Eastern Han Chinese | |||||||||||
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Later Han Chinese Late Old Chinese | |||||||||||
Native to | China | ||||||||||
Era | Eastern Han dynasty, Three Kingdoms, Jin Dynasty | ||||||||||
Early form | |||||||||||
Clerical script | |||||||||||
Language codes | |||||||||||
ISO 639-3 | – | ||||||||||
Glottolog | late1251 Late Han Chinese | ||||||||||
Provinces in the Eastern Han period | |||||||||||
Chinese name | |||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 東漢上古漢語 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 东汉上古汉语 | ||||||||||
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Late Old Chinese | |||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 晚期上古漢語 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 晚期上古汉语 | ||||||||||
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Eastern Han Chinese,Later Han Chinese or Late Old Chinese is the stage of the Chinese language revealed by poetry and glosses from the Eastern Han period (first two centuries AD). It is considered an intermediate stage between Old Chinese and the Middle Chinese of the 7th-century Qieyun dictionary.
The rhyming practice of Han poets has been studied since the Qing period as an intermediate stage between the Shijing of the Western Zhou period and Tang poetry. The definitive reference was compiled by Luo Changpei and Zhou Zumo in 1958. [lower-alpha 1] This monumental work identifies the rhyme classes of the period,but leaves the phonetic value of each class open. [1]
In the Eastern Han period,Confucian scholars were bitterly divided between different versions of the classics:the officially recognized New Texts,and the Old Texts,recently found versions written in a pre-Qin script. To support their challenge to the orthodox position on the classics,Old Text scholars produced many philological studies. Many of these works contain remarks of various types on the pronunciation of various words. [2] The sources with the most glosses are the Shiming ,a dictionary of classical terms,Xu Shen's Shuowen Jiezi ,a study of the history and structure of Chinese characters,and Zheng Xuan's commentaries on various classics. [3]
Buddhism also expanded greatly in China during the Eastern Han period. Buddhist missionaries,beginning with An Shigao in AD 148,began translating Buddhist texts into Chinese. [4] [5] These translations include transcriptions in Chinese characters of Sanskrit and Prakrit names and terms,which were first systematically mined for evidence of the evolution of Chinese phonology by Edwin Pulleyblank. [6]
The Shiming glosses were collected and studied by Nicholas Bodman. [7] Weldon South Coblin collected all the remaining glosses and transcriptions,and used them in an attempt to reconstruct an intermediate stage between Old Chinese and Middle Chinese,both represented by the reconstructions of Li Fang-Kuei. [8] Axel Schuessler included reconstructed pronunciations (under the name Later Han Chinese) in his dictionary of Old Chinese. [9] [10]
The customary writing style of the period was strongly modelled on the classics,and thus provides only occasional glimpses of contemporary grammar. [11] However,some works,while generally following the conventional archaizing style,contain passages in a more colloquial style thought to reflect contemporary speech,at least in part. Many such examples are found in translated Buddhist literature,particularly direct speech. [12] [13] Similarly,Zhao Qi's commentary on Mencius includes paraphrases of the classic written for the benefit of novice students,and therefore in a more contemporary style. [14] Similar passages are also found in the commentaries of Wang Yi,Zheng Xuan and Gao You. [15]
Several texts contain evidence of dialectal variation in the Eastern Han period. The Fangyan ,from the start of the period,discusses variations in regional vocabulary. By analysing the text,Paul Serruys identified six dialect areas:a central area centred on the Central Plain east of Hangu Pass,surrounded by northern,eastern,southern and western areas,and a southeastern area to the south and east of the lower Yangtze. [16] [17] [18] Distinct rhyme systems of the Han period poets identified by Luo and Zhou broadly correspond to these dialect areas. [19]
The most influential dialect was the Qin–Jin dialect,from the western group,reflecting the ascendency of the state of Qin. Second was the Chu dialect,from the southern group,which spread both to the south and to the east. These two dialects were also the principal sources of the Han standard language. The central dialects of the area of former states of Lu,Song and Wei were the most conservative. The dialects of the eastern area,which had been more recently and slowly Sinified,include some non-Chinese vocabulary. [20]
The Eastern Han glosses come from 11 sites,all to the north of the Huai River. [21] They often show marked phonological differences. Many of them exhibit mergers that are not found in the 7th-century Qieyun or in many modern varieties. The exception is the Buddhist transcriptions,suggesting that the later varieties descend from Han-period varieties spoken in the region of Luoyang (in the western part of the central dialect area). [22]
The southeastern dialects are not reflected in Eastern Han texts. They were known as Wu (吳) or Jiangdong (江東) dialects in the Western Jin period,when the writer Guo Pu described them as quite distinct from other varieties. [23] [24] Jerry Norman called these Han-era southeastern dialects Old Southern Chinese,and suggested that they were the source of common features found in the oldest layers of modern Yue,Hakka and Min varieties. [25]
Eastern Han Chinese syllables consisted of an initial consonant,optional medial glides,a vowel and an optional coda.
