Sino-Xenic pronunciations

Sino-Xenic (or Sinoxenic) pronunciations are regular systems for reading Chinese in Japan, Korea and Vietnam, originating in medieval times and the source of large-scale borrowings of Chinese words into the Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese languages, none of which are genetically related to Chinese. The resulting Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean and Sino-Vietnamese vocabularies now make up a large part of the lexicons of these languages. The pronunciation systems are used alongside modern varieties of Chinese in historical Chinese phonology, particularly the reconstruction of the sounds of Middle Chinese. Some other languages, such as Hmong–Mien and Tai-Kadai languages, also contain large numbers of Chinese loanwords but without the systematic correspondences that characterize Sino-Xenic vocabularies.

The term, from the Greek xenos "foreign", was coined in 1953 by the linguist Samuel Martin, who called these borrowings "Sino-Xenic dialects".

Background

See also: Adoption of Chinese literary culture

There had been borrowings of Chinese vocabulary into Vietnamese and Korean from the Han period, but around the time of the Tang dynasty (618–907) Chinese writing, language and culture were imported wholesale into Vietnam, Korea and Japan. Scholars in those countries wrote in Literary Chinese and were thoroughly familiar with the Chinese classics, which they read aloud in systematic local approximations of Middle Chinese. With those pronunciations, Chinese words entered Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese in huge numbers.

The plains of northern Vietnam were under Chinese control for most of the period from 111 BC to 938 AD, and after independence, the country adopted Literary Chinese as the language of administration and scholarship. As a result, there are several layers of Chinese loanwords in Vietnamese. The oldest loans, roughly 400 words dating from the Eastern Han, have been fully assimilated and are treated as native Vietnamese words. Sino-Vietnamese proper dates to the early Tang dynasty, when the spread of Chinese rhyme dictionaries and other literature resulted in the wholesale importation of the Chinese lexicon.

Isolated Chinese words also began to enter Korean from the 1st century BC, but the main influx occurred in the 7th and 8th centuries after the unification of the peninsula by Silla. The flow of Chinese words into Korean became overwhelming after the establishment of civil service examinations in 958.

Japanese, in contrast, has two well-preserved layers and a third that is also significant:

• Go-on readings date to the introduction of Buddhism to Japan from Korea in the 6th century. They are believed to reflect pronunciations of the lower Yangtze area in the late Northern and Southern dynasties period.
• Kan-on readings are believed to reflect the standard pronunciation of the Tang period, as used in the cities of Chang'an and Luoyang.
• Tōsō-on readings were introduced by followers of Zen Buddhism in the 14th century and are thought to be based on the speech of Hangzhou.

Examples of Sino-Xenic readings

character	Mandarin	Cantonese	Middle Chinese	Sino-Vietnamese	Sino-Korean (Yale)	Sino-Japanese			meaning
						Go-on	Kan-on	Tōsō-on
一	yī	yat	ʔjit	nhất	il	ichi	itsu		one
二	èr	yi6	nyijH	nhị	i	ni	ji		two
三	sān	saam1,3	sam	tam	sam	san			three
四	sì	sei3	sijH	tứ	sa	shi			four
五	wǔ	ng5	nguX	ngũ	o	go			five
六	liù	luk6	ljuwk	lục	lyuk	roku	riku		six
七	qī	chat1	tshit	thất	chil	shichi	shitsu		seven
八	bā	baat3	peat	bát	phal	hachi	hatsu		eight
九	jiǔ	gau2	kjuwX	cửu	kwu	ku	kyū		nine
十	shí	sap6	dzyip	thập	sip	jū			ten
百	bǎi	baak3	paek	bách	payk	hyaku	haku		hundred
千	qiān	chin1	tshen	thiên	chen	sen			thousand
萬/万	wàn	maan6	mjonH	vạn	man	man	ban		10 thousand
億/亿	yì	yik1	ʔik	ức	ek	oku			100 million
明	míng	ming4	mjaeng	minh	myeng	myō	mei	(min)	bright
農/农	nóng	nung4	nowng	nông	nong	nu	nō		agriculture
寧/宁	níng	ning4	neng	ninh	nyeng	nyō	nei		peaceful
行	xíng	haang4	haeng	hành or hàng	hayng	gyō	kō	an	go
請/请	qǐng	ching2	dzjeng	thỉnh	cheng	shō	sei	shin	request
暖	nuǎn	nyun5	nwanX	noãn	nan	nan	dan	non	warm
頭/头	tóu	tau4	duw	thủ	twu	zu	tō	jū	head
子	zǐ	ji2	tsiX	tử	ca	shi	shi	su	child
下	xià	ha6/5	haeX	hạ	ha	ge	ka	a	down

