Chapter 9 7. Ancient and modern sounds

Discuss the above two topics.Reading is generally expressed as a sound of mouth movement (sound that can be perceived by people nearby); it can also be read silently, which is expressed as a sound that only oneself can perceive.And when it comes to sound, trouble starts.The source of the trouble is that the sound varies with time and place.Strictly speaking, it also varies from person to person.If we are lucky enough to often visit the Yihong Courtyard of the Grand View Garden, we will be able to tell with our eyes closed that this voice is Qingwen's, and that voice is striking, although both of them are Beijing girls of the same age.This difference is in charm, or in other words, it is not in the phonetic system, or in other words, for example, it is expressed in written Chinese pinyin, so there is no difference.This is not the case with differences arising from time and place, but manifested as differences in phonetic systems.Time is long and short, and land is far and near. To what extent does it change when it is long or far?Variation has size.Small changes, or changes that are difficult to detect, may occur in a relatively short period of time and in a relatively close area, right?Time is difficult to tell. Take the region as an example. In the early years of the Republic of China, old Beijing still retained the legacy of the inseparability of the homeland. A fine old Beijing friend told me that the pronunciation of the east city and the west city were different, and he could detect it.By analogy, we can know that, looking back at the past, the so-called ancient Chinese is limited to the easily perceptible differences, and the number of those derived from the differences of time and the differences of places is too large.For example, Tang Yin of the Ming Dynasty and Shen Fu of the Qing Dynasty were both from Suzhou, but their pronunciations must be different because they were not at the same time; land.This complicated situation will lead to a conclusion, which is: we believe in the ancients, and it is too difficult to know the pronunciation of the ancients in detail.It seems that this difficulty can be avoided, because: first, we communicate thoughts and feelings in modern Chinese, requiring Mandarin pronunciation;This is generally true. For example, when reading "Zhuangzi·Health Master", "My life has a limit, but knowledge has no limit." We don't know what the voice of this person from the ancient Song Dynasty and now Henan is like (if he also reads it). But it is enough to know that life is limited and knowledge is unlimited.The problem comes from some verses in the old literature; closely related to this topic, when we read poetry, we see the meaning according to the form, regardless of the pronunciation, and sometimes encounter ups and downs.See the example below:

Fish and birds are hesitant and afraid of Jianshu, Fengyun often protects Chu Xu.General Tu Ling (read Ping Sheng) waved his magic pen, and finally saw the king descending to the biography (read zhuan) Che.It's really embarrassing to have talent in wind music, but Guan Zhang has no life.In his year of Jinli Jing Temple, Liang's father chanted "Hate You" (Li Shangyin's "Chibiyi") The sound of the flute swallows, Qin E dreams of breaking Qin Louyue.Qin Louyue, willow color every year, Ba Ling hurts · Farewell.Leyou Yuanshang Qingqiu Festival, Xianyang Ancient Road Sound Dust Absolutely.Absolute sound and dust, the afterglow of the westerly wind, and the Han family mausoleum. (Biography of Li Bai's "Recalling Qin'e") The first one is a poem, which rhymes with Liuyu in the flat tone and is pronounced in Jin (Mandarin). , u, become non-rhyme; and "ling" used to be pronounced in flat tone ling, and now is pronounced in the same tone, which is not qualified.The latter one is a word, which is basically rhymed with nine crumbs into the tone (only "month" is the rhyme of June, and both moon and crumbs belong to the eighteenth part of Ci rhyme, which is commonly used), and it is pronounced in today's pronunciation. Disqualification law.Metric is the basis of musical beauty, and the result of unqualified rhythm is to lose the beauty of music, which is not pleasant to listen to.How to deal with such adversity?Obviously, from now on, the loss is not small, at least those who love beauty will not;From the old days, we must first understand the old situation, that is, the phonetic situation of the poems.

