Interestingly, in Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation, 京 is prounouced as kinh/kieng (like you mix both Japanese and Mandarin together) so the reconstruction in the video is pretty close to Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation for the word. Even European travellers first called Northern Vietnam region as "Tokin" which I guess came from 东京 (Đông Kinh), another old name to call Hanoi. I think they just wrote down in Latin what the locals would call the region

@ClassicTVMan1981X

Жыл бұрын

Right, originally the character you describe was pronounced in Middle Chinese as /kjaeng/ and this is why, in Sino-Japanese (On'yomi writing), it can be pronounced as either "kei" or "kyou" depending on usage (e.g. "Tokyo" and "Kyoto"; and the common female name "Keiko").

This is so cool! It’s rare to find such high of a study in KZread

Very informative video

Good introduction,thanks

@Rolando_Cueva

7 жыл бұрын

you're welcome.

How can you get to know the tones of each character(hanzi) in Middle Chinese? Is there any list completed by scholars? Please let me know. I hope there is a simple way of guessing how each sounded like in the period of middle chinese

@historicalchinese7944

5 жыл бұрын

There's no simple way of guessing. You have to look it up in a good dictionary. Zdic (zdic.net) has the information you're looking for.

@iceomistar4302

4 жыл бұрын

from certain sources the tone contours of the Guiliu dualect of southwestern mandarin best reoresent the tonal quality of Middle Chinese.

@sanminpark5752

3 жыл бұрын

You can look it up in Wiktionary! But if you want to know a way of guessing on the spot, usually Mandarin 1st and 2nd tone come from Middle Chinese ping sheng, Mandarin 3rd tone comes from MC shang sheng, Mandarin 4th tone comes from MC qu sheng. The exception is if a character was from MC ru sheng - you have to guess from another source: like Hanja, Go-on or Kan-on, Cantonese, etc.

@scurly0792

5 ай бұрын

Based on the Mandarin tone, there is a ROUGH correspondence with middle Chinese. Mandarin syllables beginning in k, c or s with the FLAT tone are likely also FLAT tones in MC, but flat tones with p, q or y were likely ENTERING tones (flat but ending in a stop consonant). I don't have an exhaustive list as I've only analysed flat tone words with those initials but no other MC tone evolved into Mandarin flat. Mandarin syllables with the CHECKED tone tend to be RISING in MC, with the exception of those now beginning in b which used to be the flat entering tone. Nearly all FALLING syllables were the same FALLING tone in MC and Mandarin, save for ones that originally began with b (e.g. 棒 bàng, but not 北 běi as that originally began with p). Finally, most Mandarin RISING tones originate from a FLAT MC tone with a voiced initial (b, m, d etc). In short- MC flat -> Mandarin flat if unvoiced, rising if voiced MC falling -> Mandarin falling MC rising -> Mandarin checked MC entering -> Typically flat but there are examples of entering MC words for every Mandarin tone I hope this helps

@scurly0792

5 ай бұрын

Based on the Mandarin tone, there is a ROUGH correspondence with middle Chinese. Mandarin syllables beginning in k, c or s with the FLAT tone are likely also FLAT tones in MC, but flat tones with p, q or y were likely ENTERING tones (flat but ending in a stop consonant). I don't have an exhaustive list as I've only analysed flat tone words with those initials but no other MC tone evolved into Mandarin flat. Mandarin syllables with the CHECKED tone tend to be RISING in MC, with the exception of those now beginning in b which used to be the flat entering tone. Nearly all FALLING syllables were the same FALLING tone in MC and Mandarin, save for ones that originally began with b (e.g. 棒 bàng, but not 北 běi as that originally began with p). Finally, most Mandarin RISING tones originate from a FLAT MC tone with a voiced initial (b, m, d etc). In short- MC flat -> Mandarin flat if unvoiced, rising if voiced MC falling -> Mandarin falling MC rising -> Mandarin checked MC entering -> Typically flat but there are examples of entering MC words for every Mandarin tone I hope this helps

'Middle Chinese' is a broad diasystem beginning with the Sui Dynasty Qieyun, which represents an artificial merger of the prestigious reading systems of the Northern & Southern Dynasties. The latest stage of Middle Chinese can be found in the Jin-Song era Pingshui rimes, as the then-nascent Jin-born Mandarin became dominant during the Yuan Dynasty, serving as the governmental lingua franca since at least the Ming Dynasty, if not earlier. The greatest myth is that Middle Chinese represented a single language. Although some scholars disagree on this issue, based on all the evidence available, I firmly believe that it never represented a single language.

