重探臺北市內「古亭」和「大安」地名源流：一個跨學科考證的嘗試

Revisiting the Etymologies of Da'an and Guting in Taipei City: an Interdisciplinary Attempt

地名反映一個地方的人類活動，在文獻不足時，可以幫助我們重建地方史，但需要慎防望文生義的解讀，並且透過語言學、地理學、歷史學交互運用考證，以正確重建地名源流和地方歷史。本文以臺北市「古亭」和「大安」兩地名為例，首先發現對「古亭」和「大安」地名源流的解釋，都無法同時滿足語言學、地理學、歷史學的檢證，有賴重新檢討。本研究運用近年出版和數位化的古契字史料，以及反映早期閩南語的材料，考察這兩地名發生的歷史和地理環境，並進行語音和語意的分析。最後發現「古亭」可能來自於一個未被字書辭典記載的名詞「罟亭」，和新店溪的漁業活動有關。但語音的線索也指出「古亭」可能來自「孤壇」，是祭拜無主孤魂的地方。「大安」的前身「大灣」在瑠公圳通水前就已出現在文獻上，可見傳統上認為「大灣」來自瑠公圳轉彎的說法有誤。本文認為「大灣」的意思是大水池，其所指是目前已經消失的一座大陂。由於語言和文字的演變，大灣的「灣」失去他在十八世紀出現時的意義，導致後來各種分歧的解釋。除了解釋地名源流，本文對兩地史料的分析，也讓此處的早期歷史圖像漸漸明朗，補充了傳統臺北歷史書寫上的空白。

"Placename reflects human activities in a particular place. It also helps us to reconstruct local history of a less-documented place. However, this kind of reconstruction requires a synthetic approach that analyzes placename through linguistic, geographical, and historical methods, and then a sound reconstruction may be attained. This paper examines two well-known placenames in Taipei City, Da'an and Guting, and finds the existing etymologies of them cannot pass the verifications of linguistics, geography, and even basic historical criticism. This paper is to propose new etymologies with evidences drawn from materials which reflect the Southern Min spoken in the genesis of the placenames in question. These linguistic proposals are then verified with geographical and historical evidences. I propose two possible etymologies for Guting, kóo-tîng or kóo-tân. Kóo-tîng may be a forgotten form of Koo-liâu (storage of fishing net(, and Guting does situated in a good fishing place. On the other hand, Kóo-tân means a simple alter for neglected graves or unidentifiable dead, and Kóo-tân became Kóo-tîng (Guting( at an unknown point of time. For Da'an, I first verify that Da'an is the altered form of Tuā-uan. Tuā-uan was traditionally interpreted as 'big curve', denoting a significant curve of the Liugong Canal, an irrigation system completed in 1760's. However, I falsify the traditional etymology by proving that Tuā-uan was attested two decades before the curve appeared. In fact, uan also meant 'pond' in the Southern Min spoken in the eighteenth century, and geographical and historical evidences also suggest there had been a pond in today's Da'an District until 1910's. Thus I argue a new etymology for Tuā-uan that it was named after the big pond, and the meaning of pond had faded out in the nineteenth century, making Tuā-uan difficult to be interpreted literally."