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Middle Chinese
Ancient Chinese
漢語 hɑnH ŋɨʌX
A scroll with Chinese writing, with large head characters
Part of the Tangyun, an 8th-century edition of the Qieyun dictionary
Native toChina
Era4th–12th centuries[1]
Northern and Southern dynasties, Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Song
Early forms
Chinese characters
Language codes
ISO 639-3ltc
ltc
Glottologmidd1344
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese中古漢語
Simplified Chinese中古汉语
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinZhōnggǔ Hànyǔ
Wade–Gileschung1-ku3 Han4-yü3
IPA[ʈʂʊ́ŋkù xânỳ]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationJūnggú Honyúh
JyutpingZung1gu2 Hon3jyu5
IPA[tsóŋkǔː hɔ̄ːny̬ː]
Southern Min
Tâi-lôtiong-kóo Hàn-gú

Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient 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 Bernhard 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 (early 1st millennium BC).

The fanqie method used to indicate pronunciation in these dictionaries, though an improvement on earlier methods, proved awkward in practice. The mid-12th-century Yunjing and other rime tables incorporate a more sophisticated and convenient analysis of the Qieyun phonology. The rime tables attest to a number of sound changes that had occurred over the centuries following the publication of the Qieyun. Linguists sometimes refer to the system of the Qieyun as Early Middle Chinese and the variant revealed by the rime tables as Late Middle Chinese.

The dictionaries and tables describe pronunciations in relative terms, but do not give their actual sounds. Karlgren was the first to attempt a reconstruction of the sounds of Middle Chinese, comparing its categories with modern varieties of Chinese and the Sino-Xenic pronunciations used in the reading traditions of neighbouring countries. Several other scholars have produced their own reconstructions using similar methods.

The Qieyun system is often used as a framework for Chinese dialectology. With the exception of Min varieties, which show independent developments from Eastern Han Chinese, modern Chinese varieties can be largely treated as divergent developments from Middle Chinese. The study of Middle Chinese also provides for a better understanding and analysis of Classical Chinese poetry, such as the study of Tang poetry.

Sources

[edit]

The reconstruction of Middle Chinese phonology is largely dependent upon detailed descriptions in a few original sources. The most important of these is the Qieyun rime dictionary (601) and its revisions. The Qieyun is often used together with interpretations in Song dynasty rime tables such as the Yunjing, Qiyin lüe, and the later Qieyun zhizhangtu and Sisheng dengzi. The documentary sources are supplemented by comparison with modern Chinese varieties, pronunciation of Chinese words borrowed by other languages—particularly Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese—transcription into Chinese characters of foreign names, transcription of Chinese names in alphabetic scripts such as Brahmi, Tibetan and Uyghur, and evidence regarding rhyme and tone patterns from classical Chinese poetry.[2]

Rime dictionaries

[edit]
Main article: Rime dictionary
two pages of a Chinese dictionary, comprising the end of the index and the start of the entries
The start of the first rhyme class of the Guangyun (東 dōng 'east')

Chinese scholars of the Northern and Southern dynasties period were concerned with the correct recitation of the classics. Various schools produced dictionaries to codify reading pronunciations and the associated rhyme conventions of regulated verse.[3][a] The Qieyun (601) was an attempt to merge the distinctions in six earlier dictionaries, which were eclipsed by its success and are no longer extant. It was accepted as the standard reading pronunciation during the Tang dynasty, and went through several revisions and expansions over the following centuries.[5]

The Qieyun is thus the oldest surviving rhyme dictionary and the main source for the pronunciation of characters in Early Middle Chinese (EMC). At the time of Bernhard Karlgren's seminal work on Middle Chinese in the early 20th century, only fragments of the Qieyun were known, and scholars relied on the Guangyun (1008), a much expanded edition from the Song dynasty. However, significant sections of a version of the Qieyun itself were subsequently discovered in the caves of Dunhuang, and a complete copy of Wang Renxu's 706 edition from the Palace Library was found in 1947.[6]

The rhyme dictionaries organize Chinese characters by their pronunciation, according to a hierarchy of tone, rhyme and homophony. Characters with identical pronunciations are grouped into homophone classes, whose pronunciation is described using two fanqie characters, the first of which has the initial sound of the characters in the homophone class and second of which has the same sound as the rest of the syllable (the final). The use of fanqie was an important innovation of the Qieyun and allowed the pronunciation of all characters to be described exactly; earlier dictionaries simply described the pronunciation of unfamiliar characters in terms of the most similar-sounding familiar character.[7]

The fanqie system uses multiple equivalent characters to represent each particular initial, and likewise for finals. The categories of initials and finals actually represented were first identified by the Cantonese scholar Chen Li in a careful analysis published in his Qieyun kao (1842). Chen's method was to equate two fanqie initials (or finals) whenever one was used in the fanqie spelling of the pronunciation of the other, and to follow chains of such equivalences to identify groups of spellers for each initial or final.[8] For example, the pronunciation of the character 東 was given using the fanqie spelling 德紅, the pronunciation of 德 was given as 多特, and the pronunciation of 多 was given as 德河, from which we can conclude that the words 東, 德 and 多 all had the same initial sound.[9]

The Qieyun classified homonyms under 193 rhyme classes, each of which is placed within one of the four tones.[10] A single rhyme class may contain multiple finals, generally differing only in the medial (especially when it is /w/) or in so-called chongniu doublets.[11][12]

Rime tables

[edit]
Main article: Rime table
table of 23 columns and 16 rows, with Chinese characters in some cells
The first table of the Yunjing, covering the Guangyun rhyme classes 東 dōng, 董 dǒng, 送 sòng and 屋 wū (/-k/ in Middle Chinese)

The Yunjing (c. 1150 AD) is the oldest of the so-called rime tables, which provide a more detailed phonological analysis of the system contained in the Qieyun. The Yunjing was created centuries after the Qieyun, and the authors of the Yunjing were attempting to interpret a phonological system that differed in significant ways from that of their own Late Middle Chinese (LMC) dialect. They were aware of this, and attempted to reconstruct Qieyun phonology as well as possible through a close analysis of regularities in the system and co-occurrence relationships between the initials and finals indicated by the fanqie characters. However, the analysis inevitably shows some influence from LMC, which needs to be taken into account when interpreting difficult aspects of the system.[13]

The Yunjing is organized into 43 tables, each covering several Qieyun rhyme classes, and classified as:[14]

  • One of 16 broad rhyme classes (shè)—each described as either "inner" or "outer". The meaning of this is debated but it has been suggested that it refers to the height of the main vowel, with "outer" finals having an open vowel (/ɑ/ or /a/, /æ/) and "inner" finals having a mid or close vowel.
  • "Open mouth" or "closed mouth", indicating whether lip rounding is present. "Closed" finals either have a rounded vowel (e.g. /u/) or rounded glide.

Each table has 23 columns, one for each initial consonant. Although the Yunjing distinguishes 36 initials, they are placed in 23 columns by combining palatals, retroflexes, and dentals under the same column. This does not lead to cases where two homophone classes are conflated, as the grades (rows) are arranged so that all would-be minimal pairs distinguished only by the retroflex vs. palatal vs. alveolar character of the initial end up in different rows.[15]

Each initial is further classified as follows:[16]

Each table also has 16 rows, with a group of 4 rows for each of the four tones of the traditional system in which finals ending in /p/, /t/ or /k/ are considered to be checked tone variants of finals ending in /m/, /n/ or /ŋ/ rather than separate finals in their own right. The significance of the 4 rows within each tone is difficult to interpret, and is strongly debated. These rows are usually denoted I, II, III and IV, and are thought to relate to differences in palatalization or retroflexion of the syllable's initial or medial, or differences in the quality of similar main vowels (e.g. /ɑ/, /a/, /ɛ/).[14] Other scholars do not view them not as phonetic categories, but instead as formal devices exploiting distributional patterns in the Qieyun to achieve a compact presentation.[17]

Each square in a table contains a character corresponding to a particular homophone class in the Qieyun, if any such character exists. From this arrangement, each homophone class can be placed in the above categories.[18]

Modern dialects and Sino-Xenic pronunciations

[edit]

The rime dictionaries and rime tables identify categories of phonetic distinctions but do not indicate the actual pronunciations of these categories. The varied pronunciations of words in modern varieties of Chinese can help, but most modern varieties descend from a Late Middle Chinese koiné and cannot very easily be used to determine the pronunciation of Early Middle Chinese. During the Early Middle Chinese period, large amounts of Chinese vocabulary were systematically borrowed by Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese (collectively the Sino-Xenic pronunciations), but many distinctions were inevitably lost in mapping Chinese phonology onto foreign phonological systems.[19]

For example, the following table shows the pronunciation of the numerals in three modern Chinese varieties, as well as borrowed forms in Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese:

Modern Chinese varieties Sino-Vietnamese Sino-Korean(Yale) Sino-Japanese[20] Middle Chinese[b]
Beijing Suzhou[21] Guangzhou Go-on Kan-on
1 一 yī iəʔ7 jat1 nhất il ichi itsu ʔjit
2 二 èr ɲi6 ji6 nhị i ni ji nyijH
3 三 sān sɛ1 saam1 tam sam san sam
4 四 sì sɨ5 sei3 tứ sa shi sijH
5 五 wǔ ŋ6 ng5 ngũ o go nguX
6 六 liù loʔ8 luk6 lục [r]yuk roku riku ljuwk
7 七 qī tsʰiəʔ7 cat1 thất chil shichi shitsu tshit
8 八 bā poʔ7 baat3 bát phal hachi hatsu pɛt
9 九 jiǔ tɕiʏ3 gau2 cửu kwu ku kyū kjuwX
10 十 shí zəʔ8 sap6 thập sip jū ← zifu dzyip

