Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den
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The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den (Simplified Chinese: 施氏食狮史; Traditional Chinese: 施氏食獅史; pinyin: Shī Shì shí shī shǐ) is a famous example of constrained writing by Zhao Yuanren which consists of 92 characters, all with the sound shi in different tones when read in Mandarin. The text, although written in Classical Chinese, can be easily comprehended by most educated readers. However, changes in pronunciation over 2,500 years resulted in a large degree of homophony in Classical Chinese; so the poem becomes completely incomprehensible when spoken out in Putonghua or when written romanized.
PRC linguists suggest that Zhao Yuanren, as the leader who designed Gwoyeu Romatzyh, believed in romanization of Mandarin (which incorporates tones and foreign cognate spellings) but believed it suitable only for writing modern vernacular Chinese and not Classical Chinese. As a result, Classical Chinese should be abandoned and vernacular Chinese should be promoted. Other linguists, however, see the text as a demonstration of how absurd it could be when the Chinese language is romanized. It sometimes causes confusion rather than giving assistance for the learners.
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[edit] The text
Click here to listen to the text
The following is the text in Hanyu Pinyin. Pinyin orthography recommends writing numbers in Arabic numerals, so the number shí would be written as 10. To preserve the homophony in this case, the number 10 has also been spelled out in Pinyin.
- « Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »
- Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
- Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
- Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
- Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
- Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
- Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
- Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
- Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
- Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
- Shì shì shì shì.
Text in Taiwanese:
- « Si--sī Si̍t-si Sú »
- Se̍k-sek si-sū Si--sī, sī su, sè si̍t si̍p-su.
- Sī sî-sî sek-sī sī-su.
- Si̍p-sî, sek si̍p-su sek-sī.
- Sī-sî, sek si--sī sek-sī.
- Sī sī sī si̍p-su, sī sí sè, sú sī si̍p-su sè-sè.
- Sī si̍p sī si̍p su-si, sek se̍k-sek.
- Se̍k-sek sip, sī sú sī sit se̍k-sek.
- Se̍k-sek sit, sī sí sì si̍t sī si̍p-su.
- Si̍t-sî, sí sek sī si̍p-su, si̍t si̍p se̍k-su-si.
- Sī sek sī-su.
Text in Chinese Characters:
- 《施氏食獅史》
- 石室詩士施氏, 嗜獅, 誓食十獅。
- 氏時時適市視獅。
- 十時, 適十獅適市。
- 是時, 適施氏適市。
- 氏視是十獅, 恃矢勢, 使是十獅逝世。
- 氏拾是十獅屍, 適石室。
- 石室濕, 氏使侍拭石室。
- 石室拭, 氏始試食是十獅。
- 食時, 始識是十獅, 實十石獅屍。
- 試釋是事。
Meaning in English:
- In a stone den was a poet Shi, who loved to eat lions, and decided to eat ten.
- He often went to the market to look for lions.
- One day at ten o'clock, ten lions just arrived at the market.
- At that time, Shi just arrived at the market too.
- Seeing those ten lions, he killed them with arrows.
- He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
- The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
- After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
- When he ate, he realized that those ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
- Try to explain this.
[edit] Explanation
So, how do Chinese speakers deal with so much homophony in actual speech? Since the passage is written in Classical Chinese homophony is not an issue. Classical Chinese is a written language and is very different from spoken Chinese. Different words that have the same sound when spoken aloud will have different written forms, comparable to meet and meat in English.
Also, many characters in the passage had distinct sounds in Middle Chinese. All the various Chinese spoken variants have over time merged and split different sounds. For example, when the same passage is read in Min Nan or Taiwanese, there are at least six distinct syllables — se, si, su, sek, sip, sit – in seven distinct tone contours, and in Cantonese, there are seven distinct syllables — sek, sat, si, sai, sik, sap, ci — in six distinct tone contours. However, whether that will make the passage comprehensible is still debatable.
While the sound changes merged sounds that had been distinct, new ways of speaking those concepts emerged. Typically disyllabic words replaced monosyllabic ones. If the same passage is translated into modern Mandarin, it will not be that confusing. The following is an example written in Vernacular Chinese, along with its pronunciations in Pinyin.
[edit] Poem text in vernacular Chinese
Chinese characters (simp.) with pinyin transcription added using ruby annotations.
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| Chinese characters (trad.) | Chinese characters (simp.) | |
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《施氏吃獅子記》 有一位住在石室裏的詩人叫施氏，愛吃獅子，決心要吃十隻獅子。 |
《施氏吃狮子记》 有一位住在石室里的诗人叫施氏，爱吃狮子，决心要吃十只狮子。 |
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| Pinyin Transcription of the Vernacular Chinese | ||
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« Shī Shì chī shīzi jì » Yǒu yi wèi zhù zài shíshì lǐ de shīrén jiào Shī Shì, ài chī shīzi, juéxīn yào chī 10 zhi shīzi. |
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[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den has the source text and audio files of the text pronounced in Mandarin and Cantonese. (Note that the recordings in Mandarin carry marked accents e.g. many tones are wrongly pronounced and the place of articulation of the initial sh is too advanced. Serious learners of Mandarin are advised not to follow the pronunciations.)
- The Three "NOTs" of Hanyu Pinyin has a similar but different text, and it explains that the intention of Zhao Yuanren (Yuen Ren Chao) was not to oppose Chinese Romanization.
