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Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese language, Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The Swedish linguist Bernhard Karlgren believed that the dictionary recorded a speech standard of the capital Chang'an of the Sui dynasty, Sui and Tang dynasty, Tang dynasties. However, based on the preface of the ''Qieyun'', most scholars now believe that it records a compromise between northern and southern reading and poetic traditions from the late Northern and Southern dynasties period. This composite system contains important information for the reconstruction of the preceding system of Old Chinese phonology (early 1st millennium BC). The ''fanqie'' method used to indicate pronunciation in these dictionaries, though an improvement on earlier methods, proved awkward in practice. The mid-12th-century ''Yunjing'' and other r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qieyun
The ''Qieyun'' () is a Chinese rhyme dictionary that was published in 601 during the Sui dynasty. The book was a guide to proper reading of classical texts, using the '' fanqie'' method to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese characters. The ''Qieyun'' and later redactions, notably the '' Guangyun'', are important documentary sources used in the reconstruction of historical Chinese phonology. History The book was created by Lu Fayan (Lu Fa-yen; ) in 601. The preface of the ''Qieyun'' describes how the plan of the book originated from a discussion with eight of his friends 20 years earlier at his home in Chang'an, the capital of Sui China. None of these scholars was originally from Chang'an; they were native speakers of differing dialects – five northern and three southern. According to Lu, Yan Zhitui (顏之推) and Xiao Gai (), both men originally from the south, were the most influential in setting up the norms on which the ''Qieyun'' was based. However, the diction ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yunjing
The ''Yunjing'' () is one of the two oldest existing examples of a Chinese rime table – a series of charts which arrange Chinese characters in large tables according to their tone and syllable structures to indicate their proper pronunciations. Current versions of the ''Yunjing'' date to AD 1161 and 1203 editions published by Zhang Linzhi (). The original author(s) and date of composition of the ''Yunjing'' are unknown. Some of its elements, such as certain choices in its ordering, reflect features particular to the Tang dynasty, but no conclusive proof of an actual date of composition has yet been found. The ''Yunjing'' contains 43 tables (), each of which tabulates combinations of a particular final rhyme (listed in rows) with various initials (listed in columns), in up to four tones, to show in a grid pattern all possible syllables. Empty circles on the grid denote that the authors were unaware of any word with that particular pronunciation. By locating a character in ''Yunji ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transcription Into Chinese Characters
Transcription into Chinese characters is the use of traditional or simplified Chinese characters to '' phonetically'' transcribe the sound of terms and names of foreign words to the Chinese language. Transcription is distinct from translation into Chinese whereby the ''meaning'' of a foreign word is communicated in Chinese. Since English classes are now standard in most secondary schools, it is increasingly common to see foreign names and terms left in their original form in Chinese texts. However, for mass media and marketing within China and for non-European languages, particularly those of the Chinese minorities, transcription into characters remains very common. Except for a handful of traditional exceptions, most modern transcription in mainland China uses the standardized Mandarin pronunciations exclusively. Official standards Modern Han Chinese consists of about 412 syllables in 5 tones, so homophones abound and most non-Han words have multiple possible transcripti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vietnamese Language
Vietnamese () is an Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic language Speech, spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the official language. It belongs to the Vietic languages, Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family. Vietnamese is spoken natively by around 86 million people, and as a second language by 11 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined. It is the native language of Vietnamese people, ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh), as well as the second language, second or First language, first language for List of ethnic groups in Vietnam, other ethnicities of Vietnam, and used by Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese diaspora in the world. Like many languages in Southeast Asia and East Asia, Vietnamese is highly analytic language, analytic and is tone (linguistics), tonal. It has head-initial directionality, with subject–verb–object order and modifiers following the words they modify. It also uses noun classifier (linguistics), classi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Korean Language
Korean is the first language, native language for about 81 million people, mostly of Koreans, Korean descent. It is the national language of both South Korea and North Korea. In the south, the language is known as () and in the north, it is known as (). Since the turn of the 21st century, aspects of Korean Wave, Korean popular culture have spread around the world through globalization and Korean Wave, cultural exports. Beyond Korea, the language is recognized as a minority language in parts of China, namely Jilin, and specifically Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Yanbian Prefecture, and Changbai Korean Autonomous County, Changbai County. It is also spoken by Sakhalin Koreans in parts of Sakhalin, the Russian island just north of Japan, and by the in parts of Central Asia. The language has a few Extinct language, extinct relatives which—along with the Jeju language (Jejuan) of Jeju Island and Korean itself—form the compact Koreanic language family. Even so, Jejuan and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Language
