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class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">6.1.2</span> <span>Lenition of OC /ɡ/</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Lenition_of_OC_/ɡ/-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Retroflex_initials" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-3"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Retroflex_initials"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">6.1.3</span> <span>Retroflex initials</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Retroflex_initials-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Sonorant_fortition" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-3"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Sonorant_fortition"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">6.1.4</span> <span>Sonorant fortition</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Sonorant_fortition-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Medials_and_finals" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Medials_and_finals"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">6.2</span> <span>Medials and finals</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Medials_and_finals-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-From_Early_Middle_Chinese_to_Late_Middle_Chinese" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#From_Early_Middle_Chinese_to_Late_Middle_Chinese"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">7</span> <span>From Early Middle Chinese to Late Middle Chinese</span> </div> </a> <button aria-controls="toc-From_Early_Middle_Chinese_to_Late_Middle_Chinese-sublist" class="cdx-button cdx-button--weight-quiet cdx-button--icon-only vector-toc-toggle"> <span class="vector-icon mw-ui-icon-wikimedia-expand"></span> <span>Toggle From Early Middle Chinese to Late Middle Chinese subsection</span> </button> <ul id="toc-From_Early_Middle_Chinese_to_Late_Middle_Chinese-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> <li 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class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">8.1</span> <span>Initials</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Initials-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Finals" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Finals"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">8.2</span> <span>Finals</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Finals-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Tones" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Tones"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">8.3</span> <span>Tones</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Tones-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Branching_off_of_the_modern_varieties" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Branching_off_of_the_modern_varieties"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">9</span> <span>Branching off of the modern varieties</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Branching_off_of_the_modern_varieties-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-See_also" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#See_also"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">10</span> <span>See also</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-See_also-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-References" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#References"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">11</span> <span>References</span> </div> </a> <button aria-controls="toc-References-sublist" class="cdx-button cdx-button--weight-quiet cdx-button--icon-only vector-toc-toggle"> <span class="vector-icon mw-ui-icon-wikimedia-expand"></span> <span>Toggle References subsection</span> </button> <ul id="toc-References-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> <li id="toc-Works_cited" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-2"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Works_cited"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">11.1</span> <span>Works cited</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Works_cited-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-External_links" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#External_links"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">12</span> <span>External links</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-External_links-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </nav> </div> </div> <div class="mw-content-container"> <main id="content" class="mw-body"> <header class="mw-body-header vector-page-titlebar"> <nav aria-label="Contents" class="vector-toc-landmark"> <div id="vector-page-titlebar-toc" class="vector-dropdown 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Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.<br /><small><span class="plainlinks"><i>Find sources:</i> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.google.com/search?as_eq=wikipedia&q=%22Historical+Chinese+phonology%22">"Historical Chinese phonology"</a> – <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q=%22Historical+Chinese+phonology%22+-wikipedia&tbs=ar:1">news</a> <b>·</b> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.google.com/search?&q=%22Historical+Chinese+phonology%22&tbs=bkt:s&tbm=bks">newspapers</a> <b>·</b> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1&q=%22Historical+Chinese+phonology%22+-wikipedia">books</a> <b>·</b> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22Historical+Chinese+phonology%22">scholar</a> <b>·</b> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=%22Historical+Chinese+phonology%22&acc=on&wc=on">JSTOR</a></span></small></span> <span class="date-container"><i>(<span class="date">August 2012</span>)</i></span><span class="hide-when-compact"><i> (<small><a href="/wiki/Help:Maintenance_template_removal" title="Help:Maintenance template removal">Learn how and when to remove this message</a></small>)</i></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1235681985">.mw-parser-output .side-box{margin:4px 0;box-sizing:border-box;border:1px solid #aaa;font-size:88%;line-height:1.25em;background-color:var(--background-color-interactive-subtle,#f8f9fa);display:flow-root}.mw-parser-output .side-box-abovebelow,.mw-parser-output .side-box-text{padding:0.25em 0.9em}.mw-parser-output .side-box-image{padding:2px 0 2px 0.9em;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .side-box-imageright{padding:2px 0.9em 2px 0;text-align:center}@media(min-width:500px){.mw-parser-output .side-box-flex{display:flex;align-items:center}.mw-parser-output .side-box-text{flex:1;min-width:0}}@media(min-width:720px){.mw-parser-output .side-box{width:238px}.mw-parser-output .side-box-right{clear:right;float:right;margin-left:1em}.mw-parser-output .side-box-left{margin-right:1em}}</style><div class="side-box metadata side-box-right noprint selfref"><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1126788409">.mw-parser-output .plainlist ol,.mw-parser-output .plainlist ul{line-height:inherit;list-style:none;margin:0;padding:0}.mw-parser-output .plainlist ol li,.mw-parser-output .plainlist ul li{margin-bottom:0}</style> <div class="side-box-flex"> <div class="side-box-text plainlist">This article contains <b><a href="/wiki/Phonetic_transcription" title="Phonetic transcription">phonetic transcriptions</a> in the <a href="/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet" title="International Phonetic Alphabet">International Phonetic Alphabet</a> (IPA)</b>. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see <a href="/wiki/Help:IPA" title="Help:IPA">Help:IPA</a>. For the distinction between <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[ ]</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ /</span> and ⟨<span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA" lang="und-Latn-fonipa"> </span>⟩, see <a href="/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet#Brackets_and_transcription_delimiters" title="International Phonetic Alphabet">IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters</a>.</div></div> </div> <p><b>Historical Chinese phonology</b> deals with reconstructing the sounds of <a href="/wiki/Chinese_language" title="Chinese language">Chinese</a> from the past. As <a href="/wiki/Chinese_characters" title="Chinese characters">Chinese</a> is written with <a href="/wiki/Logogram" title="Logogram">logographic characters</a>, not <a href="/wiki/Alphabet" title="Alphabet">alphabetic</a> or <a href="/wiki/Syllabary" title="Syllabary">syllabary</a>, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably from those employed in, for example, <a href="/wiki/Indo-European_languages" title="Indo-European languages">Indo-European</a> linguistics; reconstruction is more difficult because, unlike Indo-European languages, no phonetic spellings were used. </p><p>Chinese is documented over a long period of time, with the earliest <a href="/wiki/Oracle_bone" title="Oracle bone">oracle bone</a> writings dated to c. 1250 BC. However, since the writing is mostly with <a href="/wiki/Logogram" title="Logogram">logographic characters</a>, which do not directly specify the <a href="/wiki/Phonology" title="Phonology">phonology</a> of the language, reconstruction is in general quite difficult, and depends to a large extent on ancillary sources that more directly document the language's phonology. On the basis of these sources, historical Chinese is divided into the following basic periods: </p> <ul><li><b><a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese" title="Old Chinese">Old Chinese</a></b>, broadly from about 1250 BC to 25 AD, when the Han dynasty came back to power after the Xin dynasty. More narrowly, reconstructed "Old Chinese" is based on the rhymes of early poetry such as the <a href="/wiki/Shijing" class="mw-redirect" title="Shijing">Shijing</a> and the phonological components of Chinese characters, and is assumed to represent the language of c. 1000-700 BC. <a href="/wiki/Proto-Min" title="Proto-Min">Proto-Min</a> developed from Old Chinese.</li> <li><b><a href="/wiki/Middle_Chinese" title="Middle Chinese">Middle Chinese</a></b>, broadly from about the 5th century AD (Northern and Southern dynasties, Sui, Tang, Song) through to 12th century AD. More narrowly, reconstructed "Middle Chinese" is usually based on the detailed phonetic evidence of the <i><a href="/wiki/Qieyun" title="Qieyun">Qieyun</a></i> <a href="/wiki/Rime_dictionary" class="mw-redirect" title="Rime dictionary">rime dictionary</a> (601 AD), later expanded into "Guangyun". The <i>Qieyun</i> describes a compromise between the northern and southern varieties and such rhyming dictionaries were essential to write and read aloud poetry with a rhyming pattern.</li> <li><b>Modern varieties</b>, from about the 13th century AD (beginning of the Yuan dynasty, in which Early Mandarin was developed) to the present. Most modern varieties appear to have split off from a Late Middle Chinese koine of about 1000 AD (although some remnants of earlier periods are still present, ex. stops without release at the end of the syllable in Hakka and Yue).</li></ul> <meta property="mw:PageProp/toc" /> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Overview">Overview</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Overview"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Middle Chinese had a structure much like many modern varieties, with largely monosyllabic words, little or no derivational morphology, four tone-classes (though three phonemic 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. Not counting the glide, no clusters could occur at the beginning or end of a syllable. </p><p><a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese" title="Old Chinese">Old Chinese</a>, on the other hand, had a significantly different structure. Most scholars have concluded that there were no tones, a lesser imbalance between possible initial and final consonants, and a significant number of 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. This system is similar to the system reconstructed for <a href="/wiki/Proto-Sino-Tibetan" class="mw-redirect" title="Proto-Sino-Tibetan">Proto-Sino-Tibetan</a> and still visible, for example, in the written <a href="/wiki/Tibetic_languages" title="Tibetic languages">Tibetan language</a>; it is also largely similar to the system that occurs in the more conservative <a href="/wiki/Mon%E2%80%93Khmer_languages" class="mw-redirect" title="Mon–Khmer languages">Mon–Khmer languages</a>, such as modern <a href="/wiki/Khmer_language" title="Khmer language">Khmer</a> (Cambodian). </p><p>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 while eliminating the distinction between voiced and unvoiced consonants). This has led to a gradual decrease in the number of possible syllables. In <a href="/wiki/Standard_Mandarin" class="mw-redirect" title="Standard Mandarin">Standard Mandarin</a>, this has progressed to a farther extent than elsewhere, with only about 1,200 possible syllables. The result, in Mandarin especially, has been the proliferation of the number of two-syllable compound words, which have steadily replaced former monosyllabic words, to the extent that the majority of words in Standard Mandarin are now composed of two syllables. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Periodization_of_Chinese">Periodization of Chinese</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Periodization of Chinese"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>The terms "Old Chinese" and "Middle Chinese" refer to long periods of time in and of themselves, during which significant changes occurred. Although there is no standard system for subdividing these periods, the following is an approximate chronology leading from the oldest writings in the <a href="/wiki/Oracle_bone_script" title="Oracle bone script">oracle bone script</a> up through modern <a href="/wiki/Standard_Mandarin" class="mw-redirect" title="Standard Mandarin">Standard Mandarin</a>: </p> <ol><li>Axel Schuessler uses the term <i>Early Zhou Chinese</i> to refer to the language from the earliest records down to the end of the <a href="/wiki/Western_Zhou" title="Western Zhou">Western Zhou</a> period (c. 1250 to 771 BC).</li> <li>W. A. C. H. Dobson uses the term <i>Early Archaic Chinese</i> to refer to the same period ("10th to 9th century BC"), although Schuessler suggests that the term should refer to a slightly later period.</li> <li>Dobson uses the term <i>Late Archaic Chinese</i> to refer to the "4th to 3rd century BC"; that is, the period near the beginning of the <a href="/wiki/Han_dynasty" title="Han dynasty">Han dynasty</a>.</li> <li><i><a href="/wiki/Eastern_Han_Chinese" title="Eastern Han Chinese">Late Han Chinese</a></i> (LHC) is c. 200 AD. This is around the time that <a href="/wiki/Min_Chinese" title="Min Chinese">Min Chinese</a> varieties diverged from the others.</li> <li><i>Old Northwest Chinese</i> (ONWC), c. 400 AD, is a reconstruction by <a href="/wiki/Weldon_South_Coblin" class="mw-redirect" title="Weldon South Coblin">Weldon South Coblin</a> of the language of the northwestern Chinese provinces of <a href="/wiki/Gansu" title="Gansu">Gansu</a> and <a href="/wiki/Shaanxi" title="Shaanxi">Shaanxi</a> that is immediately ancestral to a set of northwestern dialects documented by various early <a href="/wiki/Tang_dynasty" title="Tang dynasty">Tang dynasty</a> authors.</li> <li><i>Early Middle Chinese</i> (EMC), c. 600 AD, is the language of the <i><a href="/wiki/Qieyun" title="Qieyun">Qieyun</a></i> <a href="/wiki/Rime_dictionary" class="mw-redirect" title="Rime dictionary">rime dictionary</a>, the first stage for which we have direct and detailed phonetic evidence. This evidence is not enough by itself to directly determine the sound system of the language, however, as it only subdivides characters into an initial consonant and non-initial portion, without further decomposing the latter into phonemes.</li> <li><i>Late Middle Chinese</i> (LMC), c. 1000 AD, is the native language of the authors of the <i><a href="/wiki/Yunjing" title="Yunjing">Yunjing</a></i> <a href="/wiki/Rime_table" title="Rime table">rime table</a> and the oldest stage that can be reconstructed from modern non-<a href="/wiki/Min_Chinese" title="Min Chinese">Min</a> varieties by the <a href="/wiki/Comparative_method" title="Comparative method">comparative method</a>.</li> <li><i>Early Mandarin</i>, c. 1300 AD (sometimes specifically given as 1269–1455. The Yuan dynasty conquered the whole of China in 1279 and was overpowered by the Ming dynasty in 1368), was the language inferred in the <a href="/wiki/%27Phags-pa_script" class="mw-redirect" title="'Phags-pa script">'Phags-pa script</a>, the first alphabetic writing system for Chinese. It is also documented in the <i><a href="/wiki/Zh%C5%8Dngyu%C3%A1n_Y%C4%ABny%C3%B9n" class="mw-redirect" title="Zhōngyuán Yīnyùn">Zhōngyuán Yīnyùn</a></i> (<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">中原音韻</span></span> "Sounds and Rhymes of the Central Plains", an opera manual of 1324 AD written by Zhou Deqing).</li> <li><i>Middle Mandarin</i>, up through c. 1800 (sometimes specifically given as 1455–1795), documented in numerous Chinese, Korean and European sources. Among these are Chinese-Korean pedagogical texts such as <i>Hongmu Chôngyun Yôkhun</i> (1455) and <i>Sasông T’onghae</i> (1517); the Portuguese-Chinese dictionary (1583–1588) of the Christian missionaries <a href="/wiki/Matteo_Ricci" title="Matteo Ricci">Matteo Ricci</a> and <a href="/wiki/Michele_Ruggieri" title="Michele Ruggieri">Michele Ruggieri</a>; a dictionary by a friar, Basilio Brollo (1692-1694), also known as Basile da Glemona, a grammar of Mandarin by <a href="/wiki/Francisco_Varo" title="Francisco Varo">Francisco Varo</a> (1703) and Chinese rhyme manuals such as the <i>Yunlüe Huitong</i> (1642).</li> <li>Modern <i><a href="/wiki/Standard_Chinese" title="Standard Chinese">Standard Chinese</a></i>, a standardized form of the dialect of <a href="/wiki/Beijing" title="Beijing">Beijing</a> that is little changed from the 19th century. It was promulgated during the <a href="/wiki/Republic_of_China" class="mw-redirect" title="Republic of China">Republic of China</a> in 1932. Today, it is the standard variety in the <a href="/wiki/PRC" class="mw-redirect" title="PRC">PRC</a>, founded by Mao Zedong in 1949.</li></ol> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Chinese_native_phonological_traditions">Chinese native phonological traditions</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: Chinese native phonological traditions"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>A native tradition of Chinese phonology developed in the <a href="/wiki/Middle_Chinese" title="Middle Chinese">Middle Chinese</a> period. Chinese linguists had long compiled dictionaries and attempted to identify the pronunciation of difficult characters by specifying <a href="/wiki/Homophone" title="Homophone">homophone</a> characters. During the early centuries AD, however, the more advanced method of <i><a href="/wiki/Fanqie" title="Fanqie">fanqie</a></i> was developed, which allowed the pronunciation of any syllable to be specified unambiguously by using one character to indicate the initial consonant and another to indicate the remainder. By the sixth century AD, systematic attempts were made to compile lists of all characters and specify their pronunciation by way of fanqie, culminating in <a href="/wiki/Rime_dictionary" class="mw-redirect" title="Rime dictionary">rime dictionaries</a> such as the <i><a href="/wiki/Qieyun" title="Qieyun">Qieyun</a></i> (601 AD). </p><p>During the next few centuries, the increasing influence of Buddhism and Buddhist scholars brought Chinese linguists in touch with the tradition of <a href="/wiki/Sanskrit_grammar" title="Sanskrit grammar">Sanskrit grammar</a>, which included a highly advanced understanding of <a href="/wiki/Phonology" title="Phonology">phonology</a> and <a href="/wiki/Phonetics" title="Phonetics">phonetics</a>, including a system of analyzing sounds by <a href="/wiki/Distinctive_feature" title="Distinctive feature">distinctive features</a>, such as <a href="/wiki/Place_of_articulation" title="Place of articulation">place of articulation</a> and type of <a href="/wiki/Phonation" title="Phonation">phonation</a>. This led to <a href="/wiki/Rime_table" title="Rime table">rime tables</a> such as the <a href="/wiki/Yunjing" title="Yunjing">Yunjing</a> (c. 1150 AD), a sophisticated analysis of the sound system of the <i>Qieyun</i>. </p><p>During the <a href="/wiki/Qing_dynasty" title="Qing dynasty">Qing dynasty</a> (1644–1912), scholars such as <a href="/wiki/Duan_Yucai" title="Duan Yucai">Duan Yucai</a> diligently studied the sound system of <a href="/wiki/Middle_Chinese" title="Middle Chinese">Middle</a> and <a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese" title="Old Chinese">Old Chinese</a>. Through careful examination of <a href="/wiki/Rime_table" title="Rime table">rime tables</a>, <a href="/wiki/Rime_dictionary" class="mw-redirect" title="Rime dictionary">rime dictionaries</a> and patterns of rhyming among poets of various eras, these scholars were able to work out the system of categories of rhymes in Old Chinese, and discover additional Middle Chinese categories that had previously been overlooked. However, progress in Chinese linguistics was seriously hampered by the lack of any concept of a <a href="/wiki/Phoneme" title="Phoneme">phoneme</a> — i.e. a basic unit of sound, including vowels and vowel-like segments as well as consonants. This made it impossible to go beyond determination of systems of rhyming categories to reconstruction of the actual sounds involved. </p><p>In some ways, the lack of native Chinese development of the concept of a unit of sound is surprising, as it had already been developed by Sanskrit grammarians such as <a href="/wiki/P%C4%81%E1%B9%87ini" title="Pāṇini">Pāṇini</a> by the 4th century BC at the latest, and the phonological analysis of the <a href="/wiki/Yunjing" title="Yunjing">Yunjing</a> shows a close familiarity with the tradition of Sanskrit grammar. Furthermore, some non-Chinese writing systems within the Chinese cultural orbit, such as the <a href="/wiki/Korean_script" class="mw-redirect" title="Korean script">Korean script</a> and especially the <a href="/wiki/Tibetan_script" title="Tibetan script">Tibetan script</a>, were developed under the close influence of Indian writing systems and have the concept of phoneme directly embedded in them. (Furthermore, the <a href="/wiki/%27Phags-pa_script" class="mw-redirect" title="'Phags-pa script">'Phags-pa script</a>, an alphabetic script of Tibetan origin, had been used to write Chinese itself during the Mongolian <a href="/wiki/Yuan_dynasty" title="Yuan dynasty">Yuan dynasty</a>, c. 1270–1360, although it later fell out of use.) It seems likely, however, that </p> <ol><li>The strong influence and long tradition of Chinese writing, which included no concept of an <a href="/wiki/Alphabet" title="Alphabet">alphabet</a> and always treated the rhyming part of a syllable as a single unit, made it difficult to independently develop the concept of a unit of sound.