Concept
Chinese language
Related concepts (41)
Checked tone
A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a syllable that ends in a stop consonant or a glottal stop. Separating the checked tone allows -p, -t, and -k to be treated as allophones of -m, -n, and -ng, respectively, since they are in complementary distribution. Stops appear only in the checked tone, and nasals appear only in the other tones.
Rime dictionary
A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book () is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary that collates characters by tone and rhyme, instead of by radical. The most important rime dictionary tradition began with the Qieyun (601), which codified correct pronunciations for reading the classics and writing poetry by combining the reading traditions of north and south China. This work became very popular during the Tang dynasty, and went through a series of revisions and expansions, of which the most famous is the Guangyun (1007–1008).
Beijing dialect
The Beijing dialect (), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, the official language in the People's Republic of China and one of the official languages of Singapore and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Despite the similarity to Standard Chinese, it is characterized by some "iconic" differences, including the addition of a final rhotic -r / 儿 to some words (e.g. 哪儿).
Chinese character classification
All Chinese characters are logograms, but several different types can be identified, based on the manner in which they are formed or derived. There are a handful which derive from pictographs () and a number which are ideographic () in origin, including compound ideographs (), but the vast majority originated as phono-semantic compounds (). The other categories in the traditional system of classification are rebus or phonetic loan characters () and "derivative cognates" ().
Topic-prominent language
A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N. Li and Sandra Thompson, who distinguished topic-prominent languages, such as Korean and Japanese, from subject-prominent languages, such as English. In Li and Thompson's (1976) view, topic-prominent languages have morphology or syntax that highlights the distinction between the topic and the comment (what is said about the topic).
Xiao'erjing
Xiao'erjing (children's script), often shortened to Xiaojing (minor script, the 'original script' being the Perso-Arabic script), is the practice of writing Sinitic languages such as Mandarin (especially the Lanyin, Zhongyuan and Northeastern dialects) or Dungan in the Perso-Arabic script. It is used on occasion by many ethnic minorities who adhere to the Islamic faith in China (mostly the Hui, but also the Dongxiang and the Salar) and formerly by their Dungan descendants in Central Asia.
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Gwoyeu Romatzyh (), abbreviated GR, is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese in the Latin alphabet. The system was conceived by Yuen Ren Chao and developed by a group of linguists including Chao and Lin Yutang from 1925 to 1926. Chao himself later published influential works in linguistics using GR. In addition a small number of other textbooks and dictionaries in GR were published in Hong Kong and overseas from 1942 to 2000. GR is the better known of the two romanization systems which indicate the four tones of Mandarin by varying the spelling of syllables ("tonal spelling").
Kangxi Dictionary
The Kangxi Dictionary ( (Compendium of standard characters from the Kangxi period), published in 1716, was the most authoritative dictionary of Chinese characters from the 18th century through the early 20th. The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty ordered its compilation in 1710 in order to improve on earlier dictionaries, to show his concern for Confucian culture, and to foster the standardization of the writing system. The dictionary takes its name from the Emperor's era name.
Rime table
A rime table or rhyme table () is a Chinese phonological model, tabulating the syllables of the series of rime dictionaries beginning with the Qieyun (601) by their onsets, rhyme groups, tones and other properties. The method gave a significantly more precise and systematic account of the sounds of those dictionaries than the previously used analysis, but many of its details remain obscure. The phonological system that is implicit in the rime dictionaries and analysed in the rime tables is known as Middle Chinese, and is the traditional starting point for efforts to recover the sounds of early forms of Chinese.
Written Cantonese
Written Cantonese is the most complete written form of Chinese after that for Mandarin Chinese and Classical Chinese. Written Chinese was originally developed for Classical Chinese, and was the main literary language of China until the 19th century. Written vernacular Chinese first appeared in the 17th century, and a written form of Mandarin became standard throughout China in the early 20th century. Cantonese is a common language in places like Hong Kong and Macau.