The following is from Wikipedia. You will understand after reading it.
The method of demonstrating the pronunciation of a Chinese character with two other Chinese characters.
Fanqie ("Fanqie", Pinyin: f?n?è) is an ancient Chinese phonetic notation method in China, and it is also an analysis method of Chinese phonetic structure. The backcutting method uses two Chinese characters to annotate a Chinese character. The word in front is called "upper word" and the word in the back is called "lower word" (in ancient times, straight calligraphy was used, so the word in front is on the top and the word in the back is on the bottom). Before phonetic symbols and alphabet phonetic notation were used, it was the most important and longest-used phonetic notation method in ancient China.
There is a formula for backcutting: "The upper word distinguishes yin and yang, and the lower word distinguishes flat."
Explain a name
The anti-tangent method was also called "reverse" or "turn" at first, and then it was called "cut", so "reverse" is a combination of "reverse" and "cut". Although the names of these two statements are different, there is no difference in essence. Gu said in "On Phonology" that "Rhyme of the Book of Rites" says: "Rhyme and rhyme are not compatible, but also translated, and the two words rub each other to form rhyme." Actually, so is one. In turn, it means "repeated cutting". Over the years in Tang Daizong, because the emperor was afraid of rebellion and taboo the word "anti", he changed the word "anti" to "cutting".
Fanqie comes from the book Rebuilding Guang Yun in the Great Song Dynasty. The principle is that "the upper word takes the initial consonant and the lower word takes the vowel", and there is another formula: "The upper word distinguishes between yin and yang, and the lower word distinguishes between even words". For example, Dong (deng1) is De (dak 1) red (hung4) tangent = d+ung, for example, (jyu4) is Yang (joeng4) Zhu (zyu 1) tangent = j+ Yu Yangping.
history
Subject: Monotone
The original phonetic notation methods in Chinese include image reading, image reading, analogy and direct pronunciation.
Reading if the method is to take pronunciation similarity as an example, so that readers can guess the correct pronunciation of the words they remember. Such as "Shuo Wen Jie": Xun, if you read it, if you announce it; Mibu: Song, if you live, if you read, if you send. The method of analogy is to say the characteristics of pronunciation in descriptive language. For example, "Huainanzi Terrain Training": "Its land should be millet, with many tails." G: "I'm afraid to read ahead. I'm anxious to say it." The direct reading method is to use homophones for phonetic notation. For example, Kangxi dictionary: "It is said that ... fish has been cut for a long time, and ... goldfish has been cut." ? Yin Ju ... and ... Yu Qi, Yin according to ".
Fanqie began in the Eastern Han Dynasty [1]. "Yan Jia Xun Yin Ci"-{Cloud}-"Sun () created Er Ya, which is a unique irony in the late Han Dynasty. Another cloud said, "As for Wei's family, it is very popular. ".Generally speaking, Fanqie appeared at the end of Han Dynasty and was popular in Wei and Jin Dynasties. Some scholars believe that the establishment of anti-tangent is related to the introduction of Buddhism. Chen's article "Zhi Zhai Jie Yun Bu" holds that "the anti-tangent theory was introduced to China from the Western Regions. " .
In fact, before the Han Dynasty, there were anti-tangency phenomena, such as "can't" as "easy", "why can't" as "easy", "just" as "ear", "almost" as "all" and "who is not" as. Qian Daxin said that the Book of Songs had been reversed, and retorted that the reversal was influenced by Buddhist scriptures. "Did the wisdom of ancient sages really come from Brahma monks? ""So I know the way of the Six Classics, and the size is prepared, and future generations can't go out of the realm of sages. " [2].
Anti-tangency in Sui and Tang Dynasties is the basic data for studying the phonetic system of Middle Ancient Chinese, and it is also one of the foundations of Chinese phonology.
Spelling method
The ancients used two Chinese characters to remember the sound of a word because they didn't have pinyin characters. The first word (backcut) is marked with initials, and the second word (backcut) is marked with finals and tones. Like wine cutting. The initial is a pure vowel, the single vowel is a rhyme, and the tone is a tonic, so the alcohol sound is a single rhyme. Because the ancient pronunciation is different from today's pronunciation, modern languages (including Mandarin and other dialects) may not get the correct pronunciation, so they may speak the pronunciation at that time.
Reverse today's reading.
Following the above, according to the principle of "taking the sound of the upper word and the rhyme of the lower word", the ancients may be able to accurately read the sound of each word. However, due to the relationship between ancient and modern sound changes, the anti-tangent formulated in ancient times can no longer be interpreted simply by the principle of "taking the sound of the upper word and the rhyme of the lower word", but must be based on the law of sound changes and re-emphasize the anti-tangent principle.
It's just that the relationship between ancient and modern sound changes is complicated, and the newly established anti-tangent principle is also very complicated. Now only the most basic and important one is introduced, that is, "the upper word takes the sound and the lower word takes the rhyme;" The words above are yin and yang, and the words below are four tones. 」
Take "Zhong" as an example, and find out "Bow cut" and "Zhong cut" by [looking up alto (Guang Yun)]:
Yin Ping in Zhong Zhong = Ji Yin Ping+China District of Yin Ping = Ji Yin Ping+Zhongyang District.
After backcutting, we can get Zheng Yin Ping and Zheng Yin. This result echoes that of Huang Xiling's online dictionary. Guangdong Phonology and Rhyme Electronic Edition;
Tone syllables of Chinese initials and finals are based on homophones.
Zhong 1 Zhong 1 Huang Xiling, Zhong, Zong ...]
Middle zung 3zung3 Huangxiling species, numerous, longitudinal [...]
With the evolution of the times and regions, the "anti-tangent" originated in the Middle Ages has been unable to fully and accurately introduce modern pronunciation, and the introduced pronunciation can not be called the standard "orthography".
However, we can't deny the importance of "anti-tangency" in phonology, because "Guang Yun" contains an important medium connecting modern people and the ancients, and it is an important track for us to carry forward ancient sounds.
The meaning of anti-tangent
This is not a natural and unconscious chorus, but a systematic and scientific pinyin method, which marks the progress of phonology. There will be no uncommon words in the upper and lower characters used in backcutting, and you will definitely find phonetic notation, which is better than the previous attention method.
Limit of anti-tangent
1. Too many upper and lower characters for backcutting. * * * There are more than 400 upper characters and 1000 lower characters as more than 5000 backslashed characters. For example, in the East, Dehong is divided into seventeen, that is, there are seventeen homophones. 2. The pronunciation and rhyme of the upper and lower characters are mixed together, which is inconvenient for pinyin. The upper word has sound but no rhyme, and the lower word has rhyme and no sound. It depends entirely on continuous reading, and the pinyin method is inconvenient. 3. In the book "Rebuilding Guang Yun in the Great Song Dynasty", simple and easy-to-read characters are often cut with traditional Chinese characters, such as "one" for cutting; "Eight" means shelving knowledge. 4. Due to the sound changes in ancient and modern times, it may not be possible to pronounce words according to the cut, such as "Weng, Ai, Wen". The words above are all "Wu", but the initials of this sound are J, O and W respectively. Or "scientific, open and generous", the word above is "bitter", and the initials of this sound are F, H and K respectively. (The above two cases are Cantonese. )
Therefore, the search for ancient phonology still depends on other phonology monographs, large dictionaries or network resources.