</li> <li>Lack of knowledge of <a href="/wiki/Sanskrit" title="Sanskrit">Sanskrit</a> by most Chinese scholars precluded direct reading of the original works on Sanskrit grammar.</li> <li>Cultural attitudes that treated Koreans, Tibetans, Mongolians and most other foreigners as "barbarians" made it difficult for scientific knowledge from these cultures to diffuse into China.</li></ol> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Modern_methods_of_reconstruction">Modern methods of reconstruction</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: Modern methods of reconstruction"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>As a result, the first reconstructions of the actual sound systems of Old and Middle Chinese were only done in the early 20th century, by <a href="/wiki/Sweden" title="Sweden">Swedish</a> sinologist <a href="/wiki/Bernhard_Karlgren" title="Bernhard Karlgren">Bernhard Karlgren</a>. Armed with his knowledge of Western <a href="/wiki/Historical_linguistics" title="Historical linguistics">historical linguistics</a>, he performed field work in China between 1910 and 1912, creating a list of 3,100 Chinese characters and collecting phonological data on the pronunciation of these characters in 19 Mandarin dialects as well as the dialects of <a href="/wiki/Shanghai" title="Shanghai">Shanghai</a> (<a href="/wiki/Wu_Chinese" title="Wu Chinese">Wu</a>), <a href="/wiki/Fuzhou" title="Fuzhou">Fuzhou</a> (<a href="/wiki/Eastern_Min" title="Eastern Min">Eastern Min</a>), and <a href="/wiki/Guangdong" title="Guangdong">Guangdong</a> (<a href="/wiki/Cantonese" title="Cantonese">Cantonese</a>). He combined this with the <a href="/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary" title="Sino-Japanese vocabulary">Sino-Japanese</a> and <a href="/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_vocabulary" title="Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary">Sino-Vietnamese</a> pronunciations as well as previously published material on nine other dialects, along with the <i><a href="/wiki/Fanqie" title="Fanqie">fanqie</a></i> analysis of the <a href="/wiki/Guangyun" title="Guangyun">Guangyun</a> <a href="/wiki/Rime_dictionary" class="mw-redirect" title="Rime dictionary">rime dictionary</a> (a later version of the <i>Qieyun</i> of 601 AD). In 1915, he published his reconstruction of Middle Chinese, which underlies in one form or another all subsequent reconstructions. <a href="/wiki/Walter_Simon_(sinologist)" title="Walter Simon (sinologist)">Walter Simon</a> and <a href="/wiki/Henri_Maspero" title="Henri Maspero">Henri Maspero</a> also made great contributions in the field during the early days of its development. Karlgren himself had no direct access to the <i>Qieyun</i>, which was thought lost; however, fragments of the <i>Qieyun</i> were discovered in the <a href="/wiki/Dunhuang" title="Dunhuang">Dunhuang</a> Caves in the 1930s, and a nearly complete copy was discovered in 1947 in the <a href="/wiki/Palace_Museum" title="Palace Museum">Palace Museum</a>. </p><p>Karlgren was also instrumental in early reconstruction of Old Chinese. His early work on Middle Chinese made various suggestions about Old Chinese, and a detailed reconstruction appeared in <i>Grammata Serica</i> (1940), a dictionary of Middle and Old Chinese reconstructions. An expanded version, <i><a href="/wiki/Grammata_Serica_Recensa" title="Grammata Serica Recensa">Grammata Serica Recensa</a></i>, was published in 1957 and is still a commonly cited source. </p><p>The reconstruction of Middle Chinese draws its data (in approximate order of importance) from: </p> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Rime_dictionary" class="mw-redirect" title="Rime dictionary">Rime dictionaries</a> and <a href="/wiki/Rime_tables" class="mw-redirect" title="Rime tables">rime tables</a> of the Middle Chinese era, such as the <i><a href="/wiki/Qieyun" title="Qieyun">Qieyun</a></i> (601 AD) and <i><a href="/wiki/Yunjing" title="Yunjing">Yunjing</a></i> (c. 1150 AD).</li> <li>Modern Chinese speaking variants such as <a href="/wiki/Yue_Chinese" title="Yue Chinese">Yue</a>, <a href="/wiki/Hakka_Chinese" title="Hakka Chinese">Hakka</a>, <a href="/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese" title="Mandarin Chinese">Mandarin</a>, <a href="/wiki/Min_Chinese" title="Min Chinese">Min</a>, <a href="/wiki/Wu_Chinese" title="Wu Chinese">Wu</a> etc.</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sino-Xenic" class="mw-redirect" title="Sino-Xenic">Sino-Xenic</a> data — Chinese loanwords borrowed in large numbers into <a href="/wiki/Vietnamese_language" title="Vietnamese language">Vietnamese</a>, <a href="/wiki/Japanese_language" title="Japanese language">Japanese</a> and <a href="/wiki/Korean_language" title="Korean language">Korean</a>, especially during the period of 500–1000 AD. This large-scale borrowing led to the so-called <a href="/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_vocabulary" title="Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary">Sino-Vietnamese</a>, <a href="/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary" title="Sino-Japanese vocabulary">Sino-Japanese</a> and <a href="/wiki/Sino-Korean_vocabulary" title="Sino-Korean vocabulary">Sino-Korean</a> vocabularies of these languages.</li> <li>Other early cases of Chinese words borrowed into foreign languages or transcribed in foreign sources, e.g. <a href="/wiki/Sanskrit" title="Sanskrit">Sanskrit</a> works in India.</li> <li>Early cases of <a href="/wiki/Transliteration_into_Chinese_characters" class="mw-redirect" title="Transliteration into Chinese characters">transliteration of foreign words</a> from other languages such as <a href="/wiki/Sanskrit" title="Sanskrit">Sanskrit</a> and <a href="/wiki/Tibetic_languages" title="Tibetic languages">Tibetan</a> into Chinese.</li> <li>Chinese written in the <a href="/wiki/%27Phags-pa_script" class="mw-redirect" title="'Phags-pa script">'Phags-pa script</a>, a brief period (c. 1270–1360) when Chinese was written in an alphabetic script.</li> <li>Transcriptions of Chinese by foreigners, especially the <a href="/wiki/Hangul" title="Hangul">Hangul</a> transcriptions of Koreans such as <a href="/wiki/Sin_Sukchu" title="Sin Sukchu">Sin Sukchu</a> (15th century) and works by various Christian missionaries and other Westerners, the oldest of which is <a href="/wiki/Matteo_Ricci" title="Matteo Ricci">Matteo Ricci</a>'s Portuguese–Chinese dictionary of 1583–1588. (Although these transcriptions, as well as the 'Phags-pa evidence, are significant in providing extensive documentation of earlier forms of Mandarin Chinese, their importance for reconstructing Middle Chinese pales in comparison with the much greater breadth provided by the pronunciation of Chinese variants and Sino-Xenic languages, despite their later attestation.)</li></ul> <p>Karlgren suggested that the Middle Chinese documented in the <i>Qieyun</i> was a live language of the <a href="/wiki/Sui_dynasty" title="Sui dynasty">Sui</a>-<a href="/wiki/Tang_dynasty" title="Tang dynasty">Tang</a> period. Today, with direct access to the <i>Qieyun</i>, this notion has been replaced by the view that the sound system in the <i>Qieyun</i> represents (or proposes) a literate reading adopted by the literate class of the period throughout the country, not any live language that once existed. For example, in some cases a former three-way distinction A, B, C among initials or finals gave way to a situation where one dialect group of the <i>Qieyun</i> period merged AB vs. C, while another group merged A vs. BC. In these cases, the <i>Qieyun</i> specifies A, B, C as all distinct, even though no living dialect of the time period made such a three-way distinction, and any earlier dialect that did make this distinction would have differed in other ways from the <i>Qieyun</i> system. </p><p>The reconstruction of Old Chinese is more controversial than that of Middle Chinese since it has to be extrapolated from the Middle Chinese data. Phonological information concerning Old Chinese is chiefly gained from: </p> <ul><li>The rhymed texts written before the <a href="/wiki/Qin_dynasty" title="Qin dynasty">Qin dynasty</a>, chiefly the <i><a href="/wiki/Shi_Jing" class="mw-redirect" title="Shi Jing">Shijing</a></i>, the earliest anthology of Chinese poetry.</li> <li>The fact that <a href="/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compounds" title="Chinese character classification">characters sharing the same phonetic component</a> had very similar pronunciations when the characters were first created.</li> <li>Comparison of Old Chinese with other <a href="/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_languages" title="Sino-Tibetan languages">Sino-Tibetan</a> dialects.</li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Old_Chinese_phonology">Old Chinese phonology</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=5" title="Edit section: Old Chinese phonology"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1236090951">.mw-parser-output .hatnote{font-style:italic}.mw-parser-output div.hatnote{padding-left:1.6em;margin-bottom:0.5em}.mw-parser-output .hatnote i{font-style:normal}.mw-parser-output .hatnote+link+.hatnote{margin-top:-0.5em}@media print{body.ns-0 .mw-parser-output .hatnote{display:none!important}}</style><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese_phonology" title="Old Chinese phonology">Old Chinese phonology</a></div> <p>There are disagreements over exactly what the <a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese" title="Old Chinese">Old Chinese</a> (OC) syllable looked like. The following is an approximate consensus, based on the system of <a href="/wiki/William_H._Baxter" title="William H. Baxter">William Baxter</a> and (earlier) <a href="/wiki/Li_Fang-Kuei" title="Li Fang-Kuei">Li Fang-Kuei</a>: </p> <ol><li>A syllable consisted of an initial consonant, an optional medial glide <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/r/</span> (but no <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/w/</span>), a main vowel, an optional final (coda) consonant, and an optional post-final consonant <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/s/</span> or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʔ/</span>. There were also various pre-initial consonants. (In recent systems, Baxter also constructs a distinction between "tightly bound" pre-initials <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/C-/</span> and "loosely bound" pre-initials <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/Cə/</span>. The tightly bound pre-initials interact in complex ways with the initial to produce EMC initials, but the loosely bound pre-initials mostly just disappear. Their presence, however, is revealed by the use of a "phonetic complement" with the corresponding tightly bound pre-initial in their character, and sometimes by early borrowings into other languages, especially <a href="/wiki/Hmong%E2%80%93Mien_languages" title="Hmong–Mien languages">Hmong–Mien languages</a> and <a href="/wiki/Tai_languages" title="Tai languages">Tai languages</a>.) Pre-initial and post-final consonants were frequently used in morphological derivation.</li> <li>There was no MC-style tone, but there was a distinction of some sort between type-A and type-B syllables. Depending on the linguist, the distinction is variously thought to reflect either presence or absence of prefixes, an accentual or length distinction on the main vowel, or some sort of register distinction (e.g. <a href="/wiki/Pharyngealization" title="Pharyngealization">pharyngealization</a> of the initial consonant in type-A syllables). These different reconstructions may not be mutually exclusive (e.g. an earlier prefix distinction may have developed into a later register distinction).</li> <li>Compared with EMC, there were no palatal or retroflex consonants, but there were <a href="/wiki/Labialized_velar_consonant" title="Labialized velar consonant">labiovelar consonants</a> (e.g. <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/kʷ/</span>). Baxter also reconstructs voiceless resonants, e.g. <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/m̥/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n̥/</span>.</li> <li>There were on the order of six main vowels: <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/a/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/e/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/o/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/u/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ə/</span> (or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɨ/</span>).</li> <li>The system of final (coda) consonants was similar to EMC; however, there was no <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/wŋ/</span>. Baxter also reconstructs final <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/r/</span>, later becoming <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span>.</li></ol> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="From_Old_Chinese_to_Early_Middle_Chinese">From Old Chinese to Early Middle Chinese</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=6" title="Edit section: From Old Chinese to Early Middle Chinese"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1236090951"><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="/wiki/Middle_Chinese#Phonology" title="Middle Chinese">Middle Chinese § Phonology</a></div> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Initial_consonants">Initial consonants</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=7" title="Edit section: Initial consonants"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading4"><h4 id="Palatalisation_of_velar_initials">Palatalisation of velar initials</h4><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=8" title="Edit section: Palatalisation of velar initials"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>William H. Baxter pointed out that some of the words that were reconstructed with Middle Chinese palatal initials were perhaps words that had velar initials in Old Chinese. For example, Baxter indicated that <span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">熱</span></span>, reconstructed as <i>nyet</i> in Middle Chinese, was perhaps pronounced as <i>ngjet</i> in Old Chinese. He noted the distinction between <span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">支</span></span> (<i>tsye</i>), which had a MC palatal initial, and <span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">技</span></span>, which had a velar initial in MC (<i>gjeX</i>, III), despite their common <a href="/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compounds" title="Chinese character classification">phonetic component</a>. Some modern <a href="/wiki/Min_Chinese" title="Min Chinese">Min</a> and <a href="/wiki/Hakka_Chinese" title="Hakka Chinese">Hakka</a> varieties nonetheless retain velar initials in both.<sup id="cite_ref-Schuessler_1996_1-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Schuessler_1996-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The two are reconstructed by Baxter to be <i>kje</i> and <i>grjeʔ</i> respectively in Old Chinese. Baxter posited that the medial -rj- cluster had blocked palatalisation.<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992569–570_2-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992569–570-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading4"><h4 id="Lenition_of_OC_/ɡ/"><span id="Lenition_of_OC_.2F.C9.A1.2F"></span>Lenition of OC /ɡ/</h4><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=9" title="Edit section: Lenition of OC /ɡ/"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>The voiced velar plosive, *<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">ɡ</span>, was lenited to a voiced fricative (*<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">ɣ~ɦ</span>) during this development from Old Chinese to Middle Chinese. According to <a href="/wiki/Laurent_Sagart" title="Laurent Sagart">Laurent Sagart</a>, this change is reflected when the Old Chinese plosive occurred in type A syllables.<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199928_3-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199928-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> This is supported by Baxter's observation that modern Min dialects show a difference in pronunciation between <span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">厚</span></span> and <span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">後</span></span>, both of which belong to the Middle Chinese <span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">匣</span></span> initial (reconstructed as *<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">ɣ~ɦ</span>). For the first character, the <a href="/wiki/Fuzhou_dialect" title="Fuzhou dialect">Fuzhou dialect</a>, <a href="/wiki/Amoy_dialect" title="Amoy dialect">Amoy Hokkien</a> and the <a href="/wiki/Teochew_dialect" class="mw-redirect" title="Teochew dialect">Teochew dialect</a>, show pronunciations with a velar plosive (*<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">k-</span>). This pronunciation is consistent with an earlier pronunciation with a velar plosive, most likely the Old Chinese *<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">ɡ</span>. The second character is pronounced by these dialects with a null initial, possibly reflecting a voiced laryngeal in Old Chinese.<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992210_4-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992210-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The OC *<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">ɡ</span> remained intact in Type B syllables, which correspond to Division III Middle Chinese words. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading4"><h4 id="Retroflex_initials">Retroflex initials</h4><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=10" title="Edit section: Retroflex initials"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>The loss of the reconstructed OC medial "r", or the r-infix in Sagart's reconstruction,<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199928,_42_5-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199928,_42-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> had not only influenced vowel quality in Middle Chinese but had also caused the retroflexion of coronal consonants.