Transcription evidence

[edit]

Although the evidence from Chinese transcriptions of foreign words is much more limited, and is similarly obscured by the mapping of foreign pronunciations onto Chinese phonology, it serves as direct evidence of a sort that is lacking in all the other types of data, since the pronunciation of the foreign languages borrowed from—especially Sanskrit and Gandhari—is known in great detail.[22]

For example, the nasal initials /m n ŋ/ were used to transcribe Sanskrit nasals in the early Tang, but later they were used for Sanskrit unaspirated voiced initials /b d ɡ/, suggesting that they had become prenasalized stops [ᵐb] [ⁿd] [ᵑɡ] in some northwestern Chinese dialects.[23][24]

Methodology

[edit]
Bernhard Karlgren

The rime dictionaries and rime tables yield phonological categories, but with little hint of what sounds they represent.[25] At the end of the 19th century, European students of Chinese sought to solve this problem by applying the methods of historical linguistics that had been used in reconstructing Proto-Indo-European. Volpicelli (1896) and Schaank (1897) compared the rime tables at the front of the Kangxi Dictionary with modern pronunciations in several varieties, but had little knowledge of linguistics.[26]

Bernhard Karlgren, trained in transcription of Swedish dialects, carried out the first systematic survey of modern varieties of Chinese. He used the oldest known rime tables as descriptions of the sounds of the rime dictionaries, and also studied the Guangyun, at that time the oldest known rime dictionary.[27] Unaware of Chen Li's study, he repeated the analysis of the fanqie required to identify the initials and finals of the dictionary. He believed that the resulting categories reflected the speech standard of the capital Chang'an of the Sui and Tang dynasties. He interpreted the many distinctions as a narrow transcription of the precise sounds of this language, which he sought to reconstruct by treating the Sino-Xenic and modern dialect pronunciations as reflexes of the Qieyun categories. A small number of Qieyun categories were not distinguished in any of the surviving pronunciations, and Karlgren assigned them identical reconstructions.[28]

Karlgren's transcription involved a large number of consonants and vowels, many of them very unevenly distributed. Accepting Karlgren's reconstruction as a description of medieval speech, Chao Yuen Ren and Samuel E. Martin analysed its contrasts to extract a phonemic description.[29] Hugh M. Stimson used a simplified version of Martin's system as an approximate indication of the pronunciation of Tang poetry.[25] Karlgren himself viewed phonemic analysis as a detrimental "craze".[30]

Older versions of the rime dictionaries and rime tables came to light over the first half of the 20th century, and were used by such linguists as Wang Li, Dong Tonghe and Li Rong in their own reconstructions.[29] Edwin Pulleyblank argued that the systems of the Qieyun and the rime tables should be reconstructed as two separate (but related) systems, which he called Early and Late Middle Chinese, respectively. He further argued that his Late Middle Chinese reflected the standard language of the late Tang dynasty.[31][32][33]

The preface of the Qieyun recovered in 1947 indicates that it records a compromise between northern and southern reading and poetic traditions from the late Northern and Southern dynasties period (a diasystem).[34] Most linguists now believe that no single dialect contained all the distinctions recorded, but that each distinction did occur somewhere.[6] Several scholars have compared the Qieyun system to cross-dialectal descriptions of English pronunciations, such as John C. Wells's lexical sets, or the notation used in some dictionaries. For example, the words "trap", "bath", "palm", "lot", "cloth" and "thought" contain four different vowels in Received Pronunciation and three in General American; these pronunciations and others can be specified in terms of these six cases.[35][36]

Although the Qieyun system is no longer viewed as describing a single form of speech, linguists argue that this enhances its value in reconstructing earlier forms of Chinese, just as a cross-dialectal description of English pronunciations contains more information about earlier forms of English than any single modern form.[35] The emphasis has shifted from precise phones to the structure of the phonological system. Li Fang-Kuei, as a prelude to his reconstruction of Old Chinese, produced a revision of Karlgren's notation, adding new notations for the few categories not distinguished by Karlgren, without assigning them pronunciations.[37] This notation is still widely used, but its symbols, based on Johan August Lundell's Swedish Dialect Alphabet, differ from the familiar International Phonetic Alphabet. To remedy this, William H. Baxter produced his own notation for the Qieyun and rime table categories for use in his reconstruction of Old Chinese.[38][c]

All reconstructions of Middle Chinese since Karlgren have followed his approach of beginning with the categories extracted from the rime dictionaries and tables, and using dialect and Sino-Xenic data (and in some cases transcription data) in a subsidiary role to fill in sound values for these categories.[19] Jerry Norman and W. South Coblin have criticized this approach, arguing that viewing the dialect data through the rime dictionaries and rime tables distorts the evidence. They argue for a full application of the comparative method to the modern varieties, supplemented by systematic use of transcription data.[40]

Phonology

[edit]
Traditional Chinese syllable structure

The traditional analysis of the Chinese syllable, derived from the fanqie method, is into an initial consonant, or "initial", (shēngmǔ 聲母) and a final (yùnmǔ 韻母). Modern linguists subdivide the final into an optional "medial" glide (yùntóu 韻頭), a main vowel or "nucleus" (yùnfù 韻腹) and an optional final consonant or "coda" (yùnwěi 韻尾). Most reconstructions of Middle Chinese include the glides /j/ and /w/, as well as a combination /jw/, but many also include vocalic "glides" such as /i̯/ in a diphthong /i̯e/. Final consonants /j/, /w/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /p/, /t/ and /k/ are widely accepted, sometimes with additional codas such as /wk/ or /wŋ/.[41] Rhyming syllables in the Qieyun are assumed to have the same nuclear vowel and coda, but often have different medials.[42]

Middle Chinese reconstructions by different modern linguists vary.[43] These differences are minor and fairly uncontroversial in terms of consonants; however, there is a more significant difference as to the vowels. The most widely used transcriptions are Li Fang-Kuei's modification of Karlgren's reconstruction and William Baxter's typeable notation.

Initials

[edit]

The preface of the Yunjing identifies a traditional set of 36 initials, each named with an exemplary character. An earlier version comprising 30 initials is known from fragments among the Dunhuang manuscripts. In contrast, identifying the initials of the Qieyun required a painstaking analysis of fanqie relationships across the whole dictionary, a task first undertaken by the Cantonese scholar Chen Li in 1842 and refined by others since. This analysis revealed a slightly different set of initials from the traditional set. Moreover, most scholars believe that some distinctions among the 36 initials were no longer current at the time of the rime tables, but were retained under the influence of the earlier dictionaries.[44]

Early Middle Chinese (EMC) had three types of stops: voiced, voiceless, and voiceless aspirated. There were five series of coronal obstruents, with a three-way distinction between dental (or alveolar), retroflex and palatal among fricatives and affricates, and a two-way dental/retroflex distinction among stop consonants. The following table shows the initials of Early Middle Chinese, with their traditional names and approximate values:

Early Middle Chinese initials[45]
Stops and affricates Nasals Fricatives Approximants
Tenuis Aspirate Voiced Tenuis Voiced
Labials 幫 p 滂 pʰ 並 b 明 m
Dentals[d] 端 t 透 tʰ 定 d 泥 n
Retroflex stops[e] 知 ʈ 徹 ʈʰ 澄 ɖ 娘 ɳ
Lateral 來 l
Dental sibilants 精 ts 清 tsʰ 從 dz 心 s 邪 z
Retroflex sibilants 莊 ʈʂ 初 ʈʂʰ 崇 ɖʐ 生 ʂ 俟 ʐ[f]
Palatals[g] 章 tɕ 昌 tɕʰ 禪 dʑ[h] 日 ɲ 書 ɕ 船 ʑ[h] 以 j[i]
Velars 見 k 溪 kʰ 群 ɡ 疑 ŋ
Laryngeals[j] 影 ʔ 曉 x 匣/云 ɣ[i]

Old Chinese had a simpler system with no palatal or retroflex consonants; the more complex system of EMC is thought to have arisen from a combination of Old Chinese obstruents with a following /r/ and/or /j/.[53]

Bernhard Karlgren developed the first modern reconstruction of Middle Chinese. The main differences between Karlgren and newer reconstructions of the initials are:

  • The reversal of /ʑ/ and /dʑ/. Karlgren based his reconstruction on the Song dynasty rime tables. However, because of mergers between these two sounds between Early and Late Middle Chinese, the Chinese phonologists who created the rime tables could rely only on tradition to tell what the respective values of these two consonants were; evidently they were accidentally reversed at one stage.
  • Karlgren also assumed that the EMC retroflex stops were actually palatal stops based on their tendency to co-occur with front vowels and /j/, but this view is no longer held.
  • Karlgren assumed that voiced consonants were actually breathy voiced. This is now assumed only for LMC, not EMC.

Other sources from around the same time as the Qieyun reveal a slightly different system, which is believed to reflect southern pronunciation. In this system, the voiced fricatives /z/ and /ʐ/ are not distinguished from the voiced affricates /dz/ and /ɖʐ/, respectively, and the retroflex stops are not distinguished from the dental stops.[54]

Several changes occurred between the time of the Qieyun and the rime tables:

  • Palatal sibilants merged with retroflex sibilants.[55]
  • /ʐ/ merged with /ɖʐ/ (hence reflecting four separate EMC phonemes).
  • The palatal nasal /ɲ/ also became retroflex, but turned into a new phoneme /r/ rather than merging with any existing phoneme.
  • The palatal allophone of /ɣ/ (云) merged with /j/ (以) as a single laryngeal initial /j/ (喻).[51]
  • A new series of labiodentals emerged from labials in certain environments, typically where both fronting and rounding occurred (e.g. /j/ plus a back vowel in William Baxter's reconstruction, or a front rounded vowel in Chan's reconstruction). However, modern Min dialects retain bilabial initials in such words, while modern Hakka dialects preserve them in some common words.[56]
  • Voiced obstruents gained phonetic breathy voice (still reflected in the Wu Chinese varieties).