In comparison, vocabulary of Chines origin in Thai, including most of the basic numbers (except 1 and 2), was borrowed over a range of periods from the Han (or earlier) to the Tang.

Since the pioneering work of Bernhard Karlgren, these bodies of pronunciations have been used together with modern varieties of Chinese in attempts to reconstruct the sounds of Middle Chinese. They provide such broad and systematic coverage that the linguist Samuel Martin called them "Sino-Xenic dialects", treating them as parallel branches with the native Chinese dialects. The foreign pronunciations sometimes retain distinctions lost in all the modern Chinese varieties, as in the case of the chongniu distinction found in Middle Chinese rhyme dictionaries. 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.

Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese scholars also later each adapted the Chinese script to write their languages, using Chinese characters both for borrowed and native vocabulary. Thus, in the Japanese script, Chinese characters may have both Sino-Japanese readings (on'yomi) and native readings (kun'yomi). Similarly, in the Chữ nôm script used for Vietnamese until the early 20th century, some Chinese characters could represent both a Sino-Vietnamese word and a native Vietnamese word with similar meaning or sound to the Chinese word, but in such cases, the native reading would be distinguished by a special mark. However, the Korean variant of Chinese characters, or hanja, typically have only a Sino-Korean reading, and native Korean words are rarely, if ever, written in hanja.

Sound correspondences

Foreign pronunciations of these words inevitably only approximated the original Chinese, and many distinctions were lost. In particular, Korean and Japanese had far fewer consonants and much simpler syllables than Chinese, and they lacked tones. Even Vietnamese merged some Chinese initial consonants (for example, several different consonants were merged into t and th while ph corresponds to both p and f in Mandarin). A further complication is that the various borrowings are based on different local pronunciations at different periods. Nevertheless, it is common to treat the pronunciations as developments from the categories of the Middle Chinese rhyme dictionaries.

Middle Chinese is recorded as having eight series of initial consonants though it is likely that no single dialect distinguished them all. Stops and affricates could also be voiced, voiceless or voiceless aspirated. Early Vietnamese had a similar three-way division, but the voicing contrast would later disappear in the tone split that affected several languages in the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, including Vietnamese and most Chinese varieties. Old Japanese had only a two-way contrast based on voicing while Middle Korean had only one obstruent at each point of articulation.

Correspondences of initial consonants

Middle Chinese		Sino-Vietnamese	Sino-Korean	Go-on	Kan-on	Tōsō-on
Labials	幫 p	p > b	p/pʰ	ɸ > h	ɸ > h	ɸ > h
	滂 pʰ	pʰ, b > b/ph/v
	並 b			b
	明 m	m > m	m	m	b	m
Dentals	端 t	t > đ	t/tʰ	t	t	t
	透 tʰ	tʰ > th
	定 d	d > đ		d
	泥 n	n	n	n	d	n
	來 l	l	l	r	r	r
Retroflex stops	知 ʈ	ʈ > tr	tɕ/tɕʰ	t	t	s
	徹 ʈʰ	ʂ > s
	澄 ɖ	ɖ > tr		d
Dental sibilants	精 ts	s > t		s	s
	清 tsʰ	ɕ > th
	從 dz	s > t		z
	心 s		s	s
	邪 z			z
Retroflex sibilants	莊 ʈʂ	ʈ > tr	tɕ/tɕʰ	s
	初 ʈʂʰ	ʂ > s
	崇 ɖʐ			z
	生 ʂ		s	s
Palatals	章 tɕ	c > ch	tɕ/tɕʰ
	昌 tɕʰ	tʃ > x
	禪 dʑ	ɕ > th	s	z
	書 ɕ			s
	船 ʑ			z
	日 ȵ	ȵ > nh	z > ∅	n	z	z
Velars	見 k	k > c/k	k/h	k	k	k
	溪 kʰ	kʰ > kh
	群 g	ɡ > c/k	k	g
	疑 ŋ	ŋ > ng/ngh	∅		g	g
Laryngeals	影 ʔ	ʔ > y	∅	∅	∅	∅
	曉 x	h	h	k	k
	匣 ɣ			ɣ > g/w