"The phonetic situation of the poem" and "the phonetic situation of the writer when writing the poem" are two different things.To put it simply, the latter is tied to the verbal, and there are bound to be thousands of differences; the former is written, and it can be turned into generalizations.In fact, a large number of writers of poems, as well as phonologists who study the pronunciation of poems, look at the generalization there, from the generalization, regardless of the oral differences.This brings great convenience to our current readers and those who want to learn to write, because the thousands of clues in the actual pronunciation have changed to the few clues in the written pronunciation.Specifically, the infinity from time and place has been reduced to a system of set medieval sounds.It is called a setting, and a hypothesis is a hypothesis. For example, in Du Fu's "Five Poems of Worshiping Ancient Sites", "Mountains and valleys go to Jingmen" uses thirteen yuan rhymes, and the rhyme characters are gate, village, faint, soul, theory (read flat tone) , Wang Shizhen's "Four Poems of Autumn Willows", "Where is the most ecstasy in autumn" also uses thirteen yuan rhymes. Nothing else, it's hypothetical.It must be a regulation. From the Tang Dynasty onwards, poetry and prose were used to select scholars. Officials were always eager to issue orders from above and obey them. Therefore, there were regulations on how to rhyme poems and prose. And so on, the actual pronunciation is ever-changing, and it has become a unity in the official rhyme book, and this unity is stipulated.As a result, assuming that regulations are added, the troubles in the phonetic aspects of writing and reading poems are made easy, that is, it is allowed to respond to all changes with the same.Specifically, as long as we can understand the situation of the ancient music, we can turn the ups and downs into a flat road.Let's talk about the situation of the Middle Ages.

Before talking about it, we should also talk about why we can ignore the pre-Middle Ages and the post-Middle Ages.Before the middle ages, there were ancient sounds, after the middle ages, there were near ancient sounds, and adding the middle ancient sounds is three kinds. Why is it so neat and simple?The reason is that specific sounds always arise and disappear instantly, and what we can grasp are only the written Chinese characters.To deduce the "concrete" sound "directly" from the Chinese characters, such as "a friend comes from afar", if we want to say it like Confucius, we will not be able to do it.As a last resort, I had to take a step back and start with the rhyming words, "indirectly" deduce the "generalized" phonetic situation, or the situation of the phonetic system.So I looked for suitable literature, found it before the Middle Ages, and found "Central Plains Rhyme" after the Middle Ages.In terms of phonetics, the two books form a system, so we call the phonetic system the ancient phonetic system, and the phonetic system of "Central Plains Rhyme" is called the ancient phonetic system.When reading poetry, why can you ignore the front and back ends?

There is more than one reason why the ancient tone can be ignored.One is what the situation is, we still don't know very well.In terms of the sound, rhyme, and tone of the sound, the one that is easy to know and more known is the rhyme, but regarding the rhyme, different schools have different opinions.Roughly, the divisions become more detailed. For example, Gu Yanwu is divided into 10, Jiang Yongzeng has 13, Kong Guangsen has 18, Wang Niansun has 21, and Mr. Wang Li has increased to 29 or 30.In this way, if you want to know before you act, that is, you can read after you have figured out the phonetic system, people who don't study phonology generally say that you have no choice but not to read.The second reason is that it is not a big hindrance to read without knowing the phonetic situation.For example, when reading "The so-called Yiren is on the side of the water", according to Qian Daxin's "Guwu light lip sound", "Fang" should be pronounced with a heavy lip sound, but we have always pronounced it according to the current sound, and we didn't feel that it was inappropriate.The third reason is that there are not many readable articles, and the reading is only for appreciation, not for imitation. It is not only possible but also necessary to relax the pronunciation.

The reason for disregarding the ancient sounds is only one, that is, the poems since the Middle Ages have been written according to the middle ancient sound system (the modern sounds are divided into yin and yang, and there is no entering tone, which is another system), and reading and imitating, of course, there is no need to ask about the ancient times. sound. Let's talk about the Middle Ages.Seeking truth from facts, it is an exaggeration to call it the middle ancient sound, so it is better to simply simplify it and call it "Pingshui rhyme".Because, as far as the documents with rhyme books are available, the period from Sui Lu Fayan's "Qie Yun" to Pingshui rhyme is more than 600 years. Not to mention the actual phonetics, even the written phonetics of the rhyme books are not unchanged.Pingshui rhyme can be used more than one because there are changes, because Pingshui rhyme is adaptable to its predecessors. Specifically, people in Tang and Song Dynasties wrote poems basically according to this system; Specifically speaking, since the Jin and Yuan Dynasties until now, people must follow this system when writing poetry.Therefore, whether it is reading or writing, you can pass without hindrance if you are familiar with Pingshui rhyme.There are two main reasons for the superiority of flat water rhyme.On the one hand, it borrows the light of the times, which includes two situations: one is that there are rhyme books in the middle ages, so the ambiguity (such as) in ancient times becomes clear; able to adapt.On the other hand, borrowing the light of the imperial examination, the imperial edict requires rhyming according to the rhyming book.For example, in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the actual pronunciation has long been different from Pingshui rhyme, but poetry has to follow suit, so it is still binding.

