Shǒuwēn () was a 9th-century Buddhist Chinese monk credited with the invention of the analysis of

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

as having 36 initials, later ubiquitously used by the

rime tables 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 significa ...

. However, the

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major ...

fragment ''Pelliot chinois 2012'', held at the

Bibliothèque Nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national reposito ...

, which operates using an earlier tradition of 30 initials, credits him as his author. Pulleyblank, noting that this fragment does recognize a distinction between labial stops and labiodental fricatives despite not enumerating the latter among the 30 initials, suspects that Shǒuwēn out of deference to the

Qieyun The ''Qieyun'' () is a Chinese rhyme dictionary, published in 601 during the Sui dynasty. The book was a guide to proper reading of classical texts, using the ''fanqie'' method to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese characters. The ''Qieyun'' ...

tradition decided not to list these initials although he clearly recognized them.Pulleyblank, Edwin G. 1970. "Late Middle Chinese. Part 1." ''Monumenta Serica 15: '' 197-231

References

Sources

* 9th-century Chinese people Tang dynasty Buddhist monks Middle Chinese Linguists from China Linguists of Chinese {{China-bio-stub