Xiān: canonical, contested, and the false forms on record
Evidence dossier 278 — Xiān. Every exhibit catalogued, every ruling stated with its grounds.
At a Glance
- Canonical form: Xiān
- Original script: 仙
- Pantheon: Chinese
- Convention: pinyin with tone marks — tones shown, ǖ kept distinct from u
- False forms on record: 1
- Contested forms: none attested
- Series: The Canonical Register, No. 278 of 287
The Evidence
Exhibit 1 — the attestation. The name is attested as 仙, in the attestation Daozang (Daoist Canon) and Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth give us. On the evidence, it means "Immortal". The canonical transliteration is Xiān.
Exhibit 2 — the preserved marks. a → ā (Long vowel). Each is verifiable against the sources named in the attestation.
Exhibit 3 — the flattened form. The plain form xian is not false — it is a fallback, and the register is exact about what that means. In systems that cannot carry diacritics (legacy databases, older tooling, parts of the address-bar pipeline) the flattened form is the accepted vehicle, and the rulebook names it explicitly as the final rung of the fallback hierarchy: full restoration first, circumflex where attested, macron-only by the academic standard, an attested variant, and only then plain ASCII.
What the fallback status forbids is promotion: xian may carry the name where marks are impossible, but it may not represent the name where marks are possible. Every mark it drops — a → ā — is a fact the sources recorded. A fallback is a vehicle, never the primary.
Exhibit 4 — struck from the record: Xian. Origin: the publisher compromise — older books and hurried websites that print the "English equivalent" as if it were the name itself. Grounds: every substitution here (ā→a) is a romanization of convenience, not an attested spelling — it teaches the reader to guess, not to read.
Exhibit 5 — the physical record. The xiān tradition is attested in Warring States and Han dynasty texts, tomb art showing feathered immortals ascending to heaven, and the Mawangdui tomb manuscripts on longevity and breath cultivation. Medieval Daoist caves and temple murals depict the Eight Immortals and other transcendent figures. Alchemists' stoves, elixir recipes, and neidan manuals survive in the Daozang and in archaeological contexts from the Han through the Song dynasties.
Exhibit 6 — the continuing record. Xiān permeate Chinese culture. They appear in landscape painting as tiny figures on misty peaks, in New Year prints carrying peaches and gourds, and in countless novels, operas, and films.
The Convention's Own History
Every tradition in this register has its own scholarly transliteration standard, built by its own specialists over decades or centuries, and the register follows each on its own terms: pinyin with tone marks — tones shown, ǖ kept distinct from u. The principle that unifies them is the one the whole project stands on: a name is evidence, and evidence is not negotiable — not for keyboards, not for convenience, not for anyone.
The Protocol's Position
Can the canonical form live in the address bar? Almost always, yes. IDNA 2008 admits every mark this register defends — the DNS stores them as `xn--` punycode and modern browsers render them natively. The real frictions are practical, not legal: some registrars stock only part of the IDN space, so a theoretically valid name can be temporarily unbuyable; and stacked combinations (an acute riding a macron) remain awkward to type on mobile keyboards even where the protocol accepts them.
The project's answer is a ranked ladder, not a compromise: the full restoration first, then attested fallbacks in descending order of completeness. The ladder's lowest rung, plain ASCII, is a vehicle for legacy systems — sanctioned, but never presented as the scholarly form.
The Verdict
Case closed on Xiān: canonical, cited, and defended. The keyboard form xian rides as the sanctioned fallback — and stays in that lane. The register's files remain open: if a source surfaces that changes any line of this entry, the entry changes. Until then, the temple at /sites/xian/ holds the canonical form.
The docket for this ruling: 1 false form ruled against, Xian first on the docket; 1 preserved mark verified: a → ā; no contested forms attested; the attestation rests on 6 cited sources — Daozang (Daoist Canon), Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture.
The Register Continues
The register holds 287 entries like this one — each temple with its own ruling. Read the temple's founding dispatch for the story, its Restoration File for the philology, its Resonance File for the industries, or the whole archive end to end.
Continue the register — previous entry: Wǔxíng (read it) · next entry: Xiuhtēcuhtli (read it).
The Canonical Register is written from the same canonical record as the lexicon itself. If a false form is missing from this page, it is because the evidence does not support calling it false — or because we have not seen it yet. Show us, with a citation, and the register will answer.