The following is an introduction to flat water rhyme.It is the champion of rhyme books in the Middle Ages. If you want to understand it, you should roughly know the situation of its previous rhyme books.The rhyme books in the middle ages, which can be seen or studied now and have a great influence, began with "Qie Yun" written by Lu Fayan in the Sui Dynasty.This rhyme book collects the ancient and modern north and south, and the rhyme is relatively detailed. There are 193 volumes in total, and the tones are flat, up, down, and into.Later, "Qie Yun" was revised by Sun  of the Tang Dynasty and became "Tang Yun", with a slight increase in rhyme, 195 parts, and the same tone.In the Song Dynasty, Chen Pengnian and others added it to become "Guang Yun", and the rhyme increased again (to the maximum), which was 206 parts, and the tones were still flat, up, down, and into four.The fine division of rhyme is considered scientifically; it is not suitable for practical considerations.The way to bridge this gap is to write rhymes and allow adjacent rhymes to be "used together".For example, in the examination of poetry and Fu in the imperial examinations of the Tang Dynasty, Dong Yun, Zhong Yun, Zhi Yun, Zhi Yun, Zhi Yun, etc. are allowed to be used together. In this way, the same use is counted as one, and there are not so many rhymes in practical use. .This method was still used in the imperial examinations in the Song Dynasty. For example, the "Rhyme of the Ministry of Rites" edited by Ding Du and others was used as a program, an official document to be followed during the examination, and the rhymes that could be used together were combined to form 108 parts.Not long after that, the number of rhymes was reduced by two more, making it 106 parts of "Pingshui Rhyme".Pingshui is a place name, now Linfen City, Shanxi Province.This kind of rhyme division is called "Pingshui". There are two theories: one is that this division method can be found in "Pingshui Xinban Libu Yunlue" edited by Wang Wenyu of the Jin Dynasty; Liu Yuan in "A Brief Introduction" is from Pingshui.Regardless of the cause, we can only say that Pingshui Yun, which is not very well-born, has come from behind. It has been in operation for 800 years from the Song and Jin Dynasties to the present in the 20th century.During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the "Peiwen Yunfu" was officially built. The sub-rhyme was completely based on the Pingshui rhyme, so the Pingshui rhyme was added to the official promotion, and it became "Peiwen Shiyun", or "Shiyun" for short.This is an official book, and of course you must follow it when you take the imperial examination; outside the examination room, maybe you are used to following it, but you can’t think of not following it. All "Peiwen Poetry Rhyme".

The arrangement of "Peiwen Poetry Rhyme" is based on the four tones of Ping, Shang, Qu, and Ru; there are several rhymes below each sound; the words that belong to the rhyme below each rhyme, the commonly used ones come first, and the rarely used ones follow.The beginning is Shang Ping Sheng (Ping Sheng does not distinguish between yin and yang, Shang means Shangjuan, because there are many characters in Ping Sheng, so it is divided into upper and lower volumes), including Yidong (Dong is the representative character of this rhyme), Erdong, Sanjiang to Shisan There are 15 rhymes in Yuan, Shishihan, and 15 deletions; the lower level tone includes 15 rhymes from Yixian, Erxiao, Sanyao to Shisanqin, 14yan, and 15xian; a total of 30 rhymes in level tone.Shangsheng includes a total of 29 rhymes, including one Dong, two swollen, three talks, twenty-seven senses, twenty-eight frugality, and twenty-nine pigs.Qusheng includes 30 rhymes from Yisong, Ersong, Sanjiang to 28 Kan, 29yan, and 30x.The entering sound includes 17 rhymes from Yiwu, Erwo, Sanjue to 15he, 16ye, and 17qia.There are 30 rhymes in the level tone, 29 rhymes in the upper tone, 30 rhymes in the falling tone, and 17 rhymes in the entering tone. The sum is 106 rhymes.The number of characters that each rhyme belongs to is different. Taking Ping Sheng as an example, the four branches include Zhi, Zhi, Moved to Qi, Li, and 禗, with a total of 464 characters; Only 41 words.

