Talk:Sino-Xenic pronunciations

Miyake

Header added. —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 02:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, the term "sinoxenic" was coined by the linguist Marc Miyake in his treatment of Kitan words in Chinese transcription (this was later mentioned by Alexander Vovin in his Acta Orientalia article on Kitan words in the Chinese chronicle Qidan Guozhi). Unless I am mistaken on this, Dr. Miyake should be given credit for this coinage. --149.159.2.216 03:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note!

Miyake credits the term to Martin (1953), which I have accordingly included and referenced.

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 02:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

North Korea

Header added. —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 02:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Should make clear that North Korea (like Vietnam) has completely dispensed with Chinese characters in non-historic contexts, while they're somewhat vestigial in South Korea. AnonMoos (talk) 23:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Scope?

Header added. —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 02:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

What on earth is meant by 'Sinoxenic' languages. Languages that have lots of Chinese loans in them, in which case why is Tai not listed? How many loans does a language need to be called sinoxenic? Doe is perhaps just mean 'language with a funny/difficult script' in which case it is hardly a valuable intellectual category. I suggest that this article and the related category be removed entirely. Tibetologist (talk) 10:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

The scope of this article is somewhat unclear, even assuming the definition given is correct, the content is still very inaccurate. several instances spring to mind, Zhuang still use such a script (I have just corrected this), and many other ethnic groups who use such scripts are not mentioned. Also various scripts such as Tangut only have a superficial similarity to Chinese.

Johnkn63 (talk) 13:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

The article was incorrect – it used “Sinoxenic languages” to mean “Chinese-script-using languages” (to answer your question, Tibetologist).

However, this is not what “Sinoxenic” means – it means “Foreign readings of Chinese characters”.

The term “Sinoxenic language” or “Sinoxenic languages” is occasionally used in the loose sense of “Chinese-script-using languages”, but this is very rare.

I had previously come upon the article, found it a useful term, and hence expanded the article, but as you point out, this is not a standard term. I’ve thus fixed the article so that it is correct and accords with linguistics usage – hope y’all find it better now!

(The associated category should be deleted – I’ve marked it “speedy delete – self”.)

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 02:39, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I've got to agree with Tibetologist and John that this article is still very vague as to what Sino-Xenic actually covers. Does it cover languages (such as Tibetan for example) that have occasional borrowings from Chinese but do not have any script-relationship with Chinese, or is it restricted to languages that borrow characters as well as spoken words. Big Khitan would fall into that category, but would Tangut, as its characters are not directly borrowed from Chinese, but just share a structural similarity? And what about Yi (I noticed that Nbarth added it to the thankfully now defunct Sinoxenic category) ? -- Traditional Yi script variants do mostly have characters for the digits 1-10 that are obviously derived from the corresponding Chinese characters, but they are not linguistic borrowings from Chinese, and modern standardised Yi does not have any obvious borrowings from Chinese characters at all. If Yi is Sino-Xenic, then English should also be Sino-Xenic I suppose, because we have words such as "tea" and "silk".BabelStone (talk) 21:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi BabelStone – thanks for the cleanup!

Good point on clarification – Miyake, p. 99 specifies that it is only the large-scale borrowings of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese that are considered; I’ve added language to that effect.

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 00:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Incomplete examples

The following example entries are incomplete. I can't actually decide over which of these are good examples that are valid for inclusion, after all it isn't good to have too many examples. In case someone wants to complete the table, include what they believe to be good examples (i.e. specifically meaningful to include) and leave out the poor examples, the WIP table is here:

