Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese [Paperback]

Bernhard Karlgren (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Chinese

Product Details

• Paperback: 441 pages
• Publisher: Dover Pubns (June 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486218872
• ISBN-13: 978-0486218878
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,933,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Accurate to the level of detail a researcher can expect, February 12, 2006

By 

Glossika "Glossika" (China) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese (Paperback)

This book shows Karlgren's re-constructed forms of Ancient Chinese (which have been refuted and revised by other linguists after this publication), where Karlgren's "Ancient Chinese" refers to Middle Chinese in modern usage (and Archaic Chinese refers to Old Chinese in modern usage). Karlgren uses a current version of IPA at the time of writing (first publication was 1923). Karlgren shows the IPA of Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese, and please note, these are not "romanizations" or "transliterations".

Why do I strongly recommend this book?
1. For anybody who would like to increase the number of characters they know by leaps and bounds, use the "xingsheng" phonetic character method. By comparing characters with the same phonetic parts, you will find most have the same rhyme and more often than not have the same place of articulation of onset consonants (e.g. labials, dentals, retroflex).
2. Comparison of Ancient and Modern pronunciations and comparison between Mandarin and Cantonese.
3. The IPA used for Mandarin is interesting because it shows which characters in Pinyin "x" originally came from /h/ or /s/, likewise for "q" either /k'/ or /ts'/, and "j" either /k/ or /ts/. If you are working on other Chinese languages with only knowledge of Mandarin, I would suggest learning which of these palatal characters came from velars or dentals as it will help you learn and understand other languages more swiftly. I would also suggest learning which characters are actually Ru Tones and whether they end in k, t, or p.
4. Track the pronunciation changes into Japanese. Once you understand the patterns, this is extremely useful for coming up with the Japanese pronunciation on your own by mere knowledge of the Chinese. For example Chinese -ing often becomes -you or -ei in Japanese, but do you know which is which?

A previous reviewer of this book failed to understand the contents of this book in a number of ways.

1. Misunderstood: "The transliteration system used by Bernhard Karlgren is very unlike any of the current systems in use for either of the Chinese dialects in question"

Explanation: The "system" is called the International Phonetic Alphabet, as it was used in Karlgren's day (as there have been modifications since then). The *current* "system" for recording the "Chinese dialects in question" and all other Chinese dialects is still the IPA by linguists, and actually that applies to the other 6500 world's languages.

The Mandarin pronunciations reflect pre-modern ones (Qing Dynasty), where palatalizations are not accounted for in onset consonants, for example in the city name Peiking, "k" in modern Mandarin is pronounced /tc,/ or "j" in Pinyin.
For modern pronunciations, simply palatalize all "h", "s", "k", before high-front vowels (/i/ and /y/ where Karlgren uses "¨¹") so that the following changes to Pinyin may be observed:
h > x, s > x, ts > j, ts' > q, k > j, k' > q
All of this is explained in detail at the beginning of the book.

There are two ages of Japanese represented in this book. The modern pronunciation followed in parentheses by when it was first borrowed into Japanese, so you will find entries that may say "tou (tapu)" where "ou" is "o" with a macron in the book. Again, the IPA of Japanese is used.

2. Misunderstood: "there is room to pencil in the transliterations in whatever system the user is familiar with"

Explanation: True, you can write in any system you want. However, if the user's familiar system is the IPA, then there's no need to go the extra mile to pencil in anything as Karlgren's already done the hard bit of actually reproducing the sounds not in some arbitrary language-learning alphabet, but rather in an accurate representation of the sounds of the language using IPA. If Pinyin is the only system you can comprehend, then this is not the book for you and you will find very little use of this book.

3. Misunderstood: "The dictionary only lists the characters singly so multiple character phrases and words are not included"

Explanation: "Dictionary" can be translated several ways from English into Chinese, and here I would say it is (zidian), or single character entries only. This dictionary is not a study of multiple character phrases, but rather of character groupings based on their phonetic elements, known as Xingsheng (or Xiesheng) characters, one of six kinds of characters that exist in Chinese. A modern version of this kind of dictionary with similar groupings, and is in Pinyin and actually quite popular with students is Harbaugh's "Zhongwen Zipu" found at Amazon or his dot com website "zhongwen".

