A rime table or rhyme table (Chinese: 韻圖/韵图; Pinyin: yùntú; Wade-Giles: yün-t'u) is a syllable chart of the Chinese language, used to facilitate the understanding of fanqie spellings. As China's native phonological model, it tabulates the syllables by their onsets, rimes, grades of rime, tones and other properties. Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ), commonly called Pinyin, is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. ... Wade-Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration) system for the Chinese language based on Mandarin. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... 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. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... Phonology (Greek phonÄ“ = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ... In phonetics and phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus. ... In the study of phonology in linguistics, the rime or rhyme of a syllable consists of a nucleus and an optional coda. ... It has been suggested that Tonal language be merged into this article or section. ...

Tradition holds that rime tables were invented by Buddhist monks, who were inspired by the Sanskrit syllable charts in the Siddham script they used to study the language. The Song Dynasty Yunjing and Qiyin lüe are the oldest extant rime tables. Based on numerous internal similarities, linguists conclude they shared a common prototype of phonological tables with accompanying texts, a tradition that may date back to the late Tang Dynasty (Baxter 1992: 41). A replica of an ancient statue found among the ruins of a temple at Sarnath Buddhism is a philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, a prince of the Shakyas, whose lifetime is traditionally given as 566 to 486 BCE. It had subsequently been accepted by... The Sanskrit language ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Siddham (Sanskrit सिद्धम्, accomplished or perfected) — is the name of a North Indian script used for writing Sanskrit. ... Northern Song in 1111 AD Capital Kaifeng (960–1127) Linan (1127–1279) Language(s) Chinese Religion Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism Government Monarchy History  - Zhao Kuangyin taking over the throne of the Later Zhou Dynasty 960  - Battle of Yamen; the end of Song rule 1279 Population  - Peak est. ... The Yunjing (Chinese: ; Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Yün-ching; Rime Mirror) is the oldest existing Chinese rime table. ... The Qiyin lüe (Chinese: ; Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chi-yin lüeh; Seven Sounds Summary) is a Chinese rime table that dates prior to 1161. ... China under the Tang Dynasty (yellow) and its sphere of influence Capital Changan (618–904) Luoyang (904-907) Language(s) Middle Chinese Religion Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism Government Monarchy Emperor  - 618-626 Emperor Gaozu  - 684, 705-710 Emperor Zhongzong  - 684, 710-712 Emperor Ruizong  - 904-907 Emperor Ai History  - Li...

A recent book (Branner 2006) surveys current scholarship in the field of rime table theory.

Terminology

• The onset, often called "initial" for Chinese (shengmu 聲母 lit. "sound mother"), is usually a consonant, but when it begins with a vowel, it is said to have a "zero initial." Rime tables followed the Yunjing distinction of 36 initial consonants, and used phonation to divide them between voiceless (qing 清 "clear") and voiced (zhuo 濁 "muddy"). These tables distinguished five places of articulation: labials (chun 脣 "lips"), linguals (she 舌 "tongue"), dentals (chi 齒 "front teeth"), velars (ya 牙 "back teeth"), and gutturals (hou 喉 "throat").
• The yun (韻), see rime dictionary. Similar yun can be grouped into she (攝), from 206 into 16 or 13.
• The rime (Chinese yunmu 韻母 lit. "rime mother") structure is analyzed into the semivowel (or glide), main vowel, and syllable coda (or ending).
• The grades of rime: there are various interpretations for the four types of rime called deng (等 "class", "grade" or "group"), which Bernhard Karlgren translated as "divisions" while other linguists prefer "grades". The grades have to do with the places of articulation (back vs. front) and the presence or absence of the glide -i-. To illustrate the significance of deng, the science of classifying vowels is called dengyun (等韻 "division rime") and traditional phonology is dengyunxue (等韻學 "division rime study").
• For the tone (shengdiao 聲調 "sound intonation"), rime tables followed the Qieyun division of Chinese syllables into four tone names.
• To complicate the matter, syllables are also divided into "inner" (nei 內) and "outer" (wai 外) categories, thought to be related to the vocalic heights contrasting close vowels and open vowels. A further categorization was between "open" (kai 開) and "closed" (he 合), which are interpreted to indicate the presence or absence of [w] or [u].

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... In phonetics, phonation is the use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... Places of articulation (passive & active): 1. ... A rime dictionary or a rime book is a type of Chinese dictionary that was used in ancient times. ... Semivowels (also glides, more rarely: semiconsonants) are non-syllabic vowels that form diphthongs with syllabic vowels. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Bernhard Karlgren (1889 - 1978) was a Swedish sinologist and eminent philologist, and the founder of Swedish sinology as a scholarly discipline. ... Qieyun (Chinese 切韻) is a Chinese character rime dictionary, published in 601 AD during the Sui Dynasty. ... Tones in Chinese derive from the traditional Middle Chinese tone classes, known as Ping Sheng (平聲), Shang Sheng (上聲), Qu Sheng (去聲), and Ru Sheng (入聲), which in English in the linguistic literature, are sometimes called the level, rising, departing and entering tones. ... A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ... The voiced labiovelar (actually labialized velar) approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in certain spoken languages, including English. ... Vowels See also: IPA, Consonants Near‑close Close‑mid Mid Open‑mid Near‑open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ...

Structure

We will take Yunjing as an example to illustrate what a rime table is. Yungjing comprises 43 charts, following is the first one:

The five big characters on the right-hand side read Neizhuan Diyihe (內轉第一開). In Yunjing, each chart is called a zhuan (lit. "turn"). The characters indicate that the chart is the first (第一) one in the book, and that the syllables of this chart are "inner" (內) and "open" (開). There are 23 columns for the 36 onsets. Some onsets, as the rimes in which occur in complementary distribution, have been grouped together. There are 16 rows: four for each yun (the level-toned 東, the rising-toned 董, the departing-toned 送, and the entering-toned 屋). Within each yun, the rimes are divided into four grades. The symbol ○ indicates that there is no character with that particular syllable. The pronunciation of a character as indicated by fanqie spelling can be known by looking at such a chart. However, due to sound change, the traditional fanqie spellings and the rime tables may become incongruous. In such cases some special rules, called menfa 門法, have been made to resolve the incongruities. Complementary distribution in linguistics refers to the relationship between two elements where one element can be found only in a particular environment and the other element can be found only in the opposite environment. ... 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. ...

See also

• Middle Chinese
• Rime dictionary
• Qieyun
• Jiyun
• Guangyun
• Kangxi Dictionary
• Peiwen Yunfu

Middle Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 中古漢語; Pinyin: zhōnggÇ” HànyÇ”), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ... 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. ... Jiyun (Chinese: 集韻) is a Chinese rime book published in 1037 during the Song Dynasty. ... Guangyun (Chinese: 廣韻) is a rime dictionary. ... The Kangxi Dictionary The Kangxi Dictionary (Chinese: 康熙字典; Pinyin: KāngxÄ« ZìdiÇŽn; Wade-Giles: Kang-hsi tzu-tien) was the standard Chinese character dictionary during the 18th and 19th centuries. ... The Peiwen Yunfu (Chinese: ; Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Pei-wen Yün-fu; literally rime storehouse of esteemed phrases) is a 1711 Chinese dictionary of literary allusions and poetic dictions. ...

References

• Baxter, William H. (1992). A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-012324-X.
• Branner, David Prager (ed.) (2006). The Chinese Rime Tables: Linguistic Philosophy and Historical-Comparative Phonology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ISBN 90-272-4785-4.

External links

• Rhyme Tables, Dylan W.H. Sung