Yunjing

Chinese rime table ()

Yunjing

Title page of the Yonglu edition

Traditional Chinese| 韻鏡
Simplified Chinese| 韵镜
Literal meaning| Mirror of rhymes
| Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin| Yùnjìng
Wade–Giles| Yün4-ching4
IPA| [ŷntɕîŋ]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanization| Wahngeng
Jyutping| Wan6-geng3
IPA| [wɐn˨.kɛŋ˧]
Southern Min
Tâi-lô| Ūn-kiànn
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese| JwənC kjɐngC

The Yunjing (simplified Chinese: 韵镜; traditional Chinese: 韻鏡; pinyin: Yùnjìng; lit. 'Mirror of rhymes') is one of the two oldest existing examples of a Chinese rime table – a series of charts which arrange Chinese characters in large tables according to their tone and syllable structures to indicate their proper pronunciations. Current versions of the Yunjing date to AD 1161 and 1203 editions published by Zhang Linzhi (張麟之). The original author(s) and date of composition of the Yunjing are unknown. Some of its elements, such as certain choices in its ordering, reflect features particular to the Tang dynasty, but no conclusive proof of an actual date of composition has yet been found.

The Yunjing contains 43 tables (Chinese: 轉; pinyin: zhuǎn; lit. 'turnings'), each of which tabulates combinations of a particular final rhyme (listed in rows) with various initials (listed in columns), in up to four tones, to show in a grid pattern all possible syllables. Empty circles on the grid denote that the authors were unaware of any word with that particular pronunciation. By locating a character in Yunjing, a reader could identify its initial consonant (by looking at its column) and its "rhyme", or main vowel and ending consonant (by looking at its row), and combine the two to obtain the word's pronunciation. Zhang Linzhi's prefaces list a total of 36 possible initial consonants (聲母; shēngmǔ) – by comparison, modern Standard Chinese only has 23 and modern Cantonese only has 18 or 19.

Historical Chinese phonology uses the Yunjing as an accurate representation of Late Middle Chinese (10th–12th century) phonology. The Yunjing's use of this system represents a significant advancement in the Chinese' analysis of their own language, and is believed to have been inspired by their studies of Sanskrit phonological treatises and Buddhist mantras written in the Siddham script during the Sui and Tang dynasties.

## Layout

[edit]

The first table of the Yunjing

### Rows (Finals/Rhymes)

[edit]

Each of the 43 tables in the Yunjing is first divided into four large rows that correspond to the four tones of Middle Chinese: the level tone (Chinese: 平聲; pinyin: píngshēng), the rising tone (Chinese: 上聲; pinyin: shǎngshēng), the departing tone (Chinese: 去聲; pinyin: qùshēng), and the entering tone (Chinese: 入聲; pinyin: rùshēng).[1] They are not explicitly marked as such, but the four characters are taken from each of the tone categories of the Guangyun rhyme dictionary. In the image at right, the first row – the level tone – is occupied by the level tone rhyme dōng 東, the second row – the rising tone – by the dǒng 董 rhyme, the third row – the departing tone – by sòng 送, and the fourth row – the entering tone – by wū 屋 (Cantonese: uk1).

Each large row is further subdivided into four grades or divisions (Chinese: 等; pinyin: děng), forming four rows within each larger row. Characters' placement in the first through fourth grade seems to be related to their medial (glide) and main vowel, though their exact distinction is unclear.[1]

### Columns (Initials)

[edit]

Each table is divided into six large columns representing syllables' place of articulation:

* "Lip sounds" (Chinese: 唇音; pinyin: chúnyīn)
* "Tongue sounds" (Chinese: 舌音; pinyin: shéyīn)
* "Molar sounds" (Chinese: 牙音; pinyin: yáyīn)
* "Tooth sounds" (Chinese: 齒音; pinyin: chǐyīn)
* "Throat sounds" (Chinese: 喉音; pinyin: hóuyīn)
* "Tongue-tooth sounds" (Chinese: 舌齒音; pinyin: shéchǐyīn)

Large columns are further subdivided into two to five smaller columns, which can represent one of four possible sub-categories:[2]

*     * "Clear" sounds (Chinese: 清; pinyin: qīng) – voiceless unaspirated
* "Secondarily-clear" sounds (Chinese: 次清; pinyin: cìqīng) – voiceless aspirated
* "Muddy" sounds (Chinese: 濁; pinyin: zhuó) – voiced
* "Clear-muddy" sounds (Chinese: 清濁; pinyin: qīngzhuó) – nasal stops

The Yunjing tables have only 23 columns – some columns represent more than one of the 36 possible initial consonants. Other rhyme tables, such as the Qieyun zhizhangtu (Chinese: 切韻指掌圖), do not combine the initials and have 36 full columns.[2]

## See also

[edit]

* Rhyme dictionary
* Qiyin lüe

## Citations

[edit]

1. ^ a b Baxter (1992), p. 42.
2. ^ a b Baxter (1992), p. 43.

