<p>Though I emphasize Cantonese here, any southern dialect / language that still have entering tone (入聲); e.G. <a href="https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/checked_tone" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Hakka and Min</a>, would have a similar scenario.</p>

<p>The oldest rime dictionary (韻書) I found, is 鉅宋廣韻, printed in 1169; that the national archives of Japan has a downloadable copy:</p>

<p><a href="https://www.Digital.Archives.Go.Jp/das/pickup/view/category/categoryarchives/0500000000/0511000000/00" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.Digital.Archives.Go.Jp/das/pickup/view/category/categoryarchives/0500000000/0511000000/00</a></p>

<p>To look for a character in rime dictionary, you just need to know how to pronounce it, <strong>in Cantonese</strong>.</p>

<p>Let's try to find <a href="http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/search.Php?Word=%E5%85%A5" rel="nofollow noreferrer">入 (u+5165)</a></p>

<ol>
<li><p>I know it's pronounced as <a href="http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/sound/jap6.Mp3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">sound file</a>; which is straight &amp; short (直而促). A clear, significant sign that 入 (u+5165) is in entering tone (入聲).</p></li>
<li><p>Meanwhile, if I try to write it's romanisation( I used sydney lay scheme, you may use others), it would be "yap". It ends with -p, another significant sign that 入 (u+5165) is in entering tone (入聲).</p></li>
<li><p>Pick up volume 5 of 鉅宋廣韻 {volume I &amp; II is for level tone (平聲), volume III for rising tone (上聲), volume IV for departing tone (去聲); and volume V for entering tone (入聲)}.</p></li>
</ol>

<p><a href="https://www.Digital.Archives.Go.Jp/das/pickup/view/detail/detailarchives/0511000000/0000000873/00" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.Digital.Archives.Go.Jp/das/pickup/view/detail/detailarchives/0511000000/0000000873/00</a></p>

<ol start="4">
<li>Turn to the index page of volume 5, read from right to left, top to bottom; try to find any character that has a similar pronunciation with "入".</li>
</ol>

<p></p>

<ol start="5">
<li><p>Voilà, 緝第二十六; the character 緝 has a similar pronunciation, and, the "七入" above 緝 is used for <a href="https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/fanqie" rel="nofollow noreferrer">反切</a>, which has "入" :)</p></li>
<li><p>Lastly, turn to 緝第二十六. Well, no page number in ancient Chinese books. You guess roughly, and turn the page :( read again from right to left, then top to bottom. Voilà, it's there:</p></li>
</ol>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/lqykp.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/lqykp.jpg" alt="p35.Png"></a></p>

<p>Ok, 緝第二十六 is page 34, 入 is page 35:</p>

<p>It was written: 入﹒得也﹒ 内也﹒納也﹒人執切</p>

<p>By the way, 内 (u+5185) is not 內 (u+5167); anyone see the difference?</p>

<p>Now, this comment is quoted from the above mentioned thread:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Point 3 is straight factually incorrect that people can use 韻書 (rime dictionaries) with Cantonese but not Mandarin. It is just factually wrong and unlike point 1, there even is no dispute about this. Rime dictionaries do not apply as much to Cantonese as they do not to Mandarin. – rethliopuks</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Now, may I ask, how can anyone searches for the character 入 (u+5165), using Mandarin?</p>

<p>According to Mandarin, 入 is pronounced as rù (去聲). So, anyone picking volume IV of 鉅宋廣韻 would be trapped, it's <strong>not</strong> in this volume.</p>

<p>I used 入 as the only example to show the <strong>uselessness of Mandarin</strong> in looking for characters in rime dictionaries. If anyone have time and effort, and wants to verify this context, try two more entering tone (入聲) characters:</p>

<p><a href="http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/search.Php?Word=%E5%93%B2" rel="nofollow noreferrer">哲 (u+54f2)</a></p>

<p><a href="http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/search.Php?Word=%E7%A6%8F" rel="nofollow noreferrer">福 (u+798f)</a></p>

<p>Have fun　</p>

<p>This answer is already quite long, I would say that most, or, all entering tone (入聲) characters would have the same scenario.</p>

<p>Last, I would conclude that, to look for character in rime dictionaries (韻書), Cantonese, or other dialects / languages that have entering tone (入聲); are a better choice than Mandarin.</p>

<p>Or, a direct, maybe provoking statement would be:</p>

<p><strong>Since Mandarin lost the entering tone (入聲), it's useless in looking up characters in rime dictionaries (韻書).</strong></p>