Sinoxenic table (incomplete WIP draft)
English	漢	和	韓	越	琉	壯
Birthday	生日 shēngrì	誕生日 tanjōbi	生日(생일) saeng-il	sinh nhật (生日)	–	–
Infrared beam	紅外線 hóngwàixiàn	赤外線 sekigaisen	赤外線(적외선) jeog-oeseon	(native used)	–	–
Weather forecast	天氣預報 tiānqì yùbào	天気予報 tenki yohō	日氣豫報(일기예보) ilgi yebo	dự báo thời tiết (預報時節)	–	–
Aeroplane	飛機 fēijī	飛行機 hikōki	飛行機(비행기) bihaenggi	phi cơ (飛機)	–	–
Blessing	祝福 zhùfú	祝福 shukufuku	祝福(축복) chukbok	chúc phúc (祝福)	–	–
Earthquake	地震 dìzhèn	地震 jishin	地震(지진) jijin	địa chấn (地震)	–	–
Library	圖書館 túshūguǎn	図書館 toshokan	圖書館(도서관) doseogwan	thư viện (書院)	–	–
Bicycle	自行車 zìxíngchē 腳踏車 jiǎotàchē	自転車 jitensha	自轉車(자전거) jajeongeo	xe đạp (車踏)	–	–
Nurse	護士 hùshì 護理師 hùlǐshī	看護師 kangoshi	看護師(간호사) ganhosa	y tá (醫佐)	–	–
Ambulance	救護車 jiùhùchē 急救車 jíjiùchē	救急車 kyūkyūsha	救急車(구급차) gugeubcha 應急車(응급차) eunggeubcha	xe cứu thương (車救傷) xe cấp cứu (車急救)	–	–
Grape	葡萄 pútáo	葡萄 budō	葡萄(포도) podo	(native used)	–	–

I think the article currently has enough examples already, although adding one or two more wouldn't be pushing it that far. Any more than that, however, is a bit much. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 14:34, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Ryukyuan forest

Is the Ryukyuan word for forest really the same as mountain in Japanese (山 yama)? Dean Turbo (talk) 12:26, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but in this case, the characters are phonetic and not semantic (i.e. meaning). Just like how language is 口 mouth and nation is 島 island in Standard Japanese. In Japanese, 口 kuchi would refer to things relating to the mouth, but in Okinawan, 沖縄口 Uchinaaguchi means "Okinawan language"; 山 yama is also found in various Okinawan location names that relate to forests or woodland. The user who applied a few of these entries is User:ChavacanBen, who is quite familiar with Okinawan linguistics. I'd presume he has access to dictionaries and all kinds of relevant literature. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 12:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

OK. Thanks, benlisquare. -- Dean Turbo (talk) 11:20, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, Marc Miyake discusses the etymology of Okinawan mui 'mountain' (cognate with Japanese mori 森 'forest') here, and notes that Okinawan yama means 'forest' here. BabelStone (talk)

The ambiguity between mountain and forest can easily be explained by geography.

yama probably meant "wilderness", as the opposite of sato, the village and surrounding fields. Now, in Japan, 80% of the land is mountainous. If you leave the village, you're both in the mountains and in the forest. You'll hardly find an area that is either-or. Due to the climate, most mountains are covered in forest to high altitudes. And the few plains are either swamps or cleared for agriculture. Now, Okinawa does not have as high mountains as the mainland, so the word means "forest" only.

mori probably went the other way. As your source says, the origin is probably 盛る moru "to pile up". From there came the meaning "hill". In Okinawa, this became "hill" -> "mountain", and on the mainland "hill" -> "forest", for the same reasons as above.

When would this shift have happened? If your source is correct, and mori / mu'i can be traced back to Paekche, then it probably came to Japan with the Yayoi people, 300 BC - 300 CE. Who knows whether yama came with the same group, or whether it's a Jomon word? We'll probably never know until the invention of a working time machine. --Mkill (talk) 18:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Why modern examples?

Why doesn't the example list use vocabulary from classical Chinese texts that actually show the historic cultural transition from China over Korea to Japan?

Most of the examples given in the article are modern words, many of them Western concepts and inventions. They came to China, Korea and Japan through translated works and other sources, from the outside. Ethnicity, populace, republic, freedom and equality are concepts from Western philosophy and political thought. Telephone, newspaper and film are technical inventions. Many of these words only entered the vocabulary after East Asian countries ended their isolation to the outside world in the 19th century. To further complicate matters, some modern Chinese words like 经济 (economy) were coined in Meiji Japan by Japanese authors or translators, then imported to China.

Now, the process how modern 19th and 20th century words were coined and then spread among the East Asian sprachbund is very interesting, but it gives a bit of a distorted picture of Chinese loanwords. It's like trying to show Latin loanwords in modern European languages by using examples like "computer" or "prime minister". --Mkill (talk) 18:46, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

What would be a selection of words that you'd prefer? By all means, be bold and improve the article if there are problems with it. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:09, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Issues with the native examples

In addition, some problems with the "native examples":

