@TPL HK speaks modernized Cantonese. Older forms of Cantonese exist in less populated areas of southern China. These 方言 do preserve many of Middle Chinese sounds. I have grandparents from TaiShan. I can understand about 3/4 of this video even without reading the text.
@@フェアリン-g8u I am somewhat skeptical of the validity of such a claim. Unless you have learnt about early Middle Chinese, I don’t think it’s really possible to understand 3/4 of what is said, especially considering that the texts are in Classical Chinese.
It is interesting that the text is also discussing the old pronounce of Chinese language. Funny to see ancient people discussing even more ancient people.
It sounds like a combination of various Chinese dialects nowadays. Overall, some pronunciations are comparable to Hakka, Cantonese, Hokkien, and even some Vietnamese.
Just curious: are you able to speak these languages and dialects? I am struggling with Mandarin at the moment, thankfully I have Chinese friends to talk to.
Because Vietnamese has a large number ancient Chinese words from Annan Chinese（similar to cantonese), these are Chinese loan words, just like there are a large number Latin words in English, but English belongs to the Germanic languages rather than the Romance languages. Loanwords cannot represent the origin and relationship between languages,Even though Vietnamese and Korean have 60-80% Chinese words.
@@tomwang3712 Vietnamese and all the xeno-sinic readings of chinese loanwords typically contain very archaic versions of chinese as they were always few hundred years behind the development on the mainland and their connection to chinese wasn't always immediate. While current Chinese standard belongs to the progressive forms of the language, as it frequently is the case with the Metropolis variants (compare British and American English, British is the much more progressive variant in pronunciation),
lol that's because this is reconstructed using these dialects and other neighboring country's similarly shared words, based on the supposedly indicative historical context of migration and events to trace and guess the sound, that's what it is, we don't have recorders nor speakers alive from early middle china lmao
As a Vietnamese and I live in Central Vietnam, this is exactly my parent sound like when they speak Vietnamese they originate from Hue it used to be the capital of ancient Vietnam. All of the people come from Hue have accent just like this when they speak Vietnamese, we often called Hue dialect. Unfortunately, I was born without this accent but I could imitate it since I learn from my parent from the way they communicate with each other.
Sino-Japanese is mainly derived from the Early Middle Chinese of Jiankang perhaps through Sino-Baekje. That's why Japanese is similar to the Wu-Min dialect continuum.
As a native Cantonese speaker, I can understand about 55% of them with some deep and detailed thinking process. They sound like Cantonese but with a super weird and bizarre accent.
Sounds like a Vietnamese student attempting to speak Teochew or Hokkien but ended up with some combination of Sino-Vietnamese, Teochew, Hokkien, and Hakka
@@larshofler8298 well speaking of that, you have a strong point lol, check out the hainanese dialect, th-cam.com/video/e3AZOIJ17jo/w-d-xo.html which is one of the remnant of archaic hokkien branch, some of these words in the video indeed sound highly similar in phonology, to what I would pronounce in hainanese at least
if only there was a big community around speaking ancient and middle Chinese just like Latin, I'd gladly join such a group to learn the language and its evolution.
Awesome! Just noticed that Buddhist terms in middle Chinese are much closer to their original Indo-Aryan pronunciation than in Mandarin.Now I'm waiting for Ming-Qing Mandarin.Good job and keep it going!
It's very interesting. Sounds of Middle Chinese are very familiar for Japanese. Especially, numbers and Prajna Sutra (般若心経) make me feel like I'm hearing Japanese.
Everyone is Comparing middle early Chinese to Japanese and Korean. I hear more Cantonese and Vietnamese. Very interesting video as always this channel puts out good stuff.
I love how the loanwords and names from Sanskrit actually do resemble the original language, unlike the modern Chinese and Sino-Xenic pronunciations XD
You complaining about what you don't like? that's the way it is instead of saying I don't like your language. You can't deny what happened is right there.
It's just because the pronunciation of those characters has changed. You can still find sounds from modern Chinese that resemble the Sanskrit pronunciation.
@@favemediabureau Where do you see a complaint? vonPeterhof is noticing that the preferred pattern for borrowing loanwords into Chinese has changed repeatedly during Chinese history. Just looking at the last 150 years creates a very complicated pattern. And its still evolving. With more people speaking English phonetic borrowing is on the rise again.
@@favemediabureau "unlike" is not a word to show that you do not like the things following that word. It only shows that they are just different, without any preferences of liking or disliking. In this context, "unlike" can be replaced with "different from". I can understand your concerns because I'm also not a native speaker of English.