The consonant clusters postulated for Old Chinese had generally disappeared by the Eastern Han period. [26] [27]
Labial | Dental | Sibilant | Palatal | Velar | Laryngeal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stop or affricate | voiceless | p | t | ts | (tɕ) | k | ʔ |
aspirate | pʰ | tʰ | tsʰ | (tɕʰ) | kʰ | ||
voiced | b | d | dz | (dʑ) | g | ||
Nasal | voiceless | (m̥) | (n̥) | (ŋ̊) | |||
voiced | m | n | ŋ | ||||
Lateral or fricative | voiceless | (l̥) | s | (ɕ) | x | ||
voiced | l | z | (ʑ) | (ɣ) |
One of the major changes between Old Chinese and Middle Chinese was palatalization of initial dental stops and (in some environments) velar stops,merging to form a new series of palatal initials. Several Eastern Han varieties show either or both of these palatalizations. [29] However,Proto-Min,which branched off during the Han period,has palatalized velars but not dentals. [30] The retroflex stops and sibilants of Middle Chinese are not distinguished from plain stops and sibilants in the Eastern Han data. [31]
There is some uncertainty whether the Middle Chinese initials g-,ɣ- and j- can all be derived from a single Old Chinese initial *g-,or whether an additional fricative initial *ɣ- or *ɦ- must be reconstructed. [32] Most Eastern Han dialects have a single initial *g- in such words,but some of them distinguish *g- and *ɣ-. [33]
Some Eastern Han dialects show evidence of the voiceless sonorant initials postulated for Old Chinese,but they had disappeared by the Eastern Han period in most areas. [28] The Old Chinese voiceless lateral and nasal initials yielded a *tʰ initial in eastern dialects and *x in western ones. [34] [35] By the Eastern Han,the Old Chinese voiced lateral had also evolved to *d or *j,depending on syllable type. [36] The gap was filled by Old Chinese *r,which yielded Eastern Han *l and Middle Chinese l. [37] In some Eastern Han dialects,this initial may have been a lateral tap or flap. [38]
Most modern reconstructions of Old Chinese distinguish labiovelar and labiolaryngeal initials from the velar and laryngeal series. However,the two series are not separated in Eastern Han glosses,suggesting that Eastern Han Chinese had a *-w- medial like Middle Chinese. Moreover,this medial also occurs after other initials,including syllables with Old Chinese *-u- and *-o- before acute codas (*-n,*-t and *-j),which had broken to *-wə- and *-wa- respectively. [39] [40] [41] Most OC reconstructions include a medial *-r- to account for Middle Chinese retroflex initials,division-II finals and some chongniu finals,and this seems to have still been a distinct phoneme in the Eastern Han period. [42]
Since the pioneering work of Bernhard Karlgren,it has been common to project the palatal medial of Middle Chinese division-III syllables back to an Old Chinese medial *-j-,but this has been challenged by several authors,partly because Eastern Han Buddhist transcriptions use such syllables for foreign words lacking any palatal element. [43] However,Coblin points out that this practice continued into the Tang period,for which a -j- medial is generally accepted. [44] Scholars agree that the difference reflects a real phonological distinction,but there have been a range of proposals for its realization in early periods. [45] The distinction is variously described in Eastern Han commentaries: [46]
Most recent reconstructions of Old Chinese identify six vowels,*i,*ə,*u,*e,*a and *o. [50] Eastern Han rhyming practice indicates that some of the changes found in Middle Chinese had already occurred:
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese |
---|---|
*-ja | -jo |
-jæ | |
*-jaj | |
-je | |
*-je |
The Middle Chinese finals -jo and -je occur with finals of all kinds,while -jæ occurs only after plain sibilant and palatal initials,with no known conditioning factor. [53]
The Middle Chinese codas -p,-t,-k,-m and -ng are projected back onto Eastern Han Chinese. [54] The Middle Chinese coda -n also appears to reflect *-n in most cases,but in some cases reflects vocalic codas in some Eastern Han varieties. [55] Baxter and Sagart argue that these words had a coda *-r in Old Chinese,which became *-j in Shandong and adjacent areas,and *-n elsewhere. [56]
