Middle Chinese

Sui Dynasty ( 581-618 ) Tang Dynasty ( 618-907 ) Song Dynasty (960-1279)

Formerly spoken in

Sino - Tibetan * Sinitic Chinese **

• Middle Chinese

Ltc

Middle Chinese (Chinese中古 汉语, Pinyin zhōnggǔ Hànyǔ ) (English: Middle Chinese or Ancient Chinese used to be ), is the ancient Chinese dialect as in Qieyun (切韵/切韵, Qieyun, Ch'ieh4 - yün4 ), a rhyming dictionary is recorded, which was first published in the year 601, followed by a series of revised and expanded editions.

The fanqie method (反切, fǎnqiè ), which is used to render the debate in these dictionaries, however, proved in practice to be invalid, even though it represented an improvement of previous methods.

The Yunjing (韵 镜, Jingyun, rhyme mirror ') from the 12th century and more rhyme panels include a more upscale and more appropriate analysis of Qieyun phonology.

The rhyme panels confirm a number of sound changes that had taken place over the centuries after the publication of Qieyun. Linguists call this Qieyun system sometimes referred to as the Early Middle Chinese ( English: Early Middle Chinese; EMC ) and the variants that are uncovered by rhyme panels, as late Middle Chinese ( English: Late Middle Chinese, LMC).

The dictionaries and tables (tables) describe the relative debate, but do not give their actual phonetic value again.

The Swedish linguist Bernhard Karlgren believed that the dictionaries represent the standard language of the capital Chang'an of the Sui and Tang Dynasties and created a reconstruction of the Middle Chinese.

However, most scholars go now assume that - based on the recently rediscovered preface to the Qieyun - it is a compromise between the north and south and reading the poetic traditions of the late Southern and Northern Dynasties.

This composite system contains important information for the reconstruction of the previous system of ancient Chinese phonology ( 1st millennium BC ).

The Central Chinese system is often used as a framework for studying structure and the description of various modern varieties of Chinese. Branches of the Chinese language family such as Mandarin Chinese (including Mandarin Chinese, the language of Beijing as a base ), Yue Chinese and Wu -Chinese can be treated as divergent developments by the Qieyun system on the whole.

The study of the Chinese Central also provides a better understanding and a better analysis of classical Chinese poetry, such as the study of the poetry of the Tang period.

• 3.1 initial sounds
• 3.2 end of a word
• 3.3 tones

• 5.1 Notes
• 5.2 Notes and references
• 5.3 Works Cited

Swell

The reconstruction of the medium of Chinese phonology is largely dependent on detailed descriptions in a few original sources. The most important of these sources is the Qieyun - rhyming dictionary (601 AD ) and its revisions. The Qieyun is often used together with interpretations in rhyme tables of the Song Dynasty such as the Yunjing, the Qiyinlüe (七音 略, Qiyin Lüe, Chi -yin lüeh, Overview Seven lute ') and the subsequent Qieyun zhizhangtu and Sisheng dengzi. The documentary sources are supplemented by comparison with modern varieties of Chinese, pronunciation of Chinese loanwords in other languages ​​(especially Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese ), transcription of Chinese characters by foreign names, transcription of Chinese names in alphabet fonts ( such as Brahmi, Tibetan and Uighur font ) and supporting documents for rhyme and sound patterns from classical Chinese literature. [E 1]

Rhyme dictionaries

Chinese scholars of the Middle Ages devoted much of their efforts on the description of the sounds of their language, in particular to help you in getting the classics to read aloud and at the correct composition of poetry. Chinese seal, overboard in the Tang era sometimes with rigid verse structure, which relies on the sounds within the lines of verse and rhyme with the final words. The rhyme dictionaries ( English: Rime dictionary unlike Riming dictionary) were the first aid for writers in the composition of this seal or for readers who rated this.