<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992580_6-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992580-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading4"><h4 id="Sonorant_fortition">Sonorant fortition</h4><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=11" title="Edit section: Sonorant fortition"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Both Baxter and Sagart have pointed out that Old Chinese had a series of voiceless sonorants, which typically do not occur in most modern varieties.<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199926_7-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199926-7"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>7<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> These voiceless sonorants are <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hm</i></span> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/m̥/</span>, <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hn</i></span> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n̥/</span>, <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hng</i></span> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ŋ̊/</span>, <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hngw</i></span> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ŋ̊ʷ/</span>, <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hl</i></span> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/l̥/</span>, and possibly <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hr</i></span> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/r̥/</span>. Their reflexes in Middle Chinese are postulated to be: </p> <table cellspacing="5"> <caption><b>Old Chinese voiceless sonorants and corresponding Middle Chinese reflexes</b> </caption> <tbody><tr> <th><abbr title="Old Chinese">OC</abbr> sonorant</th> <th><abbr title="Middle Chinese">MC</abbr> reflex <sup id="cite_ref-j-paren_8-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-j-paren-8"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>note 1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </th></tr> <tr> <td><span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hm-</i></span></td> <td><span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">x(w)-</i></span>, <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">x(w)j-</i></span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hn-</i></span></td> <td><span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">th-</i></span>, <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">thr(j)-</i></span>, <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">sy-</i></span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hng-</i></span></td> <td><span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">x(j)-</i></span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hngw-</i></span></td> <td><span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">xw(j)-</i></span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hl-</i></span></td> <td><span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">th-</i></span>, <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">sy-</i></span>, <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">thr(j)-</i></span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hr-</i></span></td> <td><span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">x-(?)</i></span>, <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">thrj-</i></span>,<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199928_3-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199928-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">th(r)-</i></span><sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992201–202_9-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992201–202-9"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>8<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </td></tr></tbody></table> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1239543626">.mw-parser-output .reflist{margin-bottom:0.5em;list-style-type:decimal}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .reflist{font-size:90%}}.mw-parser-output .reflist .references{font-size:100%;margin-bottom:0;list-style-type:inherit}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-2{column-width:30em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-3{column-width:25em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns{margin-top:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns ol{margin-top:0}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns li{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .reflist-upper-alpha{list-style-type:upper-alpha}.mw-parser-output .reflist-upper-roman{list-style-type:upper-roman}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-alpha{list-style-type:lower-alpha}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-greek{list-style-type:lower-greek}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-roman{list-style-type:lower-roman}</style><div class="reflist"> <div class="mw-references-wrap"><ol class="references"> <li id="cite_note-j-paren-8"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-j-paren_8-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">(j)</i></span> corresponds to developments from a Type B syllable. The MC palatal sibilant reflex <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">sy</i></span> is only found in Type B syllables.<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199928_3-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199928-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></span> </li> </ol></div></div> <p>Additionally, the OC lateral consonant <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">/*l/</i></span> is shown to have fortified to a coronal plosive <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">/d/</i></span> in Type A syllables.<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199930–32_10-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199930–32-10"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>9<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Meanwhile, it developed into <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">/j/</i></span> in Type B syllables, which palatalised in Middle Chinese. Sagart pointed out, however, that these changes are not true if the lateral is preceded by a reconstructed prefix. This position, whereby OC <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">/l/</i></span> underwent fortition to become a plosive, is upheld by Baxter.<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992196–199_11-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992196–199-11"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>10<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Baxter pointed out <i>xiesheng</i> contacts between plosive series, sibilants and MC <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">y-</i></span>, and made the following reconstructions:<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992197_12-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992197-12"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>11<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <table cellspacing="5"> <tbody><tr> <td><span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">脫</span></span></td> <td><span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">tuō</i></span></td> <td><</td> <td><span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">thwat</i></span></td> <td><</td> <td><span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hlot</i></span></td> <td></td> <td>'take off clothes' </td></tr> <tr> <td><span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">兌</span></span></td> <td><span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">duì</i></span></td> <td><</td> <td><span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">dwaj<sup>H</sup></i></span></td> <td><</td> <td><span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*los</i></span> < <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*lots</i></span></td> <td></td> <td>'glad' </td></tr> <tr> <td><span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">說</span></span></td> <td><span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">shuō</i></span></td> <td><</td> <td><span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">sywet</i></span></td> <td><</td> <td><span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*hljot</i></span></td> <td></td> <td>'speak', 'explain' </td></tr> <tr> <td><span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">悅</span></span></td> <td><span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">yuè</i></span></td> <td><</td> <td><span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">jwet</i></span></td> <td><</td> <td><span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*ljot</i></span></td> <td></td> <td>'pleased', 'glad' </td></tr></tbody></table> <p>Note that these reconstructions included voiceless <a href="/wiki/Sonorant" title="Sonorant">sonorants</a>, of which the developments have been consistent with their fortition and reflexes. </p><p>According to Sagart, this fortition was impeded if the lateral was preceded by an unspecified consonant or minor syllable. He reconstructs <span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">林</span></span> as <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">*Cə-lim</i></span>, yielding MC <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">lim</i></span>.<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199934_13-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199934-13"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>12<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Furthermore, MC <span title="Late Middle Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="ltc-Latn">/l/</i></span> was said to have derived from an OC <span title="Old Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="och-Latn">/*r/</i></span>.<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199940–42_14-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199940–42-14"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>13<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992199–201_15-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992199–201-15"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>14<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Medials_and_finals">Medials and finals</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=12" title="Edit section: Medials and finals"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>The following are the main developments that produced Early Middle Chinese (EMC) from <a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese" title="Old Chinese">Old Chinese</a> (OC): </p> <ul><li>Type-B syllables developed a <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> glide. This glide combined with a previous coronal consonant to produce new palatal consonants. It also sometimes turned a preceding velar or laryngeal into a palatal sibilant and/or raised a following main vowel. (Contrarily, type-A syllables often lowered a following main vowel, with a high vowel diphthongizing, e.g. <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span> becoming <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ej/</span>.)</li> <li>The <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/r/</span> glide eventually disappeared, but before doing this it turned a previous coronal consonant into a retroflex consonant, and fronted (and often centralized) a following main vowel.</li> <li>Changes to final consonants: <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/r/</span> became <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span>; <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> dropped after <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/a/</span>; <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/k/</span> dropped before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/s/</span>; <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/t/</span> before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/s/</span> became <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> (which remained, even after <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/a/</span>).</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Four_tones_(Middle_Chinese)" title="Four tones (Middle Chinese)">Tones</a> developed from the former suffixes (post-final consonants), with MC tone 3 ("departing", reconstructed as having falling pitch) developing from <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/s/</span>, tone 2 ("rising", reconstructed as having rising pitch) developing from <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʔ/</span>, and tone 1 ("level", reconstructed as having level pitch) from other syllables. As the suffixes were part of the derivational morphology of OC, this often produced MC tonal variation, either in a single word or in semantically related words.</li> <li>Back vowels <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/o/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/u/</span>, when followed by a coronal consonant (<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/r/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/t/</span>), broke into <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/w/</span> plus a front vowel.</li> <li>Labiovelar initials were reanalyzed as a velar followed a <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/w/</span> glide, which merged with <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/w/</span> from breaking of <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/o/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/u/</span>.</li> <li>The main vowel developed in various complicated ways, depending on the surrounding sounds. For example, in type-A syllables, according to Baxter's reconstruction, OC <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɨj/</span> became <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ɛj/</span> after <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/r/</span>; otherwise, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ej/</span> after coronal initials, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-oj/</span> after velar initials, and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-woj/</span> after labial initials. In type-B syllables, however, OC <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɨj/</span> became <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ij/</span> after <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/r/</span> or coronal initial, but <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-jɨj/</span> otherwise.</li></ul> <p>Note that OC type-B syllables correspond closely to division-III, and (in Baxter's reconstruction at least) to EMC syllables with <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span> or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span>. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="From_Early_Middle_Chinese_to_Late_Middle_Chinese">From Early Middle Chinese to Late Middle Chinese</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=13" title="Edit section: From Early Middle Chinese to Late Middle Chinese"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>To a large degree, Late Middle Chinese (LMC) of c. 1000 AD can be viewed as the direct ancestor of all Chinese varieties except <a href="/wiki/Min_Chinese" title="Min Chinese">Min Chinese</a>; in other words, attempting to reconstruct the parent language of all varieties excluding Min leads no farther back than LMC. See <a href="#Branching_off_of_the_modern_varieties">below</a> for more information. </p><p>Exactly which changes occurred between EMC and LMC depends on whose system of EMC and/or LMC reconstruction is used. In the following, Baxter's EMC reconstruction is compared to Pulleyblank's LMC reconstruction. To the extent that these two systems reflect reality, they may be significantly farther apart than the 400 or so years normally given between EMC and LMC, since Baxter's EMC system was designed to harmonize with Old Chinese while Pulleyblank's LMC system was designed to harmonize with later Mandarin developments. Furthermore, Baxter considers all the distinctions of the <i>Qieyun</i> to be real, while many of them are clearly anachronisms that no longer applied to any living form of the language in 600 AD. Finally, some of the resulting "changes" may not be actual changes at all so much as conceptual differences in the way the systems have been reconstructed; these are noted below. </p><p>Changes mostly involve initials, medials, and main vowels. </p> <ul><li>The class of EMC palatals is lost, with palatal sibilants becoming retroflex sibilants and the palatal nasal becoming a new phoneme <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɻ/</span>.</li> <li>A new class of labiodentals emerges, from EMC labials followed by <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> and an EMC back vowel.</li> <li>EMC complex medial <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jw/</span> becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[ɥ]</span>, producing a six-way medial distinction between none, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ji/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/w/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jy/</span>. The phonemic glides <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span> are vocalic <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[i]</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[y]</span> before short vowels <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/a/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ə/</span>, but semivocalic <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[j]</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[ɥ]</span> before long vowel <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/aː/</span>.</li> <li>The eight-way EMC distinction in main vowels is significantly modified, developing into a system with high vowels <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/u/</span> and (marginally) <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɨ/</span>, and non-high vowels <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/a/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ə/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/aː/</span>. However, this is best analyzed as a system with a four-way main vowel distinction between no vowel and the three phonemic vowels <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/a/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ə/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/aː/</span>; high vowels are then analyzed as phonemically consisting of a medial and no main vowel (<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɨ/</span> is phonemically a syllable containing only a bare consonant, with no medial and no main vowel).</li> <li>High front medials/main vowels <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span> are lost after EMC retroflex sibilants, prior to merging with palatals; contrarily, a <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> sometimes appears after guttural consonants.</li></ul> <p>Few changes to final consonants occur; the main ones are the loss of <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> after a high vowel, the disappearance of <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɨ/</span> (which might or might not be reckoned as a final consonant) in the rhyme <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ɛɨ/</span>, and (potentially) the appearance of <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jŋ/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jk/</span> (which are suspect in various ways; see below). </p><p>The tones do not change phonemically. However, allophonically they evidently split into a higher-pitched allophone in syllables with voiceless initials, and a lower-pitched allophone in syllables with voiced initials. All modern Chinese varieties reflect such a split, which produces a new set of phonemic tones in most varieties due to later loss of voicing distinctions. </p><p>The following changes are in approximate order. