This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of Old Chinese from documentary evidence. Although the writing system does not describe sounds directly, shared phonetic components of the most ancient Chinese characters are believed to link words that were pronounced similarly at that time. The oldest surviving Chinese verse, in the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), shows which words rhymed in that period. Scholars have compared these bodies of contemporary evidence with the much later Middle Chinese reading pronunciations listed in the Qieyun rime dictionary published in 601 AD, though this falls short of a phonemic analysis. Supplementary evidence has been drawn from cognates in other Sino-Tibetan languages and in Min Chinese, which split off before the Middle Chinese period, Chinese transcriptions of foreign names, and early borrowings from and by neighbouring languages such as Hmong–Mien, Tai and Tocharian languages.
Although many details are disputed, most recent reconstructions agree on the basic structure. It is generally agreed that Old Chinese differed from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless sonorants. Most recent reconstructions also posit consonant clusters at the end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese.
and 27 Related for: Old Chinese phonology information
symbols, see Help:IPA. Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of OldChinese from documentary evidence. Although the writing system does not...
transcription delimiters. Historical Chinesephonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters...
Chinesephonology is covered by the following articles: Concerning modern Chinese: Standard Chinesephonology Cantonese phonology For the phonology of...
OldChinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese...
important information for the reconstruction of the preceding system of OldChinesephonology (early 1st millennium BC). The fanqie method used to indicate pronunciation...
many translated into English, Chinese, and Japanese. In particular, he made major contributions to OldChinesephonology, proposing the *l medial (now...
used elsewhere. Several authors have produced reconstructions of OldChinesephonology, beginning with the Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren in the...
Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of OldChinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of...
and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. The phonology of Standard Chinese has historically derived from the Beijing dialect of Mandarin...
Classical Chinese is the language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from c. the 5th century BCE. For millennia thereafter, the...
of Chinese by preserving the voiced initials of the ancient Middle Chinese and by preserving the checked tone as a glottal stop. The phonological divergence...
Middle Chinese, Late Middle Chinese and Early Mandarin, Vancouver: UBC Press, ISBN 978-0-7748-0366-3. ——— (1999), "Chinese traditional phonology", Asia...
§ Brackets and transcription delimiters. Old English phonology is necessarily somewhat speculative since Old English is preserved only as a written language...
phonology of Middle and OldChinese from clues present in characters is a field of historical linguistics. In Chinese, historical Chinesephonology is...
(1988). Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-521-22809-1. Baxter, William H. (1992). A Handbook of OldChinesePhonology (Trends...
Eastern Han Chinese, Later Han Chinese or Late OldChinese is the stage of the Chinese language revealed by poetry and glosses from the Eastern Han period...
language in modern Chinese. Since the Qing dynasty, its rhyme patterns have also been analysed in the study of OldChinesephonology. Early references...
Unification of China, SUNY Press, ISBN 978-0-7914-1037-0. (only 王; 'king' is known), Baxter, William H. (1992), A Handbook of OldChinesePhonology, Berlin:...
(simplified Chinese: 扬子鳄; traditional Chinese: 揚子鱷; pinyin: yángzǐ'è), China alligator, or historically the muddy dragon, is a crocodilian endemic to China. It...
composed of ⟨人⟩ 'person' and ⟨木⟩ 'tree'. As the understanding of OldChinesephonology developed during the second half of the 20th century, many researchers...
OldChinesephonology from rhymes in the (11th–7th centuries BCE) Shijing and phonological components of Chinese characters. Reconstructions of Old Chinese...
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...
Spurious languages Baxter, William Hubbard (1992). A Handbook of OldChinesePhonology. Walter de Gruyter. p. 24. ISBN 9783110123241. Fortson, Benjamin...
assimilation. OldChinese probably had some constraint governing the shape of disyllables. According to modern reconstructions of OldChinesephonology, type...
[Multi-function Chinese Character Database] (in Chinese). Chinese University of Hong Kong. 2014. Baxter, William H. (1992). A Handbook of OldChinesePhonology. Berlin:...
/ / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. The phonology of Old Saxon mirrors that of the other ancient Germanic languages, and also...
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