Middle Chinese syllables with vocalic or nasal codas fell into three tonal categories,traditionally known as even,rising and departing tones,with syllables having stop codas assigned to a fourth "entering tone" category. [57] André-Georges Haudricourt suggested that the Middle Chinese departing tone derived from an Old Chinese final *-s,later weakening to *-h. [58] Several Buddhist transcriptions indicate that *-s was still present in the Eastern Han period in words derived from Old Chinese *-ts. [59] Other departing tone syllables may have become *-h by the Eastern Han period,as suggested by a slight preference to use them to transcribe Indic long vowels. [60] Based on Haudricourt's analysis of Vietnamese tones,Edwin Pulleyblank suggested that the Middle Chinese rising tone derived from Old Chinese *-ʔ. [58] Syllables in this category were avoided when transcribing long vowels in the Eastern Han period,suggesting that they were shorter,possibly reflecting this final glottal stop. [60]
In comparison with Warring States texts,colloquial Eastern Han texts display a massive increase in compound content words in clearly distinguished word classes. [61] [62] They also make much less use of function words in favour of periphrasis. [61] [63]
The monosyllabic words of the classical period were largely replaced by disyllabic compounds with clearly defined syntactic roles: [64]
The widespread use of measure words between numerals or demonstratives and nouns,a characteristic of the modern language,began in the Han period and became more extensive in the following Northern and Southern dynasties period. [65]
Old Chinese had a range of personal pronouns,including case distinctions. In the Eastern Han,these were reduced to first person wǒ我 and second person rǔ汝. [66] [67] Similarly,the demonstratives were almost exclusively reduced to shì是 'this',ěr爾 'such' and bǐ彼 'that'. [68] Both kinds of pronouns were often used with plural suffixes -děng等,-bèi輩 and -cáo曹. [66] Most of the interrogatives of Old Chinese were replaced with periphrastic forms. [69]
The demonstrative shì是 also came to be used as a copular verb in sentences of the form A 是 B (as in modern Chinese),replacing the typical classical pattern A B 也 (yě). [70] [71] [72] Unlike any other verb,shì是 was not negated with bù不 –the negative copula fēi非 was retained from the classical language. [73]
In classical texts,the particle qǐ豈 marked a rhetorical question,for which a negative answer was expected,but in the Eastern Han it was a general question marker. [63] [74] At the same time,a new question marker níng寧 appeared. [63] [75]
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Middle Chinese or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the Qieyun, a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The Swedish linguist Bernard Karlgren believed that the dictionary recorded a speech standard of the capital Chang'an of the Sui and 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.
Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BC, in the late Shang dynasty. Bronze inscriptions became plentiful during the following Zhou dynasty. The latter part of the Zhou period saw a flowering of literature, including classical works such as the Analects, the Mencius, and the Zuo zhuan. These works served as models for Literary Chinese, which remained the written standard until the early twentieth century, thus preserving the vocabulary and grammar of late Old Chinese.
Fanqie 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 method was introduced in the 3rd century AD and used in dictionaries and commentaries on the classics until the early 20th century.
A rime table or rhyme table 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 and other properties. The method gave a significantly more precise and systematic account of the sounds of those dictionaries than the previously used fǎnqiè analysis, but many of its details remain obscure. The phonological system that is implicit in the rime dictionaries and analysed in the rime tables is known as Middle Chinese, and is the traditional starting point for efforts to recover the sounds of early forms of Chinese. Some authors distinguish the two layers as Early and Late Middle Chinese respectively.
A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary that collates characters by tone and rhyme, instead of by radical. The most important rime dictionary tradition began with the Qieyun (601), which codified correct pronunciations for reading the classics and writing poetry by combining the reading traditions of north and south China. This work became very popular during the Tang dynasty, and went through a series of revisions and expansions, of which the most famous is the Guangyun (1007–1008).