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Labiodentalization">Labiodentalization</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=14" title="Edit section: Labiodentalization"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Early Middle Chinese (EMC) labials (<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/p,<span class="wrap"> </span>pʰ,<span class="wrap"> </span>b,<span class="wrap"> </span>m/</span>) become Late Middle Chinese (LMC) labiodentals (<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/f,<span class="wrap"> </span>f,<span class="wrap"> </span>bv,<span class="wrap"> </span>ʋ/</span>, possibly from earlier affricates)<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter199248_16-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter199248-16"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>15<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> in certain circumstances involving a following glide. When this happens, the glide disappears. Using Baxter's reconstruction, the triggering circumstances can be expressed simply as whenever a labial is followed by a glide <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> and the main vowel is a back vowel; other reconstructions word the rule differently. According to Baxter, however, labiodentalization might have occurred independently of each other in different areas. For example, some variants retain OC /m/ before the glide, while in other variants, it had developed into a labiodental initial (<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">微</span></span>): compare Cantonese <span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">文</span></span> <i>man<sup>4</sup></i> and Mandarin <span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">文</span></span> <i>wén</i>. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Vowel_changes_and_mergers">Vowel changes and mergers</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=15" title="Edit section: Vowel changes and mergers"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>In approximate order: </p> <dl><dt>a. Some early changes</dt></dl> <ol><li><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-e-/</span> (without medial <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span>) becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-jie-/</span> after labial, velar and glottal consonants, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ie-/</span> elsewhere. (Along with certain later changes, this means that, synchronically, an LMC speaker cannot distinguish original Division IV syllables from original III-4 <i><a href="/wiki/Chongniu" title="Chongniu">chongniu</a></i> syllables; likewise for Division III vs. III-3 <i>chongniu</i>. This explains why these <i>chongniu</i> pairs end up in grades 3 and 4, respectively.) A change of this sort occurs in all modern reconstructions of EMC and LMC, and is responsible for the creation of Division IV.</li> <li><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ŋ/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/k/</span> after a non-high front vowel (<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/æ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɛ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/e/</span>) become <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jŋ/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jk/</span> (often viewed as palatalized final consonants). This may not be a real change; Pulleyblank's EMC system already includes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jŋ/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jk/</span>, whereas they are not present in any modern dialect. The most direct evidence for these sounds comes from <a href="/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_vocabulary" title="Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary">Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary</a>, which was borrowed from LMC and does reflect the sounds. In Pulleyblank's LMC system, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jŋ/</span> only occurs in the rhymes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-aːjŋ/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-iajŋ/</span>, which contrast with <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-aŋ/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-iaŋ/</span>; likewise for <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-jk/</span>. (<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-a-/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-aː-/</span> do not contrast before velar finals, except possibly after EMC retroflex sibilants.) These contrasts would be reflected in some other way in a system without <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-jŋ/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-jk/</span>.</li> <li>The sequence <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ɛɨ/</span> merges into <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ɛj/</span>. In some dialects, however, it instead remains separate (perhaps in the form <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ɛ/</span>, not otherwise occurring in Baxter's system). According to Abraham Y.S. Chan, the former change was characteristic of the <a href="/wiki/Luoyang" title="Luoyang">Luoyang</a> dialect, while the latter reflected the <a href="/wiki/Jinling" class="mw-redirect" title="Jinling">Jinling</a> dialect. The distinction between the two surfaces in Standard Mandarin as a respective distinction between <i>ai</i> and <i>ya</i>, or <i>pai/pei</i> and <i>pa</i>.</li></ol> <dl><dt>b. Mergers of high-front finals</dt></dl> <ol><li>EMC finals <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/je/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ij/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jɨj/</span> merge into <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span>; likewise <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jɨ-/</span> (which occurs before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/t/</span>) becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i-/</span>.</li> <li>The <i>hekou</i> equivalents of the above (with additional medial <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/w/</span>) become <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/yj/</span>.</li> <li>The III-4 <i>chongniu</i> equivalents of both of the above become <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ji/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jyj/</span>, respectively.</li></ol> <dl><dt>c. Changes involving high back vowels, mostly generating <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ə/</span></dt></dl> <ol><li>EMC final <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/u/</span> becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/uə/</span>; likewise, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ju/</span> becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/juə/</span>. (Possibly not a real change.)</li> <li>The EMC sequence <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-uw-/</span> becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-əw-/</span>, and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-jow-/</span> becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-yw-/</span>.</li> <li>All remaining <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-o-/</span>, except in the sequences <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-oj/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-om/</span>, become <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ə/</span>.</li> <li>All non-final <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-jə-/</span> become <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-i-/</span>, and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-wə-/</span> become <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-u-/</span>.</li></ol> <dl><dt>d. Changes involving non-high vowels</dt></dl> <ol><li>When there is no medial <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span>, remaining <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-æ-/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ɛ-/</span> become <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-aː-/</span>.</li> <li>All remaining <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-æ-/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-e-/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ɛ-/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-o-/</span> become <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-a-/</span>.</li></ol> <dl><dt>e. Changes involving medials</dt></dl> <ol><li>Non-final <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-jwi-/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-wji-/</span> become <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-jy-/</span>, while <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-jw-,<span class="wrap"> </span>wj-,<span class="wrap"> </span>-wi-,<span class="wrap"> </span>-ju-/</span> become <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-y-/</span>.</li> <li>The medials <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-i-/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-j-/</span> merge into a single phoneme, with <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-i-/</span> occurring before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-a-/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-ə-/</span>, and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-j-/</span> elsewhere (before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-aː-/</span> and high vowels). Medial <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-u-/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-w-/</span> merge in the same way.</li></ol> <dl><dt>f. Medial and similar changes triggered by specific initials</dt></dl> <ol><li><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> appears between a guttural consonant (velar or laryngeal) and a directly following <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/-aː-/</span>. This sets the stage for palatalized syllables in Standard Mandarin such as <i>jia</i> and <i>xian</i>.</li> <li>A final <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span> directly following a dental sibilant becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɨ/</span> (presumably <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[z̩]</span>).</li> <li>After an EMC retroflex sibilant, a directly following high-front vowel or glide (<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span> or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span>, along with front-rounded <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span> or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɥ/</span>, if reconstructed) is removed, specifically: <ol><li>A glide <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> is lost.</li> <li>A main vowel <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span> becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ə/</span> if non-final.</li> <li>A main vowel <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span> becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɨ/</span> (presumably <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[ʐ̩]</span>) if final.</li> <li>If high front-rounded vocalics are reconstructed, they unround (<span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span> -> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/u/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɥ/</span> -> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span>).<sup class="noprint Inline-Template" style="margin-left:0.1em; white-space:nowrap;">[<i><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_clarify" title="Wikipedia:Please clarify"><span title="unrounding is not dropping a front element; /y/ → /u/ is not unrounding (June 2012)">clarification needed</span></a></i>]</sup></li></ol></li></ol> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Late_changes_to_initial_consonants">Late changes to initial consonants</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=16" title="Edit section: Late changes to initial consonants"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>EMC palatals become retroflex, with palatal sibilants merging with retroflex sibilants and palatal <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɲ/</span> becoming a new phoneme <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɻ/</span> (still reflected as such in Standard Mandarin).</li> <li>Voiced consonants are thought to have become <a href="/wiki/Breathy_voice" title="Breathy voice">breathy voiced</a>. This is a non-phonemic change; it is postulated to account for the breathy-voiced consonants still present in <a href="/wiki/Wu_Chinese" title="Wu Chinese">Wu Chinese</a>, and the common outcome elsewhere of originally voiced consonants as unvoiced aspirates. Karlgren reconstructed breathy voicing for EMC as well, but this is no longer thought to be the case due to lack of any evidence for it in borrowings to or from EMC (especially involving Sanskrit and <a href="/wiki/Middle_Indic" class="mw-redirect" title="Middle Indic">Middle Indic</a> languages, which had a distinction between normally voiced and breathy-voiced consonants). This may have occurred to differing extents in different places: <ul><li>Among the two Chinese varieties that have not merged voiced and unvoiced consonants, Wu reflects the EMC voiced consonants as breathy voiced, but <a href="/wiki/Xiang_Chinese" title="Xiang Chinese">Old Xiang</a> reflects them as normally voiced.</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Gan_Chinese" title="Gan Chinese">Gan</a> and <a href="/wiki/Hakka_Chinese" title="Hakka Chinese">Hakka</a> reflect all EMC voiced consonants as unvoiced aspirates, but many others (e.g. Mandarin) only have such aspirated consonants in syllables within the <i>yang ping</i> tone, the light-level tone. Similarly, many words in Hokkien Min that are read with the <i>yang ping</i> tone are unaspirated, developing from Old Chinese and Middle Chinese voiced initials. Some words have aspirated readings, however, which led some linguists to believe that there may be a voiced aspirated series in the <a href="/wiki/Proto-Min_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Proto-Min language">Proto-Min language</a>, which had branched off from Old Chinese before it developed into Middle Chinese.</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="From_Late_Middle_Chinese_to_Standard_Mandarin">From Late Middle Chinese to Standard Mandarin</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=17" title="Edit section: From Late Middle Chinese to Standard Mandarin"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Initials">Initials</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=18" title="Edit section: Initials"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>Voiced stops and sibilants were <a href="/wiki/Devoiced" class="mw-redirect" title="Devoiced">devoiced</a>; the stops became aspirated in syllables with tone 1 and unaspirated otherwise.</li> <li>Retroflex stops merged into retroflex affricates.</li> <li>Sonorants: retroflex nasal merged into alveolar nasal; <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɻ/</span>, formerly palatal nasal in EMC, became <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɻ~ʐ/</span> or sometimes the syllable <i>er</i>; velar nasal was dropped.</li> <li>Before high front vowel or glide, velars ("back-tooth" stops and "throat" fricatives) and alveolar sibilants <a href="/wiki/Palatalization_(sound_change)" title="Palatalization (sound change)">palatalized</a> and merged as a new series of alveolo-palatal sibilants.</li> <li>The glottal stop <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʔ/</span> was dropped; before a high front glide, the voiced velar fricative <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɣʰ/</span> was dropped.</li> <li>Labiodentals: <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/v/</span>, devoiced, merged into <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/f/</span>; <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʋ/</span> became <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/w/</span>. (LMC labiodentals resulted from EMC labials preceding <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> + back vowel.)</li></ul> <p>The following table illustrates the evolution of initials from Early Middle Chinese, through Late Middle Chinese, to Standard Mandarin. </p> <table class="wikitable"> <caption>Mapping of EMC, LMC, and Standard Mandarin initials </caption> <tbody><tr> <th>EMC </th> <th>LMC </th> <th><a href="/wiki/Old_Mandarin" title="Old Mandarin">Old Mandarin</a> </th> <th>Modern Standard Mandarin </th></tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/m/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/m/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/m/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/m/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɱ/</span><br />before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> followed by back vowel </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/v/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/w/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span> </td> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span> </td> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɳ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɳ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɲ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɲ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʒ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʐ~ɻ/</span> or syllable <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[əɻ]</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ŋ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ŋ/</span> </td> <td>dropped or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span> </td> <td>dropped or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/l/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/l/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/l/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/l/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/p/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/pʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/b/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/p/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/pʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/bʰ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/p/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/pʰ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/p/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/pʰ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/f/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/v/</span><br />before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> followed by back vowel </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/f/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/f/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/t/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/d/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/t/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/dʰ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/t/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tʰ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/t/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tʰ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʈ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʈʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɖ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʈ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʈʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɖʰ/</span> </td> <td rowspan="3"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʈʂ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʈʂʰ/</span> </td> <td rowspan="3"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʈʂ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʈʂʰ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tʃ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tʃʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/dʒ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʈʂ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʈʂʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɖʐʰ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tɕ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tɕʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/dʑ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tɕ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tɕʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/dʑʰ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ts/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tsʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/dz/</span> </td> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ts/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tsʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/dzʰ/</span> </td> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ts/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tsʰ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ts/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tsʰ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tɕ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tɕʰ/</span><br />before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span>, or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/k/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/kʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɡ/</span> </td> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/k/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/kʰ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɡʰ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tɕ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tɕʰ/</span><br />before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span>, or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tɕ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/tɕʰ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/k/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/kʰ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/k/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/kʰ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʃ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʒ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʂ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʐ/</span> </td> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʂ/</span> </td> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʂ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɕ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʑ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɕ/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʑ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/s/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/z/</span> </td> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/s/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/zʰ/</span> </td> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/s/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/s/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɕ/</span><br />before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span>, or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/x/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɣ/</span> </td> <td rowspan="2"><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/x/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɣʰ/</span> or dropped before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɕ/</span><br />before <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span>, <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span>, or <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ɕ/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/x/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/x/</span> </td></tr> <tr> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʔ/</span> </td> <td><span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ʔ/</span> </td> <td>dropped </td> <td>dropped </td></tr></tbody></table> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Finals">Finals</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=19" title="Edit section: Finals"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>In general, Mandarin preserves the LMC system of medials and main vowels fairly well (better than most other varieties) but drastically reduces the system of codas (final consonants). The systematic changes to medials and main vowels are loss of the <i>chongniu</i> distinctions <i>i/ji</i> and <i>y/jy</i> (which occur in all modern varieties) and loss of the distinction between <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/a/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/aː/</span>. All final stop consonants are lost, and final nasals are reduced to a distinction between <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ŋ/</span>. </p><p>The exact changes involving finals are somewhat complex and not always predictable, in that in many circumstances there are multiple possible outcomes. The following is a basic summary; more information can be found in the table of EMC finals in <a href="/wiki/Middle_Chinese" title="Middle Chinese">Middle Chinese</a>. </p><p>Changes to medials: </p> <ul><li>LMC medial classes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/ji/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span> merge, losing the <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span>; likewise for <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jy/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span>.</li> <li>LMC front medials <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span> (and corresponding main vowels) are lost after retroflex consonants. The operation of this change is exactly as for the similar change that occurred after EMC retroflexes. The difference between EMC retroflex and palatal sibilants is sometimes reflected in Mandarin, for example between <i>she</i> (EMC retroflex) and <i>shi</i> (EMC palatal).</li> <li>LMC medial <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/u/</span> is lost after labials, and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/y/</span> unrounds to <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/</span>.</li> <li>LMC medial <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/u/</span> is sometimes lost after <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/l/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span>.</li> <li>Various other changes occur after particular initials.</li></ul> <p>Changes to main vowels: </p> <ul><li>Long vowel <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/aː/</span> shortens.</li> <li>Various other complex changes; see <a href="/wiki/Middle_Chinese" title="Middle Chinese">Middle Chinese</a>.</li></ul> <p>Changes to codas: </p> <ul><li>LMC coda <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/m/</span> becomes <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/n/</span>.</li> <li>LMC stop codas <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/p,t,k/</span> are dropped, with <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/k/</span> sometimes becoming <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/j/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/w/</span>.</li> <li>LMC complex codas <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/wŋ/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/wk/</span> become simple codas; likewise for <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jŋ/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/jk/</span>, but often with effects on the preceding vowel.</li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Tones">Tones</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=20" title="Edit section: Tones"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>A tone split occurs as a result of the loss of the voicing distinction in initial consonants. The split tones then merge back together except for Middle Chinese tone 1; hence Middle Chinese tones 1,2,3 become Mandarin tones 1,2,3,4. (Some syllables with original Mandarin tone 3 move to tone 4; see below.) Syllables with a final stop consonant, originally toneless, get assigned to one of the four modern tones; for syllables with Middle Chinese unvoiced initials, this happens in a completely random fashion. </p><p>The specific relationship between <a href="/wiki/Middle_Chinese" title="Middle Chinese">Middle Chinese</a> and modern tones: </p> <dl><dd>V− = <a href="/wiki/Phonation" title="Phonation">unvoiced</a> <a href="/wiki/Initial_(linguistics)" class="mw-redirect" title="Initial (linguistics)">initial</a> <a href="/wiki/Consonant" title="Consonant">consonant</a> (<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">全清</span></span> <span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">qúan qīng</i></span> or <span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">次清</span></span> <span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">cì qīng</i></span>)<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart19995_17-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart19995-17"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>16<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></dd> <dd>L = <a href="/wiki/Sonorant" title="Sonorant">sonorant</a> initial consonant (<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">次濁</span></span> <span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">cì zhúo</i></span>)<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart19995_17-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart19995-17"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>16<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></dd> <dd>V+ = <a href="/wiki/Phonation" title="Phonation">voiced</a> initial consonant (not <a href="/wiki/Sonorant" title="Sonorant">sonorant</a>) (<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">全濁</span></span> <span title="Chinese-language romanization"><i lang="zh-Latn">qúan zhúo</i></span>)<sup id="cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart19995_17-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart19995-17"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>16<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></dd></dl> <table class="wikitable"> <tbody><tr> <th rowspan="2"><a href="/wiki/Middle_Chinese" title="Middle Chinese">Middle Chinese</a> </th> <th><a href="/wiki/Four_tones_(Middle_Chinese)" title="Four tones (Middle Chinese)">Tone</a> </th> <td colspan="3">Ping (<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">平</span></span>) </td> <td colspan="3">Shang (<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">上</span></span>) </td> <td colspan="3">Qu (<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">去</span></span>) </td> <td colspan="3">Ru (<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">入</span></span>) </td></tr> <tr> <th>Initial </th> <td>V− </td> <td>L </td> <td>V+ </td> <td>V− </td> <td>L </td> <td>V+ </td> <td>V− </td> <td>L </td> <td>V+ </td> <td>V− </td> <td>L </td> <td>V+ </td></tr> <tr> <th rowspan="2">Standard Chinese </th> <th>Tone name </th> <td>Yin Ping<br />(<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">陰平</span></span>, 1) </td> <td colspan="2">Yang Ping<br />(<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">陽平</span></span>, 2) </td> <td colspan="2">Shang<br />(<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">上</span></span>, 3) </td> <td colspan="4">Qu<br />(<span title="Chinese-language text"><span lang="zh">去</span></span>, 4) </td> <td rowspan="2">redistributed<br />with no pattern </td> <td>to Qu </td> <td>to Yang Ping </td></tr> <tr> <th><a href="/wiki/Tone_(linguistics)" title="Tone (linguistics)">Tone</a> contour </th> <td>55 </td> <td colspan="2">35 </td> <td colspan="2">214 </td> <td colspan="4">51 </td> <td>to 51 </td> <td>to 35 </td></tr></tbody></table> <p><br /> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Branching_off_of_the_modern_varieties">Branching off of the modern varieties</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=21" title="Edit section: Branching off of the modern varieties"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1236090951"><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">See also: <a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese_phonology#Evidence_from_Min_Chinese" title="Old Chinese phonology">Old Chinese phonology § Evidence from Min Chinese</a></div> <p>Most modern Chinese varieties can be viewed as descendants of Late Middle Chinese (LMC) of c. 1000 AD. For example, all modern varieties other than <a href="/wiki/Min_Chinese" title="Min Chinese">Min Chinese</a> have <a href="/wiki/Labiodental_consonant" title="Labiodental consonant">labiodental fricatives</a> (e.g. <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/f/</span>), a change that occurred after Early Middle Chinese (EMC) of c. 600 AD. In fact, some post-LMC changes are reflected in all modern varieties, such as the loss of the <i>chongniu</i> distinction (between e.g. <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/pian/</span> and <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/pjian/</span>, using <a href="/wiki/Edwin_Pulleyblank" class="mw-redirect" title="Edwin Pulleyblank">Edwin Pulleyblank</a>'s transcription). Other changes occurring in most modern varieties, such as the loss of initial voiced obstruents and corresponding tone split, are <a href="/wiki/Areal_change" class="mw-redirect" title="Areal change">areal changes</a> that spread across existing dialects; possibly the loss of <i>chongniu</i> distinctions can be viewed in the same way. </p><p><a href="/wiki/Min_Chinese" title="Min Chinese">Min Chinese</a>, on the other hand, is known to have branched off <i>even before</i> Early Middle Chinese (EMC) of c. 600 AD. Not only does it not reflect the development of labiodental fricatives or other LMC-specific changes, but a number of features already present in EMC appear never developed. An example is the series of retroflex stops in EMC, which developed from earlier alveolar stops followed by <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/r/</span>, and which later merged with retroflex sibilants. In Min, the corresponding words still have alveolar stops. This difference can be seen in the words for "tea" borrowed into various other languages: For example, <a href="/wiki/Spanish_language" title="Spanish language">Spanish</a> <i>te</i>, <a href="/wiki/English_language" title="English language">English</a> <i><a href="/wiki/Tea" title="Tea">tea</a></i> vs. <a href="/wiki/Portuguese_language" title="Portuguese language">Portuguese</a> <i>chá</i>, <a href="/wiki/English_language" title="English language">English</a> <i><a href="/wiki/Chai_(disambiguation)" class="mw-redirect mw-disambig" title="Chai (disambiguation)">chai</a></i>, reflecting the <a href="/wiki/Amoy_dialect" title="Amoy dialect">Amoy</a> (<a href="/wiki/Southern_Min" title="Southern Min">Southern Min</a>) <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[te]</span> vs. <a href="/wiki/Standard_Mandarin" class="mw-redirect" title="Standard Mandarin">Standard Mandarin</a> <span class="IPA nowrap" lang="und-Latn-fonipa" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">[ʈʂʰa]</span>. </p><p>In the case of distinctions that appear to have never developed in Min, it could be argued that the ancestral language did in fact have these distinctions, but they later disappeared. For example, it could be argued that Min varieties descend from a Middle Chinese dialect where retroflex stops merged back into alveolar stops instead of merging with retroflex sibilants. However, this argument cannot be made if there are distinctions in Min that do not appear in EMC (and which reflect ancient features going back to Old Chinese or – ultimately – even Proto-Sino-Tibetan, so that they cannot be explained as secondary developments), and this does indeed appear to be the case. In particular, <a href="/wiki/Proto-Min" title="Proto-Min">Proto-Min</a> (the reconstructed ancestor of the Min varieties) appears to have had six series of stops corresponding to the three series (unvoiced, unvoiced aspirated, voiced) of Middle Chinese. The additional three series are voiced aspirated (or <a href="/wiki/Breathy_voice" title="Breathy voice">breathy voiced</a>), unvoiced "softened", and voiced "softened". </p><p>Evidence for the voiced aspirated stops comes from tonal distinctions among the stops. When voiced stops became unvoiced in most varieties and triggered a tone split, words with these stops moved into new lowered (so-called <i>yang</i>) tone classes, while words with unvoiced stops appeared in raised (so-called <i>yin</i>) tone classes. The result is that the <i>yin</i> classes have words with both aspirated and unaspirated stops, while the <i>yang</i> classes have only one of the two, depending on how the formerly voiced stops developed. Min varieties, however, have both kinds of words in <i>yang</i> classes as well as <i>yin</i> classes. This has caused scholars to reconstruct voiced aspirates (probably realized as <a href="/wiki/Breathy_voice" title="Breathy voice">breathy voiced</a> consonants) in Proto-Min, which develop into unvoiced aspirates in <i>yang</i>-class words. </p><p>In addition, in some Min varieties, some words with EMC stops are reflected with stops while others are reflected with "softened" consonants, typically <a href="/wiki/Voiced_fricative" class="mw-redirect" title="Voiced fricative">voiced fricatives</a> or approximants. Such "softened stops" occur in both <i>yin</i> and <i>yang</i> classes, suggesting that Proto-Min had both unvoiced and voiced "softened stops". Presumably "softened stops" were actually fricatives of some sort, but it is unclear exactly what they were. </p><p>Scholars generally assume that these additional Proto-Min sounds reflect distinctions in <a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese" title="Old Chinese">Old Chinese</a> that vanished in Early Middle Chinese but remained in Proto-Min. Until recently, no reconstructions of Old Chinese specifically accounted for the Proto-Min distinctions, but the recent reconstruction of <a href="/wiki/William_H._Baxter" title="William H. Baxter">William Baxter</a> and <a href="/wiki/Laurent_Sagart" title="Laurent Sagart">Laurent Sagart</a> accounts for both voiced aspirates and softened stops. According to them, voiced aspirates reflect Old Chinese stops in words with particular consonant prefixes, while softened stops reflect Old Chinese stops in words with a <a href="/wiki/Minor_syllable" title="Minor syllable">minor syllable</a> prefix, so that the stop occurred between vowels. The postulated development of the softened stops is very similar to the development of voiced fricatives in <a href="/wiki/Vietnamese_language" title="Vietnamese language">Vietnamese</a>, which likewise occur in both <i>yin</i> and <i>yang</i> varieties and are reconstructed as developing from words with minor syllables. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=22" title="Edit section: See also"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese_phonology" title="Old Chinese phonology">Old Chinese phonology</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology" title="Standard Chinese phonology">Standard Chinese phonology</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sino-Xenic_pronunciations" class="mw-redirect" title="Sino-Xenic pronunciations">Sino-Xenic pronunciations</a></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=23" title="Edit section: References"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1239543626"><div class="reflist reflist-columns references-column-width" style="column-width: 20em;"> <ol class="references"> <li id="cite_note-Schuessler_1996-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-Schuessler_1996_1-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1238218222">.mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free.id-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited.id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration.id-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription.id-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background-size:contain;padding:0 1em 0 0}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:var(--color-error,#d33)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:var(--color-error,#d33)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#085;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}@media screen and (prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}</style><cite id="CITEREFSchuessler1996" class="citation journal cs1">Schuessler, Axel (1996). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23753954">"Palatalization of Old Chinese Velars / 上古汉语舌根音的腭化"</a>. <i>Journal of Chinese Linguistics</i>. <b>24</b> (2): 197–211. <a href="/wiki/ISSN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISSN (identifier)">ISSN</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0091-3723">0091-3723</a><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">24 October</span> 2023</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=Journal+of+Chinese+Linguistics&rft.atitle=Palatalization+of+Old+Chinese+Velars+%2F+%E4%B8%8A%E5%8F%A4%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E8%88%8C%E6%A0%B9%E9%9F%B3%E7%9A%84%E8%85%AD%E5%8C%96&rft.volume=24&rft.issue=2&rft.pages=197-211&rft.date=1996&rft.issn=0091-3723&rft.aulast=Schuessler&rft.aufirst=Axel&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fstable%2F23753954&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AHistorical+Chinese+phonology" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992569–570-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992569–570_2-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFBaxter1992">Baxter (1992)</a>, pp. 569–570.