Middle Chinese (traditional Chinese: 中古漢語; pinyin: zhōnggǔ Hànyǔ), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). The term "Middle Chinese", in contrast to Old Chinese and Modern Chinese, is usually used in the context of historical Chinese phonology, which seeks to reconstruct the pronunciation of Chinese used during these times. Traditional Chinese characters refers to one of two standard sets of printed Chinese characters. ... Pinyin, more formally called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Pinyin: ), is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. ... Bernhard Karlgren (1889 - 1978) was a Swedish sinologist and eminent philologist, and the founder of Swedish sinology as a scholarly discipline. ... Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... This article is about China. ... The Sui Dynasty of China amongst the Asian, African, and European spheres of the world, 600 AD. The Sui Dynasty (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; 581-618 AD[1]) followed the Southern and Northern Dynasties and preceded the Tang Dynasty in China. ... For the band, see Tang Dynasty (band). ... For other uses, see Liu Song Dynasty. ... The 6th century is the period from 501 - 600 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... As a means of recording the passage of time, the 10th century was that century which lasted from 901 to 1000. ... The Seal script characters for harvest (later year) and person. ... Vernacular Chinese (白话 [白話]; in pinyin: báihuà, literal meaning: Plain Language) is a style of written Chinese which is based on Standard Mandarin. ... Historical Chinese Phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. ...

Middle Chinese can be divided into an early period, generally called Early Middle Chinese, and a later period, Late Middle Chinese. The transition point between Early and Later Middle Chinese is thought to be during the Mid-Tang Dynasty and is indicated by the phonological developments. For example, in the rime book Qieyun, bilabial initials [p pʰ b m] characters are shown, but there were no labiodental initials like f and v, which could be found in Jiyun. This indicates that a sound change in the pronunciation of Chinese had occurred. For the band, see Tang Dynasty (band). ... A rime dictionary or a rime book is a type of Chinese dictionary that was used in ancient times. ... Qieyun (Chinese 切韻) is a Chinese character rime dictionary, published in 601 AD during the Sui Dynasty. ... In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... For the computer operating system, see Syllable (operating system). ... In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth, or viceversa. ... Jiyun (Chinese: 集韻) is a Chinese rime book published in 1037 during the Song Dynasty. ... Sound change or phonetic change is a historical process of language change consisting in the replacement of one speech sound or, more generally, one phonetic feature by another in a given phonological environment. ...

Reconstruction

The reconstruction between modern linguists may vary slightly, but they are minor differences, and fairly uncontroversial, so we could say the Middle Chinese phonology is fairly well understood and accepted. (Middle) Chinese is not written using an alphabetic script, therefore, sounds cannot be derived directly from writing. The sounds of Middle Chinese must therefore be inferred from a number of sources: ABCs redirects here. ...

• Modern languages. Just as Proto-Indo-European can be reconstructed from modern Indo-European languages, so can Middle Chinese be reconstructed (tentatively) from modern Sinitic languages (e.g. Beifanghua (Mandarin group), Wu, Min or Cantonese).
• Preserved pronunciation of Chinese characters in borrowed Chinese vocabulary surviving in non-Chinese languages such as Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese
• Classical Chinese poetry from the Middle Chinese period
• Transliterations of foreign words into Chinese characters. For example, "Dravida" was translated by religious scribes into a series of characters 達羅毗荼 that are now read in Putonghua (Mandarin) as /ta35 luo35 phi35 thu35/ (Pinyin: Dáluópítú). This suggests that Mandarin /uo/ (Pinyin -uo) is the modern reflex of an ancient /a/-like sound, and that the Mandarin tone /35/ is a reflex of ancient voiced consonants. Both of these can in fact be confirmed through comparison among modern Chinese dialects.
• Rime books (or rime dictionaries). Ancient Chinese philologists devoted a great amount of effort in summarizing the Chinese phonetic system through rime or rhyme books. There was a profuse output of Chinese poetry during the Tang era, with a rigid verse structure that relied on the rime and tone of the final characters in lines of poetry. Middle Chinese as embodied in rime books were a primary aid to authors in composing poetry. The 601 AD Qieyun rime dictionary is our earliest fixed record of the phonology of Chinese pronunciation, albeit without the aid of phonetic letters, but entries that are indexed under a rigorous hierarchy of tone, rime, and onset. Only fragments or incomplete copies were known until a chance discovery of a version from the Tang Dynasty in the caves of Dunhuang. Later expanded rime dictionaries such as the eleventh-century Song Dynasty Guangyun and Jiyun survive to the present day. These are essentially extended versions of the Qieyun, and until the Dunhuang discovery, the Guangyun was the base from which Middle Chinese was reconstructed.

