Rhyme Tables

In the previous pages, we discussed the initials, rhymes, She categories and its dependence on the inner and outer series, and deng categories of rhymes. We now see the whole thing in practice in the following rhyme table which is taken from QiYinLue 七 音 略 a rhymebook included in a collection known as SiKu QuanShu 四 庫 全 書 .

The main points of interest are,

• initials are listed across the top row, from right to left.
  • Notice the order : bilabial, dentals, velars (beginning from the front of the mouth and working towards the back).
  • Notice too, that there is a second row of initials given for the dentals and fricatives.
  • Below that are five large single characters and one at the far left composed of three characters. These are general lables refering to the type of initial.

• four tones (ping shang qu and ru) are listed vertically on the right most column
• each tone has four deng (divisions) which I have labelled I, II, III and IV.
• the rhyme of each deng is given on the far left but one column
• on the top right corner of the table are the characters waizhuan indicating the vowel type
• the central column tells us the title of the work is TongZhi volume 37 in the SiKu QuanShu collection ordered by imperial decree
• The far left column shows three characters 重 中 重 , the first character 重 indicates that it is a table of kaikou 開 口 syllables. In contrast, hekou 合 口 syllables are labeled with qing 輕 as the initial character on the far left column, shown in the table below.

© Dylan W.H. Sung
This page was created on Thursday 18th January 2001 and recently updated on Thursday 25th April 2002