Ricerc@Sapienza

Il presente lavoro approfondisce il trattamento che Zhou Qufei nel XII secolo riserva alle varietà linguistiche,
descritte nella sua opera geografica. Per varietà linguistiche si intende qualsiasi altra lingua eo dialetto
diversi dal guanhua 官话 ufficiale dell’impero Song. Zhou Qufei fu un funzionario imperiale durante la dinastia dei Song meridionali; nacque nel Zhejiang, a Yongjia, ma venne inviato ad assolvere la sua carica nel Guangxi, tra Guilin e Qinzhou. Egli nel 1178

The work Lingwai daida (Notes from the Land Beyond the Passes), written by Zhou Qufei
in 1178, is one of the most important Song works dealing with China’s maritime contacts
with foreign countries and may thus be regarded as an important milestone in the field of
geography. This article focuses on the historico-linguistic analysis of two toponyms used by
the author in this work: Bosiguo and Kunlun Cengqiguo. Compared to the other toponyms
mentioned in Lingwai Daida, these two are characterized by some special features. Although,

This work, for the first time in English, presents the annotated translation of the geographical sections of the work Lingwai Daida (Notes from the Land Beyond the Passes) written by Zhou Qufei in 1178. It is composed by two chapters: firstly, the author focuses on Zhou’s life, on the structure of his work and on other relevant aspects (its sources, editorial history, relationship with other geographical works written during the Song dynasty).