Chinese character sounds (Pinyin: hànzì zìyīn; Traditional Chinese: 漢字字音; Simplified Chinese: 汉字字音 ) are the pronunciations of Chinese characters. The standard sounds of Chinese characters are based on the phonetic system of Beijing dialect.
Normally a Chinese character is read with one syllable. Some Chinese characters have more than one pronunciation (polyphonic characters). Some syllables correspond to more than one character (homophonic characters).
This article pays more attention to the relevant issues of character sounds in modern Chinese language. The contents include pronunciation standards of modern Chinese characters, polyphonic Chinese characters and homophonic Chinese characters. Polyphonic characters are divided into polyphonic monosemous characters and polyphonic polysemous characters.
Pronunciation standards of modern Chinese characters
Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation and the Old National Pronunciation The common language of China was called Guanhua (Guānhuà, 官話, 官话, Official language) during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Guanhua had no clear pronunciation standards and basically followed the traditional readings reflected in the official rhyme books (韵書, 韵书). At the end of the 19th century, influenced by Japan's Meiji Restoration, the new term Mandarin (guóyǔ, 國語, 国语, National language) replaced Guanhua, and the issue of the unification of Mandarin aroused social concern.
In February 1913, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China held a meeting of the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation in Beijing. The first step of the meeting was to review the national pronunciations. Each province had one vote, and the pronunciation supported by the most votes would be the selected pronunciation. The meeting reviewed and approved the pronunciations of more than 6,500 characters. The second step was to identify phonemes and formulate letters. It was decided to formally adopt the "phonetic recording alphabet" temporarily used when reviewing the pronunciations of Chinese characters and name it "Phonetic Symbols, or Bopomofo" (注音字母).
The national pronunciation approved by the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation was later customarily called the Old National Pronunciation (老國音). Although declared to be based on Beijing pronunciation, it was actually a hybrid of northern and southern pronunciations. In terms of tones, only the types of tones were specified, not the tone values. In 1918, Wu Jingheng, the former chairman of the commission, had the approved characters arranged in the "Kangxi Dictionary" radical order and named it Guóyīn Zìdiǎn (國音字典, "Dictionary of National Pronunciation"). The first edition was published by the Commercial Press in September 1919.
New National Pronunciation and "Vocabulary of National Pronunciation for Everyday Use" On December 21, 1924, the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation held a meeting to discuss the issue of updating the "Guóyīn Zìdiǎn" and decided to use Beijing pronunciation as the standard for national pronunciation. This kind of national pronunciation was later called "New National Pronunciation" (新國音).
In 1932, the Guóyīn Chángyòng Zìhuì (國音常用字匯, "Vocabulary of National Pronunciation for Everyday Use") edited according to the "New National Pronunciation" was published, laying the foundation for new standard pronunciation of modern Chinese characters.
China mainland’s pronunciation standards
After the founding of PRC, character reform and language standardization were vigorously promoted, and the issue of pronunciation of Chinese characters was taken seriously. In October 1955, the National Writing Reform Conference and the Academic Conference on Standardization of Modern Chinese were held in Beijing. These two conferences determined that Mandarin, also called Putonghua (普通話, 普通话), is the common language of China and that Mandarin uses Beijing phonetic pronunciation as its standard pronunciation. Since Chinese characters are morpheme characters, the pronunciation of Chinese characters is naturally based on the Beijing pronunciation as well.
The characteristics of the pronunciation of modern Chinese characters include
A character usually records one syllable. (There are a very small number of exceptions, such as 呎 (yīngchǐ), 哩 (yīnglǐ), 瓩(qiānwǎ), 花兒 (huā er)). Most of the glyphs of modern Chinese characters cannot accurately represent sounds. Some Chinese characters have more than one pronunciation (polyphonic characters). Some syllables correspond to more than one character (homophonic characters).