Phonological Adaptation of Sanskrit Loanwords in Dàtáng Xīyùji

Abstract

This research paper aims to analyzie 129 loanwords derived from Sanskrit in Dàtáng Xi yùsì, which narrates Xuánzàng's journey to the West between 626 A.D. and 645 A.D. The research examines loanword adaptation at two levels : phonemic and phonotactic. On adaptation of incoming sounds into the native language, it is found that phonetic similarity plays an important role in loanword adaptation. It is noted that perceptual similarity and perceptual assimilation also take part in the adaptation processes. At the phonotactic level, it is observed that the main strategy for resolving onset clusters is vowel epenthesis, while the major method of resolving foreign codas is consonant deletion. The insertion of an initial consonant and a coda is another approach to reorganize syllable structures. The deletion of the vowel in the last syllable is applied to truncate multi-syllables, and the reduction of vowel length is employed to deal with vowel sequence in Sanskrit. The research concludes that when the adaptation occurs at the phonetic level, Sanskrit phonemes are directly mapped onto corresponding forms in Chinese. There is no evidence in the data to support the theory that loanwords are nativized at the abstract phonological level of the target language.