The following table shows a representative account of the initials of Late Middle Chinese.

Late Middle Chinese initials[57]
Stops and affricates Sonorants Fricatives Approximants
Tenuis Aspirate Breathy voiced Tenuis Breathy
Labial stops 幫 p 滂 pʰ 並 pɦ 明 m
Labial fricatives 非 f 敷 f[k] 奉 fɦ 微 ʋ[l]
Dental stops 端 t 透 tʰ 定 tɦ 泥 n
Retroflex stops 知 ʈ 徹 ʈʰ 澄 ʈɦ 娘 ɳ[m]
Lateral 來 l
Dental sibilants 精 ts 清 tsʰ 從 tsɦ 心 s 邪 sɦ
Retroflex sibilants 照 ʈʂ 穿 ʈʂʰ 牀 (ʈ)ʂɦ[n] 日 ɻ[o] 審 ʂ 禪 ʂɦ
Velars 見 k 溪 kʰ 群 kɦ 疑 ŋ
Laryngeals 影 ʔ 曉 x 匣 xɦ 喻 j

The voicing distinction is retained in modern Wu and Old Xiang dialects, but has disappeared from other varieties. In Min dialects the retroflex dentals are represented with the dentals, while elsewhere they have merged with the retroflex sibilants. In the south these have also merged with the dental sibilants, but the distinction is retained in most Mandarin dialects. The palatal series of modern Mandarin dialects, resulting from a merger of palatal allophones of dental sibilants and velars, is a much more recent development, unconnected with the earlier palatal consonants.[64]

Finals

[edit]
Main article: Middle Chinese finals

The remainder of a syllable after the initial consonant is the final, represented in the Qieyun by several equivalent second fanqie spellers. Each final is contained within a single rhyme class, but a rhyme class may contain between one and four finals. Finals are usually analysed as consisting of an optional medial, either a semivowel, reduced vowel or some combination of these, a vowel, an optional final consonant and a tone. Their reconstruction is much more difficult than the initials due to the combination of multiple phonemes into a single class.[65]

The generally accepted final consonants are semivowels /j/ and /w/, nasals /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/, and stops /p/, /t/ and /k/. Some authors also propose codas /wŋ/ and /wk/, based on the separate treatment of certain rhyme classes in the dictionaries. Finals with vocalic and nasal codas may have one of three tones, named level, rising and departing. Finals with stop codas are distributed in the same way as corresponding nasal finals, and are described as their entering tone counterparts.[66]

There is much less agreement regarding the medials and vowels. It is generally agreed that "closed" finals had a rounded glide /w/ or vowel /u/, and that the vowels in "outer" finals were more open than those in "inner" finals. The interpretation of the "divisions" is more controversial. Three classes of Qieyun finals occur exclusively in the first, second or fourth rows of the rime tables, respectively, and have thus been labelled finals of divisions I, II and IV. The remaining finals are labelled division-III finals because they occur in the third row, but they may also occur in the second or fourth rows for some initials. Most linguists agree that division-III finals contained a /j/ medial and that division-I finals had no such medial, but further details vary between reconstructions. To account for the many rhyme classes distinguished by the Qieyun, Karlgren proposed 16 vowels and 4 medials. Later scholars have proposed numerous variations.[67]

Tones

[edit]
See also: Four tones (Middle Chinese)

The four tones of Middle Chinese were first listed by Shen Yue c. 500 AD.[68] The first three, the "even" or "level", "rising" and "departing" tones, occur in open syllables and syllables ending with nasal consonants. The remaining syllables, ending in stop consonants, were described as the "entering" tone counterparts of syllables ending with the corresponding nasals.[69] The Qieyun and its successors were organized around these categories, with two volumes for the even tone, which had the most words, and one volume each for the other tones.[70]

The pitch contours of modern reflexes of the four Middle Chinese tones vary so widely that linguists have not been able to establish the probable Middle Chinese values by means of the comparative method.[71] Karlgren interpreted the names of the first three tones literally as level, rising and falling pitch contours, respectively,[72] and this interpretation remains widely accepted.[73] Accordingly, Pan and Zhang reconstruct the level tone as mid (˧ or 33), the rising tone as mid rising (˧˥ or 35), the departing tone as high falling (˥˩ or 51), and the entering tone as ˧3ʔ.[74] Some scholars have voiced doubts about the degree to which the names were descriptive, because they are also examples of the tone categories.[71]

Some descriptions from contemporaries and other data seem to suggest a somewhat different picture. For example, the oldest known description of the tones, which is found in a Song dynasty quotation from the early 9th century Yuanhe Yunpu 元和韻譜 (no longer extant):

Level tone is sad and stable. Rising tone is strident and rising. Departing tone is clear and distant. Entering tone is straight and abrupt.[p]

In 880, the Japanese monk Annen, citing an account from the early 8th century, stated

the level tone was straight and low, ... the rising tone was straight and high, ... the departing tone was slightly drawn out, ... the entering tone stops abruptly.[q]

Based on Annen's description, other similar statements and related data, Mei Tsu-lin concluded that the level tone was long, level and low, the rising tone was short, level and high, the departing tone was somewhat long and probably high and rising, and the entering tone was short (as the syllable ended in a voiceless stop) and probably high.[76]

The tone system of Middle Chinese is strikingly similar to those of its neighbours in the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area—proto-Hmong–Mien, proto-Tai and early Vietnamese—none of which is genetically related to Chinese. Moreover, the earliest strata of loans display a regular correspondence between tonal categories in the different languages.[77] In 1954, André-Georges Haudricourt showed that Vietnamese counterparts of the rising and departing tones corresponded to final /ʔ/ and /s/, respectively, in other (atonal) Austroasiatic languages. He thus argued that the Austroasiatic proto-language had been atonal, and that the development of tones in Vietnamese had been conditioned by these consonants, which had subsequently disappeared, a process now known as tonogenesis. Haudricourt further proposed that tone in the other languages, including Middle Chinese, had a similar origin. Other scholars have since uncovered transcriptional and other evidence for these consonants in early forms of Chinese, and many linguists now believe that Old Chinese was atonal.[78]

Around the end of the first millennium AD, Middle Chinese and the southeast Asian languages experienced a phonemic split of their tone categories. 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 conditioned by the initials, known as the "upper" and "lower". When voicing was lost in most varieties (except in the Wu and Old Xiang groups and some Gan dialects), this distinction became phonemic, yielding up to eight tonal categories, with a six-way contrast in unchecked syllables and a two-way contrast in checked syllables. Cantonese maintains these tones and has developed an additional distinction in checked syllables, resulting in a total of nine tonal categories. However, most varieties have fewer tonal distinctions. For example, in Mandarin dialects the lower rising category merged with the departing category to form the modern falling tone, leaving a system of four tones. Furthermore, final stop consonants disappeared in most Mandarin dialects, and such syllables were reassigned to one of the other four tones.[79]

Changes from Old to Modern Chinese

[edit]
Main article: Historical Chinese phonology

Middle Chinese had a structure similar to many modern varieties, especially conservative ones like Cantonese, with largely monosyllabic words, little or no derivational morphology, three tones, and a syllable structure consisting of initial consonant, glide, main vowel and final consonant, with a large number of initial consonants and a fairly small number of final consonants. Without counting the glide, no clusters could occur at the beginning or end of a syllable.

Old Chinese, on the other hand, had a significantly different structure. There were no tones, a smaller imbalance between possible initial and final consonants, and many initial and final clusters. There was a well-developed system of derivational and possibly inflectional morphology, formed using consonants added onto the beginning or end of a syllable. The system is similar to the system reconstructed for Proto-Sino-Tibetan and still visible, for example, in Classical Tibetan; it is also largely similar to the system that occurs in the more conservative Austroasiatic languages, such as modern Khmer.

The main changes leading to the modern varieties have been a reduction in the number of consonants and vowels and a corresponding increase in the number of tones (typically through a Pan-East-Asiatic tone split that doubled the number of tones and eliminated the distinction between voiced and unvoiced consonants). That has led to a gradual decrease in the number of possible syllables. Standard Mandarin has only about 1,300 possible syllables, and many other varieties of Chinese even fewer (for example, modern Shanghainese has been reported to have only about 700 syllables). The result in Mandarin, for example, has been the proliferation of the number of two-syllable compound words, which have steadily replaced former monosyllabic words; most words in Standard Mandarin now have two syllables.