The Qieyun (601 BC ) is the oldest rhyme dictionaries and the main source for the pronunciation of Chinese characters in the early Middle Chinese ( English: EMC = Early Middle Chinese). At the time of Bernhard Karlgrens groundbreaking work on the Middle Chinese in the early 20th century, only fragments of the Qieyun were known and the scholars were based on the Guangyun (1008 ), a greatly expanded edition of the Song Dynasty. However, there were gradually important one version of the Qieyun sections even in the Dunhuang caves and in 1947 a complete copy of Wang Renxus Kanmiu buque Qieyun (706 ) from the palace library. [E 2]

The Qieyun organized Chinese characters according to their pronunciation according to a hierarchy of (word) sound, rhyme and homophony. Characters with the same pronunciation are divided into homophone classes whose pronounciation is described by the fact that two fanqie characters are used, the first is the initial position of the character in the homophonic class and the second has the same articulation as the rest of the syllable ( the final position ). The use of fanqie was an important innovation of the Qieyun and allowed the pronunciation of all characters to describe exactly; Dictionaries earlier described the pronunciation of unusual characters in the form of the most similar denominated known character. [E 3]

The Qieyun uses multiple equivalent fanqie characters to represent each initial sound just like the end of a word / syllables. The determination of the number of categories of initial vowel and Auslauten that are actually displayed, so took a large part of careful work on the part of the Chinese linguists to complete. This was done by allowing two fanqie initial sounds (or end of a word ) equates whenever one is used for the fanqie spelling of the pronunciation of the other and then chains of such equivalences tracked to form larger groups (eg, if the pronunciation of a specific character is defined by the fanqie spelling AB and the pronunciation of the character A through the fanqie spelling CD and the pronunciation of the character C by the fanqie spelling EF is defined, then the characters A, C and E are all equivalent fanqie character for the same initial sound ). [E 4]

The Qieyun classifies homonyms under 193 rhyme classes, each of which is assigned to one of four tones. A single rhyme class can contain multiple end of a word, which is generally only through the medial position (especially if it is / w / games) or in so-called Chongniu doublets ( see below).

Rhyme boards

The Yunjing (~ 1150 AD. ) Is the oldest of the rhyme tables, which presents a detailed phonological analysis of Qieyun system. The Yunjing was created centuries after the Qieyun and the authors of the Yunjing tried a phonological system to interpret, which differ significantly from their own dialect of Late Middle Chinese ( English: Late middle Chinese (LMC ) ) differed. They were aware of this and tried the Qieyun phonology as well as possible to reconstruct through thorough analysis of the control ( mäßigkeite ) n of the system as well as the simultaneous occurrence relationships between home and Auslauten as they are displayed by the fanqie characters. Anyway, the analysis inevitably some influences on the part of the LMC ( Late Middle Chinese / late middle Chinese) on what is to be considered when interpreting trickier aspects of the system. [E 5]

The Yunjing consists of 43 tables (tables ), each more Qieyun rhyme classes covers, which are divided as follows: [E 6]

• One of the 16 SHE摄, comprehensive rhyming class of the LMC. Each SHE is either "inside" (内nei ) or " outside" (外wai ). The significance of this is controversial, but it is believed that it is related to the height of the main vowel, where " outer" end of a word having a low vowel ( / ɑ / or / a, a / ) and "inner" end of a word a non- low vowel.
• " open mouth " ( kāikǒu开口) or " closed mouth " ( hékǒu合口), indicates whether lip rounding is present. Have " closed " end of a word, either a rounded vowel ( eg / u /) or a rounded glide ( English: rounded glide ).

Each table has 23 columns, one for each initial sound ( shēngmǔ声母" According mother "). Although the Yunjing are different 36 initial sounds embedded them in 23 columns by palatals, retro flexes and dental are found in the same column. This does not lead to cases where two homophone classes merge as the degrees (rows) are arranged in such a way that all possible minimal pairs distinguished only by the retroflex vs.. palatal vs.. land alveolar character of the initial sound in different lines. [E 7]

Each initial sound is further classified as follows: [E 8]

• Place of articulation: labial ( Chun唇" lip " ), alveolar ( shé舌"tongue" ), velar ( yá牙" molar " ), affricate and sibilant ( chǐ齿" front tooth ") and guttural (HOU喉" throat " )
• Manner of articulation: voiceless ( qīng清"clear" ), voiceless aspirated ( cìqīng次 清" secondary clear " ), voiced ( Zhuo浊" cloudy " ) or nasal or liquid ( Qingzhuo清浊" clear - turbid " )