This video is very helpful for scholars who study Southeast Asian history. Middle Chinese pronunciation was close to many places in the region. It help to identify these places in Chinese chronicles.
During the Early Middle Chinese period, large amounts of Chinese vocabulary were systematically borrowed by Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. Also, Tonkin and Canton were sinicized during the same period under the ruling of the Nanyue (Nam Việt) Kingdom and Han Dynasty. This is why Vietnamese, Japanese, and Cantonese sound similar to the early middle Chinese language. Some Chinese dialects in the south of China also sound similar as the Sinicization occurred around the same time. Mandarin Chinese only started during the Modern Chinese period, so it sounds more different.
Early Middle Chinese was based on 《切韵》(qie yun) system， it was Wei Jin to Tang dynasty's language. When it developed to Late Middle Chinese, it was based on 《广韵》(guang yun) system， and it was Song dynasty language. Yuan dynasty's Chinese was based on 《中原音韵》，and it was similar to Modern mandarin. Ming dynasty's mandarin was similar to Modern mandarin too.
Chinese of Min/Hokkien+Yue/Cantonese ancestry here, seeing this it makes sense that I learnt Japanese language did get relatively easy with my knowledge of Hokkien/Teochew dialect.
It intrigues me so much how pronounciation of "R" changed in chinese. -Old chinese had rolling R pronounciation simmilar to spanish or slavic languages -Middle chinese had this "french" type of R -Modern chinese R sound is soft like english Truly fascinating
Middle Chinese didnt exactly have an R phoneme, it developed into an L inherited from Old Chinese's R phoneme. What youre probably hearing is the velar voiced fricative that evolved into either a voiceless fricative, a palatal fricative, or disappeared altogether. The modern R in Mandarin is totally unrelated, it came from the Palatal Dental from Old and Middle Chinese.
Comparison with Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese numbers: 'Ideal Pronunciation' suggested by the King Sejong (1448) ʔílʔ, zí, sàm, sʌ́, ŋǒ, ljúk, tsʰílʔ, pálʔ, kǔw, sːíp Actual Pronunciation in Middle Korean (until 1500s) íl, zǐ, sàm, sʌ̌, ǒ, ljúk, tsʰíl, pʰál, kù, síp Modern Korean (South Korean Standard) il, iː, sam, saː, oː, juk, tɕʰil, pʰal, ku, ɕip Old Japanese (mostly Go-on) iti, ni, samu, si, go, roku, siti, pati, ku (Kan-on: kiu), zipu Modern Japanese (mostly Go-on) itɕi, ni, saɴ, ɕi, go, ɾoku, ɕitɕi, hatɕi, ku (Kan-on: kjuː), ʑuː
It's just so amazing after reading the comments, that it seems the middle chinese language influenced the languages of Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai and other South East Asian languages for centuries to come, only to evolve into all these beautiful Asian languages we hear today.
Because that’s how they construct them. Those are reconstructed pronunciation based on certain linguistic evidences, which includes referencing some modern dialects.
Some similarities with Mizo vocabulary Up, above - chung Down, beneath - hnuai Centre, middle - lai Morning - zing Sky, heaven - van Earth, ground - lei Sun, day - ni Moon, month - thla Water, river - tui/lui Mountain/hill - tlang
Hakka has a lot in common 1 jit 2 nyi 3 sam 100 pak Gold : kim Sky,heaven :thien Earth :thi Tree/woo : muk/shu Fire : Foo Water: sui Mountain :san River : ho Lake: Fo Sea : hoi Sun,day : ngit (sun :ngit thew) Clound :yun Han/han dynasti : Hon Star : sen Person,human :ngin Down: hha Night : jaa /am pu Short : ton
Two things stand out: 1) the transliteration of Buddhist terminology is closer to Sanskrit than Cantonese and more so over modern day putonghua. 2) I am surprised that hear some sounds that are similar to northern Vietnamese.
It's fascinating to see that, in Middle Chinese, the Buddhist terms actually sound even more like their Sanskrit counterparts, unlike in modern Mandarin. It's as close to time travel as possible.
