debated in the music history circle. In my opinion, the biggest possibility is that Liu Xi and Fu Xuan are half right. As Liu Xi said, China's pipa should be an instrument imported from the western regions. It's hard to imagine that musicians in China can make a brand-new musical instrument by mixing four instruments totally different from the pipa in a short time, and the shape of this instrument is particularly similar to the "Barbat Qin" (Persian Barbat) in the Western Regions and even in West Asia. But as Fu Xuan said, the name of "Pipa" should also be a transliteration of western language, not a combination of two playing techniques. In fact, many scholars now believe that "pipa" is a transliteration of the word barbat; Because its pronunciation is just similar to the ready-made word "loquat" in Chinese, people called it "loquat" from the beginning. It's like "neon" in "neon" is a transliteration of neon, and "neon" happens to be a ready-made vocabulary in Chinese.

Pipa in Han Dynasty is the predecessor of Ruan (Ruan Xian). Its characteristic is that the disc is straight (the sound box is round) (the handle above the sound box is straight without bending). If Wang Zhaojun can really play the pipa, then she plays this kind of Chinese pipa similar to Ruan. Obviously, this shape is nothing like loquat leaves. Influenced by the name "Pipa", the musical instrument originally named "Xiannai" originated in China is also called "Qinpipa". Until the Western Jin Dynasty, there was another variety of Bajiaoqin from the Western Regions-Quxiang Pipa, whose sounding box was pear-shaped and its handle was bent, which was later called "Pipa". This is the kind of pipa Bai Juyi listened to when he was demoted.

Now we can briefly summarize the above contents: "loquat" was recorded as early as the early years of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Although the etymology of this name is unknown, considering its origin in today's Sichuan area, it may be speculated that it is a word from southwest China. After the introduction of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty into the Western Regions, the disc straight form of barbat was introduced from the Western Regions, and the Chinese transliterated it as "loquat", which made use of this ready-made plant name and was later written as "pipa" with special Chinese characters. After the Western Jin Dynasty, the pear disc of babat Qin was also introduced from the Western Regions, and it was named as "Pipa", while the original Han Pipa was renamed as "Ruan". "Compendium of Materia Medica" said that loquat "leaves are shaped like pipa, hence its name", but it was just because the shapes of the recently introduced pipa and loquat leaves were somewhat similar that it was literally translated.

After talking about the relationship between loquat and pipa, I would like to mention the scientific name and English name of loquat by the way. Loquat is native to China, but its scientific name is Eriobotryajaponica, and Japanese in posthumous title means "Japanese". This is because loquat was introduced to Japan in the Tang Dynasty and became a widely cultivated plant. /kloc-When Tonberg, a botanist in the 8th century and a student of Linnaeus, went to Japan to collect plants, he also collected many plants that originated in China and were cultivated in Japan, and finally named them "Japan". Although this is a big misunderstanding, now we can only do nothing.

Influenced by the scientific name, loquat also has English names such as Japanese wolfberry and even Japanese sour plum, but loquat is the most commonly used one. Although this word is a transliteration of "Lu Ju" in Cantonese, which on the surface correctly implies its origin in China, unfortunately, it has made another mistake. There was also "Lu Ju" in the original Shang, which was obviously different from loquat. Later, the herbalist verified that it should be kumquat. However, Su Shi, a famous gourmet in the Northern Song Dynasty, didn't care. He insisted on calling loquat "Lu Ju" and wrote in his famous sentence "Eat Litchi": "When spring comes to Luofu Mountain at four o'clock, Lu Ju and Yang Meixin will come next time. 300 lychees a day, I don't want to grow up to be a Lingnan person. " Influenced by Su Shi, people in some areas of Guangdong later used to call loquat Lu Ju.

Since ancient times, loquat is such a kind of plant entangled by various names.