Fanqie

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Template:Short description Template:About Template:Italic title Template:Infobox Chinese Fanqie is a method used 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 in which the rest of the syllable (the final) matches. The method was introduced in the 3rd century AD and is to some extent still used in commentaries on the classics and dictionaries.

History

Early dictionaries such as the Erya (3rd century BC) did not indicate pronunciation. One of the innovations of the Shuowen Jiezi (early 2nd century AD) was to indicate the pronunciation of a character by the Template:Tlit (Template:Wikt-lang, 'read as') method, giving another character with the same pronunciation.Template:Sfnp The introduction of Buddhism to China around the 1st century brought Indian phonetic knowledge, which may have inspired the idea of fanqie.Template:Sfnp According to the 6th-century scholar Yan Zhitui, fanqie were first used by Sun Yan (Template:Lang), of the Wei kingdom (220–280 AD), in his Erya Yinyi (Template:Lang, "Sounds and Meanings of Erya").Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp However, earlier examples have been found in the late-2nd-century works of Fu Qian and Ying Shao.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

The oldest extant sources of significant bodies of fanqie are fragments of the original Yupian (544 AD) found in Japan and the Jingdian Shiwen, a commentary on the classics that was written in 583 AD.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp The method was used throughout the Qieyun, a Chinese rhyme dictionary published in 601 AD during the Sui dynasty.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp When Classical Chinese poetry flowered during the Tang dynasty, the Qieyun became the authoritative source for literary pronunciations. Several revisions and enlargements were produced, the most important of which was the Guangyun (1007–1008). Even after the more sophisticated rime table analysis was developed, fanqie continued to be used in dictionaries, including the voluminous Kangxi Dictionary published in 1716, and the Ciyuan and Cihai of the 1930s.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

The Template:Tlit (Template:Lang, "Mirror of the two Qing languages") was a bilingual Sino-Manchu dictionary published in the mid-18th century. A unique feature of this work was that the pronunciation of Chinese words was given using the Manchu script, while that of Manchu words was given using fanqie.Template:Sfnp

Function

The first entry in the Qieyun, with added highlighting of the fanqie formula

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 (Template:Lang 'upper word', as Chinese was written vertically); the final (including the medial glide, the nuclear vowel and the coda) and the tone are represented by those of the second of the two characters (Template:Lang, 'lower word').Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp For example, in the Qieyun, the character Template:Wikt-lang is described by the formula Template:Lang. The first two characters indicate the onset and the final, respectively, and so the pronunciation of Template:Lang Template:IPA is given as the onset Template:IPA of Template:Wikt-lang Template:IPA with the final Template:IPA of Template:Wikt-lang Template:IPA,Template:Sfnp with the same tone as Template:Lang.

In the rhyme dictionaries, there was a tendency to choose pairs of characters that agree on the presence or absence of a palatal medial Template:Tlit, but there was no such tendency for the rounded medial Template:Tlit, which was represented solely in the final character.Template:Sfnp There was also a strong tendency to spell words with labial initials using final characters with labial initials.Template:Sfnp

The third character Template:Wikt-lang Template:Tlit 'turn back' is the usual marker of a fanqie spelling in the Qieyun. In later dictionaries such as the Guangyun, the marker character is Template:Wikt-lang Template:Tlit 'run together'. (The commonly-cited reading 'cut' seems to be modern.Template:Sfnp) The Qing scholar Gu Yanwu suggested that Template:Tlit, which also meant 'overthrow', was avoided after the devastating rebellions during the middle of the Tang dynasty.Template:Sfnp The origin of both terms is obscure.Template:Sfnp The compound word Template:Tlit first appeared during the Song dynasty.Template:Sfnp

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.Template:Sfnp For example, in that dictionary,

That implies that Template:Lang, Template:Lang and Template:Lang must all have had the same initial.Template:Sfnp By following such chains of equivalence, Chen identified categories of equivalent initial spellers, and a similar process was possible for the finals.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Unaware of Chen's work, the Swedish linguist Bernard Karlgren repeated the analysis to identify the initials and finals in the 1910s.Template:Sfnp

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.Template:Sfnp Thus, Middle Chinese has been reconstructed by Karlgren and later scholars by comparing those categories with Sino-Xenic pronunciations and the pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese.Template:Sfnp

Effects of sound change

The method described the pronunciations of characters in Middle Chinese, 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, and initial plosives and affricates could be voiced, aspirated, or voiceless unaspirated. Syllables with voiced initials tended to be pronounced with a lower pitch, and by the late Tang dynasty, each of the tones had split into two registers (traditionally known as Template:Tlit Template:Lang and Template:Tlit Template:Lang) conditioned by the initials. Voicing then disappeared in all dialects except the Wu and Xiang groups, 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, which were represented by different characters in the Template:Tlit pair, were conditioned on each other.Template:Sfnp

For example, the characters of formula Template:Lang Template:IPA = Template:Lang Template:IPA + Template:Lang Template:IPA are pronounced Template:Tlit, Template:Tlit and Template:Tlit in modern Standard Chinese, where the pinyin letter Template:Tlit represents the voiceless and unaspirated stop Template:IPA. The tones no longer match, because the voiceless initial Template:IPA and the voiced initial Template:IPA condition different registers of the Middle Chinese level tone, yielding the first and the second tones of the modern language.

That effect sometimes led to a form of spelling pronunciation. Chao Yuen Ren cited the example of the character Template:Wikt-lang, which had two readings in Middle Chinese. It could be read as Template:IPA in the level tone, meaning 'strong, powerful', which developed regularly into the modern reading Template:Tlit. However, it could be read also as Template:IPA in the rising tone, meaning 'stubborn' or 'forced'. The regular development would be for the voiced initial Template:IPA to condition the Template:Tlit register of the rising tone, becoming the fourth tone of modern Chinese and for the rising tone to condition an unaspirated initial. Thus, Template:Tlit would be expected, and this does occur in the sense 'stubborn', but the character also has the unexpected pronunciation Template:Tlit for the sense 'forced'. Chao attributed this to the Template:Tlit formula Template:Lang = Template:Wikt-lang Template:IPA (level tone) + Template:Wikt-lang Template:IPA (rising tone) given in dictionaries. Here, the first character is now pronounced Template:Tlit because in the level tone, the voiced initial becomes aspirated. However, the second character is now pronounced Template:Tlit because in the rising tone, sonorants like Template:IPA conditioned the Template:Tlit register, which led to the modern third tone.Template:Sfnp

Use in Cantonese

In Cantonese, fanqie can be found in some dictionaries to this day, often alongside other Cantonese romanization systems or phonetic guides, to indicate the pronunciation of characters lacking a homophone.

For example, in the Sun Ya dictionary the character Template:Lang is transcribed as pinyin Template:Tlit and for Cantonese pan¹ and the Cantonese tonal homophone Template:Lang, whereas Template:Lang, lacking a tonal homophone, is transcribed as lyn² and (Template:Lang) (l-āai + yún) to give lyún.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> If there is no tonal homophone, the tone is indicated. For example Template:Lang transcribes Template:Lang as Template:IPA and fanqie (Template:Lang) (p-ēi + ūk) but 𠵿, lacking a tonal homophone is transcribed as Template:IPA and 〔Template:Lang〕, i.e. p-ēi + y-èh with tone 1 to give pē.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

See also

References

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Works cited

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