* Baxter, William H. (1992), A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-012324-1.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Coblin, W. South. "Northwest reflections on the Yunjing." T’oung Pao 82 (1996): 349–363.
* Pulleyblank, Edwin G. "Qieyun and Yunjing: The Essential Foundation for Chinese Historical Linguistics." Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.2 (1998): 200–216.

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yunjing.

* Yunjing (page scans) at the Internet Archive
* Yunjing (page scans) at the Chinese Text Project

* v
* t
* e

Dictionaries for scripts using Chinese characters

Monolingual|

| Characters
(字; zì)|

* Shizhoupian 史籀篇 (first millennium BCE)
* Erya 爾雅 (c. 3rd century BC)
* Cangjiepian 倉頡篇 (c. 220 BC)
* Jijiupian 急就篇 (c. 40 BC)
* Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 (2nd century)
* Shiming 釋名 (c. 200)
* Guangya 廣雅 (c. 230)
* Xiao Erya 小爾雅 (3rd century)
* Zilin 字林 (c. 350)
* Ziyuan 字苑 (c. 4th century)
* Yupian 玉篇 (c. 543)
* Ganlu Zishu 干祿字書 (c. 7th century)
* Leipian 類篇 (1066)
* Piya 埤雅 (c. 11th century)
* Zitong 字通 (1254)
* Zihui 字彙 (1615)
* Zhengzitong 正字通 (1627)
* Kangxi Dictionary 康熙字典 (1716)
* Shuowen Jiezi Zhu 說文解字注 (1815)
* Zhonghua Da Zidian 中華大字典 (1915)
* Xinhua Dictionary 新华字典 (1957)
* Hanyu Da Zidian 漢語大字典 (1989)
* Zhonghua Zihai 中华字海 (1994)

|

Words
(詞／词; cí)|

* Ciyuan 辭源 (1915)
* Ministry of Education Mandarin Chinese Dictionary 教育部國語辭典 (1926)
* Cihai 辭海 (1938)
* Zhongwen Da Cidian 中文大辭典 (1968)
* Xiandai Hanyu Cidian 现代汉语词典 (1978)
* Hanyu Da Cidian 漢語大詞典 (1994)
* Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian 现代汉语规范词典 (2004)

Rime|

* Shenglei 聲類 (c. 230)
* Qieyun 切韻 (601)
* Kanmiu Buque Qieyun 刊謬補缺切韻 (706)
* Tangyun 唐韻 (732)
* Yunhai jingyuan 韻海鏡源 (780)
* Guangyun 廣韻 (1008)
* Jiyun 集韻 (1037)
* Yunjing 韻鏡 (1161)
* Qiyin lüe 七音略 (before 1161)
* Pingshui Yun 平水韻 (c. 12th century)
* Menggu Ziyun 蒙古字韻 (14th century)
* Zhongyuan Yinyun 中原音韻 (1324)
* Qi Lin Bayin 戚林八音 (17th century)
* Peiwen Yunfu 佩文韻府 (1711)

Varieties|

* Fangyan 方言 (c. 1st century)
* Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects 現代漢語方言大詞典 (2002)

Exegetical|

* Jingdian Shiwen 經典釋文 (c. 583)
* Yiqiejing Yinyi (Xuanying) 一切經音義 (玄英) (c. 649)
* Yiqiejing Yinyi (Huilin) 一切經音義 (慧琳) (c. 807)
* Longkan Shoujian 龍龕手鑒 (997)

Biographical|

* Zhongguo Renming Dacidian 中國人名大辭典 (1921)

Bilingual|

| Chinese–English|

* A Dictionary of the Chinese Language (1823)
* Medhurst's Chinese and English Dictionary (1842)
* A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language (1874)
* A Chinese–English Dictionary (1892)
* The Five Thousand Dictionary (1926)
* Mathews' Chinese–English Dictionary (1931)
* Concise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese (1947)
* Grammata Serica Recensa (1957)
* Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage (1972)
* ABC Chinese–English Dictionary (1996)

| Online|

* CEDICT (1997)

|

In other languages|

* Pearl in the Palm (Tangut; 12th century)
* Pentaglot Dictionary (Manchu; 1794)
* Dai Kan-Wa Jiten (Japanese; 1960)
* Le Grand Ricci (French; 2001)
* Han-Han Dae Sajeon (Korean)

List of Chinese dictionaries

Authority control databases: National |

* Japan

|

*[lit.]: Literal translation
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template
*[c.]: circa