Riding the wind of rebirth

Finally, Zhou Zhi's research direction was established, which was to integrate the theories of Karlgren and Zheng Zhang Shangfang, use recording technology, which is more direct for language, to conduct sampling, and upgrade Karlgren's field investigation model. In addition to the "elegant sounds" of various dialects, "slang" should also be collected, and the types of dialects should also be expanded, so as to cover all places in the country where Chinese is used.

This is the first step. After completing this step, the "pronunciation" of Chinese in various parts of China will basically be sorted out.

After completing this step, the second step is to include Japanese, Chinese, South Vietnamese, and Hindi.

A large number of ancient pronunciations of Chinese characters are preserved in the first three languages. Although they will certainly undergo tremendous changes, they can serve as an important reference for domestic dialects.

The last language has an advantage. When China translated Buddhist scriptures, it used a lot of "transliteration", such as "Prajnaparamita", which created a bridge between sound and text.

Later generations can deduce the pronunciation of the characters used in "transliterated foreign words" in ancient China through the pronunciation of this word in ancient Sanskrit.

There are two simple examples to illustrate how to infer the pronunciation of the original word and the region of origin based on the pronunciation of the transliterated loanwords. "Lychee" and "Kung Fu", litchi and kung fu, are obviously both "Chinese loanwords" in English based on the Cantonese pronunciation.

Including "Canton", the word Guangdong is also included.

After these two steps are completed, the "inferred specimen library" is truly established. After that, the fanqie method in "Qieyun" and "Guangyun" is used as logical evidence to verify the corresponding readings in the specimen library.

In addition, a large number of rhythmic classics such as poetry, songs, and parallel prose are needed to verify the "universality" of this pronunciation and ultimately deduce the Middle Chinese pronunciation.

Of course, this method cannot infer the pronunciation of all characters. The limitation of this method is that it can only infer the pronunciation of ancient Chinese that has samples preserved in various Chinese dialects and neighboring countries. Then, based on these samples, we can find out the rhyme parts of the characters in "Qieyun" and "Guangyun", so that the sound and rhyme of this rhyme part can be restored.

But there is definitely a missing part. This part was not lost due to the promotion of Mandarin in recent decades, but in the process of evolution from "Qieyun" to "Guangyun", that is, from the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, a considerable part has been lost.

Therefore, the academic community calls the pronunciation of Chinese characters in the Ming and Qing dynasties "recent ancient" pronunciation, the pronunciation of Chinese characters in the Song Dynasty "medieval" pronunciation, and the pronunciation of Chinese characters in the Tang Dynasty "ancient" pronunciation.

However, the "Hongwu Zhengyun" of the Ming Dynasty can only be used as a reference, because even the emperor was not satisfied with it and changed its name to "Hongwu Tongyun".

On the contrary, the "Pingshuiyun" based on the "Qieyun" and the "Ci Lin Zhengyun" based on the Pingshuiyun have been promoted and popularized.

Therefore, the task of deciphering the pronunciation of the three periods is actually the task of deciphering "Qieyun", "Guangyun" and "Pingshuiyun".

There is no need to decipher Pingshuiyun because it is relatively recent. Scholars of the Ming and Qing dynasties left a lot of information in their works on philology. Even today, classical literature enthusiasts generally compose poems based on Pingshuiyun, and everyone is very familiar with it. Therefore, the task of the upper and lower parts is still the former, and the focus is still on the "supplementary" part.

Here we need to introduce a large number of scientific methods for language research at home and abroad. The pronunciation of Chinese characters can be inferred and simulated. "Infer" refers to the former, and "simulate" refers to the latter.

In modern times, we have a complete and scientific onomatopoeia system, and the focus is to solve the complex changes of initial consonants and the complex existence of finals in ancient Chinese.

For example, the voiced stops among the initials have changed or disappeared by the time they have been passed down to the present, and the diphthongs and complex vowels among the finals no longer exist in modern Chinese.

However, specimens of these can be found in phonetic systems around the world. For example, British English still retains the use of many diphthongs and complex vowels. Combined with some relics in the Cantonese system, they can be inferred quite scientifically.

In addition to the study of initials and finals, there are also some historical studies on the laws of sound change. For example, there were no voiced or nasal sounds in ancient China, the transmission of yang entering tones as yin sounds, the period of the merger of yin and yang in the ancient times, and other factors must be taken into consideration one by one.

Nowadays, scholars who study ancient sounds are divided into two groups. One group directly carries out the work of imitating sounds through the pinyin system of modern Chinese combined with Western academic achievements. The other group uses the ancient phonological rules recorded in ancient books to carry out the work of imitating sounds.

The things that sound strange and unbelievable on the Internet in later generations are actually the rigid use of the first method. The latter method is difficult to learn and popularize except for scholars who specialize in it.

This is because many of these scholars are engaged in purely theoretical research. They know that this word is an entering tone in Guangyun, but they have no direct concept of how to pronounce the entering tone. The fact that these "pure theoretical" scholars who are unable to put into practice are rampant in universities and are teaching students is the real reason why the course of phonology and exegesis has become a major obstacle for Chinese departments.

Since the teachers can't pronounce the entering tone characters, the students can only memorize them. After all, the exams are written papers and not interviews, so as long as they can write them out, it's fine.

For this course, Zhou Zhi asked the students to follow the monkey and understand the Cantonese specimen cases, which gave everyone an intuitive impression and made everyone feel quite relaxed about the course. The test results once made Gu Kailai wonder whether there was widespread cheating.

Now that it has come to Zhou Zhi, he will definitely combine both methods, and finally come up with a set of standard phonetic symbols-pinyin-tones-audio reading correspondence tables. With the assistance of sound, it will play a huge role in future learning and research, and even in preserving this "civilization heritage".

"How is it?" Gu Kailai took the notebook from Zhou Zhi and drew out the research work for the next two years in the form of a mind map. He was very satisfied, but also expressed some concerns: "Can you complete your specimen sampling work in more than 20 dialects, as well as Korean, Japanese, South Vietnamese and Sanskrit within two years?"

“Hehehe…” Zhou Zhi laughed and said, “The research method can be changed. There are so many college students in the Chinese Department across the country. Most of them have taken the two courses of phonology and exegesis and field research. As the saying goes, there must be a brave man under a big reward. This is no longer the era when Karlgren carried word cards and looked for people to read everywhere!” (End of this chapter)