Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1813 Gao Benhan

"It also needs to be combined with foreign research results on language pronunciation." Gu Youwen seemed not to have heard Zhou Zhi say that someone would criticize this, and continued to ponder: "Have you studied Gao Benhan's work?"

"I can't say I've studied it, but I have read his book 'Kalb Benhan's Theory of Homophony'," Zhou Zhi replied.

"We still need to study some of his things carefully, especially the materials he left behind during his field research. They are the most complete and comprehensive samples of dialects collected before the promotion of Mandarin, and are of great value to our research on ancient pronunciations."

Karlgren's achievements in the phonology of Chinese characters are very high, and he is legendary. The funniest thing is that he is a foreigner, a Swede.

After completing his university studies, Gao Benhan went to Russia to learn basic Chinese for two months, then got a scholarship to stay in China for two years. When the scholarship was used up, he made a living by teaching French and English at Shanxi University.

During his stay in China, Gao Benhan first spent several months quickly mastering spoken Chinese and commonly used Chinese characters to the point where he could travel independently. He then made a detailed survey questionnaire and began to collect and verify dialect data.

He worked hard to collect records and investigations of 24 Chinese dialects, including eight from Yan and Jin, six from Gansu and Shaanxi, three from Henan Province, and the Jinling dialect. The above 19 belong to the Northern Mandarin system.

In addition, we also collected the Shanghai dialect without dialect, the Fuzhou dialect representing the Fujian dialect, and the Cantonese dialect representing the Cantonese dialect.

He even collected the Japanese and Vietnamese pronunciations of Chinese loanwords. In addition, he also collected the pronunciations of nine other dialects based on published materials.

With these field research results, he began to think about the ancient Chinese phonetic system.

Eventually, Karlgren became a world-renowned sinologist. His academic research mainly involved the fields of Chinese linguistics and archaeology. He wrote more than a hundred books in his lifetime, and his research scope included Chinese phonology, dialectology, lexicography, bibliography, archaeology, literature, art and religion.

The most significant contribution of Gao Benhan's academic research was the reconstruction of the ancient Chinese phonetic system.

This construction is reflected in two works, "Studies in Chinese Phonology" and "Dictionary of Ancient Chinese".

Before Karlgren, Chinese linguistics could only verify ancient pronunciations by using the fanqie method and rhyme charts. Karlgren invented a method of using phonetic letters to describe ancient sounds, and to verify them with the rhyme parts of the fanqie system. He also compared and contrasted the ancient Chinese translations and borrowings in modern Chinese and the languages ​​of Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other countries. In terms of Chinese phonology, he used "Qieyun" as the hub, traced back to the ancient sounds of the pre-Qin period, and linked to the dialects of modern Chinese. He conducted a comprehensive study of the history of Chinese phonetics, and made a phonetic description of the Middle Chinese and Ancient Chinese sound systems, and constructed specific sound values ​​for each sound category, and wrote "Studies in Chinese Phonology".

The book had a great influence and marked the beginning of the history of modern Chinese phonology. "How far have you read "Chinese Phonology"?" Seeing that his disciple had not neglected his studies despite being so busy, the old man was very pleased: "Did you encounter any problems?"

In addition to the "Original Preface", "Introduction" and the appendix "Map of the Surveyed Dialects", "Studies in Chinese Phonology" is divided into four volumes: Volume 1: Ancient Chinese; Volume 2: Descriptive Phonetics of Modern Dialects; Volume 3: Historical Research; Volume 4: Dialect Vocabulary. In fact, it talks about the general history of Chinese phonetics, the descriptive method in modern dialect research and the synchronic description in historical linguistic research, the historical interpretation method in historical linguistics, and the compilation of dialect dictionaries and compilation methods.

This is to test the reading experience. Zhou Zhi said: "Based on the reconstruction of the Middle Chinese sounds in Guangyun, the study of Chinese historical phonetics was carried out. First, modern dialect data was fully used to verify the Middle Chinese sounds, and then the Middle Chinese sound system was used to infer the ancient sound system. This path is very admirable."

"In Studies on Chinese Phonology, Karlgren, on the one hand, referred to the rhyme tables of the Song Dynasty and later dynasties, and on the other hand, arranged 3,100 Chinese characters into a table based on the fanqie in Guangyun. He then compared the pronunciations of these characters in various modern dialects, reconstructed their phonetic values, and inserted these known phonetic values ​​into the table. Using this scientific result from field research to determine the ancient sound categories and ancient pronunciations of each character is far more accurate and reliable than the traditional Chinese scholars' closed-door research in their study."

"This opened up a new research path for the study of Chinese phonology and phonetic history. Chinese scholars have since basically accepted Gao Benhan's general principles, but have only revised them on the details."

"That is why Mr. Luo Changpei said that this book is not only a comprehensive work among foreigners' research on Chinese phonology, but also an unprecedented masterpiece even when put together with the general phonology works of domestic scholars." Zhou Zhi said: "From the perspective of comparative linguistics, Gao's reconstruction is of great value."

"The biggest reason why it is so valuable is the scientific method and the abundance of materials. When reconstructing Middle Chinese, Karlgren mainly used three types of materials: rhyme books and rhyme charts; Chinese dialects; and foreign loanwords. He picked out the closest reconstructed sounds from the three aspects, introduced some modern scientific methods into traditional phonology, and reflected the Middle Chinese phonetic and rhyme system in front of the big mirror of modern dialect investigation, and reconstructed its sound values ​​for the first time. The foundation for establishing this system is so solid that it is of great scientific value."

"If we have to talk about shortcomings..." Zhou Zhi said, "It is that the collection of basic samples is not comprehensive enough. For example, the dialect of Shuzhong is not collected, and the dialect unique to Hubei Province is not included."

"The dialect of Hubei Province?" Gu Youwen frowned. "There are many ancient Chinese sounds in the southern Sichuan dialect. What does Hubei Province have?"

"During my last trip to the Three Gorges, I discovered that their accent contained a tongue-twisting sound, which I had never heard of in the Chinese language I had come across before. I wonder if they are also remnants of the Middle Ages."

"I see." Gu Youwen smiled and said, "Yes, this is also a small discovery."

"Another point is that when Gao Benhan conducted his research, he did not use sound recording equipment. Therefore, when recording more than 20 dialects, he still used phonetic symbols. Although Yuan Ren was inspired by this and created China's first Romanization alphabet, it is still using symbols to record sounds and interpreting sounds with the eyes, which is not accurate enough."

"For Mandarin, where there are always people around who can speak it, it is easy to promote the pronunciation of these phonetic symbols and it is also easy to learn. But for dialects, there is not always someone around to teach, so you may end up using Mandarin phonetic symbols to interpret the Cantonese dictionary, and end up reading something that is not quite right."