This kind of languages are still widely spoken in Northeast India who traces their migration from Ancient China. Supposedly Sino tibetan, there are hundreds of languages spoken in Northeast India including tai or Thai. An intensive language research is required in this region of India..
it's sad , after seeing the comment I found that my mother tongue Hokkien is much less famous than Cantonese.and I also think it's pretty easy to learn Cantonese for me.
you have to thank the chinatowns in anglosphere countries being founded by majority cantonese people, and ofcourse the HKers being very eager to spread their presence online in recent years
Hokkien is derived not from mid ancient Chinese, but the earlier Chinese. Except hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, hakka, wu and Jin are derived from mid ancient Chinese.
@@upakritikrsna No. EMC also has some distinctive Mandarin features, such as cacuminal consonants and a complex vowel system. Plus there are similarities in grammar and vocabulary, but not obvious in this video.
Most of Chinese loan words in Korea are from Tang dynasty, so I, who's a native Korean, can understand some of those vocabulary. E.Middle pronunciation is even more familiar and understandable than modern Chinese.
Modern mandarin Chinese has a huge Manchu influence. The standard Mandarin Chinese accent are Manchu accent. That's why the Qing Emperor like Puyi can speak it very fluently because the accent is based on Manchu accent.
I think my own native language borrowed a lot from Middle Chinese, because more than 50% of the pronunciation and sounds from it, I used daily. Plus some words are very similar.
@@weifan9533 actually, we have borrowed a lot of words in Old and Middle Chinese. The word consists of beliefs, smithing, calendar many words I would say.
It really sounds more like "Chu-Nam" Vietnamese pronunciation of Han Characters. But less like middle Chinese Han language such as proto-Min (Taiwanese) or proto-Yue (Cantonese). Modern Min language such as Taiwanese or other varieties of Hokkien (and modern Cantonese family of languages) retained much of the sounds characteristics from ancient times, so I would think middle Chinese sounds closer to those languages rather than the above reconstruction.
Thank you for the information! As a learner of modern Mandarin and a dabbler in Hokkien, I was wondering how they were reconstructing Middle Chinese in this video. Also, since Hindi is my mother tongue, I was so surprised at how accurate the transliteration of Buddhist terms actually could have been in Middle Chinese. Amazing!
For the numbers, it sort of sounds the the Fuzhou dialect, at least for the first 10 My parents speak in that dialect so I understand it fully- Early Middle Chinese sounds interesting
Calling a language a "dialect" from the "official" language because it sounds different can be like calling the "father" the "child" because he looks different. At one time the "dialect" WAS the "official" language and now the situation has reversed.
yeah kind of ignorant to call this language a dialect when this language is like the grandfather. looking at the comments it seems like alot of these regional chinese languages descended from this.
i really wanna know how linguists know for certain what these ancient languages sounded like witch no recorded audio, especially, a language like chinese where there isn’t even a spelling system to kind of guess how each character was pronounced back then? can someone explain it to me, please?
I don't think any linguist doing historical reconstruction would claim that they know for certain. All reconstructions by linguists are educated guesses created by working backwards from current daughter-languages plus existing historical material
We don't know for certain how Middle Chinese sounded, this is our best guess based on what little information we have. Even back then, the Chinese language was very diverse. The Qieyun, the book on which these pronunciations are based, was written by a mix of northern and southern poets and represents a conglomeration of northern and southern dialects, and is therefore not an accurate depiction of how Chinese people spoke during that time. We'll probably never know for sure how Chinese people really talked back then, but at least with the Qieyun we'll know how they wanted us to read their poetry, so that's pretty cool.
The 10 sounds Korean. It's probably the other way about, though. The Koreans might have taken quite a lot of ancient to medieval Chinese pronunciations with the characters themselves, as the Japanese did.
haha , i am a cantonese speaking person but my grandma could only speak hakka(客家話）, i find it that the pronunciation of numbers of early middle chinese are very similar to modern hakka but less similar to modern cantonese
Alright, I love this early middle Chinese's phrase for "I don't know" 😆😆😆 If you take the way its written under the context of modern day Japanese, the kanji/hanzi read "empty know" 😂😂😂
I find it interesting that the Sanskrit loanwords (like Buddha, Sakyamuni) sounded more or less accurate to the original in Middle Chinese, but in modern Mandarin the pronunciation is way off.
sounds like hakka, from the numbers 1 to 10 (hakka). from the words sky, earth, water, fire, mountains, river, lake, sea, gold are hakka, even the han dynasty (Hon) is hakka
0:31 the 萬 in Early Middle Chinese sounds like the word "muôn" in Vietnamese with the same meaning and sounds different with the Sino-Vietnamese word "vạn" 萬 also with the same meaning, 10000 muôn năm = vạn niên = 萬年 or muôn năm = vạn tuế = 萬歲
there's alot m->v in vietnamse, vụ->mù(sương mù), vũ->mưa,vạn->muôn, vãn-> muộn,... a lot of words that we thought native Vietnamese words are old or early middle Chinese.
