People who like to travel will definitely have different understandings of place names. Of course, not everyone will pay attention to the history and culture contained in foreign place names during their travels. For example, the Dai place names in Xishuangbanna are very distinctive and may confuse newcomers, but that's all. But place names are not only geographical coordinates, but also the combination of history, culture, language and geography of a place. Without reading, you can't find their meaning.

Geographical space is expressed as a place name in the form of language, and its naming motivation is closely related to language habits, social system, religious culture, natural landscape, historical legends and so on. So reading traditional place names is a good way to understand the history and culture of a place. Starting with the Dai place names in Xishuangbanna, this paper interprets the declining historical and cultural traditions in Xishuangbanna.

Proper name and common name

A complete place name consists of proper names and generic names, in which proper names are used to distinguish individuals in geographical entities and are the unique and specific names of a geographical entity. Generally speaking, there is only one name, but of course it is not immutable. For example, "Jiang" and "He" used to be proper names of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, but later they evolved into general names of rivers.

Common names are used to distinguish categories or attributes of geographical entities. For example, province, city, county, township, river, lake, sea and mouth point to different geographical entities, and generic names can point to organizational level, landform, building scale, landscape category and so on. The proper names of place names in different places have their own characteristics, but the sources are nothing more than those; However, there are some differences in the common names of place names. For example, in the same residential area, there are villages, villages, villages, villages and bays with different common names.

Most of the place names in China are "proper names+generic names", while the Dai place names in Xishuangbanna are "generic names+proper names", which is a model of place names, indicating that place names are the language reflection of geographical space, and different languages will have different place name structures.

Chongpingba guangshan district

Xishuangbanna, known as Monroe in ancient times (hereinafter referred to as ancient Xishuangbanna), was a political power established by a branch of the Dai nationality at the end of 12. After traveling all over this land, this Dai called himself Dai (hereinafter referred to as Xishuangbanna Dai), which means "Meng Dai"; After Mongolia destroyed Dali, Meng Ling became a part of the Yuan Dynasty, and since then it has belonged to the central state. During the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the General Military and Civilian Administration Office or Propaganda Department was established in Meng Ling, and Meng Ling was appointed as the leader of Zhaopian (that is, Master Meng Ling) for hereditary management. Until the Republic of China, it was still under the jurisdiction of the customs.

After the founding of New China, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture was established and later changed to Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture. She is like a green pearl, embedded in the southwest border of the motherland. Xishuangbanna is located in the southern edge of Hengduan Mountains, with a relatively flat terrain, with cutting mountains, low mountains, intermontane basins, wide valley basins and open valleys alternately distributed, of which mountainous hills account for 95%, intermontane basins and valleys only account for 5%, and it is basically a settlement of Dai people.

Dai people live on rice. They settle down and farm, and they long for places close to mountains and rivers. In geographical space, Dai has an unusual preference for flat dams, because the flat dams with rich water resources have agricultural advantages and potential, which is reflected in the fact that the naming of flat dams and rivers is more important than the naming of mountains, that is, "water is more important than mountains"

Man, Meng and Banna

In Dai language, the flat land formed by river alluvial is called collapse, the flat land with higher terrain is called flat, the ravine is called confluence, the mountain is called width, the dam (including plain, basin and valley) is called east, the river is called south, and the lake is called thick.

Villages, villages and other basic settlements are called "Man", the city where leaders live, the market or the city that has commercial activities all the year round is called "Jing", the city with irregular and frequent market activities is called "Ga", the city with fortifications (such as trenches and moats) is called "Cloud", and the regions and villages are called "Meng". These are the most common and reflect the situation of the Dai people.

The original "Meng" only means region and place, which refers to a dam (including basin, river valley and pingba area); After Dai entered the feudal society, "Meng" derived the meaning of city-state, vassal state, feudal country and feudal city, but it did not have the meaning of administrative region; In 1 180, after the establishment of the political power, "Meng" became a first-class administrative region, and the film emperor authorized ministers and clansmen to manage it. This is naturally Meng.

Some dams are very large, and sprouting will form on the relatively independent edge of the dam. Some are called "scenery", such as Jingzhen in the southeast of the dam, and some are classified as Xiaomeng, such as Mengbang in the north of the dam. There are big and small natural Meng, and the big Meng can manage the small Meng, but every natural Meng has a "Zhao Meng" (that is, a master of Meng), and it also sets up institutions such as deliberation and administration, which are subordinate to Zhao Meng's leader. The institutions it sets are subordinate to both Zhao Meng and Meng Ling's Council.

Naturally, there are two villages under Mengxia, namely Dragon and Hama, Huoxi under Mengxia and Man, which are the most basic villages. At that time, the scope of Dragon, Hama and Huoxi changed due to population changes, taxes, labor and other reasons, so almost no place names with their common names were left, while Meng and Huoxi.