<p>Stay tuned, there'll be another thread about entering tone (入聲) and old Chinese; Cantonese is again better.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-23T04:52:04.987Z
You answered your own question......
Kevman
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-23T07:30:36.253Z
You need to devote as much effort to spelling, punctuation and grammar as you devote to this... And this is not a blog. You don't post a question just to put up an answer.
dda
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-23T07:36:12.933Z
@Kevman: Answer one's own question is allowed, it can even earns you a 'Self learner badge' if it is a good answer. https://chinese.stackexchange.com/help/badges/14/self-learner The reason for 水巷孑蠻 asked and answered this question is explained on his post.
Tang Ho
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-23T09:48:36.577Z
@dda, sorry for my english :( i wish i had time & effort in my youth,  . . .
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-23T10:03:50.277Z
@Tang Ho. But that is true only if the question is looking for an answer. This question was asked as a pretext.
dda
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-23T11:25:20.443Z
@ dda Please check this link https://chinese.stackexchange.com/help/self-answer *"Can I answer my own question?

Yes! Stack Exchange has always explicitly encouraged users to answer their own questions. If you have a question that you already know the answer to, and you would like to document that knowledge in public so that others (including yourself) can find it later, it's perfectly okay to ask and answer your own question on a Stack Exchange site."*
Tang Ho
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-23T11:31:03.510Z
yes, exactly what i think & do :)
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-28T05:14:59.240Z
Cherry picking does not work, and while you are precisely right that Mandarin's Rusheng finals are messed up, cherry picking does not work, and more importantly **you did not even understand the real reason why Mandarin's Rusheng finals are messed up. It's not because the codas disappeared, but because the standardization process in the 80s chooses which pronunciation to keep _aribtrarily_**.
Rethliopuks
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-28T05:22:39.660Z
Plus it's actually unfortunate of you to cite 入 because the only reason 入 is pronounced `ru4` not `*ri4` is because 入 pronounced as `ri4` came to mean the **f** word in Mandarin, and **people changed the pronunciation for euphemism** like they did with 鸟: 鸟 was pronounced with the same initial consonant as 端 so it'd be `diu2` in Cantonese and `diao3` in Mandarin. You see the problem -- this sound means "penis". So people started pronouncing the word identically like 袅, which is how 鸟 got its current nasal initial.
Rethliopuks
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-28T05:28:56.380Z
The other two examples are actually about the tones (the 哲 example automatically generates zhe because retroflexes categorically cannot take the `i` medial and have to drop it; so `zh`+`ie` actually gives you `zhe` _natively_). **That's again not because Mandarin lost its stop codas; it's because the city of Beijing specifically, as the capital and center of China, was influenced greatly by dialects of all places, and for the tones resulting from _MC voiceless initial Rusheng syllables only_, there are different historical "layers" originating from _different, external dialects_**.
Rethliopuks
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-28T05:48:27.393Z
so, how do one look for "入", "哲" from a rime dictionary nowadays? it's not possible by mandarin. only pronounce these characters by cantonese (or other southern languages), one can still use a rime dictionary.
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-28T06:14:55.477Z
"the 哲 example automatically generates zhe" is non-sense for a native cantonese speaker. depends on which scheme used, the romanisation of 哲 would be "chit" or "hit"; that both of them end with -t; a clear indication that 哲 is entering tone (入聲).
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-28T06:28:54.190Z
the logic of this q & a is: rime dictionary, e.g. 切韻, 廣韻 reflect the pronunciation of middle chinese. so, if any dialects / languages help to find characters in it, it's correlated to middle chinese. mandarin is useless, in the situation of characters of entering tone (入聲). given the fact that cantonese can be used, including characters of entering tone (入聲). so, one could conclude that cantonese is highly correlated to middle chinese.
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-02T23:35:44.327Z
I just told you. `zh`+`ie` actually gives you `zhe`. Now it is you who makes no sense. There is zero logic in trying to use Cantonese sounds to 
predict Mandarin pronunciation, with or without 反切. Wenzhou Wu Chinese native speakers would say the 反切 for 阳, which is 與章, gives one `j + i = ji` which "clearly shows 阳 has no final consonant". And any native Japanese speaker would tell you 陟列 gives you `t + etsu = tetsu`, and that 哲 would end in `it` makes very little sense. In Korean, `j + eol = jeol` by any reasonable measure; "it makes so little sense that it should give `chit` or `jit`!"
Rethliopuks
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-02T23:38:52.870Z
You make little sense in your last statement. Even if that were true, you are only saying that "in the situation of 入声 Guangzhou Cantonese fares better than Beijing Mandarin". It is simply a pure leap of faith to claim that "so...cantonese is highly correlated to middle chinese".
Rethliopuks
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-02T23:57:53.243Z
To clarify, in Wenzhou Wu 阳 is /ji/, like "yi". In all other Romanization systems "j" means something other than /j/. And I just checked 福; it is actually so unfortunately inappropriate for your purpose, because the entire reason why the rhyme dictionary makes no sense here for Beijing Mandarin is that BJM preserves an ancient distinction entirely lost in Cantonese: 六 was `*/liuk/` in Early MC, and Northern Mandarin is one of the few dialects that actually keep the `*/-iuk/` `*/-uk/` distinction _natively_, even though inconsistently. It is entirely lost in all other dialects very early on.
Rethliopuks
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-03T00:13:53.240Z
And, in this case, 福 could never have had the `*/iuk/` set of pronunciation like 六 does, and the reason is a systematic, *Middle Chinese* one: 福 is, obviously, a word of 轻唇音 (labiodental sounds). Those developed from 重唇音 (bilabial sounds) in Middle Chinese _by losing a medial `*i`_, so 福 already belonged to the `*/-uk/` set by Late Middle Chinese. Since BJM has the special pronunciation only for `*/-iuk/`, of course this doesn't work. This is like using RD to 伐: 房越 gives you `fyut6` in Cantonese; voilà it doesn't work -- of course not, 伐 and 越 didn't even belong to the same lexical set in LMC.
Rethliopuks
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-03T00:26:57.933Z
In case that was not clear, there was no hope from the beginning that RD should ever work for the 福 example, because it did not work for a common ancestor of BJM and GZC. And in case it was not clear, you _can_ look up the pronunciation of 入 in Mandarin like you can look up the pronunciation of 鸠 in Cantonese (you get `gau1`, homophone of "penis"), or of 鸟 in either (`diao3` `diu2`) - you actually _do get_ an absolutely "correct" pronunciation, except it is totally useless because that pronunciation coincided with a taboo word and people _intentionally pronounced it differently_ for euphemism.
Rethliopuks
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-23T04:03:12.490Z
2017-04-23T07:29:51.113Z
2017-04-23T07:29:51.113Z
水巷孑蠻
<p>I ask this question, and provide my opinion as an answer, to reply to the comment of another tread in stack exchange:</p>

