4 - Middle Chinese: The Tang and Song Dynasties

Summary

Starting in the Tang dynasty, as an effort by the government, decisions were made to merge rhyming categories. The final result can be found in the Guǎngyùn, in which each rhyme is labeled either as dúyòng 獨用 ‘independent’ or some tóngyòng 同用 ‘shared’. The simplification of the rhyming categories of the Qièyùn represents the realization of the impractical details of said rhyming categories. Middle Chinese phonology, as a period of the Chinese language, also has its variants in time and space. It has been proposed that Middle Chinese should be further divided into two periods: Early Middle Chinese and Late Middle Chinese. The former is represented by the Qièyùn 切韻 and the latter by early rhyme tables such as the Yùnjìng 韻鏡. The Shēngyīn Chànghè Tú by Shào Yōng 邵雍 (1011–1077) displays a number of phonological characteristics which seem to be “Mandarin”, although it is still not clear whether the Shēngyīn Chànghè Tú is a description of Shào Yōng’s home dialect, the Luoyang dialect, or a system including the characteristics of both.