4. Misunderstood: "One glaring error is that when signifying the Cantonese tones he shows the level tones as falling and the falling tones as level."

Explanation: At that time characters could easily be marked for tone with a simple system of four half circles. The half circles are placed starting from the bottom left side of the character and go clockwise around to the bottom right side, thus: bottom left, top left, top right, bottom right. These four markings indicate four tone groups: Ping, Shang, Qu, and Ru (in that order). These indicate the higher tone registers, or Yin. If a character has a lower tone register in Yang, then the half circles have an underline.
As described at the beginning of the dictionary, these tone markings are placed before or after the IPA pronunciation (not the character). They are placed on the Ancient pronunciations only. If the Mandarin or Cantonese tones differ from the Ancient pronunciations, then those pronunciations are marked. The Ancient pronunciations do not mark the Ru tone, because all Ru tones end with a stop. The Ancient pronunciations also do not mark the Yang tones as these characters always start with a voiced consonant. Therefore, all Ru tones in Mandarin have to be marked because they have changed.
Mandarin tones should be as follows:
Tone 1 = bottom-left (Yin-Ping)
Tone 2 = bottom-left + underline (Yang-Ping)
Tone 3 = top-left (Shang)
Tone 4 = top-right (Qu)
Cantonese tones should be as follows:
Tone 1 = bottom-left (Yin-Ping)
Tone 2 = top-left (Yin-Shang)
Tone 3 = top-right (Yin-Qu)
Tone 4 = bottom-left + underline (Yang-Ping)
Tone 5 = top-left + underline (Yang-Shang)
Tone 6 = top-right + underline (Yang-Qu)
Tone 7 = bottom-right (Yin-Ru)
Tone 8 = bottom-right circle (Yin-Ru "Middle Ru")
Tone 9 = bottom-right + underline (Yang-Ru)

5. Misunderstood: "This book also does not allow for the Cantonese middle tone."

Explanation: False again. Bottom of page 8, Karlgren writes (and I'm not reproducing the IPA here if it doesn't show properly, so all retroflex IPA will add a dot which Karlgren writes as dot below):

"Cantonese has a third z.u s.-schwa-ng marked x+circle e.g. ŠA A. kap (high z.u s.-schwa-ng) C. ka-macron-p+circle (t.s.ung z.u s.-schwa-ng)."

What Karlgren wrote is that Cantonese middle Ru Sheng is marked with a circle instead of a half-circle, and in the expected position of bottom-right side of the word. Also remember that the middle Ru tone always has an "aah" sound (written "aa" by some authors) and not "uh" sound (written "a" by some authors). For example 8 (°Ë) Mandarin: ba, Cantonese baat. Note that pinyin "b" is actually not voiced in Chinese and is written "p" in IPA.

Regards,
Glossika Chinese Dialects

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars it takes some work but highly useful, June 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese (Paperback)

This is the first work that I have found that lends equal credence to the Cantonese pronunciation of characters as it does to the Mandarin pronunciation of characters. The transliteration system used by Bernhard Karlgren is very unlike any of the current systems in use for either of the Chinese dialects in question. However, with work, the pronunciations can be worked out and there is room to pencil in the transliterations in whatever system the user is familiar with. The pronunciations given for the Cantonese readings of the characters are the literary pronunciations. The dictionary only lists the characters singly so multiple character phrases and words are not included. If these caveats are born in mind while using this dictionary, it will prove very useful. The main use I have found, is being able to give close Cantonese readings to Chinese characters as the Cantonese speaker may not be familiar with the Mandarin readings of the characters in question or their English transliterations of the Mandarin. There are a few minor errors in translteration in Bernhard Karlgren's system of transliteration that are not dealt with in the Errata section. One glaring error is that when signifying the Cantonese tones he shows the level tones as falling and the falling tones as level. This book also does not allow for the Cantonese middle tone.

5.0 out of 5 stars Important learning tool, August 24, 2011

By 

ohm "okeh" (China) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese (Paperback)

This book really helped my understanding of Chinese. Learning to see characters from the phonetic elements, rather that the radical, is a key insight. This is one of those books that is endlessly rewarding to browse. Shame it seems to be out of print.