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Historical Chinese phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters, not alphabetic or syllabary, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably from those employed in, for example, Indo-European linguistics; reconstruction is more difficult because, unlike Indo-European languages, no phonetic spellings were used.
Chinese is documented over a long period of time, with the earliest oracle bone writings dated to c. 1250 BC. However, since the writing is mostly with logographic characters, which do not directly specify the phonology of the language, reconstruction is in general quite difficult, and depends to a large extent on ancillary sources that more directly document the language's phonology. On the basis of these sources, historical Chinese is divided into the following basic periods:
Old Chinese, broadly from about 1250 BC to 25 AD, when the Han dynasty came back to power after the Xin dynasty. More narrowly, reconstructed "Old Chinese" is based on the rhymes of early poetry such as the Shijing and the phonological components of Chinese characters, and is assumed to represent the language of c. 1000-700 BC. Proto-Min developed from Old Chinese.
Middle Chinese, broadly from about the 5th century AD (Northern and Southern dynasties, Sui, Tang, Song) through to 12th century AD. More narrowly, reconstructed "Middle Chinese" is usually based on the detailed phonetic evidence of the Qieyun rime dictionary (601 AD), later expanded into "Guangyun". The Qieyun describes a compromise between the northern and southern varieties and such rhyming dictionaries were essential to write and read aloud poetry with a rhyming pattern.
Modern varieties, from about the 13th century AD (beginning of the Yuan dynasty, in which Early Mandarin was developed) to the present. Most modern varieties appear to have split off from a Late Middle Chinese koine of about 1000 AD (although some remnants of earlier periods are still present, ex. stops without release at the end of the syllable in Hakka and Yue).
and 27 Related for: Historical Chinese phonology information
transcription delimiters. HistoricalChinesephonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic...
Chinesephonology is covered by the following articles: Concerning modern Chinese: Standard Chinesephonology Cantonese phonology For the phonology of...
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the Qieyun, a rime dictionary...
symbols, see Help:IPA. Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of Old Chinese from documentary evidence. Although the writing system does not...
see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. The phonology of Standard Chinese has historically derived from the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. However...
study of historicalChinesephonology. He was also a pioneer of the modern studies of Chinese dialects and of non-Chinese languages in China. Born into...
Pan Wuyun (Chinese: 潘悟云; pinyin: Pān Wùyún, born March 1943) is a leading Chinese linguist and specialist in historicalChinesephonology. Pan was born...
In Middle Chinese, the phonological system of medieval rime dictionaries and rime tables, the final is the rest of the syllable after the initial consonant...
the Qing Dynasty. He made great contributions to the study of HistoricalChinesephonology, and is known for his annotated edition of Shuowen Jiezi. A native...
Chinese, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-29653-3. Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1984), Middle Chinese: a study in historicalphonology...
/ / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. English phonology is the system of speech sounds used in spoken English. Like many other...
Mandarin", Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 6 (2): 173–203, JSTOR 23752830. ——— (1984), Middle Chinese: a study in historicalphonology, Vancouver: University...
at least 10 Chinese characters to transcribe Japanese to, but 臺 is not one of them. In historicalChinesephonology, the Modern Chinese pronunciations...
Chinese pronunciation: [bàn.lǎm]), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Chinese languages that form a branch of Min Chinese spoken...
when discussing the modern Chinese varieties, use the terms "final" and "rime" interchangeably. In historicalChinesephonology, however, the distinction...
important work for the study of historicalChinesephonology, it testifies many phonological changes from Middle Chinese to Old Mandarin, such as the reduction...
If you have trouble playing the files, see Wikipedia Media help. The phonology of Japanese features a phonemic inventory of five vowels (/a, e, i, o...
by comparison, modern Standard Chinese only has 23 and modern Cantonese only has 18 or 19. HistoricalChinesephonology uses the Yunjing as an accurate...
ancient transcription into Chinese characters provide clues to the reconstruction of Middle Chinese. In historicalChinesephonology, this information is called...
nigori-ten. This character, meaning muddy or turbid, stems from historicalChinesephonology, where consonants were traditionally classified as clear (清 "voiceless")...
[ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. The phonology of Welsh is characterised by a number of sounds that do not occur in English...
terms of historicalChinesephonology, the modern bēimíhū (卑彌呼) is simpler than its presumed 3rd-century late Old Chinese or early Middle Chinese pronunciation...
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages systematically organize their phones or, for sign languages, their constituent parts...
delimiters. This article deals with current phonology and phonetics and with historical developments of the phonology of the Tagalog language, including variants...
systems in Chinese". In Branner, David Prager (ed.). The Chinese Rime Tables: Linguistic Philosophy and Historical-Comparative Phonology. Current Issues...
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