蒙元时期的“可汗”与“汗”

The Qa’an and Qan in Mongol-Yuan Period

在蒙元帝国时期的蒙古文文献中,其最高统治者的称号有时作qa’an,有时作qan。在汉文史料中,大多与前者对应为"可汗"(合汗),后者为"汗"(罕)。自伯希和以来,学界一般认为,qa’an与qan为两个不同词语,前者比后者大,为最高尊号,蒙古人自成吉思汗的继承者窝阔台才开始使用。本文通过对相关汉、蒙、阿拉伯、波斯等东西方多语种文献的考察,对古蒙古语语音特点的研究,并参考当时的文人的观点,认为对当时的蒙古人来说,二者之间没有明显的区别,很可能后者是前者的元音紧缩形式,是同一个词语的不同形态。

In Mongolian literature during the period of the Mongol Empire,the title of the supreme ruler is sometimes Qa’an or Qan.And in Chinese historical materials,the former one corresponds to Ke-han or He-han,and the latter one corresponds to Han.Since Paul Pelliot,there has been a prevalent supposition in academic circles that the former is more high-ranking than the latter.And some scholars believed that Qa’an had been the top title among the Mongolians since Ogedei,the successors of Chinggis Qan.By investigating the texts in multiple language such as Chinese,Mongolian,Arabian and Farsi,this article conducts research on the phonetic characteristics of ancient Mongolian and refers to the views from the literati in the Yuan Dynasty.As the conclusion,there is no obvious difference between Qa’an and Qan.Furthermore,it is highly possible that Qan is the vowel blending form of Qa’an,and they are just different forms of the same word.