Fanqie

In Chinese phonology, fanqie (Chinese: 反切; pinyin: fǎnqiè; lit. "reverse-correspondence") is a method to indicate the pronunciation of a character by using two other characters.

Contents

The Origin

Before fanqie was widely adopted, method of du ruo (讀若, "read as") was used in works such as Erya (3rd century AD).[1] Introduction of Buddhism in China around the first century brought Sanskrit. Its phonetic knowledge might have inspired the idea of fanqie[1] [2]

Sun Yan (孫炎) is generally considered to be the first to adopt fanqie in Erya Yinyi (爾雅音義, "Sounds and Meanings of Erya"). He was a man in Wei state during the period of Three Kingdoms (220–280 AD).[1][3]

In the original fanqie, 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 (上字 "upper word", as Chinese was written vertically); the final (or the "rhyme", including the medial glide, the nuclear vowel and the coda) and the tone are represented by those of the second of the two characters (下字, "lower word").[1][2][3] The representation of tone notably changed later.

In 601 AD during the Sui Dynasty, Qieyun (切韻, "Cutting Rhymes"), a Chinese rhyme dictionary using fanqie was published.[1][2][3]

Modern form

In Middle Chinese, the tone was represented by the rhyme character. However, owing to sound changes that have occurred since then, a more complicated rule is used today (see four tones for background information):

  1. The yin-yang (陰陽) classification, which depends on whether or not the onset character's initial is voiced.
  2. The ping-shang-qu-ru (平上去入) classification, which is kept from Middle Chinese, is determined by the rhyme character's tone.

Thus

(Onset & Tone-1) + (Rhyme & Tone-2) = (Pronunciation of Character)

For example, the character 東 is represented by 德紅切. The third character 切 indicates that this is a fanqie spelling, while the first two characters indicate the onset and rhyme respectively. Thus the pronunciation of 東 is given as the onset [t] of 德 [tək][4] with the rhyme [uŋ] of 紅 [ɣuŋ],[4] yielding [tuŋ]. Also, 德 has a yin ru (陰入) tone and 紅 has a yang ping (陽平) tone. Therefore, the tone of 東 is yin ping (陰平). (However, Modern Mandarin has lost the ru tones, so 德 now has a yang ping tone. See below.)

Gari Ledyard has given this informative example of how an English equivalent to fanqie might look:

To show the pronunciation of an unknown character, one "cut" the initial consonant from a second character and the rhyme from a third, and combined them to show the reading of the first. To use an English example, one could indicate the pronunciation of the word sough by "cutting" sun and now (= sow), or "cut" sun and cuff (= suff) to show the alternate pronunciation. This method was a bit circular in that it required knowledge of the pronunciations of the characters that were "cut," but it proved to be a workable system and lasted well into the twentieth century.

Language change

Owing to the development of the Chinese language over the last millennium and a half, the fanqie spellings are not always accurate for northern languages of Modern Chinese; for example, the modern pronunciation of 德 is in a yang tone. A description of these sound changes for Mandarin is given in the Mandarin phonology article. However, it is still rather accurate for southern Chinese spoken variants such as Cantonese and Hakka, which have preserved many elements of Ancient and Middle Chinese.

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e G. Casacchia (2006). "Chinese Linguistic Tradition". Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics. Second Edition. London: Elsevier.
  2. ^ a b c W. S.-Y. Wang and R. E. Asher (1994). "Chinese Linguistic Tradition". The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
  3. ^ a b c 竺家寧。《聲韻學》。台北：五南圖書。1990。[in Traditional Chinese] [This book pointed out that fanqie's use appeared as early as Eastern Han]
  4. ^ a b 王力.(1980).漢語史稿. ISBN 7-101-01553-0

General references