• Nation = 國家 guójiā = 国 kuni. 国家 kokka exists in Japanese, and is more close to "nation" than 国 kuni "country". It would be the better entry in this case.
• One = 一 yī = ひと(つ) hito(tsu). Should be either 一 yī = 一 ichi for "one" when counting, or 一个 = ひと(つ) hito(tsu) for "one" as in "one (generic counter word)"
• to write (past tense) = 寫 xiě. Just 写 xiě does not imply past tense. The closest Chinese equivalent would be 写了. Makes little sense as example because of the very different grammar between Chinese and the others.
• mother (informal speech) - お母さん okāsan. That stretches the definition of informal speech. Yes, children do use お母さん to address their parents, but in rather "formal" situations.
• personal pronoun (generic) - 私 watashi. Japanese does not have a "generic" personal pronoun. 私 watashi is more generic than others, but it's not universal and it has clear connotations.
• Soup = 湯 tāng = 汁 shiru. Misleading, because chin. 汁 zhī = "juice" and jap. 汁 shiru = "1. juice 2. soup" while jap. 湯 yu = "1. hot water 2. hot bath". "hot water" is the historic meaning of the character 湯. As in a number of other cases, Japanese kanji preserved a historic meaning while Mandarin Chinese shifted. In other words, 湯 did mean hot water when the character came to Japan. The meaning of "soup" later superseded "hot water" in China.

The general problem with the examples is that easy English words like "one", "I" or "mother" don't necessarily have easy translations in other languages. Pretty much all of the examples could be used to illustrate interesting differences, historic meaning shifts and corner cases, but they don't make good general examples. --Mkill (talk) 18:46, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Regarding nation and one, yes there are both sinoxenic and native ways of saying those words in Japanese and Korean, however the table shows the native word. For instance, "carrot" in Korean can be 당근 danggeun (Sinoxenic, 唐根) or 홍무 hongmu (native). Since the table demonstrates native lexicon, it would include hongmu as the word for carrot, and not danggeun. Same goes for ichi and hitotsu. The table is essentially a listing of the kun'yomi readings (and Korean/Vietnamese equivalents of what would be "kun'yomi") as opposed to on'yomi for "nation" and "one". In Korean, one can be used as 一 il (e.g. when reading a phone number), or hana (when counting something); Korean numerals, Japanese numerals and Vietnamese numerals list both native and Sinoxenic numbering systems for the respective languages.
As for mother and the pronoun, this is problematic, I agree. Feel free to fix this up if you can. Perhaps a better way of saying mother would be "everyday speech", i.e. as opposed to extremely formal language such as Chinese 母亲 muqin. What "generic" meant to represent for the pronouns was "one example of any sort of commonly used pronoun", but it might have been a poor way of describing it.
For "to write", it's kind of difficult to explain the difference in grammar between Chinese and the rest, do you have an idea in particular regarding how to fix this issue?
And regarding soup, in modern Chinese lexicon, 湯 is (pretty much) only used as soup and 汁 is only used as juice, whereas it is a different case for Japanese. Mind you, 湯/탕 tang is also used in Sino-Korean, for example, Seolleongtang, Yukgaejang, Samgyetang, Gamjatang, Maeuntang. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 01:56, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Sino-Xenic examples (table data)

The Vietnamese column of the table shouldn't be restricted to the Saigon dialect, as it contains vocab that is not primarily used in South Vietnam, e.g. mẹ. The Saigon variant would be má. And some of the examples are just not Sino-xenic, e.g. 学／學 is pronounced xué in Mandarin, but hok6 in Cantonese and similarly in other Southern dialects. Thus the Vietnamese học sinh is perfectly Sinic, this might be true for the other (Korean, Japanese) language examples, too. I just find the table to be very confusing. Nước mắm ngon quá! (talk) 19:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

1. It is implied that học sinh is perfectly Sinic, and that it is cognate with 学生/xuesheng/gakusei/etc. It essentially agrees with what you just said.
2. Are you very familiar with the North/South dialects of Vietnamese? If so, feel free to contribute; Wikipedia is a collaborative project between multiple contributors, and one person might be an expert in a field that others aren't, and their assistance would be gladly recieved. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 00:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

As noted by several people above, the examples aren't Sino-Xenic – neither the native readings nor the modern vocabulary. We need Chinese vocabulary borrowed into those languages in the medieval period, such as the numerals:

	C	S-J	S-K	S-V
一	yī	ichi	il	nhất
二	èr	ni	i	nhì
三	sān	san	sam	tam
四	sì	shi	sa	tứ
五	wǔ	go	o	ngũ
六	liù	roku	lyuk	lục
七	qī	shichi	chil	thất
八	bā	hachi	phal	bát
九	jiǔ	kyū	kwu	cửu
十	shí	jū	sip	thập