Obviously, in order to read, especially for imitation, one must be familiar with "Rhyme of Poetry"; and if one can be familiar with it, then many troubles caused by the differences between ancient and modern times can be easily solved.But it is not easy to get familiar with, because: first, there are too many characters, tens of thousands, and it takes a lot of effort to memorize them;There is only one way to overcome difficulties, diligence.Scholars in the past regarded being familiar with "Rhymes of Poetry" as a compulsory course, and had to be diligent, so many people, or the vast majority of people, knew it well enough to recite it, that is, they all remembered the words contained in a certain rhyme.The assembly couplets are enough to illustrate this situation. As described in the fiftieth chapter, using Er Xiao Yun as the five-character rhythm, Sister Feng, who was illiterate in writing, opened the chapter with "Northern wind tightened overnight", and Li Dan continued, "Opening the door and snow is still floating".The following continuations of Xiangling, Tanchun, etc., the rhyme characters are Yao, Miao, Rao, etc., a total of 35 characters, because Er Xiao rhyme includes more than 180 characters, so Baochai said to Xiangyun: "You have the ability, put Er Xiao rhyme Xiao’s rhymes are all used up, so I’ll convince you.” They didn’t use them up because “although they haven’t finished their rhymes, it’s not good if Teng Nuo’s characters are twisted,” it’s not that they don’t remember.Because scholars have this kind of ability, they look at the moon from the top of the building, look for fragrances on the mosque, and are used to humming a few mediocre lines, but they don't need to carry "Rhyme of Poetry".According to the principle of taking the method above everything else, if we not only want to read poetry, but also want to compose it, then it is best to be able to do so.This is obviously not easy. The reason is that the times are different. People in the past could use most of their energy to do this, but we can only "learn as much as we can."The conditions are different, so we have to take a step back.Fortunately, it’s okay to take a step back and become a general.Some ways to do it are discussed below.

The methods can be divided into two categories, one is to memorize less, and the other is to memorize key points.Let me talk about less memory first, it is to remember the commonly used ones, not to remember the rarely used ones.For example, Pingsheng-Dongyun includes 174 characters such as Dong, Tong, Tong, etc., but only a few dozen are commonly used. Therefore, Mr. Wang Li’s "Poetry Rhythm" appended with "Poem Rhyme Juyao" only accepts more than 60 characters such as Dong, Tong, Tong, etc. .In fact, there are more than 60, and there are differences between more and less uses. For example, compared with Feng and Feng, the latter is obviously a figure in the cold palace and is rarely seen.Therefore, the principle of memorizing less can also be added to take your time, and the burden can be changed from very heavy to quite light.

