''Fanqie'' ( zh, t=
反切, p=fǎnqiè, l=reverse cut) is a method in traditional
Chinese lexicography to indicate the pronunciation of a monosyllabic
character by using two other characters, one with the same initial consonant as the desired syllable and one with the same rest of the syllable (the final).
The method was introduced in the 3rd century AD and is to some extent still used in commentaries on the
classics
Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...
and dictionaries.
History
Early dictionaries such as the ''
Erya
The ''Erya'' or ''Erh-ya'' is the first surviving Chinese dictionary. The sinologist Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from the 3rd century BC."
Title
Chinese scholars interpret the firs ...
'' (3rd century BC) indicated the pronunciation of a character by the ''dúruò'' (讀若, "read as") method, giving another character with the same pronunciation. The introduction of
Buddhism to China around the 1st century brought Indian
phonetic knowledge
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
, which may have inspired the idea of ''fanqie''. According to the 6th-century scholar
Yan Zhitui
Yan Zhitui (, 531–591?) courtesy name Jie () was a Chinese calligrapher, painter, musician, writer, philosopher and politician who served four different Chinese states during the late Northern and Southern dynasties: the Liang dynasty in ...
, ''fanqie'' were first used by Sun Yan (孫炎), of the
state of Wei
Wei (; ) was one of the seven major State (Ancient China), states during the Warring States period of ancient China. It was created from the three-way Partition of Jin, together with Han (Warring States), Han and Zhao (state), Zhao. Its territo ...
during the
Three Kingdoms
The Three Kingdoms of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu dominated China from AD 220 to 280 following the end of the Han dynasty. This period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and followed by the Jin dynasty (266–420), Western Jin dyna ...
period (220–280 AD), in his ''Erya Yinyi'' (爾雅音義, "Sounds and Meanings of ''Erya''"). However, earlier examples have been found in the late-2nd-century works of Fu Qian and
Ying Shao
Ying Shao (144–204), courtesy name Zhongyuan, was a Chinese politician, writer and historian who lived during the Eastern Han dynasty. He was an author of the '' Fengsu Tongyi'', an encyclopedic work about the folk customs and legends that exi ...
.
The oldest extant sources of significant bodies of ''fanqie'' are fragments of the original ''
Yupian
The ''Yupian'' (; "Jade Chapters") is a c. 543 Chinese dictionary edited by Gu Yewang ( 顧野王; Ku Yeh-wang; 519–581) during the Liang dynasty. It arranges 12,158 character entries under 542 radicals, which differ somewhat from the origi ...
'' (544 AD) found in Japan and the ''
Jingdian Shiwen
The ''Jingdian Shiwen'', often simply referred to as the ''Shiwen'' by Chinese philologists, was a Chinese dictionary compiled by the scholar Lu Deming . Based on the works of 230 scholars whose work spanned the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties pe ...
'', a commentary on the classics that was written in 583 AD. The method was used throughout the ''
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 ' ...
'', a Chinese
rhyme dictionary
A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book () is a genre of dictionary that records pronunciations for Chinese characters by tone (linguistics), tone and rhyme, instead of by graphical means like their Chinese character radicals, radicals. ...
published in 601 AD during the
Sui dynasty
The Sui dynasty ( ) was a short-lived Dynasties of China, Chinese imperial dynasty that ruled from 581 to 618. The re-unification of China proper under the Sui brought the Northern and Southern dynasties era to a close, ending a prolonged peri ...
. When Classical Chinese poetry flowered during the
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...
, the ''Qieyun'' became the authoritative source for literary pronunciations. Several revisions and enlargements were produced, the most important of which was the ''
Guangyun
The ''Guangyun'' (''Kuang-yun''; ) is a Chinese rhyme dictionary that was compiled from 1007 to 1008 under the patronage of Emperor Zhenzong of Song. Its full name was ''Dà Sòng chóngxiū guǎngyùn'' (, literally "Great Song revised and ...