sounds more like Vietnamese , thai, Min languages and Yue Languages than mandarin. i guess because mandarin is also influenced by the languages of the steppes
The numbers in this video are almost identical with Tai languages (Thai, Lao, Shan, Dai, Tay, Zhuang, etc.). Most Tai numbers are from Middle Chinese, except 1 (from Native Tai *nɯŋ), 5 and 6 (from Old Chinese *ŋaʔ and *k.ruk respectively).
@@24mithuna Yes but most of Tai use เอ็ด (ʔet) only in digit not independently, for example 11 สิบเอ็ด sip.ʔet (ten + one = eleven), 21 ยี่สิบเอ็ด ji.sip.ʔet (twenty + one), 101 ร้อยเอ็ด rɔj.ʔet (hundred + one). In general counting, the native words หนึ่ง (nɯŋ) or เดียว (diaw) are used especially in colloquial speaking, mostly following the noun unlike other numbers which preceding the noun, for example คนหนึ่ง khon nɯŋ or คนเดียว khon diaw (person + one)
People who are saying that this sounds close to Japanese... I'm wondering if we are studying the same language because I can't really understand anything except for the numbers...not a single word XD
@@BY-sh6gt I can't see it at all but for a few exceptions, they're about as similar as the modern Chinese to me. Maybe it's the matter of individual perception, too.
Actually, Sino-Korean pronunciation is from this period. Some phonetic features in Sino-Korean are earlier than Tang, which sits between early and late Middle Chinese.
Now I see where so many of the Onyomi 音読み Sino-Japanese readings of Kanji come from.
Korean and Vietnamese also have many loanwords from Middle Chinese
@TPL well it is early middle Chinese, probably still has some old Chinese features still hanging around.
@TPL HK speaks modernized Cantonese. Older forms of Cantonese exist in less populated areas of southern China. These 方言 do preserve many of Middle Chinese sounds. I have grandparents from TaiShan. I can understand about 3/4 of this video even without reading the text.
@@simonlow0210 a lot sounds like Taishanese.
@@フェアリン-g8u I am somewhat skeptical of the validity of such a claim. Unless you have learnt about early Middle Chinese, I don’t think it’s really possible to understand 3/4 of what is said, especially considering that the texts are in Classical Chinese.
It is interesting that the text is also discussing the old pronounce of Chinese language. Funny to see ancient people discussing even more ancient people.
just like the epic of gilgamesh
@@natsuka8158 lmao yes
It sounds like a combination of various Chinese dialects nowadays. Overall, some pronunciations are comparable to Hakka, Cantonese, Hokkien, and even some Vietnamese.
Just curious: are you able to speak these languages and dialects? I am struggling with Mandarin at the moment, thankfully I have Chinese friends to talk to.
It does sound like Vietnamese, but keep in mind that Vietnamese is actually Austro-asiatic while Chinese is Sino-Tibetan.
Because Vietnamese has a large number ancient Chinese words from Annan Chinese（similar to cantonese), these are Chinese loan words, just like there are a large number Latin words in English, but English belongs to the Germanic languages rather than the Romance languages. Loanwords cannot represent the origin and relationship between languages,Even though Vietnamese and Korean have 60-80% Chinese words.
@@tomwang3712 Vietnamese and all the xeno-sinic readings of chinese loanwords typically contain very archaic versions of chinese as they were always few hundred years behind the development on the mainland and their connection to chinese wasn't always immediate. While current Chinese standard belongs to the progressive forms of the language, as it frequently is the case with the Metropolis variants (compare British and American English, British is the much more progressive variant in pronunciation),
lol that's because this is reconstructed using these dialects and other neighboring country's similarly shared words, based on the supposedly indicative historical context of migration and events to trace and guess the sound, that's what it is, we don't have recorders nor speakers alive from early middle china lmao
Sounds like someone put Hokkien Cantonese and Hakka into a blender then let a robot drink it and read it out.
it sounds like today's vietnamese language using this chinese version
Exactly my thought. As a canto speaker I think it will take weeks at most to get used to it.