The Middle Chinese final consonants were semivowels (or glides) /j/ and /w/, nasals /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/, and stops /p/, /t/ and /k/. Sino-Vietnamese and Sino-Korean preserve all the distinctions between final nasals and stops (although Korean converted final /t/ to /l/), like southern Chinese varieties such as Yue Chinese. Sino-Vietnamese has added allophonic distinctions to -ng and -k, based on whether the preceding vowel is front (-nh, -ch) or back (-ng, -c). In Go-on and Kan-on, the Middle Chinese coda -ng yielded a nasalized vowel, which in combination with the preceding vowel has become a long vowel in modern Japanese (for example, Tōkyō 東京, is Dōngjīng in Mandarin Chinese). Also, as Japanese cannot end words with consonants (except for moraic n), borrowings of Middle Chinese words ending in a stop had a paragoge added so, for example, Middle Chinese kwok (國) was borrowed as koku.

Correspondences of final consonants

Middle Chinese	Sino-Vietnamese	Sino-Korean	Go-on	Kan-on	Tōsō-on
m	m	m	/N/	/N/	/N/
n	n	n
ng	ng/nh	ng	ũ > u	ũ/ĩ > u/i
p	p	p	ɸu > u	ɸu > u	/Q/
t	t	l	ti > chi	tu > tsu
k	c/ch	k	ku	ku/ki

Middle Chinese had a three-way tonal contrast in syllables with vocalic or nasal endings. As Japanese lacks tones, Sino-Japanese borrowings preserve no trace of Chinese tones. Most Middle Chinese tones were preserved in the tones of Middle Korean, but they have since been lost in all but a few dialects. Sino-Vietnamese, in contrast, reflects the Chinese tones faithfully, including the Late Middle Chinese split of each tone into two registers conditioned by voicing of the initial. The correspondence to the Chinese rising and departing tones is reversed from the earlier loans so the Vietnamese hỏi and ngã tones reflect the Chinese upper and lower rising tone while the sắc and nặng tones reflect the upper and lower departing tone. Unlike northern Chinese varieties, Sino-Vietnamese places level-tone words with sonorant initials in the upper level (ngang) category.

Linguistic effects

Large numbers of Chinese words were borrowed into Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese and still form a large and important part of their lexicons.

In the case of Japanese, the influx has led to changes in the phonological structure of the language. Old Japanese syllables had the form (C)V, with vowel sequences being avoided. To accommodate the Chinese loanwords, syllables were extended with glides as in myō, vowel sequences as in mei, geminate consonants and a final nasal, leading to the moraic structure of later Japanese. Voiced sounds (b, d, z, g and r) were now permitted in word-initial position, where they had previously been impossible.

The influx of Chinese vocabulary contributed to the development of Middle Korean tones, which are still present in some dialects. Sino-Korean words have also disrupted the native structure in which l does not occur in word-initial position, and words show vowel harmony.

Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts in a similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in English. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. The coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords because their foreign origin was hidden by their written form. Often, different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes, the final choice differed between countries.

The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, scientific, abstract or formal language or registers. For example, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines (where borrowings from English are common), over half the words in newspapers and 60% of the words in science magazines.

See also

• Adoption of Chinese literary culture
• Chinese family of scripts
• East Asian cultural sphere
• East Asian languages
• Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area

References

Works cited