<p><a href="https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23490/pronunciation-of-tang-dynasty-poetry">Pronunciation of Tang Dynasty Poetry</a></p>

<p>The rationale is that it is difficult to write long answers ib the comments area, and, I've several arguments to express. Also it is too long to make it in the answer. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.</p>

<p>Now, I ask again, to use a rime dictionary, e.g. 切韻, 廣韻, is Cantonese better than Mandarin?</p>

<cantonese><tones><phonology><middle-chinese>
Is Cantonese a better choice in looking for characters in rime dictionary (韻書)?
# Is Cantonese a better choice in looking for characters in rime dictionary (韻書)?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-04-23)

I ask this question, and provide my opinion as an answer, to reply to the comment of another tread in stack exchange:

[Pronunciation of Tang Dynasty Poetry](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/23490/pronunciation-of-tang-dynasty-poetry)

The rationale is that it is difficult to write long answers ib the comments area, and, I've several arguments to express. Also it is too long to make it in the answer. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Now, I ask again, to use a rime dictionary, e.g. 切韻, 廣韻, is Cantonese better than Mandarin?

**Tags:** cantonese, tones, phonology, middle-chinese


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_0 on 2017-04-23. Score: 2

Though I emphasize Cantonese here, any southern dialect / language that still have entering tone (入聲); e.G. [Hakka and Min](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/checked_tone), would have a similar scenario.

The oldest rime dictionary (韻書) I found, is 鉅宋廣韻, printed in 1169; that the national archives of Japan has a downloadable copy:

<https://www.Digital.Archives.Go.Jp/das/pickup/view/category/categoryarchives/0500000000/0511000000/00>

To look for a character in rime dictionary, you just need to know how to pronounce it, **in Cantonese**.