Kanguole 00:21, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Sinoxenic Ryukyuan

I confess I don't know anything about Ryukyuan, but how are kaagaaudui and kaagaashibai "Sino-Xenic" beyond being written with Chinese characters? The readings don't look Sinitic at all. I am also curious about 唐ん人 tooNchu (on the "native" list) and 御万人 ʻumaNchu (on the "Sino-Xenic" list). 人 chu appears in both, so is this a native word/morpheme or a Sinitic one? Man for 万 looks Sinitic, but then so does too for 唐. And is ʻu for 御 a Sinitic reading? -219.146.77.102 (talk) 08:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not just these. Sino-Xenic refers to the large-scale, systematic importation of Middle Chinese words into Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. None of the examples in the article are that; they're either native readings of Chinese characters or modern loans. Kanguole 11:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Non-examples of Sino-Xenic

The following is moved from the article, as these are not Sino-Xenic vocabulary as defined by our sources. Kanguole 00:16, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Examples of native words
English	Chinese (Standard Mandarin)	Japanese (Tokyo dialect)	Korean (Seoul dialect)	Vietnamese (Saigon dialect)	Ryukyuan (Okinawan dialect)	Zhuang (Wuming dialect)
Chinese people	中国人/中國人 zhōngguórén	(Sino-Japanese 中国人 used)	中國 사람 Jungguk saram	người Trung Quốc (𠊚中國)	唐ん人 tooNchu	Boux Cunghgoz (佈中国)
Nation	国家/國家 guójiā	国 kuni	나라 nara	đất nước (𡐙渃)	島 shima	(Sinoxenic "Guekgya" used)
Mountain	山 shān	山 yama	메 me	núi (𡶀)	盛 mu'i	bya (岜)
One	一 yī	一(つ) hito(tsu)	하나 hana	một (𠬠)	てぃいち tīchi	ndeu (刁)
Forest	森林 sēnlín	森 mori	숲 sup	rừng (𡼹)	山 yama	ndoeng (崬)
Language	语言/語言 yǔyán	言葉 kotoba	말 mal	tiếng (㗂)	口 guchi	Vah
to write	写/寫 xiě	書く kaku 写す utsusu	쓰다 sseuda	(Sino-Vietnamese "viết (曰)" used)	書ちゃん kachan	(Sinoxenic "sij" (写) used)
Soup	汤/湯 tāng	汁 shiru	국 guk	canh (羹)	湯 yuu	–
to eat	吃 chī, 食 shí	食べる taberu 食う Kū	먹다 meokda	ăn (𩛖)	噛むん kamun	gwn ()
mother	妈妈/媽媽 māmā 母親 mǔqīn	母 haha お母さん okāsan	어머니 eomeoni 엄마 eomma	mẹ (媄)	あんまー 'anmaa	–
personal pronoun	我 wǒ	私 watashi 僕 boku 俺 ore	나 na 저 jeo	tôi (𪝬)	我ん wan	gou (我)

Modern sinoxenic compounds formed from Chinese roots
English	Chinese (Standard Mandarin)	Sino-Japanese (Tokyo dialect)	Sino-Korean (Seoul dialect)	Sino-Vietnamese (Saigon dialect)	Ryukyuan (Okinawan dialect)	Zhuang (Wuming dialect)
Ethnicity	民族 mínzú	民族 minzoku	민족(民族) minjok	dân tộc (民族)	民族 minzuku	Minzcuz (民族)
Populace	人民 rénmín	人民 jinmin	인민(人民) inmin	nhân dân (人民)	御万人 'umaNchu	Yinzminz (人民)
Republic	共和国/共和國 gònghéguó	共和国 kyōwakoku	공화국(共和國) gonghwaguk	Cộng hòa (共和)	共和国 kyoowakuku	Gunghozgoz (共和国)
Chinese character	汉字/漢字 hànzì	漢字 kanji	한자(漢字) hanja	hán tự (漢字)	漢字 kwanji	(native "Sawgun" (倱) used)
Telephone	电话/電話 diànhuà	電話 denwa	전화(電話) jeonhwa	điện thoại (電話)	電話 denwa	–
Great Wall of China	万里长城/萬里長城 Wànlǐ Chángchéng	万里の長城 Banri no Chōjō	만리 장성(萬里 長城) malli jangseong	Vạn Lý Trường Thành (萬里長城)	万里ぬ長城 manri nu Choojoo	–
Student	学生/學生 xuéshēng	学生 gakusei	학생(學生) haksaeng	học sinh (學生)	学生 gakusoo	hagseng (學生)
Freedom	自由 zìyóu	自由 jiyū	자유(自由) jayu	tự do (自由)	–	cwyouz (自由)
Equality	平等 píngděng	平等 byōdō	평등(平等) pyeongdeung	bình đẳng (平等)	–	bingzdaengj (平等)
News(paper)	新闻/新聞 xīnwén	新聞 shimbun	신문(新聞) simmun	tin tức (信息)	(native 紙はぶ "kamihabu" used)	–
Film	电影/電影 diànyǐng	映画 eiga	영화(映畵) yeonghwa	điện ảnh (電影)	影踊 kaagaaudui, 影芝居 kaagaashibai	–

