Fanqie

In traditional Chinese lexicography, fǎnqiè or fan-chieh is a method to indicate the pronunciation of a monosyllabic character by using two other characters, one with the same initial consonant as the desired syllable and one with the same rest of the syllable (the final). The method was introduced in the 3rd century AD and used in dictionaries and commentaries on the classics until the early 20th century.

History

Early dictionaries such as the Erya (3rd century BC) indicated the pronunciation of a character by the method of dúruò (讀若, "read as"), giving another character with the same pronunciation. The introduction of Buddhism to China around the first century brought Indian phonetic knowledge, which may have inspired the idea of fanqie. According to the 6th-century scholar Yan Zhitui, fanqie were first used by Sun Yan (孫炎), of the state of Wei during the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD), in his Erya Yinyi (爾雅音義, "Sounds and Meanings of Erya"). However, earlier examples have been found in the late 2nd century works of Fu Qian and Ying Shao.