A ''xiesheng'' () or phonological series is a set of Chinese characters sharing the same sound-based element. Characters belonging to these series are generally phono-semantic compounds, where the character is composed of a semantic element (or radical) and a sound-based element, encoding information about the meaning and the pronunciation respectively. For example, the character is composed of the semantic component 'water' and the sound component (believed to have been pronounced something like *ba). Thus, 波 represents a word which has to do with water and was pronounced something like *ba. In fact, the word which 波 represents means 'wave' and was pronounced like *pa in Middle Chinese. By grouping together characters with the same sound component into a ''xiesheng'' series, one is able to compare words that were perceived to be quite similar in pronunciation at the time that the characters for these words were invented. As an example, ''xiesheng'' series no. 25 from

Bernhard Karlgren Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren (; 15 October 1889 – 20 October 1978) was a Swedish sinologist and linguist who pioneered the study of Chinese historical phonology using modern comparative methods. In the early 20th century, Karlgren conduct ...

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Grammata Serica Recensa The ''Grammata Serica Recensa'' is a dictionary of Middle Chinese and Old Chinese published by the Swedish sinologist Bernard Karlgren in 1957. History Karlgren made fundamental contributions to the study of the phonology of Middle and Old Chi ...

'' is reproduced below, with Middle Chinese readings in Baxter's transcription system: * a 皮 bje * d 疲 bje * e 被 bjeX * i 陂 pje * j 披 phje * l 波 pa * m 跛 paX * n 簸 paX * n 簸 paH * o 破 phaH * q 婆 ba

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