The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... ... This article is on all of the Northern and Southwestern Chinese dialects. ... Wu (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is one of the major divisions of the Chinese language. ... Min (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; POJ: Bân hong-giân; BUC: Mìng huŏng-ngiòng) is a general term for a group of dialects of the Chinese language spoken in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong (around Chaozhou-Swatou... This article is about all of the Cantonese (Yue) dialects. ... Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong Hand-painted Chinese New Years duilian (對聯 couplet), a by-product of Chinese poetry, pasted on the sides of doors leading to peoples homes, at Lijiang City, Yunnan Poetry is the most highly regarded literary genre in ancient China. ... When considering the transliteration of non-Chinese words into Chinese characters, one has to know the following facts: Chinese is written with monosyllabic logograms. ... Map of eastern China and Taiwan, showing the historic distribution of Mandarin Chinese in light brown. ... A Tonal language is a language that uses tone to distinguish words. ... Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong Hand-painted Chinese New Years duilian (對聯 couplet), a by-product of Chinese poetry, pasted on the sides of doors leading to peoples homes, at Lijiang City, Yunnan Poetry is the most highly regarded literary genre in ancient China. ... Qieyun (Chinese 切韻) is a Chinese character rime dictionary, published in 601 AD during the Sui Dynasty. ... For the band, see Tang Dynasty (band). ... Location of Dunhuang Dunhuang (Chinese: , also written as 燉煌 till early Qing Dynasty; Pinyin: ) is a city in Jiuquan, Gansu province, China. ... Guangyun (Chinese: 廣韻) is a rime dictionary. ... Jiyun (Chinese: 集韻) is a Chinese rime book published in 1037 during the Song Dynasty. ...

Reconstructed phonology

Middle Chinese had three types of stops: voiced, voiceless, and voiceless aspirated. Syllables could end with stops. Middle Chinese had more vowels than its descendants, such as /æ/, which merged into similar phonemes later on. Affricate and fricative sibilants had three levels of distinction as they do in Mandarin. Some Sinologists believe that Old Chinese or an early state of Middle Chinese originally had consonant clusters such as /dɹ/ which became retroflex sounds.

Further reading

• Chen, C.-Y. (2001). Tonal evolution from pre-Middle Chinese to modern Pekinese: three tiers of changes and their intricacies. Berkeley, CA: Project on Linguistic Analysis, University of California.
• Newman, J., & Raman, A. V. (1999). Chinese historical phonology: a compendium of Beijing and Cantonese pronunciations of characters and their derivations from Middle Chinese. LINCOM studies in Asian linguistics, 27. Muenchen: LINCOM Europa. ISBN 3895865435
• Ulving, T., & Karlgren, B. (1997). Dictionary of old and middle Chinese: Bernhard Karlgren's Grammata serica recensa alphabetically arranged. Orientalia Gothoburgensia, 11. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. ISBN 9173462942
• Pulleyblank, E. G. (1991). Lexicon of reconstructed pronunciation in early Middle Chinese, late Middle Chinese, and early Mandarin. Vancouver: UBC Press. ISBN 0774803665
• Pulleyblank, E. G. (1984). Middle Chinese: a study in historical phonology. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 0774801921

See also

• rime table

A rime table or rhyme table (Chinese: ; Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: yün-tu) is a syllable chart of the Chinese language, used to facilitate the understanding of fanqie spellings. ...

External links

• An Etymological Dictionary of Common Chinese Characters, William H. Baxter
• Introduction to Chinese Historical Phonology, Guillaume Jacques
• Historical Chinese Phonology/Philology at Technical Notes on the Chinese Language Dialects Dylan W.H. Sung