Qieyun: Difference between revisions

|piccap=''Qieyun'' excerpt indisplayed at the Chinese Dictionary Museum, in [[Jincheng]], Shanxi

The '''''Qieyun''''' ({{zh|t=切韻|p=Qièyùn}}) is a [[Chinese language|Chinese]] [[rhymerime dictionary]], that was published in 601 CE during the [[Sui dynasty]]. The book was a guide to proper reading of classical texts, using the ''[[fanqie]]'' method to indicate the pronunciation of [[Chinese charactercharacters]]s.

The book was created by Lu Fayan (Lu Fa-yen; {{lang|zh|陸法言}}) in 601. The preface of the ''Qieyun'' describes how the plan of the book originated from a discussion with eight of his friends 20 years earlier at his home in [[Chang'an]], the capital of [[Sui dynasty|Sui China]].

{{quotation|text=When it grew late and we had been drinking wine for most of the evening, we began discussing the sounds and the rhymes. Modern pronunciations are naturally varied; moreover, those who have written on the sounds and the rhymes have not always been in agreement. [...]{{omission}}

None of these scholars was originally from Chang'an; they were native speakers of differing dialects – five northern and three southern.{{sfnp|Norman|1988|p=25}}{{sfnp|Baxter|1992|p=37}} According to Lu, [[Yan Zhitui]] (顏之推) and Xiao Gai ({{lang|zh|蕭該}}), both men originally from the south, were the most influential in setting up the norms on which the ''Qieyun'' was based.{{sfnp|Norman|1988|p=25}}

When classical Chinese poetry flowered during the [[Tang dynasty]], the ''Qieyun'' became the authoritative source for literary pronunciations and it repeatedly underwent revisions and enlargements. It was annotated in 677 by Zhǎngsūn Nèyán ({{lang|zh|長孫訥言}}), revised and published in 706 by Wáng Renxu ({{lang|zh|王仁煦}}) as the ''[[Kanmiu Buque Qieyun]]'' ({{lang|zh|刊謬補缺切韻}}; "Corrected and supplemented ''Qieyun''"), collated and republished in 751 by Sun Mian ({{lang|zh|孫愐}}) as the ''Tángyùn'' ({{lang|zh|唐韻}}; "Tang rimes"), and eventually incorporated into the still-extant ''[[Guangyun]]'' and ''[[Jiyun]]'' rime dictionaries from the [[Song dynasty]].{{sfnp|Baxter|1992|pp=38–39}} Although most of these Tang dictionary redactions were believed lost, some fragments were discovered among the [[Dunhuang manuscripts]] and manuscripts discovered at [[Turpan]].{{sfnp|Baxter|1992|pp=38–39}}{{sfnp|Bottéro|2013|pp=35–37}}

The ''Qieyun'' reflected the enhanced phonological awareness that developed in China after the advent of Buddhism, which introduced the sophisticated [[History of linguistics#India|Indian linguistics]].{{sfnp|Mair|1998|p=168}} The Buddhist [[Kingdom of Qocho|Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho]] used a version of the ''Qieyun''.{{sfnp|Takata|2004|p=337}}

Particularly prized were copies of Wáng Rénxū's edition made in the early 9th century by Wú Cǎiluán (呉{{lang|zh|吳彩鸞}}), a woman famed for her calligraphy.{{sfnp|Takata|2004|p=333}}

These were divided into five volumes, two for the many words of the "level" [[four tones (Middle Chinese)|tone]], and one volume for each of the other [[fourthree tones]].

For example, the first entry in the ''Qieyun'', shown at right, describes the character 東 ''dōng'' "east". The three characters on the right are a ''fanqie'' pronunciation key, marked by the character 反 ''fǎn'' "turn back". This indicates that the word is pronounced with the initial of 德 [tək] and the final of 紅 [ɣuŋ], i.e. [tuŋ]. The word is glossed as 木方 ''mù fāng'', i.e. the direction of wood (one of the [[WuWuxing Xing(Chinese philosophy)|Five Elements]]), while the numeral 二 "two" indicates that this is the first of two entries in a homophone group.

The ''Qieyun'' did not directly record [[Middle Chinese]] as a spoken language, but rather how characters ''should'' be pronounced when reading the classics. Since this rime dictionary's spellings are the primary source for reconstructing Middle Chinese, linguists have disagreed over what variety of Chinese it recorded. "Much ink has been spilled concerning the nature of the language underlying the ''Qieyun''," says Norman (1988: 24), who lists three points of view. Some scholars, like [[Bernhard Karlgren]], "held to the view that the ''Qieyun'' represented the language of Chang'an"; some "others have supposed that it represented an amalgam of regional pronunciations," technically known as a [[diasystem]]. "At the present time most people in the field accept the views of the Chinese scholar Zhou Zumo" (周祖謨; 1914–1995) that ''Qieyun'' spellings were a north-southnorth–south regional compromise between literary pronunciations from the [[Northern and Southern dynasties]].

| chapterurlchapter-url = http://www.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~takata/BerlinQieyun.pdf

| postscriptpublisher = .Reimer

[[Category:7th-century Chinese books]]