Each panel further has 16 lines with groups of 4 rows for each of the four tones ( shēngdiào声调" sound intonation " ) to the traditional system at the end of a word to / p /, / t / or / k / rather than input audio versions of the end of a word / m /, / n / or / ŋ / are considered as a separate stand-alone end of a word. The significance of the 4 rows ( Deng等" class ", "degree" or "Group") within each tone is difficult to interpret and highly controversial. These series are commonly referred to with ' I', ' II ', ' III ' and ' IV' and should probably leave to differences in palatalization or retroflexion that occur in Silbenanlauten or Silbeninlauten or to differences in the quality of similar main vowels ( eg / ɑ /, / a /, / ɛ / ). [E 6]. Other scholars do not see them as phonetic categories but as a formal tool to exploit distribution pattern in Qieyun to achieve a compact representation [E 9].

Each square contains a blackboard a character which corresponds to a particular class in the homophonic Qieyun, provided it exists. Through this arrangement, each homophone class can be assigned to one of the above categories [ E 10 ].

Modern dialects and Sino- xenische pronunciations

The rhyme dictionaries and rhyme tables identify categories of phonetic distinctions, but do not show the actual pronunciations of these categories. The varying pronunciations of words in today's Varietietäten the Chinese can help, but most of these varieties are from a late Middle Chinese koine and can not from the pronunciation of Early Middle Chinese are readily utilized to determine.

During the Early Middle Chinese period, a large number of Chinese vocabulary systematically borrowed from the Vietnamese, Koreans and Japanese (collectively known as the Sino - xenische vocabulary ( English: Sino- xenic vocabularies ) ), but a lot of distinction are irretrievably for mapping of Chinese Phonology in foreign phonological systems lost [ e 11 ].

As an example, the following table shows the pronunciation of numerals in three modern Chinese varieties besides borrowed forms in Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese:

Transcription documents

Although the evidence from Chinese transcriptions of foreign words limited exist and are obscured by the figure of foreign pronunciations of Chinese phonology in a similar manner, these still serve as direct evidence of a benefit of going the other data types: the pronunciation of foreign languages ​​in particular the Sanskrit is known in almost every detail. For example, the Sanskrit word Dravidian was translated by religious writers in the character string达罗 毗 荼, ( English: Mandarin, also northern Chinese general) today ( 2013) in standard Chinese is pronounced as Dáluópítú. This suggests that the Mandarin -uo is the modern image of an old / a / -like Loud and that the second tone is an image of an ancient voiced consonants.

The nasal initial sounds / m /, / n / and / ŋ / were used in the early Tang period to transcribe Sanskrit nasals, but later for non -aspirated voiced initial sounds of Sanskrit, suggesting that they in some dialects become pränasalisierten consonants ( nasal obstruent ( or non- nasal sonorants ) are [ e 13 ] [ e 14 ]

Methodology

Although the rhyme dictionaries and rhyme tables give phonological categories, but only sparse references to the sounds they represent. [ E 15 ]

At the end of the 19th century sought to European students of Chinese to solve this problem by applying the methods of historical linguistics, which had been used to reconstruct the Proto - Indo-European. Volpicelli (1896) and Schaank (1897 ) compared the rhyme tables at the beginning of the Kangxi dictionary with modern pronunciation in different varieties, but had little idea of ​​linguistics. [ E 16 ]

Karlgren, who was well versed in the transcription of Swedish dialects, carried out the first systematic study of the varieties of Chinese. He used the oldest at the time known rhyme board as a description of the sounds of the rhyming dictionaries, and also studied the Guangyun, its time the oldest known rhyming dictionary. [ E 17 ] Unaware of the work Li's, he repeated the analysis of fanqie that were required to determine the presence to identify and end of a word the dictionary -. He believed that the resulting categories reproduced the language standard capital Chang'an of the Sui and Tang dynasties. He interpreted the many distinctions as a narrow transcription of the precise sounds of this language, which he sought to reconstruct, by treating the Sino- xenischen and modern dialectal pronunciations as a reflection of the Qieyun categories. A small number of Qieyun categories were distinguished in any of the surviving debates and Karlgren assigned them identical reconstructions. [ E 18 ]