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199928-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199928_3-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199928_3-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199928_3-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFSagart1999">Sagart (1999)</a>, p. 28.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992210-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992210_4-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFBaxter1992">Baxter (1992)</a>, p. 210.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199928,_42-5"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199928,_42_5-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFSagart1999">Sagart (1999)</a>, pp. 28, 42.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992580-6"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992580_6-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFBaxter1992">Baxter (1992)</a>, p. 580.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199926-7"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199926_7-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFSagart1999">Sagart (1999)</a>, p. 26.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992201–202-9"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992201–202_9-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFBaxter1992">Baxter (1992)</a>, pp. 201–202.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199930–32-10"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199930–32_10-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFSagart1999">Sagart (1999)</a>, pp. 30–32.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992196–199-11"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992196–199_11-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFBaxter1992">Baxter (1992)</a>, pp. 196–199.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992197-12"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992197_12-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFBaxter1992">Baxter (1992)</a>, p. 197.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199934-13"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199934_13-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFSagart1999">Sagart (1999)</a>, p. 34.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart199940–42-14"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart199940–42_14-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFSagart1999">Sagart (1999)</a>, pp. 40–42.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992199–201-15"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter1992199–201_15-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFBaxter1992">Baxter (1992)</a>, pp. 199–201.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaxter199248-16"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaxter199248_16-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFBaxter1992">Baxter (1992)</a>, p. 48.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-FOOTNOTESagart19995-17"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart19995_17-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart19995_17-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-FOOTNOTESagart19995_17-2"><sup><i><b>c</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="#CITEREFSagart1999">Sagart (1999)</a>, p. 5.</span> </li> </ol></div> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Works_cited">Works cited</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=24" title="Edit section: Works cited"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1239549316">.mw-parser-output .refbegin{margin-bottom:0.5em}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>ul{margin-left:0}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>ul>li{margin-left:0;padding-left:3.2em;text-indent:-3.2em}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents ul,.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents ul li{list-style:none}@media(max-width:720px){.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>ul>li{padding-left:1.6em;text-indent:-1.6em}}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-columns{margin-top:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-columns ul{margin-top:0}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-columns li{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .refbegin{font-size:90%}}</style><div class="refbegin refbegin-hanging-indents refbegin-columns references-column-width" style="column-width: 30em"> <ul><li><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFBaxter1992" class="citation cs2"><a href="/wiki/William_H._Baxter" title="William H. Baxter">Baxter, William H.</a> (1992), <i>A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology</i>, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-3-11-012324-1" title="Special:BookSources/978-3-11-012324-1"><bdi>978-3-11-012324-1</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=A+Handbook+of+Old+Chinese+Phonology&rft.place=Berlin&rft.pub=Mouton+de+Gruyter&rft.date=1992&rft.isbn=978-3-11-012324-1&rft.aulast=Baxter&rft.aufirst=William+H.&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AHistorical+Chinese+phonology" class="Z3988"></span></li> <li><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFSagart1999" class="citation cs2"><a href="/wiki/Laurent_Sagart" title="Laurent Sagart">Sagart, Laurent</a> (1999), <i>The Roots of Old Chinese</i>, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-55619-961-9" title="Special:BookSources/1-55619-961-9"><bdi>1-55619-961-9</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=The+Roots+of+Old+Chinese&rft.place=Amsterdam+and+Philadelphia&rft.pub=John+Benjamins+Publishing+Company&rft.date=1999&rft.isbn=1-55619-961-9&rft.aulast=Sagart&rft.aufirst=Laurent&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AHistorical+Chinese+phonology" class="Z3988"></span></li></ul> </div> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Historical_Chinese_phonology&action=edit&section=25" title="Edit section: External links"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080106154010/http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese/reconstr.htm">Chinese Phonological History</a>, Dylan W.H. Sung</li> <li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.academia.edu/2261552/Introduction_to_Chinese_historical_phonology">Introduction to Chinese Historical Phonology</a>, <a href="/wiki/Guillaume_Jacques" title="Guillaume Jacques">Guillaume Jacques</a></li> <li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.academia.edu/2261629/Traditional_Chinese_Phonology">Traditional Chinese phonology</a></li> <li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060518104315/http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/chan9/c681/Table2.htm">Periodization of Chinese Phonology</a>, Marjorie K.M Chan</li> <li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/query.cgi?basename=\data\china\bigchina&root=config&morpho=0">Reconstruction of Middle Chinese and Old Chinese as well as intermediate forms</a> done by <a href="/wiki/Sergei_Starostin" title="Sergei Starostin">Sergei Starostin</a></li></ul> <div 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abbr{color:var(--color-base)!important}@media(prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .navbar li a abbr{color:var(--color-base)!important}}@media print{.mw-parser-output .navbar{display:none!important}}</style><div class="navbar plainlinks hlist navbar-mini"><ul><li class="nv-view"><a href="/wiki/Template:Language_phonologies" title="Template:Language phonologies"><abbr title="View this template">v</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-talk"><a href="/wiki/Template_talk:Language_phonologies" title="Template talk:Language phonologies"><abbr title="Discuss this template">t</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-edit"><a href="/wiki/Special:EditPage/Template:Language_phonologies" title="Special:EditPage/Template:Language phonologies"><abbr title="Edit this template">e</abbr></a></li></ul></div><div id="Phonologies_of_the_world&#039;s_languages" class="wraplinks" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a href="/wiki/Phonology" title="Phonology">Phonologies</a> of the <a href="/wiki/Lists_of_languages" title="Lists of languages">world's languages</a></div></th></tr><tr><td class="navbox-abovebelow" colspan="2"><div> <ul><li><b>Phonologies</b></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Template:Language_orthographies" title="Template:Language orthographies">Orthographies</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Template:Language_grammars" title="Template:Language grammars">Grammars</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Template:Language_adjectives" title="Template:Language adjectives">Adjectives</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Template:Language_determiners" title="Template:Language determiners">Determiners</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Template:Language_nouns" title="Template:Language nouns">Nouns</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Template:Language_prepositions" class="mw-redirect" title="Template:Language prepositions">Prepositions</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Template:Language_pronouns" title="Template:Language pronouns">Pronouns</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Template:Language_verbs" title="Template:Language verbs">Verbs</a></li></ul></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">A–E</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Abkhaz_phonology" title="Abkhaz phonology">Abkhaz</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Acehnese_phonology" title="Acehnese phonology">Acehnese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Adyghe_phonology" title="Adyghe phonology">Adyghe</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Afrikaans_phonology" title="Afrikaans phonology">Afrikaans</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/American_Sign_Language_phonology" title="American Sign Language phonology">American Sign Language</a></li> <li>Arabic <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Arabic_phonology" title="Arabic phonology">Modern Standard</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Egyptian_Arabic_phonology" title="Egyptian Arabic phonology">Egyptian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hejazi_Arabic_phonology" title="Hejazi Arabic phonology">Hejazi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Levantine_Arabic_phonology" title="Levantine Arabic phonology">Levantine</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Moroccan_Arabic#Phonology" title="Moroccan Arabic">Moroccan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tunisian_Arabic_phonology" title="Tunisian Arabic phonology">Tunisian</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Avestan_phonology" title="Avestan phonology">Avestan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Belarusian_phonology" title="Belarusian phonology">Belarusian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bengali_phonology" title="Bengali phonology">Bengali</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bulgarian_phonology" title="Bulgarian phonology">Bulgarian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Burmese_phonology" title="Burmese phonology">Burmese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Catalan_phonology" title="Catalan phonology">Catalan</a></li> <li>Chinese <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology" title="Standard Chinese phonology">Mandarin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Cantonese_phonology" title="Cantonese phonology">Cantonese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hokkien_phonology" title="Hokkien phonology">Hokkien</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Northern_Wu_phonology" title="Northern Wu phonology">Northern Wu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese_phonology" title="Old Chinese phonology">Old</a></li> <li><a class="mw-selflink selflink">Historical</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Chukchi_phonology" title="Chukchi phonology">Chukchi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Cornish_phonology" title="Cornish phonology">Cornish</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Czech_phonology" title="Czech phonology">Czech</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Danish_phonology" title="Danish phonology">Danish</a></li> <li>Dutch <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Dutch_phonology" title="Dutch phonology">Standard</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Orsmaal-Gussenhoven_dialect_phonology" title="Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect phonology">Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/English_phonology" title="English phonology">English</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Australian_English_phonology" title="Australian English phonology">Australian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/General_American_English" title="General American English">General American</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/New_Zealand_English_phonology" title="New Zealand English phonology">New Zealand</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Received_Pronunciation" title="Received Pronunciation">Received Pronunciation</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/North_American_English_regional_phonology" title="North American English regional phonology">Regional North American</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/White_South_African_English_phonology" title="White South African English phonology">White South African</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Standard_Canadian_English" title="Standard Canadian English">Standard Canadian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Old_English_phonology" title="Old English phonology">Old</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Middle_English_phonology" title="Middle English phonology">Middle</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Esperanto_phonology" title="Esperanto phonology">Esperanto</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Estonian_phonology" title="Estonian phonology">Estonian</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">F–L</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Faroese_phonology" title="Faroese phonology">Faroese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Finnish_phonology" title="Finnish phonology">Finnish</a></li> <li>French <ul><li><a href="/wiki/French_phonology" title="French phonology">Parisian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Quebec_French_phonology" title="Quebec French phonology">Quebec</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Galician_phonology" title="Galician phonology">Galician</a></li> <li>German <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Standard_German_phonology" title="Standard German phonology">Standard</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bernese_German_phonology" title="Bernese German phonology">Bernese</a></li></ul></li> <li>Greek <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Modern_Greek_phonology" title="Modern Greek phonology">Standard Modern</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ancient_Greek_phonology" title="Ancient Greek phonology">Ancient</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Koine_Greek_phonology" title="Koine Greek phonology">Koine</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Greenlandic_phonology" title="Greenlandic phonology">Greenlandic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Gujarati_phonology" title="Gujarati phonology">Gujarati</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hawaiian_phonology" title="Hawaiian phonology">Hawaiian</a></li> <li>Hebrew <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Modern_Hebrew_phonology" title="Modern Hebrew phonology">Modern</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Biblical_Hebrew#Phonology" title="Biblical Hebrew">Biblical</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tiberian_Hebrew#Phonology" title="Tiberian Hebrew">Tiberian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Samaritan_Hebrew#Phonology" title="Samaritan Hebrew">Samaritan</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hindustani_phonology" title="Hindustani phonology">Hindustani</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hungarian_phonology" title="Hungarian phonology">Hungarian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Icelandic_phonology" title="Icelandic phonology">Icelandic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ingrian_phonology" title="Ingrian phonology">Ingrian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Inuit_phonology" title="Inuit phonology">Inuit</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Irish_phonology" title="Irish phonology">Irish</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Italian_phonology" title="Italian phonology">Italian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Japanese_phonology" title="Japanese phonology">Japanese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kiowa_phonology" title="Kiowa phonology">Kiowa</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Konkani_phonology" title="Konkani phonology">Konkani</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Korean_phonology" title="Korean phonology">Korean</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kurdish_phonology" title="Kurdish phonology">Kurdish</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kyrgyz_phonology" title="Kyrgyz phonology">Kyrgyz</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Latgalian_phonology" title="Latgalian phonology">Latgalian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Latin_phonology_and_orthography" title="Latin phonology and orthography">Latin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Latvian_phonology" title="Latvian phonology">Latvian</a></li> <li>Limburgish <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Maastrichtian_dialect_phonology" title="Maastrichtian dialect phonology">Maastrichtian</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Lithuanian_phonology" title="Lithuanian phonology">Lithuanian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Luxembourgish_phonology" title="Luxembourgish phonology">Luxembourgish</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">M–S</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Macedonian_phonology" title="Macedonian phonology">Macedonian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Malay_phonology" title="Malay phonology">Malay</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Maldivian_phonology" title="Maldivian phonology">Maldivian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/M%C4%81ori_phonology" title="Māori phonology">Māori</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Marathi_phonology" title="Marathi phonology">Marathi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Massachusett_phonology" title="Massachusett phonology">Massachusett</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Medumba_phonology" title="Medumba phonology">Medumba</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Navajo_phonology" title="Navajo phonology">Navajo</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nepali_phonology" title="Nepali phonology">Nepali</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Norwegian_phonology" title="Norwegian phonology">Norwegian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Occitan_phonology" title="Occitan phonology">Occitan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ojibwe_phonology" title="Ojibwe phonology">Ojibwe</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Old_Saxon_phonology" title="Old Saxon phonology">Old Saxon</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Oromo_phonology" title="Oromo phonology">Oromo</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ottawa_phonology" title="Ottawa phonology">Ottawa</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Pashto_phonology" title="Pashto phonology">Pashto</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Persian_phonology" title="Persian phonology">Persian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Polish_phonology" title="Polish phonology">Polish</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Portuguese_phonology" title="Portuguese