Hyperhomophonous hanzi

January 2, 2026 @ 9:52 am · Filed by under Puns, Writing systems

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Many people who don't have the slightest clue about how Chinese characters work have been snookered by the (in)famous Chinese "poem" that has 92 or 94 characters all pronounced "shi" (though in different tones).  It's supposed to be a test of one's accuracy in mastering tones and is said to be intelligible when spoken aloud with the correct tones.  Some people think it proves how profound Chinese characters are.  In actuality, it proves absolutely nothing of value.  Nobody talks like this.

Here it is, with explication and annotation:   "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den".

Unless you have endless amounts of time to waste, I would advise you to do no more than glance at it.

Since many hanziphiles are already familiar with the story about the lion-eating poet in the stone den, let's take a look at another "poem" of this sort to see just how easy it is to produce such drivel.

And here's yet another, all in syllables pronounced "ji" in one of the four tones.

BTW, "poems" like this would work better if pronounced in Cantonese, Southern Min, or some other topolect with a richer phonetic inventory than Mandarin, or Japanese or Korean, or Middle Sinitic or Old Sinitic, which likewise have greater phonetic differentiation among syllables.

 

Selected readings

[Thanks to Hiroshi Kumamoto]

January 2, 2026 @ 9:52 am · Filed by under Puns, Writing systems


7 Comments »

  1. Philip Taylor said,

    January 2, 2026 @ 11:40 am

    Hmmm … The Wikipedia entry states that "only four syllables cover all the words of the poem" but when I look at their transcription of Hú Míngfù’s 1916 text, I find six distinct syllables : shí shì shī shǐ shè sì. Clearly I am missing something, but what ?

    For reference, I repeat Wikipedia's transcription of Hú Míngfù’s 1916 text with one example of each of the six syllables I find underlined —

    Shíshì shī shì shǐ shì, shì shǐ, shī shì, shì shí shí shī. Shī sì shì shī. Shǐ shì shè sì, shì shī shì, shǐ shī shì shí shī shī, shì shí shí, shǐ shí shìshì. Shǐ shǐ shì shì shì shì, shì shī shì. Shì shì shì shì.

  2. Philip Taylor said,

    January 2, 2026 @ 11:42 am

    D@mn — it would appear that <u> elements are not differentiated in this site’s rendering. Let me try again, this time using italicisation —

    Shíshì shī shì shǐ shì, shì shǐ, shī shì, shì shí shí shī. Shī sì shì shī. Shǐ shì shè sì, shì shī shì, shǐ shī shì shí shī shī, shì shí shí, shǐ shí shìshì. Shǐ shǐ shì shì shì shì, shì shī shì. Shì shì shì shì.

  3. Jonathan Smith said,

    January 2, 2026 @ 3:41 pm

    Since four tones = four distinct syllables, English etc. parallels should also get four. Here's with three, giving the sense of what the above is like in Mandarin —

    I buy Icee by icy sea.
    I see Cici by icy sea; Cici see Icee by I.
    Cici: "I eye Icee. Icee icy?" I: "Aye. See?"
    Cici: "I see. Bye. I buy Icee." I: "Bye-bye."

    Amazzbalz?

    Re: southern languages etc., yes but the point is homophonous word parts. Now the point of the point to the various writers/users of such works… I'm not so sure.

  4. Jonathan Smith said,

    January 2, 2026 @ 4:00 pm

    Wait for full AL-fira effect, you need a sophisticated-sounding translation in another language to make sure your dumb stuff appear sophisticated. Thus adjusted slightly from chatgpt —

    我在冰冷的海濱購買了一杯 Icee。
    在冰冷的海邊，我看見了西西；西西也看見我身旁的 Icee。

    西西問道：「我仔細端詳這杯 Icee。這杯 Icee 是否冰涼？」
    我答道：「是的。看到了嗎？」

    西西說：「我明白了。再見。我打算購買一杯 Icee。」
    我答道：「再見。」

  5. VMartin said,

    January 2, 2026 @ 5:00 pm

    I have dowloaded several papers from SinoPlatonic. Ramsey's essay on Japanese language history is excellent.

    Back to the article – I dont know how modern linguistics explains the poems as to the origin of the used words. Soviet academic Nikolai Marr whom I am now reading, whose concept of Jafetic laguages are nowadays dismissed as outdated and forgotten, wrote in the article ОБЩИЙ КУРС УЧЕНИЯ ОБ ЯЗЫКЕ 2/55 about "ui" in Chinese for instance this:

    Thus, when in the Chinese language we have a series of consonant (созвучных) words, seemingly having nothing in common with each other in the semantic respect, for example, 'fish' ui, 'rain' ui, then we now know that these words are not at all accidentally consonant, for from the paleontology of speech we know that 'fish' received its name from 'water', and 'rain' was also called by 'water', i.e., in Chinese, that primitive state of speech has been preserved in relation to the meanings of words, when the same word 'water' was still used to mean both 'rain' and 'fish'.1

  6. AntC said,

    January 3, 2026 @ 6:38 am

    @VMartin, so we'd expect all water-related words to be very close phonetically?

    Please try: river, lake, pond, puddle, sea.

    I also don't see how the 'paleontology of speech' manages to group the words Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den into the 'same' meaning-cluster.

  7. David Marjanović said,

    January 3, 2026 @ 8:06 am

    Hmmm … The Wikipedia entry states that "only four syllables cover all the words of the poem" but when I look at their transcription of Hú Míngfù’s 1916 text, I find six distinct syllables : shí shì shī shǐ shè sì. Clearly I am missing something, but what ?

    Or, as the story itself states: "Shì shì shì shì!" – "Try to explain this matter."

    The Wikipedia entry covers all that and states that this 1916 version relies on variant readings of two characters normally pronounced shè and sì while later versions (by different authors) really get by with unambiguous "shi" only.

    Nikolai Marr

    Oh dear.

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