Etymograph

English

Xi'an

Xi'an comes from Chinese 西安.

  1. Chinesemodern西安Xī'ān
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1984Xi'an

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Chinesemodern西安Xī'ān
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1984Xi'an

Earliest quotation: 1984, Nina Hyde, The Queen of Textiles: “THE SILK ROAD was actually a perilous network of…”

The story

An apostrophe is usually required in pinyin to mark any non-initial syllable beginning with a, o, or e in a multi-syllable word. (See 隔音符號 /隔音符号 (géyīn fúhào) for more.) In this case, the apostrophe happens to distinguish the two separate syllables of xī and ān from the monosyllabic words xiān, xián, xiǎn, and xiàn.

Every English word from Chinese 西安

Today it means

name The provincial capital of Shaanxi, China; a subprovincial city in central China famed as the former capital of numerous Chinese dynasties, also known as Chang'an among other historical names.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Chinese 西安 / Xi'an

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