@janeikeliu

4 жыл бұрын

苑安雄 I wouldn’t be surprised if Middle Chinese and Old Chinese served the same function as the Modern Chinese writing system--as a way for people speaking different dialects in different provinces to understand each other. Question is did Middle or Old Chinese have a dominant dialect, like what Mandarin is to Modern Chinese now?

@ZhangLee.

3 жыл бұрын

@@janeikeliu the word Mandarin mean 官话 speech of officials , and what that mean is in each dynasty rule in china it will had a 官话 dialect based on where it capital is and it will become the dominant dialect of that dynasty

Aren't affricates consonant clusters? There are affricates in most if not all Sinitic dialects.

Mandarin - 0:16 Cantonese - 0:17 Shanghainese - 0:18

Why did you stop this course?

@historicalchinese7944

3 жыл бұрын

Life responsibilities got in the way. I was doing this as a hobby in my spare time, and it took a lot of time... If you understand Chinese, I recommend the videos by Phjong or Biopolyhedron -- they speak much better than I do :)

As I understand it, this is the Chinese that Empress Wu Zetian would have spoken.

I still don't know what Tang people sounded like, it's impossible to guess it by just comparing with dialects across China and other languages in the Sino-Sphere.

@TheDavidlloydjones

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, there's this problem, them being dead an' all...

@taurantnguyen1664

6 ай бұрын

You can tell by reading or listening Based on the rhymes, we can tell which language is the most similar to ancient Chinese pronunciation. Here is an example in Sino-Vietnamese for the pronunciation of Three Kindom period. 七步詩 Thất bộ thi 煮豆持作羹， 漉豉以為汁， 萁在釜下然。 豆在釜中泣， 本自同根生， 相煎何太急。Chử đậu trì tác canh, Lộc thị dĩ vi "trấp", Ki tại phủ há nhiên. Đậu tại phủ trung "khấp", Bản tự đồng căn sanh, Tương tiễn hà thái "cấp". Rhymed: 汁 泣 急 with Middle Chinese pronunciation /tsyip/ /khip/ /kip/ Or in Sino-Vietnamese "trấp" "khấp" "cấp". & Compare a reconstructed Tang poem with Sino-Vietnamese. 杜甫 - 春望 國破山河在，城春草木深。感時花濺淚，恨別鳥驚心。烽火連三月，家書抵萬金。白頭搔更短，渾欲不勝簪。 k̙ʷʌ́k p̙ʰɑ̌ ʂɜ̀˞n ɣ̙ɑ̀ d̙z̙ʌ̋j, dʑjàŋ tɕʰɥìn t̙s̙ʰɑ̋w m̙úk ɕɯ̀m。k̙ʌ̋m dʑɯ̀ x̙ʷà˞ tsjɛ̌n lɥǐ, ɣ̙ʌ̌n bɰɛ́t t̙ɛ̋w kɰàŋ sɯ̀m。 pʰwɔ̀ŋ x̙ʷɑ̋ ljɛ̀n s̙ɑ̀m ŋwʌ́t, k̙à˞ ɕɰɤ̀ t̙ɛ̋j mwʌ̌n kɯ̀m。b̙á˞k d̙ù s̙ɑ̀w k̙ǎ˞ŋ t̙ʷɑ̋n, ɣ̙ʷʌ̀n jɰɔ́k pù ɕɯ̀ŋ ʈʂɯ̀m。 Đỗ Phủ - Xuân vọng Quốc phá sơn hà tại,Thành xuân thảo mộc thâm。Cảm thì hoa tiễn lệ, Hận biệt điểu kinh tâm。 Phong hoả liên tam nguyệt, Gia thư để vạn kim (câm)。Bạch đầu tao cánh đoản, Hồn dục bất thăng trâm。 Rhymed with ending -âm 今 = 居吟切 / Câm = Cư ngâm thiết / jīn = jū yín qiē. Currently, Vietnamese pronounce 今 as Kim.

what if: Middle Chinese came back

@Arjibi

3 жыл бұрын

Mandarin with final consonant: 十 shí = shíp 七 qī = qīt 百 bǎi = bǎik Boom! Revival Middle Chinese Mandarin

@sinoroman

3 жыл бұрын

@@Arjibi good enough for me

@phananhduong7775

3 жыл бұрын

Middle Chinese still in the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation :v

@Suite_annamite

Жыл бұрын

Make it easier for yourself and learn Vietnamese, as it sounds like a Chinese language before the Song Dynasty.