none of which are genetically related to Chinese

I understand what this editor is trying to say, but human genetics, which is a scientific concept requiring careful genomic studies, and with great social/racial/political implications, should not be used in this careless manner. This ought to be rephrased, into "ethnically different" or something like that. I personally think "linguistically distinct" suffices. Timmyshin (talk) 01:49, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The text is referring to Genetic relationship (linguistics), not human genetics. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Japanese phonemic distinctions lost

There is an obvious error here in the failure to distinguish between Japanese [s] and [ɕ] in loanwords. In native vocabulary one might say that the latter is an allophone of the former but this is most certainly not the case in loanwords. A glaring example of this is giving the initial for 書 /ɕo/ as /s/. Siúnrá (talk) 13:45, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't even know what [ɕ] is supposed to mean in this context. What's the Hepburn? AnonMoos (talk) 15:20, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Hokkien and Wu?

I'm curious as to why there is a column for Cantonese but not Hokkien in the table. Those who know the language would realise the similarity to Japanese in its pronunciations of many words (the numbers one to five for instance), as well as other words [1]. Perhaps add a column to that, or for that matter Wu Chinese. There does not seem to be any obvious reason why it is Cantonese that is used here, when languages like Japanese have links to the Wu region. Hzh (talk) 23:39, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Any number of Chinese varieties could be included, so we need to be selective in order to keep the table manageable, especially as the primary focus should be on the Sino-Xenic forms. (The tables in the Varieties of Chinese article, on the other hand, have many more columns.) Clearly Standard Chinese should be there. Cantonese has a couple of advantages for the present purpose: it faithfully preserves all the final consonants of Middle Chinese, and it is likely to be the next most familiar variety to the English-speaking audience of enwiki. Hokkien in particular features some innovations that would make the comparison with Sino-Xenic forms more confusing: the split between final stops and final glottal stop, the split between final nasal consonants and nasalization of the vowel, and the denasalization of some nasal initials to yield voiced initials. Several of the similarities with Japanese noted in the Epoch Times article are due to much later borrowing from Japanese, which is quite separate from the topic of this article. Kanguole 00:55, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps its inclusion could be explained better in the article, although it seems like it could be covered by Vietnamese, whose similarity to Cantonese is obvious given their proximity geographically. Hzh (talk) 10:37, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Just adding that here [2] it says that Japanese pronunciation has similarity to Hokkien because Hokkien preserves a lot of Han to Sung pronunciations, particularly Tang. Seems like it makes more sense to add a column on Hokkien rather than Cantonese, you can't really see much of the relationship of Cantonese to Japanese compared to Hokkien. Hzh (talk) 23:32, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Missing initial consonants

The table with Sound correspondences is missing three initials of Middle Chinese (娘 ɳ; 俟 ʐ; 以 j) as well as their correspondences in the other languages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.227.189.180 (talk • contribs) 12:28, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Correspondence tables

I have reverted most of the changes to the correspondence tables.

The tables are said to be made more legible, but they have become so dense that it is impossible to see the relationships. Inclusion of predictable allophonic variations in Japanese makes it even more obscure. At the same time, crucial information has been removed: the categories and traditional names of the Middle Chinese initials, early SX forms which help clarify the development, the rules for nasal initials in Kan-on. Some of the entries don't seem to match the sources any more.

It seems the purpose is to make a sortable table, which is not very useful in a situation like this. In particular, placing Middle Chinese initials and codas in alphabetical order makes no sense.