'' (1007–1008). Even after the more sophisticated
rime table
A rime table or rhyme table ( zh, t=韻圖, s=韵图, p=yùntú, w=yün-t'u) is a Chinese phonological model, tabulating the syllables of the series of rime dictionaries beginning with the ''Qieyun'' (601) by their onsets, rhyme groups, tones an ...
analysis was developed, ''fanqie'' continued to be used in dictionaries, including the voluminous ''
Kangxi Dictionary
The ''Kangxi Dictionary'' () is a Chinese dictionary published in 1716 during the High Qing, considered from the time of its publishing until the early 20th century to be the most authoritative reference for written Chinese characters. Wanting ...
'', published in 1716, and the ''
Ciyuan
The ''Ciyuan'' or ''Tz'u-yüan'' was the first major Chinese dictionary linguistically structured around words (''ci'' ) instead of individual characters (''zi'' ) used to write them. The Commercial Press published the first edition ''Ciyuan'' ...
'' and ''
Cihai
The ''Cihai'' is a large-scale dictionary and encyclopedia of Standard Mandarin Chinese. The Zhonghua Book Company published the first ''Cihai'' edition in 1938, and the Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House revised editions in 1979, 1989, ...
'' of the 1930s.
During the
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
, some bilingual Chinese-Manchu dictionaries had the
Manchu
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...
words
phonetically transcribed with Chinese characters. The book 御製增訂清文鑑 ("Imperially Published Revised and Enlarged Mirror of Qing"), in both Manchu and Chinese, used
Manchu script to transcribe Chinese words and Chinese characters to transcribe Manchu words by using ''fanqie''.
Function

In the ''fanqie'' method, a character's pronunciation is represented by two other characters. The
onset (initial consonant) is represented by that of the first of the two characters (上字 "upper word", as Chinese was written vertically); the final (including the medial glide, the nuclear vowel and the coda) and the
tone
Tone may refer to:
Visual arts and color-related
* Tone (color theory), a mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory
* Tone (color), the lightness or brightness (as well as darkness) of a color
* Toning (coin), color change in coins
* ...
are represented by those of the second of the two characters (下字, "lower word"). For example, in the ''Qieyun'', the character is described by the formula 德紅反. The first two characters indicate the onset and the final, respectively, and so the pronunciation of 東 is given as the onset of with the final of , with the same tone as 紅.
In the rhyme dictionaries, there was a tendency to choose pairs of characters that agree on the presence or absence of a palatal medial ''-j-'', but there was no such tendency for the rounded medial ''-w-'', which was represented solely in the final character.
There was also a strong tendency to spell words with labial initials using final characters with labial initials.
The third character ''fǎn'' "turn back" is the usual marker of a ''fanqie'' spelling in the ''Qieyun''. In later dictionaries such as the ''Guangyun'', the marker character is ''qiè'' "run together". (The commonly-cited reading "cut" seems to be modern.) The Qing scholar
Gu Yanwu
Gu Yanwu () (July 15, 1613 – February 15, 1682), also known as Gu Tinglin (), was a Chinese philologist, geographer, and famous scholar in the early Qing dynasty. After the Manchu conquest of north China in 1644, Gu participated in anti-Manc ...
suggested that ''fǎn'', which also meant "overthrow", was avoided after the devastating rebellions during the middle of the
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...
. The origin of both terms is obscure.
The compound word ''fǎnqiè'' first appeared during the
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...
.
Analysis
''Fanqie'' provide information about the sounds of earlier forms of Chinese, but its recovery is not straightforward. Several characters could be used for each initial or final, and no character was ever used to spell itself.
However, it is possible to identify the initials and the finals underlying a large and consistent collection of ''fanqie'' by using a method that was first used by the Cantonese scholar
Chen Li, in his 1842 study of the ''Guangyun''.
For example, in that dictionary,
* 東 was spelled 德 + 紅,
* 德 was spelled 多 + 特, and
* 多 was spelled 德 + 河.
That implies that 東, 德 and 多 must all have had the same initial. By following such chains of equivalence, Chen identified categories of equivalent initial spellers, and a similar process was possible for the finals.
Unaware of Chen's work, the Swedish linguist
Bernard 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 ...
repeated the analysis to identify the initials and finals in the 1910s.