Grammar

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Further information: Chinese grammar

The extensive surviving body of Middle Chinese (MC) literature of various types provides much source material for the study of MC grammar. Due to the lack of morphological development, grammatical analysis of MC tends to focus on the nature and meanings of the individual words themselves and the syntactic rules by which their arrangement together in sentences communicates meaning.[80]

See also

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Further reading

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Middle Chinese

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Middle Chinese refers to a historical stage of the spanning approximately the 6th to the 10th centuries CE, during the Sui, Tang, and early dynasties, representing a synthetic phonological system rather than a single spoken dialect. It emerged amid political reunification and cultural standardization following the Period of Disunion (220–589 CE), drawing from northern and southern varieties to establish an authoritative literary pronunciation. The stage is subdivided into Early Middle Chinese (roughly 3rd–7th centuries CE) and Late Middle Chinese (9th–10th centuries CE), with the former reflecting Sui-Tang synthesis and the latter incorporating Song-era innovations. The phonology of Middle Chinese is primarily documented in the (切韻), a seminal rhyme dictionary compiled in 601 CE by Lu Fayan in collaboration with scholars such as Yan Zhitui and Xiao Gai, based on the speech of the Jinling and regions. This work categorized characters by their initials, finals, and tones, serving as a standard for poetry, imperial examinations, and literary composition for over a millennium. Later expansions, such as the Guangyun (1008 CE) and 12th-century rime tables like the Yunjing, provided further analytical frameworks, revealing a system with around 200 rhyme groups and complex features including voiced initials, final stops (-p, -t, -k), and medials like -r- and -j-, resulting in thousands of distinct syllables. A defining characteristic of Middle Chinese is its four-tone system—level (ping), rising (shang), departing (qu), and entering (ru)—distinguished by pitch, length, and , which evolved from pitch accents and laid the foundation for tonal diversity in modern . Reconstructions by scholars such as Bernhard Karlgren (1915–1926) and Edwin Pulleyblank (1978, 1981) have utilized these sources alongside comparative data from Sino-Xenic pronunciations (e.g., in Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese) to approximate its sounds, highlighting innovations like palatalization and vowel mergers. As a pivotal transitional phase, Middle Chinese bridged (up to the ) and modern Chinese varieties, influencing dialect divergence through regional koines and borrowings, such as in during Tang administration in . Its standardized form addressed linguistic fragmentation post-Han, fostering between classical writing and speech, and remains essential for understanding the of Chinese , , and phonetics across .

Overview

Definition and Periodization

Middle Chinese refers to the historical stage of the Chinese language spoken roughly from the (581–618 CE) in the to the end of the (618–907 CE) in the 10th century, acting as a crucial bridge between of the classical period and the Early Modern Chinese varieties that emerged in the (960–1279 CE). This era followed the linguistic fragmentation after the Han dynasty's collapse (220 CE) and the subsequent (420–589 CE), during which regional dialects began to diverge more significantly from the unified norm. The standardization of pronunciation in rime dictionaries during this time helped preserve a prestige dialect centered in the northern capitals, particularly , influencing literary and administrative language across the empire. Scholars typically periodize Middle Chinese into two main phases based on phonological evidence from key texts. Early Middle Chinese, roughly the 3rd to 7th centuries, is exemplified by the rime dictionary compiled in 601 CE under the and refined in the early Tang, capturing a relatively conservative phonological system reflective of the post-Han unification. Late Middle Chinese, from the 8th to 10th centuries, encompasses later Tang developments, such as those documented in expanded rime dictionaries like the Tangyun and early Song-era rhyme tables, showing shifts toward the tonal and segmental features of emerging modern dialects. These divisions align with the dynastic contexts of Sui and Tang political consolidation and the early Song's cultural transitions, marking a period of relative linguistic stability before further dialectal diversification. This stage holds particular significance for the study of medieval , as much of and prose—such as works by and —were composed in Middle Chinese, providing direct insight into its prosodic and lexical features. Additionally, the Tang dynasty's prominence as a hub for Buddhist translation activities profoundly shaped the language, introducing thousands of Sino-foreign loanwords from and that enriched vocabulary and spurred innovations in and .

Relation to Old and Modern Chinese

Middle Chinese represents a pivotal stage in the evolution of the , bridging the more complex phonological system of [Old Chinese](/page/Old Chinese) (roughly 1250–200 BCE) with the diverse modern varieties spoken today. While [Old Chinese](/page/Old Chinese) featured intricate consonant clusters, post-final particles, and no tonal distinctions, Middle Chinese (ca. 600–1000 CE) underwent significant simplifications that shaped its syllable structure, yet retained core lexical and morphological elements. These changes positioned Middle Chinese as the immediate ancestor of most modern , with divergences occurring primarily after the due to geographic isolation and regional innovations, free from substantial non-Sinitic substrate influences during this period. Key differences from include the loss of post-final particles such as *-ʔ, *-s, and *-h, which were reinterpreted as the origins of the four-tone system in Middle Chinese (level, rising, falling, and entering tones). For instance, Old Chinese *-ʔ often developed into the rising tone (shǎngshēng), as in *dzˤoʔ > Middle Chinese dzwaX 'sit', while *-s led to the falling tone (qùshēng), exemplified by *dzˤoʔ-s > dzwaH 'seat'. Consonant clusters also simplified, with preinitial elements like *N- or *s- merging into single initials; Old Chinese *s.rum > Middle Chinese sam > modern sān 'three' illustrates the loss of such clusters. Despite these shifts, continuities persist in the retention of many monosyllabic roots and a basic structure of consonant-vowel-(coda), as seen in *pˤra > pae > modern bā 'eight', preserving the core monosyllabic nature of Sinitic lexicon. The transition from Middle Chinese to modern varieties involved further mergers and shifts, particularly in tones, s, and initials, leading to dialectal divergences across the Sinitic family tree. The entering tone (rùshēng), marked by short syllables ending in -p, -t, or -k, merged into the other tones in northern varieties like Mandarin, often distributing based on initial voicing; for example, Middle Chinese kʰjɛt > Mandarin qiè 'cut' (falling tone) versus bʲjɛt > bié 'must not' (rising tone). shifts were common, such as the fronting or raising of Middle Chinese mid vowels in many dialects, contributing to variations like Middle Chinese -jo > Mandarin -iao in some finals. Dialectal splits emerged early, with Min varieties diverging before the late Tang, retaining more Old Chinese-like features, while Mandarin developed in the north through contact with , though Middle Chinese itself remained largely insulated from non-Sinitic phonological influences. Illustrative evolutionary paths for initials highlight these divergences: Middle Chinese voiceless unaspirated /p-/ (幫母) typically evolved into aspirated /pʰ-/ in Mandarin due to the devoicing and aspiration shift of former voiced initials occupying the unaspirated slot, as in Middle Chinese pja > Mandarin piāo 'to float'. In southern dialects like Min and Hakka, however, /p-/ often remained bilabial /p-/ or shifted to /f-/, preserving archaic distinctions; for example, Middle Chinese pjaw > Min phiau² 'to float' versus Mandarin piāo. These patterns underscore Middle Chinese's role as a conservative yet transitional node in the Sinitic family, where post-Middle innovations drove the proliferation of seven major dialect groups, including Mandarin and Min, without external non-Sinitic disruptions during its core period.

Sources and Evidence

Rime Dictionaries

Rime dictionaries, also known as yunshu (韻書), are the foundational textual sources for reconstructing Middle Chinese , providing systematic catalogs of characters organized by and initials. The most influential of these is the (切韻), compiled in 601 CE during the by Lu Fayan and a group of scholars. This work codified the contemporary literary pronunciation, drawing on discussions among experts to resolve discrepancies in regional accents and foreign influences. The originally spanned 5 volumes () but was later expanded in editions to 8 , encompassing 11,500 characters arranged into 193 rhyme groups. The structure of the Qieyun reflects a meticulous organization by the four tones—level (pingsheng 平聲), rising (shangsheng 上聲), departing (qusheng 去聲), and entering (rusheng 入聲)—with characters grouped first by tone and then by rhyme within each category. For instance, the level tone section includes 53 rhymes, the rising tone 51, the departing tone 56, and the entering tone 33. Pronunciations are indicated using the (反切) system, an innovative spelling method where the initial consonant of one character combines with the rhyme and tone of another, marked by the character 反 (fǎn, "turn back"). This approach, developed during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, allowed precise notation without an alphabetic script, enabling readers to approximate sounds for literary purposes. Homophones are clustered under each entry, facilitating quick reference for rhyming. Compiled in the Sui-Tang era amid linguistic fragmentation following centuries of division, the aimed to standardize pronunciation for composing , reciting , and chanting Buddhist sutras, which had introduced non-native sounds and scripts. It preserved the prestige of the Sui capital (modern ), blending northern and southern elements into a courtly norm that influenced literary composition across the empire. The dictionary's role extended to religious practice, as uniform pronunciation was essential for liturgical accuracy in , which flourished during this period. Subsequent expansions built directly on the Qieyun framework, adapting it to evolving linguistic needs while retaining its core system. The Guangyun (廣韻), completed in 1008 CE under the Northern Song dynasty by Chen Pengnian and Qiu Yongzheng, represents a major revision, incorporating the Qieyun and the earlier Tangyun (唐韻) of 751 CE. Spanning 5 juan, it documents 26,194 characters across 206 rhymes (57 level, 55 rising, 60 departing, and 34 entering), reflecting slight phonological shifts but rooted in the Middle Chinese tradition. These later works maintained the fanqie method and tonal-rhyme organization, serving as authoritative references for poetry and scholarship into the modern era. Despite their precision, rime dictionaries like the have limitations as phonological records. They capture a stylized literary standard rather than everyday vernacular speech, prioritizing the northern prestige dialect of the Sui-Tang court over regional variations. The original text is lost, surviving only through Tang-era fragments from and later recensions, which may introduce minor alterations. Nonetheless, these sources remain indispensable for understanding the phonological framework of Middle Chinese.

