“白鱼”考

A Textual Analysis of the Phrase“Bai Yu(白鱼)”

中古文献中的“白鱼”,学界多认为是“鲌”鱼。其实,“白”是“膊”的通假字,“白鱼”“膊鱼”所指相同,指用干制等方法加工过的鱼。

“Bai Yu”literally means white fish and was used in this sense in medieval literature.It is normally regarded as“Bo Yu”by modern scholars.In fact,“Bai”is a phonetic loan character for“Bo”,and the terms“Bai Yu”and“Bo Yu”refer to the same kind of fish that was processed by drying or other methods.