Chinese Rhyme Dictionary (押韵字典)

From the Qieyun to the Zhonghua Tongyun

Lu Fayan's preface to the Qieyun (切韵) is dated to the first year of Renshou in the Sui dynasty, AD 601. It was not the first rhyme book: the preface names the earlier ones it set out to correct, including Lü Jing's 韵集 and the rhyme books of Xiahou Gai, Yang Xiuzhi, Zhou Siyan, Li Jijie and Du Taiqing.

The 106 groups of Pingshui Yun (平水韵) date from the 13th century. The Palace Museum's entry for 平水韵 describes two 13th-century books that fixed the count: Liu Yuan's, now lost, which merged the rhymes that earlier books allowed to be used together into 107 groups, and Wang Wenyu's 平水新刊韵略, from the Jin, with 106. The 106 are the system later in general use. Du Fu and Li Bai wrote centuries before either book. They rhymed by the Qieyun and Tangyun tradition, whose shareable rhymes the 106 groups later merged.

This tool holds every character in the main lists of all 106 groups, from the Wikisource transcription of 平水韻. The transcription does not say which printed edition it follows, so we call it "the Wikisource transcription, edition unnamed". We corrected three transcription errors in it; they are listed under Sources below. Under the main list of 105 groups the transcription also prints a 【詞】 line, and six groups also carry a 【辭】 line, without saying what those characters are or where they come from. This tool leaves both kinds of line out and uses only each group's main list.

What is the entering tone (入声)?

One of the four tones of Middle Chinese (平上去入), ending in -p, -t or -k. Mandarin has no entering tone; its characters were spread across the four modern tones. Cantonese keeps all three endings. Pingshui Yun counts the entering tone as oblique (仄), so an entering-tone character that Mandarin reads in the first or second tone is the easiest to mistake for a level one.

"Mandarin reads 白, 读 and 国 in the second tone, which sounds level. In Pingshui Yun all three are entering-tone characters, and so oblique (仄). Mistake oblique for level and the line breaks the metre."

What is level and oblique (平仄)?

Of Pingshui Yun's 106 groups, 30 are level (平): 15 upper and 15 lower. The other 76 are oblique (仄): 29 rising, 30 departing and 17 entering. Regulated verse places level and oblique characters in a set pattern, and this tool marks every group as one or the other.

Three rhyme systems, three uses

Pingshui Yun is the rhyme book for regulated verse (近体诗). An article by Zhong Zhenzhen on the China Poetry Society's website says it applies only to regulated verse, not to older-style poems or to ci. The ci rhyme book often used, 词林正韵, was compiled privately by the Qing scholar Ge Zai.

Zhonghua New Rhymes (中华新韵) sorts Putonghua finals into 14 groups. It was published in the magazine 中华诗词 in 2004 (issue 5). This tool computes the group from the pinyin final using that table, not from hand-picked lists.

Zhonghua Tongyun (中华通韵) is the standard issued for trial use by mainland China's Ministry of Education and the State Language Commission, in force from 1 November 2019 and developed by the China Poetry Society. The ministry says it does not replace the older rhyme books; the two run side by side. This tool does not implement it yet.