Karlgrens transcription comprises a great number of consonants and vowels, many distributed quite unevenly. Chao Yuen Ren and Samuel E. Martin accepted Karlgrens reconstruction as a description of medieval language and analyzed their contrasts ( English: "its contrasts " ) to obtain a phonemic description [ E 19 ] Hugh M. Stimson simplified Martins System to approximate. pronunciation indication of the Tang poetry. [ e 15 ] Karlgren himself held phonemic analysis for a deleterious " fixed idea ." [ e 20 ]

Older versions of the rhyme dictionaries and rhyme tables appeared during the first half of the 20th century, and were used by such linguists as Wang Li, Dong Tonghe and Li Rong their own reconstructions. [ E 19 ] Edwin Pulleyblank argued that the Qieyun system and the rhyme tables as two different (but related to each other standing ) systems should be reconstructed, which he early or late Middle Chinese called. Furthermore, he argued that his late Middle Chinese reproduces the default language of the late Tang Dynasty. [ E 21 ]

The introduction of the Qieyun, discovered in 1947, indicates that his record is a compromise between the north and south reading and poetic traditions from the late Southern and Northern Dynasties period are ( a slide system ). Most linguists believe now (2013 ) that no single dialect contained all recorded distinctions, but that any distinction occurred somewhere [E 2] A number of scholars compared the Qieyun system with dialect cross. ( English: "cross- dialectal " ) descriptions of English debates, such as John C. Wellss lexical sets or the notation that is used in some dictionaries. For example, include the words "trap ", " bath", "palm ", " lot ", " cloth" and " thought" four different vowels in Received Pronunciation and three ( vowels ) in the General American (English ); both of these modes of pronunciation ( and many others) can (meaning here well: in English ). specified with the help of these six cases [ E 22 ]

Although the Qieyun system no longer for a description of a singular form of speech (voice form) is considered, consult a linguist that this even its value in the reconstruction of earlier forms of Chinese Increase, similar to a dialect overarching description of the English pronunciations more information on earlier forms of English contains as any single modern form. [ e 22 ] the weighting has shifted from precise sounds (phonetics ) the structure of the phonological system.

So Li Fang - Kuei made ​​a revision of Karlgrens notation before he approached his reconstruction of ancient Chinese by introducing new notations for the few categories that Karlgren had not distinguished, and ordered them not to pronunciations. [ E 23 ] This notation is not always used wide, but its symbols based on Johan August Lundell's Swedish dialect alphabet, different from us familiar International Phonetic alphabet. To remedy this, William H. Baxter created his own notation for the categories of Qieyun and the rhyme tables and then used these to reconstruct the ancient Chinese. [ E 24 ]

The approach to reconstruction of the Middle Chinese, the Karlgren and his successors followed, consisted rather in dialect (s) and sino- xenische data to use as a tool to populate the phonetic values ​​for the data extracted from the rhyme dictionaries and panels categories, because the comparative fully insert method. [ e 11 ] All reconstructions of the Middle Chinese since Karlgren have followed this approach, where work began on the information extracted from the rhyme dictionaries and panels categories and order according to their phonetic values ​​using data from the dialects and Sino- xenischen transcriptions, supplement. Jerry Norman and Weldon South Coblin have criticized this approach and objected that upon consideration of the dialect data by the rhyme dictionaries and boards the documents are skewed. They plead supplemented by systematic use of data transcription. [ E 25 ] for a full application of the comparative method to modern varieties

Phonology

The traditional analysis of Chinese syllable derived from the fanqie method consists of the initial sound ( consonant ) (声母, shēngmǔ ) and the final position (韵母, yùnmǔ ). Modern linguists divide the final position further in middle of a word: an optional " means " glide (韵 头, yùntóu ), a main vowel or " nucleus " (韵 腹, Yunfu, nuclear vowel ') and an optional final consonant or " coda " (韵 尾, Yunwei ). Most reconstructions of the Middle Chinese include the glides ( semivowels ) / j / and / w / as well as / jw / combination, but many also refer the vocalic " glides " such as / i / in a diphthong / ie / with a. The consonants / j /, / w /, / m /, / n /, / ŋ /, / p /, / t / and / k / are widely accepted, sometimes with additional codas such as / wk / or / WN / [ E 26 ] rhyme syllables in Qieyun -. accepted as -. has the same vowel nucleus and coda but often different middle of a word [ E 27 ]

Middle Chinese reconstructions of different modern linguists vary. These differences are minor and in terms of consonants hardly controversial; nevertheless there are more significant differences than the vowels. The most common transcriptions are Li Fang - Kuei's modification of Karlgrens reconstruction and William Baxter ( with keyboard ) writable notation.