Let me talk about the key points.This includes a variety of situations, but the nature is single, but it is more attention to the differences between ancient and modern times. One kind belongs to a large number of tone changes, which must be paid more attention to.Among them, the big ones are the old Rusheng characters, and there are quite a few of them. Because Putonghua does not have Rusheng, a considerable part of them have become flat tones; , which destroys the musicality.After the Middle Ages, the incoming tones became yinping, yangping, ascending tones (less), and falling tones (more), which were regular, but people outside the discipline of phonology drilled the rules, which may be more laborious than breaking them all, so it is better to use "many tones" know-it-all” approach.You should also use the method of memorizing less and taking your time. For example, numbers are commonly used, one, six, seven, eight, ten, one hundred, and one hundred million. , Shi Jin read the level tone, especially memorize clearly, so as not to read poems, encounter "If you want to go a thousand miles away, go to a higher level (must be flat)", when reading words, you will encounter "the cup is deep (read the flat tone) Liuli slippery (Read the oblique sound), greedy to see the six Yaohua ten (must be flat) eight (must flat)", not knowing the old, destroying the musicality.Changes of this nature can also be cited as two small households.One is that there are quite a few characters, which used to be pronounced in the upper tone, but are now changed to the lower tone, such as Dong, Feng, Shi, Shi and the like.The second is the old Ping sound characters, such as Dong, Zhong, Kong, Gong, Tong, Chong, Hong, Meng, which rhyme in the same old rhyme, but now the first four are pronounced Yinping, and the last four are pronounced Yangping.Compared with the big ones in the entering tones, these two small ones have little to do with each other, because the upper tones have changed into the falling tones, and they haven’t jumped out of the scope of the oblique tones; Lord, we took the same (flat voice) and discarded the differences, and even pretended to turn a blind eye, so we got by. One is that some characters have different pronunciations in ancient and modern times, so you need to know the old way of pronouncing them.For example, "Play the yellow warbler, don't teach (read the flat tone) to cry on the branches. When you cry, you will startle your concubine's dream, and you will not (read the flat tone) go to the west of Liaoning." Read, you must know that "er" is four rhymes, read ni, and belongs to eight Qi Yun's "cry" and "Xi" rhyme.Another example is "Long matte is facing the wind early, and the empty city is pale with moonlight. Xinghe Qiuyi (read flat tone) wild geese, and anvil pestle night thousands of families. It is late to watch the festival (read flat tone), and the heart is already on credit. I always sing beautiful sentences, but I don't know ( Read zhe tone) has called a crow." Read, you must know that "credit" is a six-ma rhyme, read sha, and rhymes with "Hua", "Jia" and "Crow" in the same rhyme.There are not many words like this, and they are easy to remember after reading a lot. One is that some characters have different sounds and belong to different rhymes, so one sound may be pronounced in one song, and another sound may be pronounced in another song.For example, "che" is pronounced ju in Liuyu rhyme, cha in Liuma rhyme (Xiaping tone); "zan" is pronounced zen in twelve intrusion rhyme, zan in thirteen Tan rhyme; "look" in fourteen cold Read kan in the rhyme, and read kan in the (Qing Sheng) fifteen Han rhyme; "Xing" read xing in the Jiuqing rhyme, and read xing in the (Shang Sheng) twenty-four rhyme.The sound is different and the meaning is also different. For example, the verb "思" belongs to the four-branch rhyme, read si, and is pronounced si when used as a noun, and belongs to the (de-tone) four-set rhyme. The same is true for "论", which is pronounced lun when used as a verb. The thirteen yuan rhyme is used as a noun to read lun (the old pronunciation is close to "chaos"), and it belongs to the fourteen wish rhyme (Qusheng).There are not many such words, and it is not difficult to remember after reading more. There are also some characters that have the same pronunciation today but belong to different rhymes in the past. For example, "中" and "风" have a rhyme of Dongdong, "Zhong" and "Feng" have a rhyme of Erdong, and "Yu" has a rhyme of Liuyu. , "Yu" is the rhyme of Qiyu, "Official" is the rhyme of Fourteen, "Guan" is the rhyme of fifteen, and so on.When writing modern poetry, the old rule is that rhymes are not allowed. If you can't remember clearly, it is easy to make mistakes in rhyme if you use the present to measure the past. As mentioned above, there are a lot of miscellaneous things. Remember, it takes a long time to get familiar with it as a condition; the time is not long enough, and you are not very familiar with it. Reading, especially imitation, will inevitably encounter difficulties, that is, a certain word, reading , or used, do not know the sound is right.There is only one way to solve the problem, check.You can check "Shi Yun" to see which rhyme it enters.This is sometimes troublesome, because there are 106 rhymes and so many words, it is not easy to find them.Then it is better to look up the word book.In the early years of the Republic of China, the "Correction of National Pronunciation Dictionary" was printed, a small book, and the characters were arranged according to the radicals, such as the first character "一". sound), quality (four-quality rhyme), and only a few words to indicate the situation of the old sound.It's a pity that such small books are no longer easy to find, so we have to use the old editions of "Ciyuan", "Cihai" and so on, or even further, "Kangxi Dictionary" and so on.Those books all indicate that a certain word belongs to a certain rhyme. For example, I made a few plain and flat words, and used the word "Shuo" as a flat tone. I suddenly became suspicious. Check "Shi Yun", there is no rhyme in the five songs, check other For rhyme, to find a needle in a haystack, it is better to look through old calligraphy books and find it in the seven paintings of Yanbu. At first glance, it is the rhyme of crumbs (nine crumbs into the sound), and suddenly realized that it was wrong.It's good to be wrong, it's like buying a fake product, if you were fooled last time, you won't be fooled next time.