''Yǒu biān dú biān'' (), or ''dú bàn biān'' (), is a
rule of thumb
In English language, English, the phrase ''rule of thumb'' refers to an approximate method for doing something, based on practical experience rather than theory. This usage of the phrase can be traced back to the 17th century and has been associat ...
people use to pronounce a
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only on ...
when they do not know its exact pronunciation. A longer version is '，' (''yǒu biān dú biān, méi biān dú zhōngjiān''; lit. "read the side if any; read the middle part if there is no side").
Around 90% of Chinese characters are
phono-semantic compounds
Chinese characters are generally logographs, but can be further categorized based on the manner of their creation or derivation. Some characters may be analysed structurally as compounds created from smaller components, while some are not decomp ...
that consist of two parts: a semantic part (often the
radical
Radical (from Latin: ', root) may refer to:
Politics and ideology Politics
*Classical radicalism, the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and Latin America in the 19th century
*Radical politics ...
) that suggests a general meaning (e.g. the part
hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...
usually indicates that a character concerns commerce, as people used shells as currency in ancient times), and a phonetic part which shows how the character is or was pronounced (e.g. the part (
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' ...
: ''huáng'') usually indicates that a character is pronounced ''huáng'' in
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
).
The phonetic part represents the exact or almost-exact pronunciation of the character when the character was first created; characters sharing the same phonetic part had identical or similar readings. Linguists rely heavily on this fact to
reconstruct the sounds of ancient Chinese. However, over time, the reading of a character may be no longer the one indicated by the phonetic part due to
sound change
In historical linguistics, a sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chan ...
and general vagueness.
When one encounters such a two-part character and does not know its exact pronunciation, one may take one of the parts as the phonetic indicator. For example, reading (pinyin: yì) as ''zhǐ'' because its "side" is pronounced as such. Some of this kind of "folk reading" have become acceptable over time – listed in
dictionaries
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...
as alternative pronunciations, or simply become the common reading. For example, people read the character ''ting'' in (
Ximending
Ximending is a neighborhood and shopping district in the Wanhua District of Taipei, Taiwan. The Ximending Pedestrian Area was the first pedestrian zone constructed in Taipei and remains the largest in Taiwan.
History Name
The area is named aft ...
) as if it were ''ding''. It has been called a "phenomenon of
analogy
Analogy is a comparison or correspondence between two things (or two groups of things) because of a third element that they are considered to share.
In logic, it is an inference or an argument from one particular to another particular, as oppose ...
", and is observed in as early as 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 ...
.
[Zhu Jianing 竺家寧, "Songdai yuyin de leihua xianxiang" 宋代語音的類化現象, in ''Jindai yin lunji'' 近代音論集, Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1994, pp. 159–172.]
See also
*
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 ...
* ''
The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy''
Notes
External links
*{{in lang, zh Feng, Shouzhong (S: 冯寿忠, T: 馮壽忠, P: ''Féng Shòuzhōng'')
《与读半边有关的常用字》
, 语言文字网 ''Yǔyán Wénzì Wǎng''。
Chinese characters