Rime Tables

Rime tables, known as dengyun tu (等韻圖), represent a graphical innovation in Chinese phonology that systematically classifies Middle Chinese syllables according to articulatory features, facilitating the and of sounds beyond the linear organization of rime dictionaries. These tables emerged as a pedagogical tool, likely in the late , to aid in mastering the complex spellings from earlier rime dictionaries like the . Their development is associated with Buddhist monastic traditions, where the need to standardize for chanting and scriptural recitation drew inspiration from syllabary charts (matṛkā), adapting them to categorize Chinese initials, finals, and tones. The earliest surviving rime table is the Yunjing (韻鏡), attributed to the monk Sun Miao during the Kaiyuan era (713–741 CE) of the , though the extant version dates to a redaction around 1161 CE, with manuscript fragments confirming its 8th-century origins. A contemporaneous work, the Qiyin lüe (七音略), included in the 1161 edition of the Leipian dictionary and reflecting 12th-century scholarship, further illustrates this by providing a concise tabular guide to Middle Chinese phonology. These texts do not preserve an original Tang prototype but infer its structure from later elaborations, emphasizing a shift from descriptive listings to analytical schemata. Structurally, rime tables are organized into yunbu (韻部, "charts"), with columns typically corresponding to places of articulation for initials—such as labials, dentals, palatals, and gutturals—and rows delineating tongue positions and mouth openings, often divided into "open" (開) and "closed" (合) categories to reflect vowel quality distinctions. The Yunjing comprises 43 such charts, each featuring 23 columns for initials and 16 rows structured by the four deng (等, "departments" or divisions) across the four tone categories, plus an additional treatment of the entering tone as a fifth class to account for checked syllables. This grid layout allows for visual mapping of syllable combinations, where empty cells indicate phonotactically impossible forms. Central concepts in rime tables derive from fanqie analysis, introducing binary oppositions like "clear" (清, qing; voiceless) versus "muddy" (濁, zhuo; voiced) initials to group consonants by voicing, and the four deng to classify finals by vowel tenseness and lip rounding—Division I for tense non-velarized rimes, II for velarized types from earlier -r- medials, III for lax or breathy vowels, and IV for diphthongal developments. The Yunjing employs 23 columnar positions to represent 36 named initials, pairing some (e.g., combining certain palatals) while distinguishing others, such as a dedicated series for retroflex initials (e.g., 禪 zhǎn, 澄 chéng) that evidences apical articulation distinct from dentals. Similarly, labio-dental fricatives appear as separate initials (e.g., 非 fēi, 敷 fū), highlighting their evolution from earlier bilabials in northern speech. These features underscore the tables' role in capturing late Middle Chinese innovations not fully articulated in the Qieyun.

Sino-Xenic and Dialectal Pronunciations

Sino-Xenic pronunciations provide valuable comparative evidence for reconstructing Middle Chinese (MC) phonology, as neighboring languages borrowed extensively from Chinese during the (618–907 CE), reflecting spoken forms through cultural exchanges along the and maritime trade routes. These borrowings, known as Sino-Korean, Sino-Japanese, and Sino-Vietnamese, preserve MC features like initial consonants and finals that were later simplified in Mandarin. In Korean, Middle Korean records from the 15th century capture Tang-era loans, showing correspondences such as MC retroflex initial /ʈʂ/ to Sino-Korean /tɕ/, as in MC *ʈʂjaŋ (章) pronounced approximately /tɕaŋ/ in Sino-Korean. Sino-Korean also retains MC final stops better than Mandarin, with seven finals including /p/, /t/, /k/ (e.g., MC *-p to Sino-Korean /p/ in 立 *lip > /lip/), contrasting Mandarin's nasalization. Sino-Japanese readings, particularly the Kan'on system from the 6th–9th centuries, reflect MC through and coda adaptations, such as MC /f/ to /h/ (e.g., MC *pʰuaŋ (方) > /hō/) and nasal codas lengthening vowels (e.g., MC *kwaŋ (廣) > /kō/). The layer preserves earlier MC features like distinct stops, but Japanese limited codas to nasals or for stops (e.g., MC *-t > -tu in 別 *pjet > /betu/). Sino-Vietnamese, borrowed mainly during the Tang period, mirrors MC closely in initials and tones, with examples like MC voiced initials showing non-modal phonation (e.g., MC *mwiX (味) > /mùi/ with ) and preservation of entering tone via glottal stops (e.g., MC *pʰet (八) > /bát/). Velar softening occurs, as in MC *keajH (芥) > /cái/, but early layers avoid later labiodentalization (e.g., MC *pjuX (斧) > /búa/). Regional Chinese dialects like Wu and Min retain MC traits more faithfully than Mandarin, offering internal comparative data. Wu dialects preserve voiced initials (e.g., Shanghainese /di/ 田 from MC *den vs. /ti/ 店 from *ten) and upper/lower tone registers. Min varieties maintain MC final stops and complex finals (e.g., Southern Min /sut/ 率 from MC *dzʰuət vs. Mandarin /shuai3/), without velar palatalization (e.g., /kʰi/ 去 from MC *kʰɛiʔ). These features stem from southward migrations during the late Tang, contrasting Mandarin's mergers. Despite their utility in verifying rime table categories, Sino-Xenic and dialectal data have limitations, including chronological mismatches—such as 15th-century Korean records post-dating Tang MC—and regional variations in borrowing dialects. Vietnamese tones sometimes reverse MC categories (e.g., MC B to SV C), complicating direct mappings.

Transcription and Evidence

Foreign transcriptions of Chinese words and loanwords borrowed into other languages offer crucial independent evidence for reconstructing Middle Chinese , as they reflect how non-Chinese speakers perceived and adapted Chinese sounds during the Tang period (618–907 CE). Key sources include and transcriptions in , where were used to approximate Indic terms, thereby preserving the readings of those characters in Middle Chinese. A prominent example is the Mahāvyutpatti, a -Tibetan glossary compiled in the early under Tibetan patronage to standardize translations of Buddhist scriptures into Tibetan; later versions from the 17th century added Chinese equivalents, providing insights into contemporary Chinese pronunciations for Buddhist terminology. These transcriptions reveal phonological details such as the rendering of Middle Chinese tones through associations with or pitch accents in Indic scripts, as translators selected characters whose tones aligned with to maintain rhythmic fidelity in chants and recitations. Loanwords from Middle Chinese into Central Asian languages further attest to complex consonant clusters that were simplified in native Chinese sources but retained abroad. For instance, Uighur texts from the Tang era incorporate Chinese borrowings that preserve initial clusters like /kl-/ and /ɡl-/, such as adaptations of words for administrative or cultural terms that appear in Buddhist and Manichaean manuscripts, highlighting dialectal variations in northern Chinese speech. Similarly, Mongolian loans from the same period, often via Uighur intermediaries, maintain traces of these clusters in vocabulary related to and , providing evidence for prestopped or clustered onsets not fully captured in rime dictionaries. In the opposite direction, Chinese terms borrowed into Tibetan and Persian during the 7th–9th centuries illuminate vowel qualities and syllable structures. Tibetan adopted words like ja '' from Middle Chinese draj (茶), preserving a diphthongal quality, and srib '' from Middle Chinese si, reflecting a high that contrasts with later developments. Persian examples include čāy 'tea' from Middle Chinese draj, where the initial stop and medial glide are adapted to fit Persian , offering insights into open syllables and tone-neutral vowels. The Tang dynasty's , characterized by trade, diplomatic missions, and the influx of Central Asian merchants and Buddhist missionaries to , fostered this borrowing, creating a linguistic mosaic that extended Chinese influence across . These external sources serve as vital non-native validations of Middle Chinese reconstructions, often revealing dialectal diversity—such as regional variations in tone realization or cluster simplification—that internal Chinese materials alone cannot confirm, thus enhancing the reliability of phonological analyses.

Reconstruction Methodology

Principles of Phonological Reconstruction

The reconstruction of Middle Chinese phonology relies on systematic analysis of historical sources to infer the phonetic values of sound categories defined in medieval texts. Central to this process is the fanqie (反切) system, a traditional method documented in rime dictionaries like the Qieyun (601 CE), where the pronunciation of a syllable is approximated by combining the initial consonant of one character with the rime (final) and tone of another. This technique allows linguists to reverse-engineer initials and finals by mapping fanqie spellings across entries, establishing phonological correspondences within the dictionary's categories. The comparative method further aligns these data with rime tables, such as the Yunjing (12th century), to categorize sounds by articulatory features like place and manner of articulation, ensuring consistency across the syllable inventory. Pioneering work in this field was conducted by Bernhard Karlgren in the early , who first proposed phonetic realizations for the Qieyun's 36 initial categories and over 200 rime groups, drawing on analyses and early Sino-Xenic pronunciations (e.g., in Vietnamese and Korean) to verify distinctions like aspiration in stops. Karlgren's system treated Middle Chinese as a stable phonological baseline, using broad IPA approximations such as k for velars and -ung for certain rimes. Later refinements by Edwin Pulleyblank in the 1980s emphasized articulatory precision, reinterpreting rime table divisions to posit retroflex initials and diphthongal finals, while integrating more dialectal evidence to adjust Karlgren's palatal assumptions. William Baxter's modern approach, outlined in his 1992 , simplifies notation while preserving categorical fidelity, employing symbols like *p (unaspirated bilabial stop) and *ph (aspirated counterpart) to distinguish medieval notations from modern interpretations, often without full commitments to avoid over-speculation. The reconstruction process typically begins with categorizing initials by features—e.g., grouping labials (*p, *ph, *b) and dentals (*t, *th)—using cross-references to identify mergers or splits, then assigning finals via rime groupings that reflect quality and codas. Sino-Xenic data, such as Japanese kan'on readings preserving distinct initials like *ts vs. *tʃ, are integrated for verification, particularly where rime dictionary ambiguities arise, ensuring reconstructions align with external attestations. For instance, the for 東 dōng (冬宗切, combining 冬's initial *t with 宗's final -uŋ) exemplifies how scholars dissect components to posit *tuŋ, adjusting for tone categories later. These steps prioritize categorical accuracy over exact , as Middle Chinese represents an abstract system rather than a spoken .