Let's try to find [入 (u+5165)](http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/search.Php?Word=%E5%85%A5)

1. I know it's pronounced as [sound file](http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/sound/jap6.Mp3); which is straight & short (直而促). A clear, significant sign that 入 (u+5165) is in entering tone (入聲).
2. Meanwhile, if I try to write it's romanisation( I used sydney lay scheme, you may use others), it would be "yap". It ends with -p, another significant sign that 入 (u+5165) is in entering tone (入聲).
3. Pick up volume 5 of 鉅宋廣韻 {volume I & II is for level tone (平聲), volume III for rising tone (上聲), volume IV for departing tone (去聲); and volume V for entering tone (入聲)}.

<https://www.Digital.Archives.Go.Jp/das/pickup/view/detail/detailarchives/0511000000/0000000873/00>

4. Turn to the index page of volume 5, read from right to left, top to bottom; try to find any character that has a similar pronunciation with "入".

5. Voilà, 緝第二十六; the character 緝 has a similar pronunciation, and, the "七入" above 緝 is used for [反切](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/fanqie), which has "入" :)
6. Lastly, turn to 緝第二十六. Well, no page number in ancient Chinese books. You guess roughly, and turn the page :( read again from right to left, then top to bottom. Voilà, it's there:

[![p35.Png](https://i.sstatic.net/lqykp.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/lqykp.jpg)

Ok, 緝第二十六 is page 34, 入 is page 35:

It was written: 入﹒得也﹒ 内也﹒納也﹒人執切

By the way, 内 (u+5185) is not 內 (u+5167); anyone see the difference?

Now, this comment is quoted from the above mentioned thread:

> Point 3 is straight factually incorrect that people can use 韻書 (rime dictionaries) with Cantonese but not Mandarin. It is just factually wrong and unlike point 1, there even is no dispute about this. Rime dictionaries do not apply as much to Cantonese as they do not to Mandarin. – rethliopuks

Now, may I ask, how can anyone searches for the character 入 (u+5165), using Mandarin?

According to Mandarin, 入 is pronounced as rù (去聲). So, anyone picking volume IV of 鉅宋廣韻 would be trapped, it's **not** in this volume.

I used 入 as the only example to show the **uselessness of Mandarin** in looking for characters in rime dictionaries. If anyone have time and effort, and wants to verify this context, try two more entering tone (入聲) characters:

[哲 (u+54f2)](http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/search.Php?Word=%E5%93%B2)

[福 (u+798f)](http://humanum.Arts.Cuhk.Edu.Hk/lexis/lexi-mf/search.Php?Word=%E7%A6%8F)

Have fun

This answer is already quite long, I would say that most, or, all entering tone (入聲) characters would have the same scenario.

Last, I would conclude that, to look for character in rime dictionaries (韻書), Cantonese, or other dialects / languages that have entering tone (入聲); are a better choice than Mandarin.

Or, a direct, maybe provoking statement would be:

