The lexicology of you 有
But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plummet of chaos over its nobles. (Isa 34:11)
In Russian, one doesn’t say that one ‘has’ something. Well—sort of. The Russian language does have a verb for ‘to have’, it’s иметь—but if you say ‘я имею вилка’ or ‘я имею машина’, people would probably give you funny looks. The verb иметь is usually reserved for abstract things: Я имею в виду... ‘I have in mind…, I mean…’; or Вы имеете право хранить молчание. ‘You have the right to remain silent.’ The more accepted usage in Russian, at least for mundane material and concrete things, is to use the construction у меня есть машина: literally, ‘by me, there is a car’.
Similar indirect constructions signifying possession can be found in Arabic and Hebrew. In Hebrew, to indicate possession, instead of ‘I have a car’ one has to say yiš lî mǝkônît יש לי מכונית: literally, ‘there is at me a car’. Arabic is similar to Russian—there is a verb, malaka ملك, from the same root m-l-k م ل ك as the word malik ملك ‘king’ which indicates ‘property, proprietorship’. But, just like the Russian иметь, it simply isn’t used in most mundane common cases. Instead, to say ‘I have a car’, you have to use ‘andī sayyāratu عندي سيارة ‘see at my hand, a car’.
The same cannot be said of Chinese. Chinese has a verb of possession, and in fact it is both very common and very important: you 有, which (by itself or in the compounds yongyou 拥有 or juyou 具有) can function as ‘to have’ or ‘to exist’. This character is ubiquitous in Chinese writing and is the 8th most-common character in the modern language. It is used in compounds like meiyou 没有 ‘there aren’t, don’t have’; haiyou 还有 ‘also’; suoyou 所有 ‘all, every’; youxie 有些 ‘some’; youde 有的 ‘some (of)’; youren 有人 ‘someone’; youshi 有时 ‘sometimes’; youxiao 有效 ‘effective, useful’; youqu 有趣 or youyisi 有意思 ‘interesting, meaningful’.
Graphically, this character is composed of a right hand (you 又) with a slice of meat (rou 肉, in antiquity very similar in written structure to yue 月 ‘moon’) hanging from the wrist. The use of ‘meat’ in ancient Chinese to signify ‘wealth, riches, plenty, possession’ is not unheard-of: see the modern explanation of the graphical derivation of duo 多. Xu Shen, however, again interprets the semantic component as ‘moon’: yue 月. He justifies this reading as signifying a wrongful possession of something, or a taking of something out of season: bu yi you ye 不宜有也, which would lead to evil omens and Heaven’s wrath. He further cites the Spring and Autumn 《春秋》, which—warning against hoarding and wrongful possession of common goods or the goods of others—says ‘The Sun and Moon have their eclipses’「日月有食之。」
Same as for duo 多, this etymological derivation may or may not be correct regarding the most ancient versions of the character. But Xu Shen points to a common and therefore noteworthy interpretation in contemporary Ritual School teachings. We see, for example, this passage in the very first chapter of the Book of Changes:
上九：亢龍有悔。亢龍有悔，盈不可久也。
In the sixth (or topmost) NINE, undivided, (we see its subject as) the dragon exceeding the proper limits. There will be occasion for repentance. “The dragon exceeds the proper limits; - there will be occasion for repentance:” – a state of fulness, that is, should not be indulged in long.
(Book of Changes 《易經》, ‘Qian’ ䷀乾 7)
Although the function of ‘to exist’ or ‘there is’ is strongly implied here over that of ‘to have’, the usage and context of you 有 in this instance strongly suggest a pejorative connotation associated with excess, transgression of limits, and wrongful possession. This usage is similar to the Odes:
江有汜、之子歸、不我以。
不我以、其後也悔。The Jiang has its branches, led from it and returning to it.
Our lady, when she was married,
Would not employ us.
She would not employ us;
But afterwards she repented.