I've also reverted Tousou-on to Tōsō-on, which is more common. Kanguole 10:58, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I'll concede the act of making the tables sortable and including all the allophones was a foolish idea, but i stand by some of my other changes; like putting Middle Chinese first in column order- followed by alphabetic order of language, de-italicizing examples, and using IPA instead of modern orthography. At least to a point given civility rules and such, so i won't dig in me heels no worries. I also admit removing nasals was a mistake. As for matching sources, i tried to follow the table as much as humanly possible, tho i did this with little sleep; so uhh, pardon any minor typo. Also, why are you using "X of Y" constructions instead "Y X" ones à la "Tables of Correspondence" vs. "Correspondence tables"?

Tōsō and other uses of ō for o-u (kana) is more common sure, but it also obscures differences in origin between different long os in Japanese and is inconsistent with how e-i becomes ei in latinization. Should o-u sequences need disambiguation, i'd use the apostrophe like "Ino'ue". Likewise with ū becoming uu. I also am unsure why the traditional names of initials are used, given the sound is marked alike regardless; but again, not a hill i'll die on.

Two things that also baffled me were: no ʐ correspondance (tho it was uncommon), as well the distribution of which SX plosives/affricates took aspiration in modern Korean. I'm not arguing i know better, but just confused on how multiple correspondances went unremarked. Any further issue lemme know. Starbeam2 (talk) 12:50, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

The reason for putting Middle Chinese in the middle of the examples table was to facilitate comparison with the Sino-Xenic examples, but that's not a big deal. They should not be bolded as row headings, though.

The rationale for the VKJ ordering is that (a) it's approximate chronological order, and (b) it's in order of increasing structural difference from Middle Chinese.

Italics are appropriate for romanizations of foreign languages. Indeed these should be using {{transl}}. The romanization of Vietnamese reflects an older form of the language, and avoids dialectal issues raised by using IPA.

As for headings, "X of YZ" seems simpler than "YZX".

The article doesn't examine the word Tōsō as a linguistic example, but just uses it as a name, so we should use the common form. However, for the SJ example words, it could be argued that consistently using a more phonemic spelling like Kunrei-shiki would be more appropriate than Hepburn.

Middle Chinese is essentially a formal system. The phonetic values are often guesses varying between authors, but the traditional names are the consistent identifiers.

ʐ occurs in only two words (俟 and 漦) in the Qieyun, and is merged with ɖʐ in the Guangyun. I couldn't find a source that discussed its SX reflexes.

I've added a note on Sino-Korean aspiration. Kanguole 15:09, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

*p -> t

There is a variation between *p in Middle Chinese and *t in modern Vietnamese. Compare:
比 /piɪ/
+Chinese: bǐ
+Japanese: hi
+Korean: bi
+Vietnamese: tỉ
必 /piɪt̚/
+Chinese: bì
+Japanese: hichi/hitsu
+Korean: pil
+Vietnamese: tất
2405:4800:6A16:DCE2:84D1:7DBF:9C16:C525 (talk) 05:50, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I've added notes about this. Kanguole 13:15, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

missing initials: viet /v/ and mandarin /w/ + /ɥ/

Hi!

Under initials, does anyone know what middle chinese initial(s) reflex into the Vietnamese initial ⟨v⟩? Or more accurately, what middle chinese initial(s) reflex into Middle Viet [β] and [w] respectively, both of which later merge to /v/ in modern Vietnamese?

Some sino-vietnamese words with the ⟨v⟩ initial are vương, việt, vạn, văn; all of which come from a MC word with the initial [m] or [ɦ] according to wiktionary.

[ɦ] however, isn’t on the list of MC initial consonants neither on this page nor is it on Historical Chinese phonology or Middle Chinese. Is it considered being in free variation, or as an alternate transcription of [ɣ]? Bc Karlgren, Rong, Li, and Rongfen transcribe this way. Should the viet “v-“ initial and the mandarin “w-“ initial be added under /ɣ/ then?

Also all of these are reflexed into the “w-“ or “y-“ ([ɥ]) initial in mandarin. Should those also be added to the entry? They might be considered allophones of /w/ and /i/ respectively in this case, except ⟨w⟩ shows up under /m/, and ⟨y⟩ is entirely missing.

This is independent research based on my wiktionary observations however, which I know isn’t allowed on wikipedia, so I know that I shouldn’t edit the page solely with these observations. So does anyone know of a source that clarifies all of this information?

Thanks!