Historical Chinese phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters, not alphabetic or syllabary, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably from those employed in, for example, Indo-European linguistics; reconstruction is more difficult because, unlike Indo-European languages, no phonetic spellings were used.
Sino-Xenic or Sinoxenic pronunciations are regular systems for reading Chinese characters in Japan, Korea and Vietnam, originating in medieval times and the source of large-scale borrowings of Chinese words 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 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 Bai language is a language spoken in China, primarily in Yunnan Province, by the Bai people. The language has over a million speakers and is divided into three or four main dialects. Bai syllables are always open, with a rich set of vowels and eight tones. The tones are divided into two groups with modal and non-modal phonation. There is a small amount of traditional literature written with Chinese characters, Bowen (僰文), as well as a number of recent publications printed with a recently standardized system of romanisation using the Latin alphabet.
Old Korean is the first historically documented stage of the Korean language, typified by the language of the Unified Silla period (668–935).
Weldon South Coblin, Jr. is an American Sinologist, linguist, and educator, best known for his studies of Chinese linguistics and Tibetan.
Chóngniǔ or rime doublets are certain pairs of Middle Chinese syllables that are consistently distinguished in rime dictionaries and rime tables, but without a clear indication of the phonological basis of the distinction.
Proto-Tai is the reconstructed proto-language of all the Tai languages, including modern Lao, Shan, Tai Lü, Tai Dam, Ahom, Northern Thai, Standard Thai, Bouyei, and Zhuang. The Proto-Tai language is not directly attested by any surviving texts, but has been reconstructed using the comparative method.
Old Mandarin or Early Mandarin was the speech of northern China during the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty and the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. New genres of vernacular literature were based on this language, including verse, drama and story forms, such as the qu and sanqu.
William Hubbard Baxter III is an American linguist specializing in the history of the Chinese language and best known for his work on the reconstruction on Old Chinese.
Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of Old Chinese from documentary evidence. Although the writing system does not describe sounds directly, shared phonetic components of the most ancient Chinese characters are believed to link words that were pronounced similarly at that time. The oldest surviving Chinese verse, in the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), shows which words rhymed in that period. Scholars have compared these bodies of contemporary evidence with the much later Middle Chinese reading pronunciations listed in the Qieyun rime dictionary published in 601 AD, though this falls short of a phonemic analysis. Supplementary evidence has been drawn from cognates in other Sino-Tibetan languages and in Min Chinese, which split off before the Middle Chinese period, Chinese transcriptions of foreign names, and early borrowings from and by neighbouring languages such as Hmong–Mien, Tai and Tocharian languages.
The Karlgren–Li reconstruction of Middle Chinese was a representation of the sounds of Middle Chinese devised by Bernhard Karlgren and revised by Li Fang-Kuei in 1971, remedying a number of minor defects.
Gao You was a Chinese historian, philosopher, and politician during the Eastern Han dynasty under its last emperor and the warlord Cao Cao.
In Middle Chinese, the phonological system of medieval rime dictionaries and rime tables, the final is the rest of the syllable after the initial consonant. This analysis is derived from the traditional Chinese fanqie system of indicating pronunciation with a pair of characters indicating the sounds of the initial and final parts of the syllable respectively, though in both cases several characters were used for each sound. Reconstruction of the pronunciation of finals is much more difficult than for initials due to the combination of multiple phonemes into a single class, and there is no agreement as to their values. Because of this lack of consensus, understanding of the reconstruction of finals requires delving into the details of rime tables and rime dictionaries.
Although Old Chinese is known from written records beginning around 1200 BC, the logographic script provides much more indirect and partial information about the pronunciation of the language than alphabetic systems used elsewhere. Several authors have produced reconstructions of Old Chinese phonology, beginning with the Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren in the 1940s and continuing to the present day. The method introduced by Karlgren is unique, comparing categories implied by ancient rhyming practice and the structure of Chinese characters with descriptions in medieval rhyme dictionaries, though more recent approaches have also incorporated other kinds of evidence.
Proto-Min is a comparative reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Min group of varieties of Chinese. Min varieties developed in the relative isolation of the Chinese province of Fujian and eastern Guangdong, and have since spread to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world. They contain reflexes of distinctions not found in Middle Chinese or most other modern varieties, and thus provide additional data for the reconstruction of Old Chinese.