(Book of Odes 《詩經》, Odes of Shao and the South 召南, ‘The Jiang Has Its Branches’ 江有汜 1)
A si 汜 in Chinese, as implied by the shape of the phonetic si 巳 which indicates its pronunciation, refers to an anabranch of a main river—that is to say, a smaller branch of the river that later rejoins its main channel downstream. In this Ode, the si 汜 is used as a metaphorical image for the proud lady or older sister who, after she marries into a wealthy family, holds herself aloof from her maids (or younger sisters), thinking her newfound possessions and wealth make her independent and superior to them. Yet later she has cause (the Ode does not directly suggest what) to return to her ‘inferiors’ and beg for their forgiveness, just as a small si 汜 rejoins the great Jiang 江 (that is to say, the Long, or Yangtze, River). In fact, the lady possesses nothing that makes her superior, just as the si 汜 has no water in it that did not come from the Long River and will not return to it in the end.
This somewhat moralistic interpretation of the ancient Chinese stative or possessive verb you 有 is rooted in Rujia 儒家, the Ritual School. It is not reflected in all classical-era Chinese texts, and, as seen from the modern scholarship, even the textual interpretation that it is based on (possibly confusing the graphical element yue 月 ‘moon’ with rou 肉 ‘meat’) may be faulty. That’s not the point. The point is rather that in the Chinese of its own era, this functionality of you 有 existed and was credited by Ritual Scholars of the Han Dynasty based on their reading of their own Scriptures.
In this way, it functions similarly to the Biblical Hebrew root yod-reš-šin י-ר-ש (Aramaic yod-reš-tāw י-ר-ת or Arabic wāw-rā’-ṯā’ و ر ث) which also carries the function of ‘to possess’, though its lexical range also includes ‘to rob, to seize, to take (by force), to usurp, to expel, to dispossess, to succeed (as heir), to impoverish’. The prototypical usage of this root, displaying both its possessive and dispossessive functions, can be seen in Psalm 43:
אתּה ידך גּוים הורשׁתּ ותּטּעם תּרע לאמּים ותּשׁלּחם׃
כּי לא בחרבּם ירשׁוּ ארץ וּזרועם לא־הושׁיעה לּמו כּי־ימינך וּזרועך ואור פּניך כּי רציתם׃Thou with thy own hand didst drive out [hurašttā הורשת] the nations, but them thou didst plant; thou didst afflict the peoples, but them thou didst set free; for not by their own sword did they win [yāršû ירשו] the land, nor did their own arm give them victory; but thy right hand, and thy arm, and the light of thy countenance; for thou didst delight in them. (Ps 43:3-4)
The heavy implication in these verses of the Psalms is that it is God who drives out and God who plants; God who afflicts and God who sets free. Ultimately the arms and the swords of the Hebrews or the Canaanites are useless. Only God has the right to yāraš ירש the land, to weed and plant there as He chooses. The people—even the Hebrew people—are merely His guests there. They are not the host, not the proprietor. The inhabitants of the land are like the spoiled rich lady from the Odes who thinks she can cut off her sisters or her maids because suddenly she has a bit more money now from her bride-price. But the water of the si 汜 that came from the Jiang 江, will return to the Jiang in the end. Different wording, different language family—same teaching.
When the noble Qur’ān uses this root, it is even more direct and blunt:
قال موسى لقومه استعينوا بالله واصبروا إن الأرض لله يورثها من يشاء من عباده والعاقبة للمتقين
Said Moses to his people, ‘Seek help through Allah and be patient. Indeed, the earth belongs to Allah. He causes to inherit it whom He wills of His servants. And the [best] outcome is for the righteous. (7:128)
The root w-r-ṯ و ر ث again serves a double function here. It serves to emphasise the ultimate lordship and proprietorship of God, and the capacity and desire of God to cause to inherit, that is to bestow what is His upon, those who follow His teaching! Precisely the wrong way to interpret this is the prisca-Josephus, historicist, Crusader-slash-Zionist insistence of one’s bloodline or superior force being the criterion of inheritance. If you claim to be following ‘God’s will’ but are using your own weapons, your own arms, your own vain and self-serving philosophies and ideologies, and your own institutions to carry it out, you fall under the condemnation of the Psalmist in Psalm 43… and you will be the next to be ‘weeded’ and ‘driven out’ by God. That’s the mechanism. Jiang you si. The Jiang has its anabranches, which leave from it and return. It is only by trusting in God that you will enter into His—not your—inheritance.
Subḥan Allāh ‘ilā kull šay’a, ’laḏi hū al-Wāriṯ lah Wahdahu.
سبحان الله على كل شيء، الذي هو الوارث له وحده