I feel a strong taste of Vietnamese too 😅 Must be some southern influences
Or sounded like a tongue twister Khmer trying to speaking drunken Vietnam accent but at the same time realized thatt a complicated rarely Chinese.
lmao
As a Vietnamese and I live in Central Vietnam, this is exactly my parent sound like when they speak Vietnamese they originate from Hue it used to be the capital of ancient Vietnam. All of the people come from Hue have accent just like this when they speak Vietnamese, we often called Hue dialect. Unfortunately, I was born without this accent but I could imitate it since I learn from my parent from the way they communicate with each other.
This reminds me about Japanese and Korean to their corresponding Chinese characters
Yes, the similarity between japanese numbers and these is amazing.
I noticed this too, it's truly remarkable.
Sino-Japanese is mainly derived from the Early Middle Chinese of Jiankang perhaps through Sino-Baekje. That's why Japanese is similar to the Wu-Min dialect continuum.
@@Innomenatus I don't see many people talk about the Wu-Min continuum these days. Does it exist currently or historically?
@@aka-bo6ej This dialect exists currently in southeast China, such as Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, and northern Fujian provinces
As a native Cantonese speaker, I can understand about 55% of them with some deep and detailed thinking process. They sound like Cantonese but with a super weird and bizarre accent.
Exactly, around 55% of Middle Chinese is exactly if not almost similar to Cantonese with an ancient or archaic accent.
Sounds like a Vietnamese student attempting to speak Teochew or Hokkien but ended up with some combination of Sino-Vietnamese, Teochew, Hokkien, and Hakka
it sounds like archaic hokkien, not vietnamese...
@@larshofler8298 its his opinion, respect
@Nij Jin ha yes, the phonology you mean, these are very common across southern china to vietnam
@@larshofler8298 well speaking of that, you have a strong point lol, check out the hainanese dialect,
th-cam.com/video/e3AZOIJ17jo/w-d-xo.html
which is one of the remnant of archaic hokkien branch, some of these words in the video indeed sound highly similar in phonology, to what I would pronounce in hainanese at least
if only there was a big community around speaking ancient and middle Chinese just like Latin, I'd gladly join such a group to learn the language and its evolution.
Awesome! Just noticed that Buddhist terms in middle Chinese are much closer to their original Indo-Aryan pronunciation than in Mandarin.Now I'm waiting for Ming-Qing Mandarin.Good job and keep it going!
Sanskrit
It's very interesting.
Sounds of Middle Chinese are very
familiar for Japanese. Especially, numbers and Prajna Sutra (般若心経) make me feel like I'm hearing Japanese.
I love Old, Middle, Early Modern languages and Dialects, we should see more
Everyone is Comparing middle early Chinese to Japanese and Korean. I hear more Cantonese and Vietnamese. Very interesting video as always this channel puts out good stuff.
Same there are some words that sounds similar in Viet
I love how the loanwords and names from Sanskrit actually do resemble the original language, unlike the modern Chinese and Sino-Xenic pronunciations XD
You complaining about what you don't like? that's the way it is instead of saying I don't like your language. You can't deny what happened is right there.
It's just because the pronunciation of those characters has changed. You can still find sounds from modern Chinese that resemble the Sanskrit pronunciation.
@@favemediabureau Where do you see a complaint? vonPeterhof is noticing that the preferred pattern for borrowing loanwords into Chinese has changed repeatedly during Chinese history. Just looking at the last 150 years creates a very complicated pattern. And its still evolving. With more people speaking English phonetic borrowing is on the rise again.
@@favemediabureau "unlike" is not a word to show that you do not like the things following that word.
It only shows that they are just different, without any preferences of liking or disliking.
In this context, "unlike" can be replaced with "different from".
I can understand your concerns because I'm also not a native speaker of English.
@@amuis5409 lol i was confused as hecc (i'm also not a native Eng speaker)
This video is very helpful for scholars who study Southeast Asian history. Middle Chinese pronunciation was close to many places in the region. It help to identify these places in Chinese chronicles.
During the Early Middle Chinese period, large amounts of Chinese vocabulary were systematically borrowed by Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. Also, Tonkin and Canton were sinicized during the same period under the ruling of the Nanyue (Nam Việt) Kingdom and Han Dynasty. This is why Vietnamese, Japanese, and Cantonese sound similar to the early middle Chinese language. Some Chinese dialects in the south of China also sound similar as the Sinicization occurred around the same time. Mandarin Chinese only started during the Modern Chinese period, so it sounds more different.
