Fanqie

In Chinese phonology, fanqie is a method to indicate the pronunciation of a by using two other characters.

The Origin

Before ''fanqie'' was widely adopted, method of ''du ruo'' was used in works such as Erya . Introduction of around the first century brought Sanskrit. Its phonetic knowledge might have inspired the idea of ''fanqie''

Sun Yan is generally considered to be the first to adopt ''fanqie'' in ''Erya Yinyi'' . He was a man in ''Wei'' state during the period of Three Kingdoms . .

In the original ''fanqie'', a character's pronunciation is represented by two other characters. The consonant is represented by that of the first of the two characters ; the final and the are represented by those of the second of the two characters . . The representation of tone notably changed later.

In 601 AD during the Sui Dynasty, , a Chinese rhyme dictionary using ''fanqie'' was published .

Modern form

In Middle Chinese, the tone was represented by the rhyme character. However, owing to sound changes that have occurred since then, a more complicated rule is used today :
# The yin-yang classification, which arose in some tones due to distinctions in the onset, is determined by the onset character.
# The ping-shang-qu-ru classification, which is kept from Middle Chinese, is determined by the rhyme character.
Thus
: + =

For example, the character ? is represented by 德?切. The third character 切 indicates that this is a fanqie spelling, while the first two characters indicate the onset and rhyme respectively. Thus the pronunciation of ? is given as the onset of 德 ''dé'' with the rhyme of ? hóng'' , yielding ''dong''. Also, 德 has a yin ru tone and ? has a yang ping tone. So the tone of ? is yin ping.

Gari Ledyard has given this informative example of how an English equivalent to fanqie might look:
:To show the pronunciation of an unknown character, one "cut" the initial consonant from a second character and the rhyme from a third, and combined them to show the reading of the first. To use an English example, one could indicate the pronunciation of the word ''sough'' by "cutting" ''sun'' and ''now'' , or "cut" ''sun'' and ''cuff '' to show the alternate pronunciation. This method was a bit circular in that it required knowledge of the pronunciations of the characters that were "cut," but it proved to be a workable system and lasted well into the twentieth century.

Language change

Owing to the development of the Chinese language over the last millennium and a half, the fanqie spellings are not always accurate for of Modern Chinese; for example, the modern pronunciation of 德 is in a yang tone. However, it is still rather accurate for southern Chinese such as and Hakka, which have preserved many elements of and Middle Chinese.