phonology">Portuguese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_phonology" title="Proto-Indo-European phonology">Proto-Indo-European</a></li> <li>Ripuarian <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Colognian_phonology" title="Colognian phonology">Colognian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kerkrade_dialect_phonology" title="Kerkrade dialect phonology">Kerkrade dialect</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Romanian_phonology" title="Romanian phonology">Romanian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Russian_phonology" title="Russian phonology">Russian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sardinian_phonology" title="Sardinian phonology">Sardinian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Scots" title="Phonological history of Scots">Scots</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic_phonology_and_orthography" title="Scottish Gaelic phonology and orthography">Scottish Gaelic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Serbo-Croatian_phonology" title="Serbo-Croatian phonology">Serbo-Croatian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Slovak_phonology" title="Slovak phonology">Slovak</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Slovene_phonology" title="Slovene phonology">Slovene</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Somali_phonology" title="Somali phonology">Somali</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sotho_phonology" title="Sotho phonology">Sotho</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Spanish_phonology" title="Spanish phonology">Spanish</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Spanish_dialects_and_varieties" title="Spanish dialects and varieties">Dialects and varieties</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Swedish_phonology" title="Swedish phonology">Swedish</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">T–Z</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Tagalog_phonology" title="Tagalog phonology">Tagalog</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tamil_phonology" title="Tamil phonology">Tamil</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Taos_phonology" title="Taos phonology">Taos</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Turkish_phonology" title="Turkish phonology">Turkish</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ubykh_phonology" title="Ubykh phonology">Ubykh</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ukrainian_phonology" title="Ukrainian phonology">Ukrainian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Uyghur_phonology" title="Uyghur phonology">Uyghur</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Vietnamese_phonology" title="Vietnamese phonology">Vietnamese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Welsh_phonology" title="Welsh phonology">Welsh</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/West_Frisian_phonology" title="West Frisian phonology">West Frisian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Yiddish_phonology" title="Yiddish phonology">Yiddish</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Zuni_phonology" title="Zuni phonology">Zuni</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table></div> <div class="navbox-styles"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1129693374"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1236075235"></div><div role="navigation" class="navbox" aria-labelledby="Chinese_language" style="padding:3px"><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible mw-collapsed navbox-inner" style="border-spacing:0;background:transparent;color:inherit"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="3" style="background: #e0e0b0;"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1129693374"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1239400231"><div class="navbar plainlinks hlist navbar-mini"><ul><li class="nv-view"><a href="/wiki/Template:Chinese_language" title="Template:Chinese language"><abbr title="View this template">v</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-talk"><a href="/wiki/Template_talk:Chinese_language" title="Template talk:Chinese language"><abbr title="Discuss this template">t</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-edit"><a href="/wiki/Special:EditPage/Template:Chinese_language" title="Special:EditPage/Template:Chinese language"><abbr title="Edit this template">e</abbr></a></li></ul></div><div id="Chinese_language" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a href="/wiki/Chinese_language" title="Chinese language">Chinese language</a></div></th></tr><tr><td class="navbox-abovebelow" colspan="3" style="background: #e0e0b0;"><div><b><a href="/wiki/Sinitic_languages" title="Sinitic languages">Sinitic languages</a></b></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background: #e0e0b0;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese" title="Varieties of Chinese">Major groups</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese" title="Mandarin Chinese">Mandarin</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Northeastern_Mandarin" title="Northeastern Mandarin">Northeastern</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Changchun_dialect" title="Changchun dialect">Changchun</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Harbin_dialect" title="Harbin dialect">Harbin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shenyang_Mandarin" title="Shenyang Mandarin">Shenyang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Taz_dialect" title="Taz dialect">Taz</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Beijing_Mandarin_(division_of_Mandarin)" title="Beijing Mandarin (division of Mandarin)">Beijing</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Beijing_dialect" title="Beijing dialect">Beijing</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Taiwanese_Mandarin" title="Taiwanese Mandarin">Taiwan</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Jilu_Mandarin" title="Jilu Mandarin">Jilu</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Tianjin_dialect" title="Tianjin dialect">Tianjin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Jinan_dialect" title="Jinan dialect">Jinan</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Jiaoliao_Mandarin" title="Jiaoliao Mandarin">Jiaoliao</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Dalian_dialect" title="Dalian dialect">Dalian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Qingdao_dialect" title="Qingdao dialect">Qingdao</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Weihai_dialect" title="Weihai dialect">Weihai</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Central_Plains_Mandarin" title="Central Plains Mandarin">Central Plains</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Dongping_dialect" title="Dongping dialect">Dongping</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Gangou_language" title="Gangou language">Gangou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Guanzhong_dialect" title="Guanzhong dialect">Guanzhong</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Xi%27an_dialect" class="mw-redirect" title="Xi'an dialect">Xi'an</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Luoyang_dialect" title="Luoyang dialect">Luoyang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Xuzhou_dialect" title="Xuzhou dialect">Xuzhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Dungan_language" title="Dungan language">Dungan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Xinjiang_Mandarin" title="Xinjiang Mandarin">Xinjiang</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Southwestern_Mandarin" title="Southwestern Mandarin">Southwestern</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Sichuanese_dialects" title="Sichuanese dialects">Sichuanese</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Chengdu-Chongqing_dialect" title="Chengdu-Chongqing dialect">Chengdu–Chongqing</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Minjiang_dialect" title="Minjiang dialect">Minjiang</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Leshan_dialect" title="Leshan dialect">Leshan</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Renshou%E2%80%93Fushun_Mandarin&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Renshou–Fushun Mandarin (page does not exist)">Renshou–Fushun</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Zigong_dialect" title="Zigong dialect">Zigong</a></li></ul></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kunming_dialect" title="Kunming dialect">Kunming</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nanping_dialect" title="Nanping dialect">Nanping</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Wuhan_dialect" title="Wuhan dialect">Wuhan</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Gui%E2%80%93Liu_Mandarin&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Gui–Liu Mandarin (page does not exist)">Gui–Liu</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Wuming_Mandarin" title="Wuming Mandarin">Wuming</a></li></ul></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Lower_Yangtze_Mandarin" title="Lower Yangtze Mandarin">Jianghuai</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Nanjing_dialect" title="Nanjing dialect">Nanjing</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nantong_dialect" class="mw-redirect" title="Nantong dialect">Nantong</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nanping_dialect" title="Nanping dialect">Nanping</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Lanyin_Mandarin" title="Lanyin Mandarin">Lanyin</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Lanzhou_dialect&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Lanzhou dialect (page does not exist)">Lanzhou dialect</a><span class="noprint" style="font-size:85%; font-style: normal;"> [<a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%B0%E5%B7%9E%E8%AF%9D" class="extiw" title="zh:兰州话">zh</a>]</span></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Urumqi_dialect&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Urumqi dialect (page does not exist)">Urumqi dialect</a><span class="noprint" style="font-size:85%; font-style: normal;"> [<a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%8C%E9%B2%81%E6%9C%A8%E9%BD%90%E8%AF%9D" class="extiw" title="zh:乌鲁木齐话">zh</a>]</span></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Xinjiang_Mandarin" title="Xinjiang Mandarin">Xinjiang</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;">Other</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Junjiahua" title="Junjiahua">Junjiahua</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Qinjiang_Mandarin" title="Qinjiang Mandarin">Qinjiang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Gyami_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Gyami language">Gyami</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Jin_Chinese" title="Jin Chinese">Jin</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Zhangjiakou%E2%80%93Hohhot_dialect" title="Zhangjiakou–Hohhot dialect">Zhangjiakou–Hohhot</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Zhi-Yan_dialect" title="Zhi-Yan dialect">Zhi–Yan</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Wu_Chinese" title="Wu Chinese">Wu</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Taihu_Wu" title="Taihu Wu">Taihu</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Shanghainese" title="Shanghainese">Shanghai</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Suzhou_dialect" title="Suzhou dialect">Suzhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Wuxi_dialect" title="Wuxi dialect">Wuxi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Changzhou_dialect" title="Changzhou dialect">Changzhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hangzhou_dialect" title="Hangzhou dialect">Hangzhou</a> (?)</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shaoxing_dialect" title="Shaoxing dialect">Shaoxing</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ningbo_dialect" title="Ningbo dialect">Ningbo</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Jinxiang_dialect" title="Jinxiang dialect">Jinxiang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Jiangyin_dialect" title="Jiangyin dialect">Jiangyin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shadi_dialect" title="Shadi dialect">Shadi</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Taizhou_Wu" title="Taizhou Wu">Taizhou Wu</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Taizhou_dialect" title="Taizhou dialect">Taizhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tiantai_dialect" title="Tiantai dialect">Tiantai</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;">Oujiang</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Wenzhounese" title="Wenzhounese">Wenzhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Rui%27an_dialect" title="Rui'an dialect">Rui'an</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Wencheng_dialect" title="Wencheng dialect">Wencheng</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Wuzhou_Wu" title="Wuzhou Wu">Wuzhou</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Jinhua_dialect" title="Jinhua dialect">Jinhua</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Chu%E2%80%93Qu_Wu" title="Chu–Qu Wu">Chu–Qu</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Quzhou_dialect" title="Quzhou dialect">Quzhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Jiangshan_dialect" title="Jiangshan dialect">Jiangshan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Qingtian_dialect" title="Qingtian dialect">Qingtian</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Xuanzhou_Wu_dialects" class="mw-redirect" title="Xuanzhou Wu dialects">Xuanzhou</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Xuancheng_dialect" class="mw-redirect" title="Xuancheng dialect">Xuancheng</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Huizhou_Chinese" title="Huizhou Chinese">Hui</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Ji-She&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ji-She (page does not exist)">Ji-She</a><span class="noprint" style="font-size:85%; font-style: normal;"> [<a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BB%A9%E6%AD%99%E7%89%87" class="extiw" title="zh:绩歙片">zh</a>]</span></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Xiu-Yi&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Xiu-Yi (page does not exist)">Xiu-Yi</a><span class="noprint" style="font-size:85%; font-style: normal;"> [<a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BC%91%E9%BB%9F%E7%89%87" class="extiw" title="zh:休黟片">zh</a>]</span></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Qi-De&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Qi-De (page does not exist)">Qi-De</a><span class="noprint" style="font-size:85%; font-style: normal;"> [<a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A5%81%E5%A9%BA%E7%89%87" class="extiw" title="zh:祁婺片">zh</a>]</span></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Yanzhou_dialect&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Yanzhou dialect (page does not exist)">Yanzhou</a><span class="noprint" style="font-size:85%; font-style: normal;"> [<a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%8C%E5%8D%A0%E7%89%87" class="extiw" title="zh:旌占片">zh</a>]</span></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Jing-Zhan&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jing-Zhan (page does not exist)">Jing-Zhan</a><span class="noprint" style="font-size:85%; font-style: normal;"> [<a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%A5%E5%B7%9E%E7%89%87" class="extiw" title="zh:严州片">zh</a>]</span></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Gan_Chinese" title="Gan Chinese">Gan</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Chang%E2%80%93Du_Gan" title="Chang–Du Gan">Chang–Du</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Nanchang_dialect" class="mw-redirect" title="Nanchang dialect">Nanchang</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Yi%E2%80%93Liu_Gan" title="Yi–Liu Gan">Yi–Liu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ying%E2%80%93Yi_Gan" title="Ying–Yi Gan">Ying–Yi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Da%E2%80%93Tong_Gan" title="Da–Tong Gan">Da–Tong</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Xiang_Chinese" title="Xiang Chinese">Xiang</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/New_Xiang" title="New Xiang">Changyi</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Changsha_dialect" title="Changsha dialect">Changsha</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Old_Xiang" title="Old Xiang">Loushao</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Shuangfeng_dialect" title="Shuangfeng dialect">Shuangfeng</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Xiangxiang_dialect" title="Xiangxiang dialect">Xiangxiang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Wugang_dialect" title="Wugang dialect">Wugang</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ji%E2%80%93Xu_Xiang" title="Ji–Xu Xiang">Ji–Xu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Yong%E2%80%93Quan_Xiang" title="Yong–Quan Xiang">Yong–Quan</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Qiyang_dialect" title="Qiyang dialect">Qiyang</a></li></ul></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Min_Chinese" title="Min Chinese">Min</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Eastern_Min" title="Eastern Min">Eastern</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/w/index.php?title=Houguan_language_group&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Houguan language group (page does not exist)">Houguan</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Fuzhou_dialect" title="Fuzhou dialect">Fuzhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Fuqing_dialect" title="Fuqing dialect">Fuqing</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Changle_dialect" class="mw-redirect" title="Changle dialect">Changle</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Gutian_dialect" title="Gutian dialect">Gutian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Matsu_dialect" title="Matsu dialect">Matsu</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/w/index.php?title=Fu%E2%80%93Ning_language_group&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Fu–Ning language group (page does not exist)">Fu–Ning</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ningde_dialect" title="Ningde dialect">Ningde</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Fu%27an_dialect" title="Fu'an dialect">Fu'an</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;">Other</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Manjiang_dialect" title="Manjiang dialect">Manjiang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Zhongshan_Min" title="Zhongshan Min">Zhongshan</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Longdu_dialect" title="Longdu dialect">Longdu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nanlang_dialect" title="Nanlang dialect">Nanlang</a></li></ul></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Southern_Min" title="Southern Min">Southern</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Hokkien" title="Hokkien">Hokkien</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Quanzhou_dialect" class="mw-redirect" title="Quanzhou dialect">Quanzhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Zhangzhou_dialect" class="mw-redirect" title="Zhangzhou dialect">Zhangzhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Amoy_dialect" title="Amoy dialect">Amoy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Chawan_dialect" title="Chawan dialect">Chawan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Taiwanese_Hokkien" title="Taiwanese Hokkien">Taiwan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Philippine_Hokkien" title="Philippine Hokkien">Philippine</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Medan_Hokkien" title="Medan Hokkien">Pedan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Penang_Hokkien" title="Penang Hokkien">Penang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Singaporean_Hokkien" title="Singaporean Hokkien">Singapore</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Southern_Peninsular_Malaysian_Hokkien" title="Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien">Malaysian</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Teochew_Min" title="Teochew Min">Teochew</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Swatow_dialect" title="Swatow dialect">Swatow</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Haklau_Min" title="Haklau Min">Haklau</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Zhongshan_Min" title="Zhongshan Min">Zhongshan</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Sanxiang_dialect" title="Sanxiang