Xià: Etymologisches zur Herkunft des ältesten chinesischen Staatsnamens

Against the background of recent developments in the reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology
and morphology, this paper reviews etymologies for the the alleged first Chinese dynastic name
xià proposed in the literature so far, and looks into the history of its representation in writing. Six
possible ethnonymic derivations are discussed and compared to typological parallels in genealogically
unrelated language families. Proposals for an identification of xià in the oracle bone
inscriptions are rejected. Finally, it is argued that – despite being fraught with uncertainties and
complexities – the study of (social, ethnic) group and state names in China holds a real potential as
a corrective for theories of ethnonymic typology based largely upon Indo-European data and a
hardly comparable nation-state background in Europe.