is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language. There have been many Classification of the Japonic languages, attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as Ainu languages, Ainu, Austronesian languages, Austronesian, Koreanic languages, Koreanic, and the now discredited Altaic languages, Altaic, but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Ja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Varieties
There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast part of mainland China. The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Xiang, Gan, Jin, Hakka and Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. These groups are neither clades nor individual languages defined by mutual intelligibility, but reflect common phonological developments from Middle Chinese. Chinese varieties have the greatest differences in their phonology, and to a lesser extent in vocabulary and syntax. Southern varieties tend to have fewer initial consonants than northern and central varieties, but more often preserve the Middle Chinese final consonants. All have phonemic tones, with northern varieties tending to have fewer distinctions than southern ones. Many have tone sandhi, with the most complex patter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qiyin Lüe
The ''Qiyin lüe'' () is a Chinese rime table, which dates to before 1161. This reference work survived to the present largely because the Song dynasty historian Zheng Qiao (/; ''Cheng Ch'iao''; 1104–1162) included it in his 1161 encyclopedia '' Tongzhi''. The Chinese linguist Luo Changpei wrote a definitive study (1935) of the ''Qiyin lüe''. The structure and contents of the work is closely related to the ''Yunjing'', and the two are believed to derive from a common source prior to the Song dynasty. Both have tables combining rows for a particular final rime, columns for various initials, and up to four tones. See also * Rime dictionary References External links parts 34–36an37–38of the ''Tongzhi'' encyclopedia at the Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tang Poetry
Tang poetry () refers to poetry written in or around the time of or in the characteristic style of China's Tang dynasty, (June 18, 618 – June 4, 907, including the 690–705 reign of Wu Zetian) and/or follows a certain style, often considered as the Golden Age of Chinese poetry. The ''Complete Tang Poems'' includes over 48,900 poems written by over 2,200 authors. During the Tang dynasty, poetry continued to be an important part of social life at all levels of society. Scholars were required to master poetry for the civil service exams, but the art was theoretically available to everyone. This led to a large record of poetry and poets, a partial record of which survives today. The two most famous poets of the period were Li Bai and Du Fu. The Qing dynasty selection, ''Three Hundred Tang Poems'', has made Tang poetry familiar to educated Chinese in modern times. Periodization The periodization scheme employed in this article is the one detailed by the Ming dynasty scholar Gao B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classical Chinese Poetry
Classical Chinese poetry is traditional Chinese poetry written in Classical Chinese and typified by certain traditional forms, or modes; traditional genres; and connections with particular historical periods, such as the poetry of the Tang dynasty. The existence of classical Chinese poetry is documented at least as early as the publication of the ''Classic of Poetry'' (''Shijing''). Various combinations of forms and genres have developed over the ages. Many or most of these poetic forms were developed by the end of the Tang dynasty, in 907 CE. The use and development of Classical Chinese poetry actively continued up until the May Fourth Movement, in 1919, and is still developed even today. Poetry created during this period of more-or-less continuous development displays a great deal of diversity – categorized by both major historical periods and by dynastic periods (the traditional Chinese historical method). Another key aspect of Classical Chinese poetry is its intense i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Min Chinese
Min ( zh, t=, s=闽语, p=Mǐnyǔ, poj=Bân-gú / Bân-gír / Bân-gí; Bàng-uâ-cê, BUC: ''Mìng-ngṳ̄'') is a broad group of Sinitic languages with about 75 million native speakers. These languages are spoken in Fujian province and Chaoshan, as well as by the descendants of Min-speaking colonists on the Leizhou Peninsula, Hainan, parts of Zhongshan, three counties in southern Wenzhou, the Zhoushan archipelago, Taiwan, and scattered in pockets or sporadically across Hong Kong, Macau, and several countries in Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Brunei. The name is derived from the Min River (Fujian), Min River in Fujian, which is also the abbreviated name of Fujian Province. Min varieties are not mutually intelligible with one another nor with any other variety of Chinese (such as Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu Chinese, Wu, Gan Chinese, Gan, Xiang Chinese, Xiang, or Hakka Chinese, Hak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sino-Xenic Pronunciations
Sino-Xenic vocabularies are large-scale and systematic borrowings of the Chinese lexicon into the Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese languages, none of which are genetically related to Chinese. The resulting Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese vocabularies now make up a large part of the lexicons of these languages. The pronunciation systems for these vocabularies originated from conscious attempts to consistently approximate the original Chinese sounds while reading Classical Chinese. They are used alongside modern varieties of Chinese in historical Chinese phonology, particularly the reconstruction of the sounds of Middle Chinese. Some other languages, such as Hmong–Mien and Kra–Dai languages, also contain large numbers of Chinese loanwords but without the systematic correspondences that characterize Sino-Xenic vocabularies. The term was coined in 1953 by the linguist Samuel E. Martin from the Greek (, 'foreign'); Martin called these borrowings "Sino-Xenic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