The word Jing in Middle Chinese possibly could have been pronounced very similarly to the Vietnamese word ‘Giang’ which is ‘yaang’

@historicalchinese7944

4 жыл бұрын

Interesting idea, and thanks for sharing the Vietnamese pronunciation! (By the way, is "giang" pronunced like "zaang" in some Vietnamese dialects?) There's a bit of detective work that goes into figuring out the historical pronunciation, which I didn't have a chance to talk about. Linguists know what sorts of sound changes are common among the world's languages -- for example, palatalization and lenition. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization_(sound_change) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenition If the Middle Chinese sound was "g" (as in "get"), it explains all the modern pronunciations very nicely: Mandarin "j" is the result of palatalization; Vietnamese "y" is the result of palatalization followed by lenition.

@hybui123

4 жыл бұрын

historicalchinese It can be pronounced Zaang but for the most part, g’s tend to be pronounced as a ‘Y’when paired with the letter ‘i’ So like Family in Vietnamese is ‘gia dinh’ and it would be pronounced ‘yaa din’

@HaoNguyen-hn5wk

3 жыл бұрын

Acctually, the g sound in Middle Chinese became dʒ in Middle Vietnamese. When westerners came to Vietnam at around 16-17 century, they came to realized that the sound resembled that of Italian “gi”, so they took gi to represent the sound. However,ˈdʒ gradually changed to /z/ in the Northern dialect and /j/ in the southern dialect as what we have today.

@Arjibi

3 жыл бұрын

Native word for river "sông" is from Proto-Vietic *k-roːŋ (“river”), from Proto-Mon-Khmer *ruŋ ~ ruuŋ ~ ruəŋ (“river”); cognate with Muong không (“river”), Bahnar krong (“river”), Pacoh cruang (“country; area, river valley”), Mon ကြုၚ် (krɜŋ, “small river, creek”). Related to Chinese 江 (OC *kˤroŋ) (B-S) ( SV: _giang_ , pronounced as _yang_ , similar to Mandarin _jiang_ ) and Acehnese kruëng.

@Arjibi

3 жыл бұрын

So sông & giang is doublet

Great video! 0:08 Tang dynasty did not include the Korean peninsula.Kingdom of Shila maintained sovereignyy and independence aftet they defeated Tang during 670 to 679 AD

@jefferygoldmann2643

4 жыл бұрын

They didn't have Tibet either

@maxwellli7057

4 жыл бұрын

They included tributaries to the map, kinda like how people include Crimea and Dachia as parts of Rome

@courtly5982

2 жыл бұрын

It’s like Germania and the Roman Empire, technically like a vassal

@boxiwang9772

2 жыл бұрын

@@jefferygoldmann2643you can tell they are marked in different colour

@elysiaamaseias4753

Жыл бұрын

it's just a misunderstanding.chinese made imperial china historic maps usually come along with surrounding regimes to show geopolitics at that time.in this map,tang territory is covered with orange while the grey part actually not included.

Woah.

grammar?

Dialect? really?

hokkien - han dyansty, hakka - tang dynasty, cantonese - song dynasty.

Min descends from Old Chinee not Middle Chinese

Cantonese isn't a dialect, it has been defined as a distinct language

@cestakou4566

6 жыл бұрын

No, that's not how Chinese works. Even Western sinologists keep using the term "dialect" because that's the closest they can get to the Chinese word "fangyan". Just don't talk about Cantonese for a second. Take any two villages in China who can't understand each other. They'd never say they speak two different languages.

@HuevoBendito

6 жыл бұрын

Reminds me of this quote that goes "a language is a dialect with an army." For the sake of cultural cohesion, Cantonese is considered to be a dialect in China. On the opposite end, many of the North Germanic "languages" are considered separate even though they have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.

@historicalchinese7944

6 жыл бұрын

In general I think it's best to follow native speakers. Chinese speakers call them "dialects," so I'll respect that. It's a question with political overtones (because the idea of a nation-state relates language, ethnicity and nationhood), and that's *not* the subject of this channel. Of course we have to remember that the differences between these dialects -- especially in pronunciation -- are huge.

@rocks7126

6 жыл бұрын

They are dialects, there more tangible in there writing form and different in there spoken form. They all use the same Chinese text. No need to mention about the traditional and simplified text. Because only a few where made simplified not the who of the language. Plus the language has evolved from it's most ancient text to today's text. So there no need to go into that. But in all essences it's all Chinese with it's regional differences. They may not always understand each other when speaking but they can understand each other much more easier when they write to each other.😅😅😊😊😊 I'm learning Mandarin, I've listened to some Cantonese and some things I understand a little bit of Cantonese even though I don't study it. I've watched some Cantonese movies and some things I understand. I know some people who speak Fujiness, I hope I spelled it right, I ask them how do you say how are you, they told me. I asked them to write it for me and they said it's the same writing system, so I would in turn pronounce it in the Manderin accent. I thought that was interesting. Yes I understand that also in the writing they use some different characters at times but that's just like English. We do the same for example, " traffic circle", and "around about" two different words but expressing the same thing.

