中原音韻

Zhōngyuán yīnyùn 中原音韻

Phonology of the Central Plain by 周德清 (撰)

About the work

The Zhōngyuán yīnyùn 中原音韻 is the foundational work of modern Mandarin phonology and the principal Yuán-period yīnyùn manual for běiqǔ practice, compiled by Zhōu Déqīng 周德清 in Tàidìng jiǎzǐ / 1324. The transmitted text is in two juǎn in the Sìkù arrangement: the first contains the rhyme-book proper (19 rhyme-groups) and the Yīnyùn qǐlì (technical introduction); the second contains the Zhèngyǔ zuòcí qǐlì (composition guide for běiqǔ) — together a rhyme-book and a composition manual, “qián wéi yùnshū, hòu wéi fùlùn, zhènyù xiǎnrán” (“the first is a rhyme-book, the second is appended discussion; the categories are plain to see”), as the Sìkù tíyào sums it up. The book is the founding statement of the modern Mandarin phonological system: píngshēng is divided into yīnyáng (high and low píng); rùshēng is dropped as a separate category and its characters are redistributed into píng / shǎng / qù; the rhyme-table reduces to 19 groups (Dōngzhōng, Jiāngyáng, Zhīsī, Qíwēi, Yúmó, Jiēlái, Zhēnwén, Hánshān, Huánhuān, Xiāntiān, Xiāoháo, Gēgē, Jiāmá, Chēzhē, Gēngqīng, Yóuhóu, Qīnxún, Yánxián, Liánxiān).

Tiyao

Zhōngyuán yīnyùn, two juǎn. By Zhōu Déqīng of the Yuán. Déqīng’s zì was Tǐngzhāi, of Gāoān. The work was completed in Tàidìng jiǎzǐ (1324). It was not originally in juǎn divisions; on examination, after the Yīnyùn qǐlì the rhyme-groups are listed; after the Zhèngyǔ zuòcí qǐlì the various methods of composing cí are listed — the first part is a rhyme-book, the second is appended discussion; the categories are plain to see; we have therefore divided it into two juǎn. Its phonological principle takes píngshēng and subdivides it into yīnyáng; it sets rùshēng among the píngshǎngqù; it sets out nineteen rhyme-groups [Dōngzhōng, Jiāngyáng, Zhīsī, Qíwēi, Yúmó, Jiēlái, Zhēnwén, Hánshān, Huánhuān, Xiāntiān, Xiāoháo, Gēgē, Jiāmá, Chēzhē, Gēngqīng, Yóuhóu, Qīnxún, Yánxián, Liánxiān] — this is wholly oriented to běiqǔ. Considering: before QíLiáng the píngshǎngqù were not distinguished; in the Táng, Yuán Zhěn and others composed long-regulated verse retaining the old practice; rùshēng alone was each its own category, not blended into the other three. But the Tángōng records “Bǐmóu zhī dì zhī yóu” — Zhèngzhù says Wénzǐ míng (the man’s name) Mù, slowly read; that is rù paired with píng. The old yuèfǔ Jiāngnán qū — “Yú xì liányè běi” — annotated also as “běi read as bēi” — that is rù paired with píng, found in antiquity. The Chūnqiū “Méng yú Miè”, Gǔliáng writes as “Méng yú Mèi”; the Chūnqiū “Dìng Sì zú”, Gōngyáng writes as “Dìng Yì zú” — also fāngyán (dialectal) proximity making shǎngqùrù mutually transferable. Northern speech is long-and-slow and weighty, unable to make the short-stopped sound; all rùshēng characters are read into the three [other] tones — that is the natural disposition of its regional speech. Yuèfǔ being a Northern tune-class, it naturally pairs with Northern sound. Déqīng’s pǔ thus reflects the natural rhythm of this — so writers of běiqǔ have used it up to the present. Language, however, has its regional ranges, and historical periods have their successive evolutions; literature has its various body-frames. The 305 Shī have Dōng and Yáng not rhyming, but the Confucian Symbolic Treatise rhymes zhōng (中) with lǎo (老); the Lǎozǐ Dàojīng rhymes lóng (聾) with máng (盲) — these are fāngyīn (dialectal sounds) participating in the larger system. The Chǔsāo tone differs from that of the Fēngyǎ; HànWèi differs from QūSòng — these are time-shifts. Zuǒ Sī wrote his Sāndū fù in ancient style and so used ancient yīn; for his Báifā fù and Yǒngshǐ / Zhāoyǐn poems he used his Jìn-era tǐ, so used Jìn-era yīn. Shěn Yuē’s shī and fù all use the four-tone scheme; for guānzǐ zhùwén he reads huà (化) as píng again. Literary writers each fit their rhyme to their body-frame — the clear mirror is so. Cíqǔ is the song of the marketplaces and lanes; you cannot regulate it by orthodox sound. Its body began in the Táng, yet there is no cí-rhyme-book — all cí-rhymes are the same as shī-rhymes; the Huíbō set at the beginning of the Táng, the Huājiān set at the end, demonstrate it. The rule is stricter in the Sòng; gradual examples of rù substituting píng, shǎng substituting píng, etc., appear; yet across three hundred years of cí-makers as numerous as clouds, no cí-rhyme-book emerges: occasionally some fāngyīn slips in, but the singer just wants it to sit on the lips and pleasant in the ear. Cí in the Sòng was therefore not far from antiquity in time, so the fāngyīn still meshed with the rhyme-system; and cí-makers from various regions each used their own dialect, so no single book could fix it. By the Yuán the central-plain is unified, běiqǔ dominant, and a separate zhuānmén (specialist department) is therefore established. Yet Déqīng then attacks the old phonology, holding to a single time and pressing his case too hard. — Qiánlóng 43 / 1778, 5th month.