Initial sounds

The preface to Yunjing identifies a traditional set of 36 initial vowel, each named with a pattern character. An earlier version, which includes 30 initial sounds, is known from fragments among the Dunhuang manuscripts. In contrast to this, a head-scratching analysis of fanqie relations over the whole dictionary was necessary to identify the initial sounds of Qieyun, a task which was first undertaken by the Cantonese scholar Chen Li in 1842 and has since been refined by others. This analysis revealed a slightly different set of initial vowel from the traditional set. Moreover, most scholars [ E 28 ] believe that some distinctions between the 36 initial vowel were not more common at the time of the rhyme tables, but were maintained under the influence of earlier dictionaries.

( English: Early Middle Chinese ( EMC ) ) Early Middle Chinese had three types of plosives: voiced, unvoiced and unvoiced aspirated. There were five series of coronal obstruents with triple distinction between dental (or alveolar ), retroflex and palatal fricatives and affricates under, and a two-time dental / retroflex distinction among the plosives. The following table shows the initial sounds of the early Middle Chinese with their traditional names and Nährungswerten: [E 29]

The ancient Chinese had a simpler system without palatal or retroflex consonants; the complex system of EMC is believed to have originated from a combination of ancient Chinese obstruents with the following / r / and / or / j /. [ E 30 ]

Bernhard Karlgren developed the first modern reconstruction of the Middle Chinese. The main differences between Karlgren and recent reconstructions of the initial sounds are:

• The change / loss / Reversal of / ʑ / and / dʑ /. Karlgren based his reconstruction on rhyme tables of the song Dynasty. Because of blends / transitions of these two sounds between Early and Late Middle Chinese, the Chinese could phonologist, who created the rhyme tables, only on tradition ( oral Überliefung ) are based to ( sound) to determine the respective values ​​of these two consonants; obviously they were accidentally swapped at a stage.
• Karlgren assumed also that the EMC retroflex actually palatals were due to their tendency to occur simultaneously with front vowels and / j /, but this view is no longer represented.
• Karlgren assumed that voiced consonants were actually aspirated. Of which is now assumed for the LMC, not EMC's.

Various changes occurred between the time of Qieyun and the rhyme tables:

• Palatal sibilants mingled with retroflex sibilants. [ E 31 ]
• / ʐ / merged with / dʐ / ( thus forming four separate phoneme from EMC ).
• The palatal nasal / ɲ / was also retroflex, but was rather a new phoneme / r / for mixing with an existing phoneme.
• The palatal allophone of / ɣ / (云) merged with / j / (以) into a single laryngeal initial sound / j / (喻). [ E 32 ]
• A number of new labiodental emerged from the labials in certain environment, typically there where both centralization and rounding occurred (eg / j / plus back vowel ( William Baxter's reconstruction), or plus a rounded front vowel ( Chan's reconstruction) ). However, modern Min dialects retain bilabial initial sound in in such words, while modern Hakka dialects retain this in some common words. [ E 33 ]
• Voiced obstruents are aspirated (still present in the Wu (Language) varieties ).

The following table shows a representative summary of the initial sounds of the late Middle Chinese. [ E 34 ]

The distinction, voicing ( voiced / unvoiced ) is maintained in modern Wu dialects, but disappeared from other varieties. In Min dialects, the retroflex dentals with dentals are fused while they are elsewhere combined with the retroflex sibilants. In the south, they also coincide with the dental sibilants, but are retained in most Mandarin dialects. The Palatalreihe modern Mandarin dialects, which is the result of a mixing of palatal allophones of dental sibilants and velars, is a much more recent development, which has nothing to do with the earlier palatal consonants. [ E 35 ]

End of a word

The rest of a syllable after the initial sound ( consonant ) is the final position ( the Auslautsilbe ), which is represented by several equivalent auxiliary fanqie in Qieyun. Each final sound is a singular rhyme class but assigned a rhyme class can contain between one and four end of a word. End of a word are decomposed to the effect usually that they consist of an optional medial position (either semi-vowel, reduced vowel or a combination thereof), a vowel, an optional final consonant and a tone exist. Their reconstruction is much more difficult than with the initial vowel due to the combination of multiple phonemes in a singular class. [ E 36 ]