Chen's method can be used to identify the categories of initials and finals, but not their sound values, for which other evidence is required.
Thus,
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 expande ...
has been reconstructed by Karlgren and later scholars by comparing those categories with
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- ...
and the pronunciations in modern
varieties of Chinese
There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the m ...
.
Effects of sound change
The method described the pronunciations of characters in
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 expande ...
, but the relationships have been obscured as the language evolved into the modern varieties over the last millennium and a half. Middle Chinese had
four tones
The four tones of Chinese poetry and dialectology () are four traditional tone classes of Chinese words. They play an important role in Chinese poetry and in comparative studies of tonal development in the modern varieties of Chinese, both in ...
, and initial
plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
s and
affricate
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...
s could be
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refe ...
,
aspirated, or
voiceless unaspirated. Syllables with voiced initials tended to be pronounced with a lower pitch, and by the late
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...
, each of the tones had split into two registers (traditionally known as 陰 and 陽) conditioned by the initials. Voicing then disappeared in all dialects except the
Wu group, with voiced initials becoming aspirated or unaspirated depending on the tone. The tones then underwent further mergers in various varieties of Chinese. Thus, the changes in both the initial and the tone were conditioned on each other, as represented by different characters in the pair.
For example, the characters of formula 東 = 德 + 紅 are pronounced , and in modern
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...
; thus, the tones no longer match. That is because the voiceless initial and the voiced initial condition different registers of the Middle Chinese level tone, yielding the first and the second tones of the modern language. (The
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
letter represents the voiceless and unaspirated stop .)
That effect sometimes led to a form of
spelling pronunciation
A spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronoun ...
.
Chao Yuen Ren
Yuen Ren Chao (Chinese: 趙元任; 3 November 189225 February 1982), also known as Zhao Yuanren, was a Chinese-American linguist, educator, scholar, poet, and composer, who contributed to the modern study of Chinese phonology and grammar. Chao ...
cited the example of the character , which had two readings in Middle Chinese. It could be read as in the level tone, meaning 'strong, powerful', which developed regularly into the modern reading . However, it could be read also as in the rising tone, meaning 'stubborn' or 'forced'. The regular development would be for the voiced initial to condition the register of the rising tone, becoming the fourth tone of modern Chinese and for the rising tone to condition an unaspirated initial.
Thus, would be expected, and this does occur in the sense 'stubborn', but the character also has the unexpected pronunciation for the sense 'forced'. Chao attributed that to the formula 强 = (level tone) + (rising tone) given in dictionaries. Here, the first character is now pronounced because in the level tone, the voiced initial becomes aspirated. However, the second character is now pronounced because in the rising tone, sonorants like conditioned the register, which led to the modern third tone.
Use in Cantonese
In
Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
, fanqie can be found in some dictionaries to this day, often alongside other
romanization system or phonetic guides, to indicate the pronunciation of characters lacking a
homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...
.
For example, in the Sun Ya dictionary the character 攀 is transcribed as
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
''pān'' and for Cantonese ''pan¹'' and the Cantonese tonal homophone 扳 , whereas 戀, lacking a tonal homophone, is transcribed as ''lyn²'' and 〔拉婉切〕 (l-āai + yún) to give lyún. If there is no tonal homophone, the tone is indicated. For example 實用廣州話分類詞典 transcribes 仆 as and fanqie 〔披屋切〕 (p-ēi + ūk) but 𠵿, lacking a tonal homophone is transcribed as and 〔音披爺切第1聲〕, i.e. p-ēi + y-èh with tone 1 to give pē.
See also
*
Transliteration of Chinese
The different varieties of Chinese have been transcribed into many other writing systems.
General Chinese
General Chinese is a diaphonemic orthography invented by Yuen Ren Chao to represent the pronunciations of all major varieties of Chines ...
References
Works cited
*
*
*
*
*
* Reprinted as
* (This book pointed out that use of ''fanqie'' appeared as early as
Eastern Han
The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...
.)
*
*
*
*
*
{{Refend
Chinese words and phrases
Middle Chinese
Traditional Chinese phonology
2nd-century establishments in China
Phonetic guides