Key Challenges and Scholarly Debates

One major challenge in reconstructing Middle Chinese phonology stems from dialectal variation in the primary sources, particularly the rime dictionary of 601 CE, which aimed to codify a literary standard but incorporated elements from both the (western capital) and (eastern capital) dialect bases, reflecting a compromise rather than a uniform speech form. This blending obscures precise phonetic values, as the Qieyun's spelling system prioritized orthographic consistency over capturing regional nuances, leading to ambiguities in initial and final assignments. Additionally, chronological layering in texts complicates reconstruction, with later editions of rime dictionaries like the Guangyun (1008 CE) introducing insertions and revisions that mix Early Middle Chinese (EMC) features from the 6th-7th centuries with Late Middle Chinese (LMC) developments from the 10th-12th centuries, making it difficult to disentangle diachronic changes from synchronic variation. A central concerns the nature of the entering tone (rusheng), traditionally defined by its association with syllables ending in stop codas (-p, -t, -k), but scholars disagree on whether it primarily indicated vowel shortness or involved or laryngeal features. Traditional views, rooted in rime table analyses, emphasize the tone's brevity as the key marker, aligning with its merger into other tones in northern modern dialects like Mandarin, where checked syllables shortened and lost distinctiveness. In contrast, some reconstructions propose a glottal or creaky quality to account for its preservation as a short, abrupt tone in southern dialects like and Min, supported by Sino-Vietnamese evidence where entering tone words often show ; this interpretation highlights evidential tensions between northern-based sources and southern reflexes. Another ongoing dispute involves the existence of pre-initial consonants, such as a /ʔ-/ for "zero-initial" syllables or a /s-/ in certain clusters, which some argue were present to explain irregular matches and dialectal outcomes, though traditional schemes dismiss them as unnecessary complications without direct textual support. Specific controversies include Edwin G. Pulleyblank's proposal of "reverse" initials in LMC, where he posited that certain rhyme-grade distinctions in labial-initial syllables inverted compared to EMC, with open-mouth (hokou) and closed-mouth (chikou) categories swapping positions due to sound shifts in the northern basis of rime tables like the Yunjing (ca. 1150 CE). This challenges traditional views that maintain consistent kou distinctions across periods, as Pulleyblank's model better accounts for LMC's palatalization trends but relies on indirect Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese correspondences, sparking debate over whether LMC represents a distinct or a linear evolution from EMC. Similarly, the handling of labialized versus palatalized sounds remains contentious, with Pulleyblank hypothesizing palatalized and labialized velars as final consonants alongside plain velars to explain medial developments in modern s; critics argue this overcomplicates the system, as rime dictionary categories do not explicitly support such finals, preferring simpler velar assignments based on evidence. Evidential gaps further hinder reconstruction, notably the scarcity of direct data on southern dialects, which were underrepresented in northern-centric sources like the Qieyun, forcing reliance on indirect Sino-Xenic pronunciations and modern southern varieties that may have undergone independent innovations. Limited evidence also exists for sociolinguistic variations, such as potential differences in women's speech, as surviving texts reflect elite male literary norms without phonetic notations for gender-specific features. Script reforms, including the transition from clerical to during the , had minimal direct impact on phonological evidence but indirectly affected it by standardizing character forms in rime dictionaries, potentially masking earlier graphic clues to pronunciation variations. Post-2000 research has addressed these uncertainties through computational , employing methods like to optimize assignments by minimizing phonetic distances between homophonic characters in the Guangyun and modern dialect reflexes across 20 varieties. This approach models ambiguities in initial reconstructions, achieving high predictive accuracy (e.g., 68% for held-out data) and providing probabilistic values for disputed features like pre-initials, thus quantifying evidential gaps and facilitating testable hypotheses beyond traditional comparative methods.

Phonology

Initial Consonants

Middle Chinese initial consonants, known as shēngmǔ (聲母), constitute the onset of syllables and are primarily reconstructed from the 7th-century rime dictionary and subsequent rime tables such as the Yunjing. These sources organize the initials into categories reflecting places and manners of articulation, traditionally numbering 36 distinct initials, though phonological analyses identify fewer underlying phonemes due to allophonic variations and mergers in some reconstructions. The inventory encompasses stops, affricates, fricatives, nasals, laterals, and , with systematic distinctions between voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and voiced series for obstruents. Places of articulation include bilabials (唇音), dentals/alveolars (齒音), retroflexes (retroflex and stops, 舌音), palatals/alveolo-palatals (牙音 or 半舌音), velars (喉音), and a glottal series. Nasals and laterals occur at labial, dental, retroflex, palatal, and velar places, while approximants like /w/ and /j/ function as glides in labiodental and palatal positions. All initials appear in onsets, with no phonotactic restrictions beyond compatibility with following medials and finals, as evidenced by the comprehensive coverage in rime table departments (typically 16–18 groupings). Reconstructions differ in detail and count. Bernhard Karlgren's seminal system posits 36 initials, distinguishing fine-grained retroflex and palatal contrasts (e.g., retroflex /ʈʂ/ vs. palatal /tɕ/). In contrast, Edwin G. Pulleyblank's reconstruction maintains the traditional 36 categories with phonetic specificity, such as dental /ts, tsʰ, dz/ and velar /x/ from earlier . More minimalist approaches, like William H. 's transcription, reduce to around 23 core consonants by treating some rime table distinctions (e.g., certain retroflex vs. dental ) as contextual variants rather than phonemes. (Note: Used for reference to Baxter's notation; is Baxter 1992) The following table summarizes the traditional 36 initials in Pulleyblank's reconstruction, grouped by place of articulation, with representative IPA values and manner notes (examples include modern Mandarin reflexes for illustration, e.g., /p/ in bāng 幫):
Place of ArticulationInitial CategoryPhonetic ValuesManner NotesExample
BilabialStops/p/, /pʰ/, /b/Unaspirated voiceless, aspirated voiceless, voicedp (bāng 幫), ph (pāng 滂), b (bìng 並)
BilabialNasal/m/Voiced nasalm (míng 明)
LabiodentalApproximant/w/Labial glidew (wēi 微, often with /u/)
DentalStops/t/, /tʰ/, /d/Unaspirated voiceless, aspirated voiceless, voicedt (duān 端), th (tòu 透), d (dìng 定)
DentalNasal/Lateral/n/, /l/Voiced nasal, lateral approximantn (ní 泥), l (lái 來)
Dental sibilantAffricates/Fricatives/ts/, /tsʰ/, /dz/, /s/, /z/Unaspirated voiceless affricate, aspirated voiceless affricate, voiced affricate, voiceless fricative, voiced fricativets (jīng 精), tsh (qīng 清), dz (cóng 從), s (xīn 心), z (xié 邪)
RetroflexStops/ʈr/, /ʈrʰ/, /ɖr/Unaspirated voiceless (with r-coloring), aspirated voiceless, voicedtr (rare; e.g., some 禪 realizations), trh (zhāo 召), dr (chán 禪)
RetroflexNasal/ɳr/Voiced nasal (rhotacized)nr (nǚ 女)
Retroflex sibilantAffricates/Fricatives/ʈʂ/, /ʈʂʰ/, /ɖʐ/, /ʂ/, /ʐ/Unaspirated voiceless affricate, aspirated voiceless affricate, voiced affricate, voiceless fricative, voiced fricativetʂ (zhào 照), tʂʰ (chè 澈), ɖʐ (chéng 澄), ʂ (shēng 生), ʐ (sì 俟)
Alveolo-palatalAffricates/Fricatives/tɕ/, /tɕʰ/, /dʑ/, /ɕ/, /ʑ/Unaspirated voiceless affricate, aspirated voiceless affricate, voiced affricate, voiceless fricative, voiced fricativetɕ (zhāng 章), tɕʰ (chāng 昌), dʑ (cóng 從 in palatal contexts), ɕ (shū 書), ʑ (chuán 船)
Alveolo-palatalNasal/ɲ/Voiced nasalɲ (rén 人)
VelarStops/k/, /kʰ/, /g/Unaspirated voiceless, aspirated voiceless, voicedk (jiàn 見), kh (xī 溪), g (qún 群, voiced rare)
VelarNasal/Fricatives/ŋ/, /x/, /ɣ/Voiced nasal, voiceless fricative, voiced fricativeŋ (yí 疑), x (xiǎo 曉), ɣ (xiá 匣, noted in some sibilant mergers)
GlottalStop/ʔ/Glottal stop (vocalic onset)ʔ (yǐng 影)
Articulatorily, initials involve lip closure or rounding; dental series use the tongue tip against the teeth or ; retroflex initials feature tongue curling toward the for rhotacized or quality; palatal and alveolo-palatal initials involve tongue contact near the , often with palatalization; velars use the tongue back against the ; and the glottal initial is a laryngeal closure. Voiceless aspirated obstruents (/pʰ, tʰ, etc.) featured strong breath release, while voiced counterparts (/b, d, etc.) included vocal fold , and fricatives like /x/ and /ɣ/ produced turbulent airflow at the velum. These realizations are inferred from Sino-Xenic pronunciations and correspondences, with aspirated stops and velar fricatives prominent in northern varieties of the period.