dialect">Sanxiang</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;">Other</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Zhenan_Min" title="Zhenan Min">Zhenan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Longyan_Min" class="mw-redirect" title="Longyan Min">Longyan</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;">Other</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Northern_Min" title="Northern Min">Northern</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Jian%27ou_dialect" title="Jian'ou dialect">Jian'ou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Jianyang_dialect" title="Jianyang dialect">Jianyang</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Central_Min" title="Central Min">Central</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Pu%E2%80%93Xian_Min" title="Pu–Xian Min">Pu–Xian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shao%E2%80%93Jiang_Min" title="Shao–Jiang Min">Shao–Jiang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Leizhou_Min" title="Leizhou Min">Leizhou</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Zhanjiang_dialect" title="Zhanjiang dialect">Zhanjiang</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hainanese" title="Hainanese">Hainan</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Wenchang_dialect" title="Wenchang dialect">Wenchang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Haikou_dialect" title="Haikou dialect">Haikou</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Banqiao_dialect&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Banqiao dialect (page does not exist)">Banqiao</a></li></ul></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Hakka_Chinese" title="Hakka Chinese">Hakka</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Meixian_dialect" title="Meixian dialect">Meixian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Wuhua_dialect" title="Wuhua dialect">Wuhua</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Huizhou_dialect" title="Huizhou dialect">Huizhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tingzhou_dialect" title="Tingzhou dialect">Tingzhou</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Changting_dialect" title="Changting dialect">Changting</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Taiwanese_Hakka" title="Taiwanese Hakka">Taiwanese</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Sixian_dialect" title="Sixian dialect">Sixian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hailu_dialect" title="Hailu dialect">Hailu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Raoping_Hakka" title="Raoping Hakka">Raoping</a></li></ul></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Yue_Chinese" title="Yue Chinese">Yue</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Yuehai_dialects" class="mw-redirect" title="Yuehai dialects">Yuehai</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Cantonese" title="Cantonese">Guangzhou</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Hong_Kong_Cantonese" title="Hong Kong Cantonese">Hong Kong</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Malaysian_Cantonese" title="Malaysian Cantonese">Malaysia</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Xiguan_dialect" title="Xiguan dialect">Xiguan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Jiujiang_dialect" title="Jiujiang dialect">Jiujiang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Shiqi_dialect" title="Shiqi dialect">Shiqi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Weitou_dialect" title="Weitou dialect">Weitou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Dapeng_dialect" title="Dapeng dialect">Dapeng</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Siyi_Yue" title="Siyi Yue">Siyi</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Taishanese" title="Taishanese">Taishan</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Xinhui_dialect&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Xinhui dialect (page does not exist)">Xinhui</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;">Other</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Gao%E2%80%93Yang_Yue" title="Gao–Yang Yue">Gao–Yang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Goulou_Yue" title="Goulou Yue">Goulou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Wu%E2%80%93Hua_Yue" title="Wu–Hua Yue">Wu–Hua</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Yong%E2%80%93Xun_Yue" title="Yong–Xun Yue">Yong–Xun</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Luo%E2%80%93Guang_Yue" title="Luo–Guang Yue">Luo–Guang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Qin%E2%80%93Lian_Yue" title="Qin–Lian Yue">Qin–Lian</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Pinghua" title="Pinghua">Pinghua</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Pinghua#Dialects" title="Pinghua">Northern</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Tongdao_Pinghua" title="Tongdao Pinghua">Tongdao</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Younian_dialect" title="Younian dialect">Younian</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Pinghua#Dialects" title="Pinghua">Southern</a> <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Yongjiang_dialect&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Yongjiang dialect (page does not exist)">Yongjiang</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Guandao_dialect&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Guandao dialect (page does not exist)">Guandao</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Rongjiang_dialect&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Rongjiang dialect (page does not exist)">Rongjiang</a></li></ul></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%">Unclassified</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Shaozhou_Tuhua" title="Shaozhou Tuhua">Shaozhou Tuhua</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Xiangnan_Tuhua" title="Xiangnan Tuhua">Xiangnan Tuhua</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Badong_Yao_language" title="Badong Yao language">Badong Yao</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Danzhou_dialect" title="Danzhou dialect">Danzhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mai_Chinese" title="Mai Chinese">Mai</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/She_Chinese" title="She Chinese">Shehua</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Waxiang_Chinese" title="Waxiang Chinese">Waxiang</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Yeheni_language" title="Yeheni language">Yeheni</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Huizhou_dialect" title="Huizhou dialect">Huizhou</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bai_language" title="Bai language">Bai</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Cai%E2%80%93Long_languages" title="Cai–Long languages">Cai-Long</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Caijia_language" title="Caijia language">Caijia</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Longjia_language" title="Longjia language">Longjia</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Luren_language" title="Luren language">Luren</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Chuanqing_people#Language" title="Chuanqing people">Laobeizi</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td><td class="noviewer navbox-image" rowspan="9" style="width:1px;padding:0 0 0 2px"><div><span typeof="mw:File"><a href="/wiki/File:Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg/350px-Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg.png" decoding="async" width="350" height="785" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg/525px-Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg/700px-Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="410" data-file-height="920" /></a></span></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background: #e0e0b0;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Comparison_of_national_standards_of_Chinese" title="Comparison of national standards of Chinese">Standard<br />forms</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Standard_Chinese" title="Standard Chinese">Standard Chinese</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Sichuanese_Standard_Chinese" title="Sichuanese Standard Chinese">Sichuanese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Taiwanese_Mandarin" title="Taiwanese Mandarin">Taiwanese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Philippine_Mandarin" class="mw-redirect" title="Philippine Mandarin">Philippine</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Malaysian_Mandarin" title="Malaysian Mandarin">Malaysian</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Singaporean_Mandarin" title="Singaporean Mandarin">Singaporean</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Standard_Singaporean_Mandarin" title="Standard Singaporean Mandarin">Standard</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Singdarin" title="Singdarin">Singdarin</a></li></ul></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Cantonese" title="Cantonese">Cantonese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hokkien" title="Hokkien">Hokkien</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hakka" class="mw-redirect" title="Hakka">Hakka</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background: #e0e0b0;;width:1%">Phonology</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a class="mw-selflink selflink">Historical</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese_phonology" title="Old Chinese phonology">Old</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Old_National_Pronunciation" title="Old National Pronunciation">Old National</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Cantonese_phonology" title="Cantonese phonology">Cantonese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Hokkien_phonology" title="Hokkien phonology">Hokkien</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Northern_Wu_phonology" title="Northern Wu phonology">Northern Wu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology" title="Standard Chinese phonology">Mandarin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Literary_and_colloquial_readings_of_Chinese_characters" class="mw-redirect" title="Literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters">Literary and colloquial readings</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background: #e0e0b0;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Chinese_grammar" title="Chinese grammar">Grammar</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Chinese_numerals" title="Chinese numerals">Numerals</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Chinese_classifier" title="Chinese classifier">Classifiers</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Chinese_honorifics" title="Chinese honorifics">Honorifics</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Cantonese_grammar" title="Cantonese grammar">Cantonese grammar</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Classical_Chinese_grammar" title="Classical Chinese grammar">Classical grammar</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background: #e0e0b0;;width:1%">Idioms</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><i><a href="/wiki/Chengyu" title="Chengyu">Chengyu</a></i></li> <li><i><a href="/wiki/Xiehouyu" title="Xiehouyu">Xiehouyu</a></i></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background: #e0e0b0;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Chinese_input_methods_for_computers" class="mw-redirect" title="Chinese input methods for computers">Input</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Biaoxingma_method" title="Biaoxingma method">Biaoxingma</a></li> <li>Boshiamy</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Cangjie_input_method" title="Cangjie input method">Cangjie</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Simplified_Cangjie" title="Simplified Cangjie">Simplified</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/CKC_Chinese_Input_System" title="CKC Chinese Input System">CKC</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Dayi_method" title="Dayi method">Dayi</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Pinyin_method" class="mw-redirect" title="Pinyin method">Pinyin</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Google_Pinyin" title="Google Pinyin">Google</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Microsoft_Pinyin_IME" title="Microsoft Pinyin IME">Microsoft</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sogou_Pinyin" title="Sogou Pinyin">Sogou</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Stroke_count_method" title="Stroke count method">Stroke count</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Wubi_method" title="Wubi method">Wubi (Wang Ma)</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Zhengma_method" title="Zhengma method">ZhengMa</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background: #e0e0b0;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/History_of_the_Chinese_language" title="History of the Chinese language">History</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Old_Chinese" title="Old Chinese">Old Chinese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Eastern_Han_Chinese" title="Eastern Han Chinese">Eastern Han</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Middle_Chinese" title="Middle Chinese">Middle Chinese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Old_Mandarin" title="Old Mandarin">Old Mandarin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mandarin_(late_imperial_lingua_franca)" title="Mandarin (late imperial lingua franca)">Middle Mandarin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Proto-Min" title="Proto-Min">Proto-Min</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Proto-Hakka" title="Proto-Hakka">Proto-Hakka</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Ba%E2%80%93Shu_Chinese" title="Ba–Shu Chinese">Ba–Shu</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/History_of_Gan_Chinese" title="History of Gan Chinese">Gan</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background: #e0e0b0;;width:1%">Literary<br /> forms</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th id="Official" scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;">Official</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Classical_Chinese" title="Classical Chinese">Classical</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Adoption_of_Chinese_literary_culture" title="Adoption of Chinese literary culture">Adoption</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kanbun" title="Kanbun">in Japan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Literary_Chinese_in_Vietnam" title="Literary Chinese in Vietnam">in Vietnam</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese" title="Written vernacular Chinese">Vernacular</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Written_Cantonese" title="Written Cantonese">Written Cantonese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Dungan_alphabets" title="Dungan alphabets">Written Dungan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Written_Hokkien" title="Written Hokkien">Written Hokkien</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Sichuanese_characters" title="Sichuanese characters">Written Sichuanese</a></li></ul></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background: #e0e0b0;;width:1%"><a href="/wiki/Written_Chinese" title="Written Chinese">Scripts</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th id="Logographic" scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Logographic" class="mw-redirect" title="Logographic">Logographic</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"></div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="border-spacing:0"><tbody><tr><th id="Script_styles" scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Script_styles" class="mw-redirect" title="Script styles">Script styles</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <li><a href="/wiki/Oracle_bone_script" title="Oracle bone script">Oracle bone</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions" title="Chinese bronze inscriptions">Bronze</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Seal_script" title="Seal script">Seal</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Clerical_script" title="Clerical script">Clerical</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Semi-cursive_script" title="Semi-cursive script">Semi-cursive</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Cursive_script_(East_Asia)" title="Cursive script (East Asia)">Cursive</a></li> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Chinese_characters" title="Chinese characters">Chinese characters</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Simplified_characters" class="mw-redirect" title="Simplified characters">Simplified</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Traditional_characters" class="mw-redirect" title="Traditional characters">Traditional</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Chinese_punctuation" title="Chinese punctuation">Punctuation</a></li></ul></div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;"><a href="/wiki/Braille" title="Braille">Braille</a></th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <li><a href="/wiki/Cantonese_Braille" title="Cantonese Braille">Cantonese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mainland_Chinese_Braille" title="Mainland Chinese Braille">Mainland Chinese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Taiwanese_Braille" title="Taiwanese Braille">Taiwanese</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Two-cell_Chinese_Braille" title="Two-cell Chinese Braille">Two-cell</a></li> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="background:#f0eaea;;width:1%;font-weight:normal;">Phonetic</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Cyrillization_of_Chinese" title="Cyrillization of Chinese">Cyrillization</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Dungan_language#Writing_system" title="Dungan language">Dungan Cyrillic</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Romanization_of_Chinese" title="Romanization of Chinese">Romanization</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Gwoyeu_Romatzyh" title="Gwoyeu Romatzyh">Gwoyeu Romatzyh</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Pinyin" title="Pinyin">Hanyu Pinyin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mandarin_Phonetic_Symbols_II" title="Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II">MPS II</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Chinese_postal_romanization" title="Chinese postal romanization">Postal</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Tongyong_Pinyin" title="Tongyong Pinyin">Tongyong Pinyin</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Wade%E2%80%93Giles" title="Wade–Giles">Wade–Giles</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/EFEO_Chinese_transcription" title="EFEO Chinese transcription">EFEO</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Lessing-Othmer" title="Lessing-Othmer">Lessing-Othmer</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Yale_romanization_of_Mandarin" title="Yale romanization of Mandarin">Yale</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bopomofo" title="Bopomofo">Bopomofo</a> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Cantonese_Bopomofo" class="mw-redirect" title="Cantonese Bopomofo">Cantonese Bopomofo</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Taiwanese_Phonetic_Symbols" title="Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols">Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols</a></li></ul></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Taiwanese_kana" title="Taiwanese kana">Taiwanese kana</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Taiwanese_Hangul" title="Taiwanese Hangul">Taiwanese Hangul</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Xiao%27erjing" title="Xiao'erjing">Xiao'erjing</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/N%C3%BCshu" title="Nüshu">Nüshu</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div></td></tr><tr><td class="navbox-abovebelow" colspan="3" style="background: #e0e0b0;"><div><span class="noviewer" typeof="mw:File"><span title="List-Class article"><img alt="" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/db/Symbol_list_class.svg/16px-Symbol_list_class.svg.png" decoding="async" width="16" height="16" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/db/Symbol_list_class.svg/23px-Symbol_list_class.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/db/Symbol_list_class.svg/31px-Symbol_list_class.svg.png 2x" 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