中古梵僧入唐与复数标记“们”的产生*

Indian Buddhist Monks’Massive Entry into China in the Tang Dynasty and the Emergence of the Plural Marker mén们in Chinese

现代汉语复数标记“们”的起源一直没有定论。本文发现印度的梵文、印度—雅利安语言以及达罗毗荼语言有-me、-mi、-mu、-wu、-min等复数标记,这些形式和中国中古时期以来突然出现的“弭”“伟”“每”“懑”“们”完全对应。结合唐代印度梵僧大量进入中国的历史背景,本文认为汉语m-(>w-)声母系列复数标记应该是来自印度的语言。

No agreement has ever been reached as to the origin of the plural marker mén们in modern Chinese.This paper observes that Sanskrit,some other Indo-Aryan languages and some Dravidian languages,all distributing in India,share the plural markers such as-me,-mi,-mu,-wu and-min,and these markers correspond perfectly to their Chinese counterparts mi弥,wei伟,mei每,men懑and men们,whose presence since the period of Middle Chinese is sudden and mysterious.It makes endeavors to tease apart these markers in respective languages and to extrapolate their path of dissemination.Taking into account of the historical background of Indian Buddhist monks’massive entry into China in the Tang Dynasty,it is proposed that this set of plural markers in Chinese with the bilabial initial m-(>w-)should have come from the Indian languages.