How to Read Chinese Poetry A Guided Anthology

402 P Hone t iC t ran sC riP t ion s oF e n t e ri ng -t one C Ha raC t e r s

shuò 朔 sraewk

shuō 說  sywet

sù 宿 sjuwk

tà 闥 that

tiě 鐵 thet

tuō 託 thak

wù 物 mjut

wū 屋 ’uwk5

xiē 歇 xjot

xí 席 zjek

xī 息 sik

xī 夕 zjek

xī 昔 sjek

xiá 狎 heap

xué 學 haewk

xuě 雪 sjwet

xuè 血 xwet

yè 葉 yep6

yè 業 ngjaep

yè 謁 ’jot

yí 一 ’jit

yǐ 乙 ’it

yì 亦 yek

yì 憶 ’ik

yù 欲 yowk

yuè 岳 ngaewk

yuè 嶽 ngaewk

yuè 月 ngjwot

yù 玉 ngjowk

zhāi 摘 treak

zhé 折 dzyet

zhóu 軸 drjuwk

zhú 竹 trjuwk

zhù 築 trjuwk

zhuó 著 drjak

zhuó 啄 traewk

zú 足 tsjowk

zuó 昨 dzak

notes

This transcription is based on the Early Middle Chinese system of pronunciation, as given

in the Qieyun 切韵 (literally, cutting rhymes), an important Chinese dictionary of 601, arranged

according to rhyme, which indicates pronunciations in some detail. The transcription is philologi-

cally accurate in that it represents all the distinctions known from the Qièyùn and other Middle

Chinese sources. Designed with nonspecialists in mind, it uses only the letters and symbols of the

English keyboard. However, there were more sounds in Middle Chinese than we have letters, so

some sounds are represented by two, three, or even four letters. Also, Middle Chinese had some

sounds that modern English does not, and vice versa (as with any two languages). In order to repre-

sent Middle Chinese pronunciation, some arbitrary conventions are necessary. The following are

the main ones (described more fully in William H. Baxter, A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology

[Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992], 27–85).

—William H. Baxter

1. The clusters ae and ea represent single vowel sounds probably like the a and e in “bat” and
   “bet,” respectively.


2. The letter o represents a sound probably like the short u in “tug” (not like the usual En-
   glish o).


3. The letter r after a consonant indicates that it is pronounced with retroflexion—that is, with
   the tip of the tongue turned back to touch the hard palate. English does not use such sounds, but
   they are found in many other languages, including modern Mandarin (written zh, ch, and sh in
   pinyin). In the Middle Chinese transcriptions, the letter h after a consonant indicates that it is
   aspirated (that is, pronounced with an audible puff of breath after it). So a combination like tsrh-
   represents a ch-like consonant that is retroflex (as indicated by the -r-) and aspirated (as indicated
   by the -h-)—more or less like the Mandarin sound written ch in pinyin romanization.


4. The letter x at the beginning of a word represents a sound like the German ch in “Bach.”


5. The apostrophe at the beginning of a word represents a glottal stop, the catch in the throat
   that some Cockney speakers use instead of t in words like “bottle.” In the phonetic notation used
   by linguists, it is written as [ʔ]. For most purposes, it can be ignored.


6. The letter y at the beginning of a word represents an ordinary y sound, but the combinations
   sy and zy represent, respectively, sounds like sh and zh (the sounds between the vowels in “pres-
   sure” and “pleasure,” respectively). Similarly, tsy represents a ch sound (without aspiration; if it is
   aspirated, it is written tsyh [for example, chi 赤 tsyhek]). When a y sound appears after the initial
   consonant or at the end of the syllable, it is written as j (as is customary in linguistics).