Abstract

The Zhōngyuán yīnyùn is the founding statement of modern Mandarin phonology — the first yīnyùn manual based on actual spoken Northern Chinese rather than the historical-Confucian rhyme tradition. The work’s 19 rhyme-groups remain the basic outline of modern Mandarin; the yīnyáng division of píngshēng corresponds to modern Mandarin’s first and second tones; the redistribution of rùshēng into píngshǎngqù (per dialect) corresponds to the modern Mandarin / Northern-Mandarin loss of rùshēng. The Yuán date is fixed by Zhōu’s own preface; the work circulated quickly and became the standard běiqǔ phonological reference. Modern phonological scholarship (Karlgren; Pulleyblank; Shǐng Tónghé; Yáng Yáojiā 楊耀家) has subjected the Zhōngyuán yīnyùn to intensive study as the principal evidence for 14th-century Mandarin. The Sìkù editors’ criticism — that Déqīng pressed his case too hard against the old phonology — is itself an important Sìkù-editorial intervention in the history of phonology.

Translations and research

• W. South Coblin, “The Sound System of the Zhongyuan yinyun” (JAOS) and related work — modern phonological reconstruction.
• Ya-hwei Hsu, The Phonology of the Zhongyuan yinyun — full-length study.
• Edwin G. Pulleyblank, Middle Chinese: A Study in Historical Phonology — uses Zhōng-yuán yīn-yùn as a major reference-point.
• Wú Méi 吳梅, Qǔ-xué tōng-lùn — context for běi-qǔ practice.
• Yang Yaojia 楊耀家 / Bao Mingwei 鮑明煒, Zhōng-yuán yīn-yùn xīn-zhì.

Other points of interest

The Zhōngyuán yīnyùn is one of the very few Yuán scholarly works that has had a continuous, deepening influence on subsequent Chinese linguistic theory; the 14th-century spoken-language basis it preserves is the principal documentary evidence for the transition from Middle Chinese to modern Mandarin. The work’s establishment of the rhyme-table that běiqǔ writers actually used means it is also the indispensable reference for reading and editing Yuán zájù and sǎnqǔ texts.

Links

• ctext.org Zhōngyuán yīnyùn
• Wikipedia 中原音韻
• Wikidata Q1052854 (Zhōngyuán yīnyùn).