@AshLee-tm7fl

6 жыл бұрын

As a Chinese I would also consider the Southern Chinese languages, Cantonese, Hakka, Wu, Min, etc, as distinct languages instead of dialects. They have very different grammar, especially certain Wu and Min branches, from Mandarin Chinese. The reason people see these languages as dialects is maybe that they are spoken in the same country and using same Chinese characters. However, it wouldn't be fair for Spanish, Portuguese and Italian to be separate languages, while these Chinese languages are not. Also, in case anyone doesn't know, there are various dialect branches under these languages too. Southwestern Mandarin (spoken in Sichuan) sounds very different from the Beijing Mandarin dialect. Southern Chinese languages are the same or more complicated. I speak fluently Wu from Suzhou and Shanghai, but I have no clue if one from Wenzhou speaks Wu to me because the pronunciation and grammar are different.

I suggest that you should use traditional Chinese

@cestakou4566

6 жыл бұрын

This is a ridiculous statement. A educational book on Old English is not going to be entirely written in Old English either. Moreover, if he has studied Chinese in China, why should he use traditional characters to teach Middle Chinese theories? It doesn't make anything more formal or authentic. The standard is simplified Chinese anyway.

@CannibaLouiST

6 жыл бұрын

cestakou Traditional Chinese is Modern Chinese

@funkyfacy

6 жыл бұрын

Pretty sure you don't know what "traditional Chinese" even means...from which era, which state and which school of calligraphy would you define as "traditional Chinese"? If only you read a bit more, you wouldn't had something so ignorant.

@CannibaLouiST

6 жыл бұрын

funkyfacy It's a very common term to refer to writings not bound by Communist, Singaporean or Malaysian rules.

@funkyfacy

6 жыл бұрын

CannibaLouiST communist?! So called "simplified Chinese" are based on 行书and 草书, calligraphies from middle China. Since qin dynasty, simplification of 大篆 has started, and large volumes of simplified written calligraphy emerged. Poet 苏轼 alone has used a couple of hundreds simplified characters in his works. The simplification process (depending the school of calligraphy) continued in Ming and Qing dynasty. You can check 王羲之-兰亭集序 1/3 of the characters were "simplified". Things are typically not as black&white as you are indoctrinated with. It's better to read more, cos' Chinese history and culture is immense. 正所谓：知其一不知其二

I thought cantonese had six tones

@historicalchinese7944

3 жыл бұрын

It's a question of how it's analyzed. In Chinese tradition, the 入声 (words ending in -p -t -k) is considered a separate tone. Words ending in -p -t -k can have three different tones*, so there are three kinds of 入声 in addition to the other six tones. Another reasonable analysis says that there are only six tones: since each 入声 tone has essentially the same pitch as another tone, they should be considered the same tone. si1 --- sat7 (same tone?) si2 --- **** si3 --- baat8 (same tone?) si4 si5 si6 --- sat9 (same tone?) * I'm told it's occasionally possible for a 入声 word to be pronounced in tone 2. This is because there's a "nominalizing rule". Cantonese changes some nouns from the original tone to tone 2, sort of like how Mandarin attaches 子 to a noun, to signal that it's a noun. So for example a "plate" in Cantonese might be called dip2 instead of dip6. Of course, in the traditional Chinese analysis, the word is still dip9.

@gabrielcarvalhosaraiva4138

3 жыл бұрын

Eita nois! (Brazilian slang for oh man!)😅😅🇧🇷. Thank you!

Middle Chinese, sounds like Vietnamese/Cantonese.

Wuhan xd

This video is very incorrect. One reason is the person presenting it Chinese? Language as spoken today and different regions who spoke the same language also spoke it differently. Just as English in the past in it's various sounds is quite different from the Scottish, British, etc. We would not be able to definitely say this is how it sounded, but We can say it might have sounded like this or that.

@MTd2

5 жыл бұрын

Middle Chinese was a language that yielded all other sinitic languages. It's like Latin in relation to Romance languages.

@xmvziron

5 жыл бұрын

I'm guessing you didn't pay attention to this video.

@kori228

4 жыл бұрын

@@MTd2 All but the Min branch, but yeah