The hP'ags-Pa Transcription of Chinese Plosives

A Phonological Study in the 'Phags-pa Script and the Meng-ku Tzu-yün

“…This may be confirmed by some considerations of modern dialects as follows: Table 5 final shan-she chenshe This table shows different variants of the final consonant n in modern dialects. From this table the following facts can be deduced: (1) in Peking and some other Mandarin-speaking areas the final n has not changed ; (2) in Foochow n has evenly changed to y ; (3) in Amoy it has not changed except for occasional nasalisation; (4) in both the Sian and Taiyuan dialects it has also been nasalised apart from y of chen-she in Taiyuan ; (5) in Yangchow (in the Mandarin-speaking area) it has been nasalised except chen-she ; (6) in the Wu dialects (Soochow and Wenchow) it has been dropped in the shan-she group, but in the chen-she group it has been kept except in Wenchow, where it has changed to y.…”

“…'27 This explanation is misleading, because in the M K T Y -hi-does not appear in any 'sound represented in the Wade transcription system by -ih' but only appears in the supradental group under the condition mentioned above. As shown in p. 52 (Chapter II,§ 2,E,F), the phonetic changes of retroflex sounds since the Northern Sung period have been very complicated, but nevertheless the distinction between the supradental and affricated alveolo-palatal groups had been preserved until the early seventeenth century, although the initial con sonants had already assimilated each other at that time. Even in the C Y Y Y the supradentals in stage 3 (see p. 52 ) derived from the affricated alveolo-palatal still retained a deflected element as follows: On the other hand, in the M K T Y the distinction between the supradental, affricated alveolo-palatal, and cerebral groups is as follows : [3] as nuclei, and those vowels are very infrequent.…”