Mar.4] SOCIETYOF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. [1890.radical, denotes "the face, the front, before, in one's presence."
It hardly needsto be pointed out that mienis the w-form impliedby
yen,kien,and the Accadian £n (gin). Andwhenit is added that the
same Chinese characteralso signifies "tofront,to face, to show
the face, to see one, to look," we can understandthe like breadth
in the Accadian usage. The next homophone in the Chinese
lexicon,mien, " to look towards,to accompany, to go with, to turn
the back on,"curiouslycorroboratesour view thattN = GiN; for
thesemeaningsobviously answer to gin, "to see,"gin, "togo"
(cp. Ni-GiN, "to come together"),andgin,"to turn back"(taru),or
" to turn round" (sah&ru) ; cp. nigin in the same sense.
The M-formimmediatelyansweringto igi would be imi. This
formis actually foundin ^Jff, imi, originally" face,"a point of the
compass; a term whichentersintothe designation of north, south,
east,and west, in Accadian. In Chinese mien," the face," is used in
a similar sense: pah mien," the eight faces,"or directions, are the
fourpoints of the compass and their halves. It was natural to
transferthe Accadian termto the four winds.
As /-forms answering to mien, kien, we have tien, " written
documents,records"(Accadiantim),"statutory,constant"(Accadian
gin, "fixed"), "to consider, to take oversightof" (Accadian>-J«jJ,
m£ = men, hasisu, "reflexion," "wisdom"); tien, "to glanceat,
regardwithattention";and fiat, "to show one'sface."
T'ien, "a field," the 102nd radical, as a verb read tien, with
a different tone,meansalso"toarrangefor planting, a plantation,
to till, to hunt." With the last meaning it is clearly the t(dyioua
of ni-gin, "to hunt." In the other senses it represents ^~\,
a-pin, "a plantation" (nartabu), wherepin (bin) supplies a / or
/'-form; cp. pei, " to heap up dirt, to cultivate," pi, " the coulter of
a plow," piao,piu, "to hoe fields,"pien,pin, "a bank between
fields,"pien, "an ancientland-measure, ±th of a village lot";and
especiallyplien,p'in,the 91st radical,a classifier of plots of land.
Pin," a border," and pin, " to make a partition," are related ; a field
beinga portion of land dividedoff by borders or banks fromthe
rest.t
* Besides yen,"theeye,"yen,"a night-watch," etc.,Chinesehas yen, "the
countenance,visage."
t Another meaningof apinis "foundation" (ullu); cp. pin, piin,olderpen,
"theorigin,root,source,fundamentalpart."
280