Archaic/medieval Chinese pronunciation recordings

[Mehdi]

I don't know if anyone have already asked this, but I have often read books and articles about old Chinese and other periods of Chinese, I always found that their transcription system were too complicated and it was always impossible to have any idea of what it should really sound.

I don't know if it is is possible but to an add-on with this kind of prononciation will be a great plus for pleco as the best Chinese learning tool.

 

[Mehdi]

Why no one is answering me, isn't a good idea? At least it would be the first one to give this possibility

 

[mikelove]

Ah, sorry I missed this one. To be honest I'm not sure if this would have enough of a market to justify recording them; if somebody comes up with + open-sources some archaic Chinese audio we'd be glad to consider offering it as a free Pleco add-on, but I don't think we'd make enough money from selling this to pay for the cost of hiring someone to record it for us.

 

[bokane]

I think the main issue is that relatively few reconstructions these days make any claims about phonetic accuracy: Karlgren thought that he was reconstructing the actual sounds of Middle Chinese, but the current consensus (as I understand it -- which is not very far!) is that the best we're likely to get is a phonemic reconstruction, meaning that we'll have information about the sound system rather than the sounds themselves. David Prager Branner has written about his use of an "anti-reconstruction" -- basically a transcription of the data from the rime books -- for teaching purposes; my understanding is that William Baxter's transcription (used in Paul Kroll's dictionary) works along the same lines.

 

[Mehdi]

Yes I have read this paper too. But my point wasn't about right or wrong, cause I think we will hardly one day the true pronunciation, but as every time I read articles or books about Old Chinese reconstruction I feel very frustrated to look at those symbols which represent sounds in a very hermetic way, and I wish I could put a sound on each one of them in order to clarify my mind.

 

[bokane]

Yeah; Old Chinese is an even stranger beast, and the Baxter-Sagart reconstruction doesn't lend itself to reading aloud -- though that's probably by design. Middle Chinese transcriptions like Baxter's and Branner's at least can be read as they're written once you know what they're using the different letters to represent. You wouldn't be able to jump into a time machine and hang out with Li Bo and Wang Wei (...er, LiX Baek and Hjwang Ywij) or anything, but once you got used to the conventions -- voiced/unvoiced/aspirated initials, "-r-" for retroflexion, etc. -- you'll probably be producing something sufficient to bring the sounds alive for you.

 

[bokane]

Should have added that Edwin Pulleyblank also produced reconstructions of two different stages of Middle Chinese that aimed at a greater degree of phonetic realism. I'm not sure how favorably they're viewed by people who understand these things.