As for Xishuangbanna, there are no 12 thousand fields and 12 bazi, in which "ban" is a verb rather than a numeral, meaning "wrapping" and "wrapping things with cloth", while "na" refers to taxes and labor, and "Banna" refers to the area where taxes and labor are combined and distributed according to population, which is a tribute and gift from Meng Lu to Emperor China.

Originally, Banna was composed of neighboring natural Mongols, but occasionally they fought with each other and even attacked the summoning leader. Later, the leaders and ministers were called, and Meng was called to reorganize Banna. The natural Mongols who were not adjacent or even far apart also merged into one Banna. Because Banna occasionally changes and does not constitute an administrative region, there is no place name with Banna as its generic name.

Where did the characteristic place names come from?

The origins of Dai place names in Xishuangbanna are also diverse, including social system, primitive religion, Southern Buddhism, geographical factors, derived place names and so on. Almost all Dai place names are related to these five factors. The combination of Dai's unique place names with Dai's unique history, culture and customs has also produced a unique traditional place name in Xishuangbanna.

Many traditional place names originated from the social system, such as Zhangman, Manza, and Manshan. These villages are all named after the labor they undertake, with many duplicate names, such as Manza and Han Meng in Mengla, and Zhangman and Mengla in Mengyang, because many natural villages undertake similar labor.

A few villages were named by Zhao Meng or Zhao Meng. For example, Man Bo was called, hoping that there were as many people as termites in the village, and Man Lei was called by the villagers, asking Meng to recover the escaped cattle. In addition, there are villages named after the official position of the leader, such as Manlamont, whose leader was "Banmen" and was later dismissed as "Ramon", hence the name "Manlamont".

Before Buddhism was introduced, primitive religion was the only belief of the Dai people, which was manifested in animism and ancestor worship, so the place names derived from primitive religious elements were retained. For example, Man Zhen reflects the worship of the ancestor deity "Dilazhen", Manle is named after the shed dedicated to the ancestor deity, Boling is a pond dedicated to the deity, and Manmo is a wizard village in the primitive religion.

After Southern Buddhism was introduced into Xishuangbanna, the Dai people not only maintained their primitive religious beliefs, but also converted to Southern Buddhism. However, compared with primitive religion, Southern Buddhism has a far-reaching influence on the naming of Dai place names, and some places are named after them, such as pilgrimage, spiritual practice, Buddhist architecture, Buddha's parade legend and so on. There are countless places whose original names have nothing to do with Buddhism, but directly belong to Southern Buddhism.

The origin of geographical element place names is the same in many places, and the only difference is language and description. Some geographical elements of the Dai people are composed of human generic names and natural generic names, such as Manhui is a mountain village, Manguang is a mountain village, Manbeng is an alluvial plain village and Mannong is a lake village. On the other hand, as long as ordinary names are added to geographical things, new place names will be formed. For example, Jingbang is a market near the swamp at the foot of the mountain, Manhenna is Tiantou Village, and Mansai is a sand village by the river. Generally speaking, there are many geographical components of Dai language with the same names.

The derivation of Dai place names is also very distinctive, adding locative words and adjectives to the original place names to form new place names, but different from the common addition of front, back, left and right in the mainland, the derived place names of Dai people are only divided into upper, middle and lower ("Le or Na, Gang and Dai"), size ("Long and Dong"), new and old.

Where is the place name monster in Xishuangbanna?

Xishuangbanna Dai place names are rich in connotation. They are not water without resources and trees without roots. There is a splendid Dai history and culture behind them. The traditional "generic name+proper name" place name is completely different from the common "proper name+generic name" place name in Chinese mainland. This is the first strangeness of the traditional place names in Xishuangbanna, which lies in the Dai language itself, and the place names are the geographical reflection of the language.

The second wonder of traditional place names in Xishuangbanna stems from the social system of the Dai people that lasted for thousands of years. Not to mention the place names named after labor, only the common names such as "Meng", "Jing" and "Man" have formed a string of place names and a bundle of place names, forming a place name type area in Xishuangbanna, shaping the spatial landscape of Xishuangbanna place names such as Mengla, Menghai and Mengzhe.

The biggest strangeness of traditional place names in Xishuangbanna lies in the fact that when Dai place names are translated into Chinese, their original meanings cannot be directly seen in Chinese. This is because different languages have different words and meanings when translating and writing place names. If you don't know Dai, you won't think of Juan Xi when you watch Han Meng, Soft when you watch Meng Lun, and Home when you watch Dream Soul.

The place names of various places are not unfamiliar in themselves, but reflect the local history and culture. The Dai place names in Xishuangbanna are symbolic expressions of the geographical spatial classification by Dai cognitive activities. The unique generic names and place name structure are combined with the unique history, culture and customs of the Dai people, forming the traditional place names with Xishuangbanna characteristics. If you read them in Dai language, you will feel unique charm. If you set foot here, you can understand the meaning of their place names.

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