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A fascinating, valuable new proposal from Nathan Hill:

"An Indological transcription of Middle Chinese"

Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale, 52 (2023), 40-50.

Abstract

Because most Sino-Tibetan languages with a literary tradition use Indic derived scripts and those that do not are each sui generis, there are advantages to transcribing these languages also along Indic lines. In particular, this article proposes an Indological transcription for Middle Chinese.

Introduction

The great majority of Sino-Tibetan languages with a literary tradition employ scripts that ultimately derive from a Brahmi model. Examples include Pyu (c. 5th–13th cent. ce), Tibetan (from 650 CE), Burmese (from 1113 CE), Newar (from 1114 CE), Lepcha (17th cent. CE), and Limbu (18th cent. CE). In addition, living Sino-Tibetan languages of Nepal are typically written in Devanagari. The ubiquity of the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) within Indology and related disciplines makes obvious the choice of an Indological transcription for these various scripts. Those Sino-Tibetan languages that use non-Indic derived scripts include Chinese (from 1250 BCE), Tangut (1038–1502 CE), Yi (from 1485 CE), Naxi (19th cent. CE?), and possibly Meitei (16th. cent. CE?). The scripts of this latter group are not obviously related to each other; to adapt a transcription from one to another would not be easy. As a discipline we thus face the choice of either (a) using Indological principles to construct fundamentally mutually compatible transcription practices across all literary Sino-Tibetan languages or (b) embracing outright eclecticism.

Examples from Hill 2019 make clear the infelicity of mixing transliteration systems. In this book one finds both many-to-one mappings and one-to-many mappings between symbols and their phonetic interpretation.

Here the author provides a lot of historical detail that describes developments in the various languages across the centuries.

A couple of salient points that the author makes:

Table 2 gives two samples of the Indological system proposed here, paired with Baxter’s system for comparison. Most striking is how little difference there is. This fact itself is an advantage to the proposed Indological system. This system will benefit those who are unfamiliar with Baxter system without burdening those who are already used to his system.

The fast pace of research in Tangut phonology (Gong 2020, Gong 2022) recommends against hastily parting from the system of Gong Hwangcherng, but the categories of Middle Chinese and their overall phonetic interpretation is not in flux. In particular, Baxter (1992) proposed a transcription system that exactly encodes the categories of the rhyme books and rhyme tables in a straightforward way. The purpose of this essay is to bring Baxter’s transcription system into line with Indological principles, and to rectify those few places where his choices are misleading.

In opposition to Guillaume Jacques, Hill speaks of the disadvantages of IPA-based transcription practices

Prematurely prejudicing the solution to ongoing controversies points to a more deep-seated failing of the ipa when applied to transcription. “One of the most obvious rules of Romanization is that Romanized sequences of letters should contain no more and no less information than the original text” (Balk and Janhunen 1999, 21). The major merit of Baxter’s 1992 transcription is exactly that it is not a reconstruction of how Middle Chinese was pronounced.

The notation I introduce here is not intended as a reconstruction; rather it is a convenient transcription which adequately represents all the phonological distinctions of Middle Chinese while leaving controversial questions open.
(Baxter 1992, 27)

The next section of Hill's paper gives "Concrete proposals for an Indological transcription of Middle Chinese", dealing successively with initials, medials, vowels, codas, and tones.

[The following tables give] two samples of the Indological system proposed here, paired with Baxter’s system for comparison. Most striking is how little difference there is. This fact itself is an advantage to the proposed Indological system. This system will benefit those who are unfamiliar with Baxter system without burdening those who are already used to his system.

Table 2 Ode 179, stanza 1

Characters ｜ Baxter ｜ Indological ｜ Translation

我車既攻、 ngax tsyhae kj+jh kuwng ｜ ṅax chiae kiɨyh kuwṅ ｜ Our carriages are well-worked,
我馬既同。 ngax maex kj+jh duwng ｜ ṅax maex kiɨyh duwṅ ｜ our horses are (assorted:) well matched;
四牡龐龐、 sijh muwx luwng luwng ｜ siyh muwx luwṅ luwṅ ｜ the four stallions are fat,
駕言徂東。 kaeh ngjon dzu tuwng | kaeh ṅiən dzu tuwṅ ｜ we yoke them and march to the East.

Karlgren 1950, 123

 

Table 3 Climbing the Yueyang Tower with Xia Shi’er

Characters ｜ Baxter ｜ Indological ｜ Translation

樓觀岳陽盡 luw kwan ngaewk yang dzinx | luw kwan ṅaewk yaṅ dzinx | From the tower I look afar to where the Yueyang region ends,
川迥洞庭開 tsyhwen hwengx duwngh deng khoj | chiwen ḫweṅx duwṅh deṅ khəy | The river winds along to where Dongting Lake opens.
雁引愁心去 ngaenh yinx dzrjuw sim khjoh | ṅaenh yinx dẓiuw sim khiəh | The wild geese, taking along the heart’s sorrow, have gone,
山銜好月來 srean haem xawh ngjwot loj | ṣean ḫaem hawh ṅiwət ləy | The mountains, carrying the fine moon in their beak, come.
雲間連下榻 hjun kean ljen haeh thap | ḫiun kean lien ḫaeh thap | In the midst of clouds I reach the honored guest’s bed.
天上接行杯 then dzyangh tsjep haeng pwoj | then jiaṅh tsiep ḫaeṅ pwəy |In heaven above I receive the passing wine cup.
醉後涼風起 tswijh huwx ljang pjuwng khix | tswiyh ḫuwx liaṅ piuwṅ khix | After I have gotten drunk a cool wind rises,
吹人舞袖回 tsyhwe nyin mjux zjuwh hwoj | chiwe ñin miux ziuwh ḫwəy Blowing on me, sending my sleeves dancing and fluttering.

Cai 2008, 176–177

 

Selected readings

• Balk, Michael and Juha Janhunen (1999). “A new approach to the Romanization of Written Mongol”. In: Writing in the Altaic world. Ed. by Juha Janhunen and Volker Rybatzki. Vol. 87. Studia orientalia. Helsinki, pp. 17–27.
• Baxter, William H. (1992). A handbook of Old Chinese phonology. Berlin: de Gruyter.
• Cai, Zong-qi (2008). How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Hill, Nathan W. (2019). The historical Phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Jacques, Guillaume (2012). “A new transcription system for Old and Classical Tibetan”.  In: Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 35.2, pp. 89–96.
• Karlgren, Bernhard (1950). The book of odes. Chinese text, transcription and translation.  Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities.
• "Tangut beer" (10/13/18)
• "Tangut workshop at Yale" (2/2/18)
• "Polyglot Manchu emperor" (4/6/23)

October 28, 2023 @ 8:06 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Reconstructions, Transcription

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