Yi, or Dongyi, are associated with the bow and arrow: K. C. Wu says the modern character designating the historical "Yí peoples", is composed of the characters for 大 "big (person)" and 弓 "bow"; which implies a big person carrying a bow, and also that this old form of this Chinese Character was composed with an association of a particular group of people with the use of the bow in mind. Some classic Chinese history records like Zuo Zhuan, Shuowen Jiezi, Classic of Rites, all have some similar records about this. The earliest records of yi were inscribed on oracle bones dating from the late Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 – c. 1046 BCE). This oracle bone script was used interchangeably for yí 夷, rén "human", and shī "corpse; personator of the dead; inactive; lay out". The archeologist and scholar Guo Moruo believed the oracle graph for yi denotes "a dead body, i.e., the killed enemy", while the bronze graph denotes "a man bound by a rope, i.e., a prisoner or slave". The historical linguist Xu Zhongshu explains this oracle character depicts either a "corpse"' with two bent legs or a "barbarian" custom of sitting with one's legs stretched out instead of the Chinese norm of squatting on one's heels. The early China historian Li Feng says the Western Zhou bronze graph for Yí was "differentiated from rén 人 (human) by its kneeling gesture, clearly implying a population that was deemed a potential source of slaves or servants", thus meaning "foreign conquerable". Axel Schuessler hypothesizes an Old Chinese etymological development from *li 夷 "extend; expose; display; set out; spread out" to *lhi 尸 "to spread out; lie down flat (in order to sleep); motionless; to set forth (sacrificial dishes)", to "personator of a dead ancestor", and to "corpse". Etymology and linguistic classification Historical linguists have tentatively reconstructed yí 夷's ancient pronunciations and etymology. The Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation yí descends from (c. 6th–9th centuries CE) Middle Chinese and (c. 6th–3rd centuries BCE) Old Chinese. Middle and Old Chinese reconstructions of yí 夷 "barbarian; spread out" include i < *djər, yij < *ljɨj, jiɪ < *lil, and ji < *ləi. As to the most recent reconstruction, William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart (2014) reconstruct the Old Chinese name of yí 夷 as *ləj. As Yuèjuèshū () states that the Yue word for "sea" is also 夷 (*li → yí), Sinologist Axel Schuessler