Well other than the numbers I don't see the Japanese
I can hear so much Korean in these words. Obvious huge influence on the Korean language
What I love about Ancient Chinese is that as a native Chinese speaker, I can read the text with zero issue
Early Middle Chinese was based on 《切韵》(qie yun) system， it was Wei Jin to Tang dynasty's language. When it developed to Late Middle Chinese, it was based on 《广韵》(guang yun) system， and it was Song dynasty language. Yuan dynasty's Chinese was based on 《中原音韵》，and it was similar to Modern mandarin. Ming dynasty's mandarin was similar to Modern mandarin too.
早期中古汉语基本上是按照《切韵》来复原，学者把它定在魏晋到隋唐时期，至于后来的晚期中古汉语，基本上是按照《广韵》，是考证宋代汉语的依据。至于元代的《中原音韵》则是考证元代汉语的依据，而它与今天的普通话很接近。
This one is qieyun system
@@leiyue1411 鲜卑索虏陆法言，一本切韵贻害重(手动滑稽)
@@zhousteven188 确实，魏晋十六国应该是上古汉语到早期中古汉语的过渡期。
What are the dialects during tang dynasty anyone?
legit I was reading the words out in cantonese at the same time and I GET IT
Chinese of Min/Hokkien+Yue/Cantonese ancestry here, seeing this it makes sense that I learnt Japanese language did get relatively easy with my knowledge of Hokkien/Teochew dialect.
Isn't cantonese ancestry south han? orrrr
As a Thai person, the numbers are strangely similar to Thai. What a coincidence.
Thais, whose ancestors lived in Guangxi Province in China in the 10th century, were influenced by the Chinese
It intrigues me so much how pronounciation of "R" changed in chinese.
-Old chinese had rolling R pronounciation simmilar to spanish or slavic languages
-Middle chinese had this "french" type of R
-Modern chinese R sound is soft like english
Truly fascinating
Middle Chinese didnt exactly have an R phoneme, it developed into an L inherited from Old Chinese's R phoneme. What youre probably hearing is the velar voiced fricative that evolved into either a voiceless fricative, a palatal fricative, or disappeared altogether.
The modern R in Mandarin is totally unrelated, it came from the Palatal Dental from Old and Middle Chinese.
I call it the laziness of pronunciation
cuz language is always developing
now in china , a dialect in a city of the province hubei,they pronunce r in russia/spain way.
Yes that's right 👍
Comparison with Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese numbers:
'Ideal Pronunciation' suggested by the King Sejong (1448)
ʔílʔ, zí, sàm, sʌ́, ŋǒ, ljúk, tsʰílʔ, pálʔ, kǔw, sːíp
Actual Pronunciation in Middle Korean (until 1500s)
íl, zǐ, sàm, sʌ̌, ǒ, ljúk, tsʰíl, pʰál, kù, síp
Modern Korean (South Korean Standard)
il, iː, sam, saː, oː, juk, tɕʰil, pʰal, ku, ɕip
Old Japanese (mostly Go-on)
iti, ni, samu, si, go, roku, siti, pati, ku (Kan-on: kiu), zipu
Modern Japanese (mostly Go-on)
itɕi, ni, saɴ, ɕi, go, ɾoku, ɕitɕi, hatɕi, ku (Kan-on: kjuː), ʑuː
Wait, where did you find the Old-Japanese numerals?
It's just so amazing after reading the comments, that it seems the middle chinese language influenced the languages of Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai and other South East Asian languages for centuries to come, only to evolve into all these beautiful Asian languages we hear today.
I told my dad to watch this video because he is Chinese and he said Middle Chinese sounded like some type of dialect
Hokkien
@@yiyan3667 No it should be Hokkien
Hokkien , Teochew , Min Nan
I speak Cantonese. Imo this definitely sounds more like hokkien than canto. But I find it easier to understand than hokkien
Because that’s how they construct them. Those are reconstructed pronunciation based on certain linguistic evidences, which includes referencing some modern dialects.