The generally accepted final consonants are: the semi-vowels / j / and / w /, the nasals / m /, / n / and / ŋ / and the plosives / p /, / t / and / k /. Some authors suggest the codas / WN / and / kr / before, based on the separate treatment of different rhyme classes in the dictionaries. Final vowels with vowels and nasal codas can have one of three sounds, namely a level tone, rising tone and falling tone. End of a word with plosive codas are distributed in the same way as the corresponding nasal end of a word and are called their "entering tone" counterparts ( 7th and 8th tone, which in today's Chinese to 90 % for the 4th of clay were ) described. [E 37 ]

Less agreement there is among the Inlauten and vowels. It is mostly of the opinion that "closed" end of a word a rounded slide / w / or vowel / u / had and that the vowel in " outer " Auslauten was more open than those in the "inner" Auslauten. The interpretation of the "Departments" ( English: " divisions" ) is more controversial. Three class of Qieyun - Auslauten appear only in the respectively first, second and fourth rows of panels rhyme and have therefore been referred to as the end of a word Divisions I, II and IV. The remaining end of a word were Division III end of a word called because they occur in the third row; but they can also occur in the second and fourth row in some Auslauten. Most linguists agree that the Department III end of a word a medially - / j / contained and that the department -I had no end of a word such medial position, but other properties that vary according to the reconstruction. To meet the many rhyme classes meet that distinguishes the Qieyun suggested Karlgren before 16 vowels and 4 middle of a word. Later scholars have proposed numerous variations. [ E 38 ]

Tones

The Qieyun characters classified into four components according to their tone, flat tone (平声, Pingsheng ), ascending tone (上声, shǎngshēng ) aufbrechender tone (去声, qùshēng ) and entering tone (入声, Rusheng ). The " entering tone " refers in fact to syllables rather by a final plosive ( / p /, / t /, or / k / ) are characterized as by a distinct tone. [ E 39 ]

It is difficult to determine the exact contours of the other tones. Karlgren interpreted the name literally as respective level, rising and falling tones. [ E 39 ] The oldest known description of the notes was in a quote from the Song Dynasty ( early 9th century) found Chinese元 和 韵 谱, Pinyin Yuanhe Yunpu, An - and Auslauttafel ' ( no longer exists ): "The level tone is sad and stable. The rising tone is shrill and rising. The fracturing sound is clear and far. The incoming sound is straight and abrupt. " [A 13]

The transformation from ancient Chinese to the Middle Chinese to modern varieties

Middle Chinese had a structure similar to many modern varieties (especially conservative as Cantonese), and with mostly monosyllabic words, little or no derivation morphology, three tones and syllable structures, consisting of initial consonant, glide, main vowel and final consonant, with a large number of Anlautkonsonanten a fairly small number Auslautkonsonanten. If one does not include the glide, no clusters occur at the beginning or end of a syllable.

Ancient Chinese, on the other hand, had a significantly different structure. There were no sounds, a smaller imbalance between possible initial position and final consonants and a significant number of initial sound and Auslautclustern. It was a well-developed system of drainage and diffraction morphology formed using consonants, which was added before or after a syllable. This system is similar to the system that has been reconstructed for Proto - Sino - Tibetan and is still very visible, for example, in the written Tibetan language; it also resembles the most part the system that occurs in the more conservative Mon-Khmer languages ​​, such as the modern Khmer ( Cambodian ).

The main changes that led to the modern varieties, were a reduction in the number of consonants and vowels and a corresponding increase in the number of tones (typically by a pan- East Asian Tonspaltung, which doubled the number of tones, while the distinction between voiced and unvoiced consonants eliminated was ). This led to a gradual decline in the number of possible syllables. In Mandarin this decay is much more updated than elsewhere with only about 1,200 possible syllables. The result, especially in higher Chinese / Mandarin was the proliferation of the number of disyllabic compound words that have steadily replaced the previous one-syllable words, such that the majority of words in standard Chinese today (2013 ) consists of two syllables.

Footnotes

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