P.S. list of Sino-Vietnamese words starting with v: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Sino-Vietnamese_words&pageuntil=VO%EF%80%80+CHINH%25+PHU%23+CHU%23+NGHIA%24%0Av%C3%B4+ch%C3%ADnh+ph%E1%BB%A7+ch%E1%BB%A7+ngh%C4%A9a#mw-pages

P.P.S. does anyone have a resource of MC reflexes into Cantonese? Thanks!!

P.P.P.S. Viet ⟨g⟩, ⟨gi⟩, and ⟨r⟩ are also missing from the list. Are these just not used in sino-viet vocabulary? Thanks! The Tran Dynasty (talk) 01:30, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Wang Li (1948, p28) gives sources of ⟨v⟩ and ⟨gi⟩. "h" is indeed an alternate transcription for [ɣ], e.g. in Baxter's transcription for Middle Chinese. Miyake (p122) discusses only native sources of [β] and ⟨g⟩. Neither of them mention ⟨r⟩.

Modern Chinese correspondences are getting away from the topic of this article. Maybe Historical Chinese phonology would be a better place for them. Kanguole 10:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

On zero-consonant

Hi!

Apologies if this is inappropriate to post, still new to Wikipedia, but I'd like to create a discussion on zero-consonant.

So my recent edit was recently undone, and I'd just like to argue in favor of it- while zero-onset isn't a consonant, it's useful to analyze it as such because it does reflex into sinoxenic languages as consonants. Vice versa is also true; the audible initial /ŋ/ reflexes into the Go-on reading of Japanese as zero-consonant. If one can observe that an initial reflexes into the lack of one, why can't one observe the opposite?

Even Mandarin's pinyin's analysis of Standard Chinese counts zero-onset as a phoneme, because it's useful for analysis (initial-final combos) as it is used here; and isn't actually saying that zero-consonant is an actual consonant. The Tran Dynasty (talk) 19:26, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

The edit was actually a zero coda. (Middle Chinese isn't usually analysed with a zero initial.) It doesn't seem to add anything to say that no coda in Middle Chinese yields no coda in all the other languages. Kanguole 19:35, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi and I appreciate your response!

Ah I didn't realize that it was zero coda that I added and not zero onset, sorry about that. Yea you're right, I agree that it doesn't add anything if they all equally correspond to zero coda.

By the way, can MC words even start with zero onset? Because all of the words I've found without an onset consonant in orthography actually start with a glottal stop or a glide [j] The Tran Dynasty (talk) 02:42, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

We have to remember that MC initials aren't phonemes, but ultimately equivalence classes of upper fanqie characters as used in the Qieyun, with hypothetical phonetic values extrapolated backward from modern reflexes and some hints in the rhyme tables. So automatically every syllable has an initial. A phonemic analysis (implicit in most reconstructions of Old Chinese) would yield a smaller number of phonemes. Depending on the analysis, there might be a zero onset in there, but I'm not aware of anyone who went that way. Kanguole 08:15, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

recent rewriting and removal

@DelusionalThomaz515610, could you please explain your recent removal of a lot of material from the article, specifically

• a lot of coverage of Sino-Vietnamese
• cited material regarding the lack of clarity of the origin of go-on readings

as well as the change of a lot of phonetic values, + the removal of Frellesvig entirely. Remsense留 21:28, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

This is a second revert to DT's version of December 2022. The aim appears to be to remove Sino-Vietnamese, with removal of intervening edits an incidental side-effect. However, the scope of Sino-Xenic has always been Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese, ever since it was introduced in Martin (1953) p. 4, and echoed by many authors since, e.g. Norman (1988) p. 34, Baxter (1992) p. 13 and Miyake (2004) p. 98. Kanguole 22:07, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Italics for Japanese vowels

I'm very unfamiliar with this topic, so it's not unlikely that this is the result of some convention, but: why are the first representation of the Old Japanese vowels in the Background section given in italics but not the second set? Quoted below

Similarly, the distinction between grades III and IV made by the Late Middle Chinese rime tables has disappeared in most modern varieties, but in Kan-on, grade IV is represented by the Old Japanese vowels i₁ and e₁ while grade III is represented by i₂ and e₂.

Should this be normalized so both sets are italicized or both or not? Or is this typesetting meaningful? Determinerteeth (talk) 18:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

The difference isn't meaningful, just a mistake. Kanguole 22:40, 6 February 2024 (UTC)