Some similarities with Mizo vocabulary
Up, above - chung
Down, beneath - hnuai
Centre, middle - lai
Morning - zing
Sky, heaven - van
Earth, ground - lei
Sun, day - ni
Moon, month - thla
Water, river - tui/lui
Mountain/hill - tlang
I’m Japanese and it’s very interesting to learn the numbers of old Chinese are quite similar to the numbers of our language today
Hakka has a lot in common
1 jit
2 nyi
3 sam
100 pak
Gold : kim
Sky,heaven :thien
Earth :thi
Tree/woo : muk/shu
Fire : Foo
Water: sui
Mountain :san
River : ho
Lake: Fo
Sea : hoi
Sun,day : ngit (sun :ngit thew)
Clound :yun
Han/han dynasti : Hon
Star : sen
Person,human :ngin
Down: hha
Night : jaa /am pu
Short : ton
At 8:17
(Vịnh nội nhân trú miên / 詠內人晝眠 )
Bắc song liêu tựu chẩm， nam diêm nhật mùi tà。 phàn câu lạc khỉ chướng， sáp lệ cử tì bà。 mộng tiếu khai kiều yếp， miên hoàn áp lạc hoa。 đan văn sanh ngọc oản， hương hãn tẩm hồng sa。 phu tế hằng tương bạn， mạc ngộ thị xướng gia。
This video's 金 and 木's sounds definitely same with modern Sino-Korean.
When I heard this. I was surprised
Two things stand out: 1) the transliteration of Buddhist terminology is closer to Sanskrit than Cantonese and more so over modern day putonghua. 2) I am surprised that hear some sounds that are similar to northern Vietnamese.
As a Japanese, this is really interesting!
As A Chinese This Is Very Different With Modern Chinese
Very different to mandarin*
Sounds of Middle Chinese are very familiar for Japanese. Especially, numbers and Prajna Sutra (般若心経) make me feel like I'm hearing Japanese.
It's fascinating to see that, in Middle Chinese, the Buddhist terms actually sound even more like their Sanskrit counterparts, unlike in modern Mandarin. It's as close to time travel as possible.
Looking at the words for the four compass points at bottom of page at 1:35, west and south are reversed when comparing the Chinese and the English.
This is very similar to how Sino-Vietnamese words are pronounced in Vietnamese
This kind of languages are still widely spoken in Northeast India who traces their migration from Ancient China. Supposedly Sino tibetan, there are hundreds of languages spoken in Northeast India including tai or Thai. An intensive language research is required in this region of India..
where are you from?
it's sad , after seeing the comment I found that my mother tongue Hokkien is much less famous than Cantonese.and I also think it's pretty easy to learn Cantonese for me.
Compared to Hokkien, Cantonese is easier to learn.
you have to thank the chinatowns in anglosphere countries being founded by majority cantonese people, and ofcourse the HKers being very eager to spread their presence online in recent years
Hokkien is derived not from mid ancient Chinese, but the earlier Chinese. Except hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, hakka, wu and Jin are derived from mid ancient Chinese.
@Halle M Don’t forget southern Fujian, where it comes from😃
@@---iv5gj many people there are from fuzhou. It's really due to people like li xiaolong who popularized Cantonese in the West through kung fu
Sounds like a crazy mix between Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Hmong and Vietnamese
Yes. A mix of anything but Mandarin.
@@upakritikrsna No. EMC also has some distinctive Mandarin features, such as cacuminal consonants and a complex vowel system. Plus there are similarities in grammar and vocabulary, but not obvious in this video.
The pronunciation is perhaps closest to the min dialects, Hokkien hockchew teochew etc.
how close is this to hmong? im curious because hmong have a long history in china going back to the 3 sovereigns and 5 emperors mythological era.
Southern Sinitic languages, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese have kept much pronounciation of Middle Chinese.
@ꨓꨕ་ꨚꨝ་ꨆꨈ ꪒꪲꪐꪬ Mandarin ‘er’ usually corresponds to Middle Koreanᅀᆞ (zʌ) or ᅀᅵ (zi).
Most of Chinese loan words in Korea are from Tang dynasty, so I, who's a native Korean, can understand some of those vocabulary. E.Middle pronunciation is even more familiar and understandable than modern Chinese.
Modern mandarin Chinese has a huge Manchu influence. The standard Mandarin Chinese accent are Manchu accent. That's why the Qing Emperor like Puyi can speak it very fluently because the accent is based on Manchu accent.
I think my own native language borrowed a lot from Middle Chinese, because more than 50% of the pronunciation and sounds from it, I used daily. Plus some words are very similar.
Many words sound like their counterparts in the Hoisan/Toisan/Taishan dialect of Cantonese! The numbers are eerily similar.
They should make a movie of that period with people only speaking like this. That would be amazing!