Finals and Vowels

In Middle Chinese, as documented in the Qieyun rime dictionary compiled in 601 CE, finals comprise the medial (if present), nucleus , and coda of the , excluding the initial . These are categorized into 193 rime groups, which distinguish syllables based primarily on quality, lip rounding (open-mouth kāikǒu vs. closed-mouth hékǒu), , and the presence of medials like j- (palatal) or w- (labial). The system reflects a relatively simple structure, with open syllables predominant and codas restricted to nasals (-m, -n, -ŋ) or stops (-p, -t, -k), alongside glottalized endings in certain categories. Reconstructions of the Middle Chinese vowel inventory typically posit 6 to 8 monophthongs, emphasizing distinctions between front and back vowels as well as open and close qualities. Common elements include high front /i/, high central /ɨ/, high back /u/, mid front /e/, mid back /o/, mid-low front /ɛ/, mid-low back /ɔ/, and low /a/. For instance, William H. Baxter's transcription system encodes these as a, e, ie (for /ɛ/), i, o, uo (for /ɔ/), u, with ɨ for certain apical vowels, reflecting the phonological categories of the rime dictionaries without implying precise phonetic values. Edwin G. Pulleyblank's reconstruction similarly features a core set of vowels like /a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/, but incorporates variations such as /ie/ for front mid-low and /ɨə/ for central elements in type B syllables (lax or palatalized). Diphthongs form a key part of the finals, often arising from vowel-medial combinations or historical developments, with examples including /ai/, /ei/, /au/, and /əu/. These are grouped within the rime classes, where nasalized diphthongs like -ian (reconstructed for certain -en finals) illustrate mergers between open and close vowel series. The Qieyun rimes further subclassify finals by division (I–IV), capturing splits in vowel quality: for example, division I features tense vowels like -an, while division III has lax counterparts like -in or -jen, as per Baxter's notation. Lip rounding in hékǒu finals, such as -ou or -ung, adds a back rounded quality to mid and low vowels, distinguishing them from unrounded open-mouth counterparts. Some reconstructions introduce a central vowel /ə/ to account for ambiguous rimes, particularly in non-nasal finals, though this remains debated. For representative examples, the rime for yuan (元) is reconstructed as /ŋwɛn/ by Pulleyblank, highlighting mid-low back rounding, while Baxter uses ngwen to denote the same nasalized structure. Overall, the finals system totals around 136 distinct combinations when excluding initials, prioritizing vowel-coda harmony over complex clusters. Southern Chinese varieties, such as Min and Wu dialects, preserve rounded vowels from Middle Chinese finals more faithfully than northern ones, retaining distinctions like /o/ and /u/ in hékǒu rimes that have unrounded or diphthongized in Mandarin. This retention provides evidence for the original lip rounding in finals like -ou and -ung, as seen in modern reflexes such as Min hu (/ho/) for Middle Chinese xuo.

Tones and Tone Categories

Middle Chinese possessed a four-tone system that played a central role in its phonology, with the tones categorized as level (píngshēng), rising (shǎngshēng), departing (qùshēng), and entering (rùshēng). These categories, first systematically documented in the Qieyun rime dictionary of 601 CE, arose from the evolution of Old Chinese prosodic features and the loss of syllable-final consonants between the 5th and 7th centuries CE. The level tone typically featured a steady pitch, reconstructed as high flat in northern varieties or falling-rising (/˧˩/) in others; the rising tone had a mid-rising contour (/˧/); the departing tone exhibited a low falling-rising or circumflex contour (/˨˩˧/); and the entering tone was a short, checked syllable ending in a glottal stop or abrupt closure, often derived from final stops. The origins of these tones trace back to , which lacked inherent tones but had pitch accents influenced by syllable-final consonants; the entering tone developed from OC finals *-p, *-t, *-k, resulting in short, abrupt syllables; the rising tone from a final *-ʔ; the departing tone from fricatives like *-s or *-h, creating a lengthening or falling effect; and the level tone from open syllables with vocalic or nasal endings lacking such codas. This tonogenesis process, occurring via the simplification of syllable codas, transformed consonantal distinctions into prosodic ones, with the entering tone retaining a non-tonal checked quality in many reconstructions. Tone categories were further subdivided in Middle Chinese phonological descriptions, particularly the level and departing tones into even (yángpíng, yángqù) and odd (yīnpíng, yīnqù) registers based on the voicing of the : voiceless initials aligned with odd (yīn) categories, while voiced initials fell into even (yáng) ones, reflecting a register distinction that influenced later tone splits in modern dialects. In rime dictionaries, tones were indicated through the fanqie transcription method, where a target 's pronunciation combined the of one character with the final (including tone) of another, allowing precise notation of the tone category—e.g., the second character's tone directly specified whether the target was level, rising, departing, or entering. These tones functioned primarily to create lexical contrasts, enabling differentiation of homophonous roots; for instance, the word for "east" (tuŋ, level tone) contrasted with "winter" (tuŋ, departing tone), or "sit" (dzwaX, rising tone) with "obtain" (tok, entering tone), underscoring how tonal opposition was to word identity in Middle Chinese. Reconstructions of tone contours vary slightly by scholar—e.g., and Sagart posit a high level for píngshēng and falling for qùshēng based on Sino-Vietnamese and —but consistently emphasize the entering tone's brevity and the overall system's role in prosodic structure, often integrating with finals for full realization.

Syllable Structure and Phonotactics

The syllable structure of Middle Chinese can be represented as (C)(G)V(C), where C denotes an optional (initial or coda), G a glide, and V a or , resulting in predominantly CV or CVC forms. This structure evolved from the more complex sesquisyllabic patterns of , simplifying into monosyllabic units by the Early Middle Chinese period around the 6th century CE. For instance, syllables like kə ( without coda) or kan (with nasal coda) exemplify the core template, while glides such as -j- or -w- often appear as medials, as in kjəj or kwən. Phonotactic rules permitted limited initial clusters, primarily involving a stop or followed by a glide or , such as /kw-/ (e.g., in kwən "") or /pl-/ in early reconstructions, but prohibited more elaborate combinations like triple consonants. Codas were strictly restricted to nasals (/m/, /n/, /ŋ/) or stops (/p/, /t/, /k/), with no or codas beyond morphological suffixes like -s- in derived forms; this constraint limited inventory to around 1,200 distinct types in the dictionary of 601 CE. Additional rules included avoidance of certain vowel-coda pairings, notably the absence of /iŋ/ due to articulatory incompatibility between the high and velar nasal, as no such rhyme appears in rime dictionaries. Labial harmony further shaped finals, where rounded vowels (e.g., /u/, /o/) typically co-occurred only with labial initials like /p-/ or /m-/, preventing combinations such as non-labial initials with rounded codas in certain rhymes; this pattern is evident in the Qieyun's division of finals into "open mouth" (unrounded) and "close mouth" (rounded) categories. These constraints ensured phonological balance, with glides functioning to link initials and vowels without forming independent clusters, as in /pj-/ rather than true /pʲj/ sequences. Evidence for these phonotactics derives primarily from rime tables like the and later Yunjing (1154 CE), which categorize by divisions (e.g., Division I open vs. Division III with palatal medials), revealing permitted combinations through rhyme groupings and initial-final compatibilities. Poetic meters in verse also confirm counts, enforcing CV(C) uniformity for rhythmic without allowing onset clusters beyond glides. Variations occurred diachronically, with Early Middle Chinese (pre-600 CE) retaining more complex onsets like /pl-/ or /kl-/ from clusters (e.g., plək > phlək), which simplified or palatalized by the Late Middle Chinese period (post-800 CE), yielding forms like /pʰl-/ merging into /pʰ-/ or /tʃ-/. This reduction aligned with broader sound changes, such as the loss of initial liquids in clusters, contributing to a more standardized template across dialects.

Grammar and Lexicon

Syntactic Features

Middle Chinese syntax was characterized by a predominant subject-verb-object (SVO) , which represented a continuation from Late following the loss of morphological case markers that had previously allowed greater flexibility in argument positioning. This SVO structure is evident in prose and vernacular texts, where prepositional phrases consistently preceded the main verb, as in constructions involving locative or instrumental elements like yu (in/at) or yi (with). However, topic-comment flexibility persisted, allowing topics—often disyllabic compounds inherited from —to be fronted for pragmatic emphasis, diverging from strict SVO in discourse contexts without altering core transitivity. Post-verbal particles began to emerge as key syntactic features during the Middle Chinese period, marking aspectual and dispositional nuances. The marker -le, originating from a meaning "to finish," was reanalyzed around the into a suffix-like position after the , indicating completion of an action, as seen in transformation texts like Dunhuang bianwen ji examples such as kan-le (look-PFV). Similarly, the ba-construction, initially a full meaning "to hold" or "to take," started grammaticalizing in the as a pre-verbal dispositional structure to topicalize patients and express or affectedness semantics, exemplified in Tang texts like Zui ba zhuyu zixi kan (drunk BA poem carefully look), where ba facilitates object preposing before the . These particles enhanced sentence expressivity but remained optional in early Middle Chinese, contrasting with their obligatoriness in later varieties. Sentence types in Middle Chinese ranged from simple declaratives, typical of Tang prose with minimal subordination, to more complex structures incorporating serial verb constructions for multi-event chaining. Serial verbs allowed shared arguments across predicates, as in she sha yi yu (snake kill one fish), where the subject and object extend across verbs without conjunctions, reflecting efficiency in vernacular narratives. Buddhist translations significantly influenced these developments, introducing relative clauses via particles like zhe as a nominalizer, as in Dunhuang manuscript examples shou zhe nai qing chu qi (hand REL then request remove it), which deviated from classical norms by embedding descriptive phrases more freely. Overall, Dunhuang vernacular texts, such as those from the 9th–10th centuries, illustrate a spoken syntax distinct from classical written forms, with greater use of particles and topic fronting for natural discourse flow.

