The Pingshui Rhyming Scheme () is a rhyming system of the

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese language, Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expande ...

language. Compiled in the Jin dynasty, ''Pingshui Yun'' is one of the most popular rhyming systems in

Chinese poetry Chinese poetry is poetry written, spoken, or chanted in the Chinese language, and a part of the Chinese literature. While this last term comprises Classical Chinese, Standard Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Yue Chinese, and other historical and vernac ...

after the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

and the official standard in later dynasties.

History

''Pingshui Yun'' possibly originated as an abridged version of the

rhyme dictionary A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book () is a genre of dictionary that records pronunciations for Chinese characters by tone (linguistics), tone and rhyme, instead of by graphical means like their Chinese character radicals, radicals. ...

Guangyun The ''Guangyun'' (''Kuang-yun''; ) is a Chinese rhyme dictionary that was compiled from 1007 to 1008 under the patronage of Emperor Zhenzong of Song. Its full name was ''Dà Sòng chóngxiū guǎngyùn'' (, literally "Great Song revised and ...

'', whose 206-rhyme system was criticized for being overly restrictive. The system was traditionally attributed to

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

scholar Liu Yuan (劉淵), whose 1252 work ''Renzi Xinkan Libu Yunlüe'' (壬子新刊禮部韻略) divided common

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

in poetry into 107 rhyme categories. However, in 1223, ''Xinkan Yunlüe'' (新刊韻略) was already published by Wang Wenyu (王文鬱) of the Jin dynasty. The latter's contents were almost identical to ''Renzi Xinkan Libu Yunlüe'', with the only difference being that Liu's book splits the rhyme category 迥 into two. A book unearthed from the

Mogao Caves The Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 500 temples southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu p ...

named ''Paizi Yun'' (排字韻) implies that the system was already widely circulated at the time. Both works have since been lost. In the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

, ''Yunfu Qunyu'' by Yin Shifu (陰時夫) first named the 106-category version as ''Pingshui Yun''. The origin of the name "Pingshui" is unclear. Traditionally, it is believed that "Pingshui" refers to Liu Yuan's hometown in modern

Linfen Linfen () is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Shanxi province, People's Republic of China, China, bordering Shaanxi province to the west. Linfen City is located in the southern part of Shanxi Province, with the remaining branches of T ...

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

. Alternatively, "Pingshui" may refer to a government post in charge of tax for fishing. In the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the ''Pingshui Yun'' system was highly influential as the ''Yunfu Qunyu'' version served as the official standard in the imperial examinations. Although modern Chinese phonology has become significantly different from Middle Chinese, the system is still being used by some poets today. In addition to literary usage of this rime system, in early modern China when sending

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

s were expensive, the words in ''Pingshui Yun'' were used to represent dates in order to reduce the number of characters as shown on the table on the right.

Rhyme categories

The following chart lists all 106 rhyme groups of the ''Pingshui Yun'' system and the modern

Standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern Standard language, standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the Republic of ...

pronunciation of the representative characters.

References

{{reflist

External links

Pingshui Rhyme Categories
in Chinese Text Project. Traditional Chinese phonology Middle Chinese Poetry in Classical Chinese Chinese dictionaries