**Since Mandarin lost the entering tone (入聲), it's useless in looking up characters in rime dictionaries (韻書).**

Stay tuned, there'll be another thread about entering tone (入聲) and old Chinese; Cantonese is again better.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: You answered your own question......  
> **username_2**: You need to devote as much effort to spelling, punctuation and grammar as you devote to this... And this is not a blog. You don't post a question just to put up an answer.  
> **username_3**: @username_1: Answer one's own question is allowed, it can even earns you a 'Self learner badge' if it is a good answer. https://chinese.stackexchange.com/help/badges/14/self-learner The reason for username_0 asked and answered this question is explained on his post.  
> **username_0**: @username_2, sorry for my english :( i wish i had time & effort in my youth,  . . .  
> **username_2**: @username_3. But that is true only if the question is looking for an answer. This question was asked as a pretext.  
> **username_3**: @ username_2 Please check this link https://chinese.stackexchange.com/help/self-answer *"Can I answer my own question?  Yes! Stack Exchange has always explicitly encouraged users to answer their own questions. If you have a question that you already know the answer to, and you would like to document that knowledge in public so that others (including yourself) can find it later, it's perfectly okay to ask and answer your own question on a Stack Exchange site."*  
> **username_0**: yes, exactly what i think & do :)  
> **username_4**: Cherry picking does not work, and while you are precisely right that Mandarin's Rusheng finals are messed up, cherry picking does not work, and more importantly **you did not even understand the real reason why Mandarin's Rusheng finals are messed up. It's not because the codas disappeared, but because the standardization process in the 80s chooses which pronunciation to keep _aribtrarily_**.  
> **username_4**: Plus it's actually unfortunate of you to cite 入 because the only reason 入 is pronounced `ru4` not `*ri4` is because 入 pronounced as `ri4` came to mean the **f** word in Mandarin, and **people changed the pronunciation for euphemism** like they did with 鸟: 鸟 was pronounced with the same initial consonant as 端 so it'd be `diu2` in Cantonese and `diao3` in Mandarin. You see the problem -- this sound means "penis". So people started pronouncing the word identically like 袅, which is how 鸟 got its current nasal initial.  
> **username_4**: The other two examples are actually about the tones (the 哲 example automatically generates zhe because retroflexes categorically cannot take the `i` medial and have to drop it; so `zh`+`ie` actually gives you `zhe` _natively_). **That's again not because Mandarin lost its stop codas; it's because the city of Beijing specifically, as the capital and center of China, was influenced greatly by dialects of all places, and for the tones resulting from _MC voiceless initial Rusheng syllables only_, there are different historical "layers" originating from _different, external dialects_**.  
> **username_0**: so, how do one look for "入", "哲" from a rime dictionary nowadays? it's not possible by mandarin. only pronounce these characters by cantonese (or other southern languages), one can still use a rime dictionary.  
> **username_0**: "the 哲 example automatically generates zhe" is non-sense for a native cantonese speaker. depends on which scheme used, the romanisation of 哲 would be "chit" or "hit"; that both of them end with -t; a clear indication that 哲 is entering tone (入聲).  
> **username_0**: the logic of this q & a is: rime dictionary, e.g. 切韻, 廣韻 reflect the pronunciation of middle chinese. so, if any dialects / languages help to find characters in it, it's correlated to middle chinese. mandarin is useless, in the situation of characters of entering tone (入聲). given the fact that cantonese can be used, including characters of entering tone (入聲). so, one could conclude that cantonese is highly correlated to middle chinese.  
> **username_4**: I just told you. `zh`+`ie` actually gives you `zhe`. Now it is you who makes no sense. There is zero logic in trying to use Cantonese sounds to  predict Mandarin pronunciation, with or without 反切. Wenzhou Wu Chinese native speakers would say the 反切 for 阳, which is 與章, gives one `j + i = ji` which "clearly shows 阳 has no final consonant". And any native Japanese speaker would tell you 陟列 gives you `t + etsu = tetsu`, and that 哲 would end in `it` makes very little sense. In Korean, `j + eol = jeol` by any reasonable measure; "it makes so little sense that it should give `chit` or `jit`!"  
> **username_4**: You make little sense in your last statement. Even if that were true, you are only saying that "in the situation of 入声 Guangzhou Cantonese fares better than Beijing Mandarin". It is simply a pure leap of faith to claim that "so...cantonese is highly correlated to middle chinese".  
> **username_4**: To clarify, in Wenzhou Wu 阳 is /ji/, like "yi". In all other Romanization systems "j" means something other than /j/. And I just checked 福; it is actually so unfortunately inappropriate for your purpose, because the entire reason why the rhyme dictionary makes no sense here for Beijing Mandarin is that BJM preserves an ancient distinction entirely lost in Cantonese: 六 was `*/liuk/` in Early MC, and Northern Mandarin is one of the few dialects that actually keep the `*/-iuk/` `*/-uk/` distinction _natively_, even though inconsistently. It is entirely lost in all other dialects very early on.  
> **username_4**: And, in this case, 福 could never have had the `*/iuk/` set of pronunciation like 六 does, and the reason is a systematic, *Middle Chinese* one: 福 is, obviously, a word of 轻唇音 (labiodental sounds). Those developed from 重唇音 (bilabial sounds) in Middle Chinese _by losing a medial `*i`_, so 福 already belonged to the `*/-uk/` set by Late Middle Chinese. Since BJM has the special pronunciation only for `*/-iuk/`, of course this doesn't work. This is like using RD to 伐: 房越 gives you `fyut6` in Cantonese; voilà it doesn't work -- of course not, 伐 and 越 didn't even belong to the same lexical set in LMC.  
> **username_4**: In case that was not clear, there was no hope from the beginning that RD should ever work for the 福 example, because it did not work for a common ancestor of BJM and GZC. And in case it was not clear, you _can_ look up the pronunciation of 入 in Mandarin like you can look up the pronunciation of 鸠 in Cantonese (you get `gau1`, homophone of "penis"), or of 鸟 in either (`diao3` `diu2`) - you actually _do get_ an absolutely "correct" pronunciation, except it is totally useless because that pronunciation coincided with a taboo word and people _intentionally pronounced it differently_ for euphemism.  

---