Morphological Characteristics

Middle Chinese morphology was predominantly isolating, with limited inflectional changes and a reliance on analytic structures for , but it featured notable developments in through and affixation. This period marked a transition from the more affix-heavy toward greater use of multi-syllabic constructions, reflecting phonological and syntactic shifts that accommodated a growing . Compounding emerged as the primary mechanism for creating new words, particularly disyllabic forms that became increasingly common by the (618–907 CE). Verb-object compounds were prevalent, such as duk buX (讀書, 'read-book'), denoting the act of studying, where the verb precedes a nominal object to form a unified lexical unit. Noun-noun and adjective-noun compounds also proliferated, expanding vocabulary without altering structure significantly. served emphatic or iterative functions, often applied to verbs or adjectives for intensification, as in xuwng xuwng (紅紅, 'red-red') to convey vivid redness. These processes addressed issues arising from phonological mergers, allowing speakers to distinguish meanings through combination rather than affixation alone. Affixation remained sparse compared to , with prefixes largely absent and suffixes mostly derivational rather than inflectional. Emerging suffixes included the -er (from 兒, MC nji), as in siwU nji (小兒, 'little '), which added an affectionate or small-scale to bases. Agentive nouns were formed with -zi (子, MC tɕi), such as lɑŋX tɕi (老師子, 'teacher'), deriving from verbs to indicate performers of actions. occasionally employed particles like de (得, MC tək), which could convert verbal predicates into nominal forms in constructions, though often sufficed without dedicated markers. Derivational morphology favored zero-derivation, where nouns and verbs interchanged based on syntactic or tonal category, with rare fusional elements blending form and function. In , Middle Chinese vernacular speech was transcribed using classical characters originally from , resulting in where single graphs represented multiple pronunciations to accommodate dialectal and lexical variations. For instance, the character 長 (MC *tɕiaŋ) could denote 'long' or 'chief' with distinct readings depending on . This practice facilitated the integration of spoken innovations into written records but contributed to ambiguities resolved only through surrounding . The morphological trends in Middle Chinese, particularly the rise of from monosyllables, laid the foundation for modern varieties' preference for disyllabic words, reducing reliance on affixation and enhancing analytic expression. This supported lexical expansion amid tone simplifications and dialect divergence.

Vocabulary and Word Formation

The core lexicon of Middle Chinese retained a substantial number of roots, particularly for fundamental semantic categories such as family relations, numbers, and basic natural phenomena, forming the bedrock of everyday . For instance, terms like mʉə () and pək (father) evolved directly from monosyllabic forms, preserving semantic stability across periods. This continuity is evident in rhyme dictionaries like the (601 CE), which document over 16,000 characters largely derived from earlier strata, with basic numerals such as ʔjit (one) and njət (two) showing minimal phonetic shift. A key innovation in Middle Chinese vocabulary was the influx of Buddhist terminology, introducing neologisms and loan translations to accommodate concepts absent in native traditions. Translators like (344–413 CE) and (602–664 CE) created terms such as yè (業, industry/karma) as a for karma, rendering abstract ethical notions through existing Chinese words for action and consequence. Other examples include sì shèng dì (四聖諦, four noble truths), a direct structural translation of catvāri āryasatyāni, which expanded the lexicon for philosophical discourse. These adaptations, numbering in the thousands, enriched semantic fields related to cosmology and , as cataloged in early glossaries like the Yiqiejing yinyi (c. 649 CE). Technical vocabulary also proliferated in domains like , administration, and , often through or semantic extension of native roots. In poetic usage, terms for emotions and landscapes, such as qīng (情, sentiment) combined with descriptors, innovated nuanced expressions beyond simplicity. Administrative texts from the (618–907 CE) incorporated specialized words like lì (吏, official) in compounds for bureaucratic roles, reflecting state expansion. Sanskrit influence extended to via calques and partial loans, such as jiépō (劫波, kalpa/), blending phonetic approximation with native morphemes to denote cosmic cycles. Additionally, disyllabification emerged as a productive strategy, transforming monosyllabic roots into compounds for precision; for example, rén xīn (人心, human heart/mind) calqued mental concepts from Indic sources, with disyllabic forms becoming increasingly prevalent in the by Late Middle Chinese. Non-Han languages contributed loanwords, particularly from Turkic sources in northern regions, enriching vocabulary for and . Evidence from the corpus, comprising over 60,000 manuscripts from the 4th–11th centuries, reveals vernacular vocabulary in folk texts, such as transformation tales (biànwén), featuring colloquialisms like suǒwèi (所謂, so-called) for everyday , which diverged from elite literary registers and highlighted spoken innovations. This corpus underscores the period's lexical diversity, with vernacular elements preserving regional dialects and oral traditions.

Evolution and Influence

Changes from Middle to Early Modern Chinese

The transition from Middle Chinese to Early Modern Chinese unfolded primarily during the Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties, spanning the 10th to 14th centuries, amid political instability and demographic shifts. Northern invasions by the Jurchens (Jin dynasty, 1115–1234) and Mongols (Yuan dynasty) prompted massive southward migrations of Han Chinese populations and extensive dialect contact in the north, fostering the emergence of a koine based on northern varieties that would form the core of Mandarin. These factors homogenized phonological features across regions, as evidenced by Song-era rime tables (e.g., those by Shǐ Wú and Zhāng Lín) and the Ming dynasty's Hongwu zhèngyùn (1375), which document a simplified syllable structure reflective of Early Modern phonology. Phonological shifts were profound, particularly in tones and . The entering tone (rù), characterized by short syllables ending in stop codas (-p, -t, -k), ceased to exist as a distinct category in northern dialects by the late or early Yuan, with its syllables reassigned to the level, rising, and departing tones based on initial consonant voicing; for instance, voiced-initial entering syllables often became rising or falling tones in Mandarin precursors. Concurrently, mergers affected the level (píng) and rising (shǎng) tones: in northern varieties, voiceless-initial rising tones merged into the level tone category during the 12th–13th centuries, contributing to the eventual split of the level tone into high-level (yīnpíng) and rising (yǎngpíng) registers. Finals underwent denasalization and simplification, alongside the complete loss of bilabial nasal /-m/, reducing the nasal inventory and increasing . Grammatical developments emphasized analytic structures over inflectional ones. Classifiers proliferated and became more obligatory in numeral and demonstrative constructions, evolving from optional quantifiers in Early Middle Chinese to a core feature of nominal syntax by the Yuan; for example, the general classifier gè expanded alongside specialized ones like běn for books, aiding disambiguation amid phonological mergers. Aspect marking simplified, with postverbal particles like le (perfective) and zhe (durative) gaining prominence as versatile suffixes, supplanting the diverse verbal prefixes and infixes of earlier periods and aligning with the loss of final consonants. Lexical changes reflected adaptation to social and phonological pressures, with a marked increase in disyllabic compounds to resolve homophones resulting from tone and final mergers; by the –Yuan transition, disyllables comprised over 50% of the vernacular lexicon in northern texts, as in huāyuán "" from separate huā "flower" and yuán "park." The Yuan era introduced loanwords from Mongol (e.g., zhàn "station/postal relay" from Mongol jamči) and Persian (e.g., pútáo "" from Iranian budāwa), integrated into administrative and everyday vocabulary through Mongol rule's cosmopolitan policies.

Legacy in Modern Chinese Varieties and Beyond

Modern Chinese varieties, particularly the Sinitic languages, exhibit a diverse array of retentions and innovations from Middle Chinese phonology, reflecting regional divergences over centuries. Standard Mandarin, the basis of contemporary Putonghua, preserves the four main tones derived from the Middle Chinese tonal categories—level (píng), rising (shǎng), departing (qù), and entering (rù)—though these have undergone mergers and contour changes, such as the rising tone splitting from the original level and rising categories. However, Mandarin has largely lost the complex finals of Middle Chinese, including stop codas (-p, -t, -k) that characterized the entering tone, resulting in open syllables and redistributed short tones across the four categories. In contrast, southern varieties like Min and Hakka retain more conservative features; Min dialects, such as Hokkien, preserve the entering tone as a distinct short tone with glottal codas or vowel shortening, directly echoing Middle Chinese syllable structure. Hakka similarly maintains all Middle Chinese entering tones, split into yin and yang registers, with examples like the word for "eight" (ba̍t in some dialects) retaining a checked ending absent in Mandarin. These preservations highlight Min and Hakka's role in reconstructing Middle Chinese phonology. Wu dialects, spoken in regions like and , notably retain the voiced initials of Middle Chinese, such as /b-, d-, g-/ and fricatives like /v-, z-/, which devoiced in northern varieties like Mandarin. For instance, the Middle Chinese voiced stop *b- (as in "eight," *pat) corresponds to voiced or breathy [β] in Wu, contrasting with Mandarin's voiceless . This voicing distinction, including obstruents like stops and affricates, persists in breathy or murmured forms in many Wu varieties, providing key evidence for Middle Chinese's consonantal inventory. Such features underscore Wu's conservative amid broader Sinitic evolution. Beyond , Middle Chinese profoundly influenced Sino-Xenic vocabularies in neighboring languages through historical borrowing during the Tang-Song periods. In modern Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese, Sino-Xenic readings of preserve Middle Chinese initials, finals, and tones more faithfully than many modern Chinese dialects; for example, the Middle Chinese *kwək (for "" 国) appears as guk in Korean, koku in Japanese, and quốc in Vietnamese, retaining the initial velar and stop coda. These systems, embedded in thousands of loanwords, aid in verifying Middle Chinese reconstructions and tracing phonological shifts. Middle Chinese's study forms the cornerstone of and , enabling comparative analysis of East Asian language families and the evolution of Chinese from Old to modern forms. Culturally, Middle Chinese underpins systems used in Sinological scholarship; while Hanyu reflects modern Mandarin, earlier systems like Wade-Giles incorporated insights from Middle Chinese to represent aspirated consonants and tonal distinctions more accurately for historical texts. In recent decades, digital tools and AI applications have revitalized Middle Chinese , particularly for reconstructing ancient texts. Computational datasets, such as WikiHan, integrate dialectal and Sino-Xenic data to train models for automated phonological reconstruction, facilitating of classical literature and addressing gaps in processing pre-modern Chinese corpora post-2020. These advancements enhance and for , bridging Middle Chinese with contemporary .

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