The vowels are very different from Cantonese. As 人（human） is /nzin/ and /jan/ in Cantonese, /i/ in Middle Chinese turns into /a/ in Cantonese
Taishanese Yue is still nyin
廣州/香港粵語的元音崩壞是語言界公認的啊
@@456zhang7 我在密歇根大学那看到一本如何用粤语吟诵古诗的书，里面举了很多临时改读的规则（相当于说普通话的人把“斜”临时读成xia2），虽然我不怎么记得细节了。
@@456zhang7 我看过一篇收录在《百越史研究》既语言学文章，当中话粤语在宋朝时候因为地域既孤立性，而导致粤语出现非常巨大既音变，同中古汉语产生巨大的变化。所以粤语同中古汉语有好多大差异已经系意料之内了
Taishanese is a dialect of Cantonese. We still say ngin.
Wow the numbers are soooo similar to Thai numbers! I guess that’s when the number system was borrowed into Thai.
the ancestors of Thai moved from China to today's Thailand at about 600ad
@@weifan9533 actually, we have borrowed a lot of words in Old and Middle Chinese. The word consists of beliefs, smithing, calendar many words I would say.
8:04 for Vietnamese
Sắc Lặc ca - Vô danh
Sắc Lặc xuyên,
Âm San hạ,
Thiên tự khung lư,
Lung cái tứ dã.
Thiên thương thương,
Dã mang mang,
Phong xuy thảo đê kiến ngưu dương.
It really sounds more like "Chu-Nam" Vietnamese pronunciation of Han Characters. But less like middle Chinese Han language such as proto-Min (Taiwanese) or proto-Yue (Cantonese). Modern Min language such as Taiwanese or other varieties of Hokkien (and modern Cantonese family of languages) retained much of the sounds characteristics from ancient times, so I would think middle Chinese sounds closer to those languages rather than the above reconstruction.
Sounds exactly like Taishanese (dialect of Cantonese)
The first sample text is from the preface of phonetics text book of qieyun which is what's this video based on.
Thank you for the information! As a learner of modern Mandarin and a dabbler in Hokkien, I was wondering how they were reconstructing Middle Chinese in this video. Also, since Hindi is my mother tongue, I was so surprised at how accurate the transliteration of Buddhist terms actually could have been in Middle Chinese. Amazing!
For the numbers, it sort of sounds the the Fuzhou dialect, at least for the first 10
My parents speak in that dialect so I understand it fully-
Early Middle Chinese sounds interesting
This might sound off but this is my favorite stage of Chinese in history
It sounds like a mix of Hokkien dialect, Japanese and Mandarin. Now i can really appreciate how similar they are
Calling a language a "dialect" from the "official" language because it sounds different can be like calling the "father" the "child" because he looks different.
At one time the "dialect" WAS the "official" language and now the situation has reversed.
yeah kind of ignorant to call this language a dialect when this language is like the grandfather. looking at the comments it seems like alot of these regional chinese languages descended from this.
0:29 I love how this archaic Chinese number pronunciation just sounds like a fully modern English speaker saying "ten"
it's amazing that I can read basically everything and yet understand so little (I do speak mandarin).
It sounds like Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka and Teochew
All those centuries under Tang Chinese rule, no wonder Vietnamese sound really similar to this
This is so interesting how the numbers 1-10 matches thai and japanese
I am surprised by the fact that it sounded really close to Thai compares to today's mandarin 😲 (even thought the words are not the same)
i really wanna know how linguists know for certain what these ancient languages sounded like witch no recorded audio, especially, a language like chinese where there isn’t even a spelling system to kind of guess how each character was pronounced back then? can someone explain it to me, please?
You can check the NativLang's video 'What "Ancient" Chinese Sounded Like - and how we know'
I don't think any linguist doing historical reconstruction would claim that they know for certain. All reconstructions by linguists are educated guesses created by working backwards from current daughter-languages plus existing historical material
Because ancient Chinese wrote rhyme books and dictionaries telling how things were pronounced.
There was an ancient Chinese rhyme book called "Qieyun", written in the 6th century. This pronunciation is based on that.
We don't know for certain how Middle Chinese sounded, this is our best guess based on what little information we have. Even back then, the Chinese language was very diverse. The Qieyun, the book on which these pronunciations are based, was written by a mix of northern and southern poets and represents a conglomeration of northern and southern dialects, and is therefore not an accurate depiction of how Chinese people spoke during that time. We'll probably never know for sure how Chinese people really talked back then, but at least with the Qieyun we'll know how they wanted us to read their poetry, so that's pretty cool.
Man, the Buddhist terms make a whole lot more sense once you hear them in Middle Chinese.
So there’s no way I can communicate if I time traveled back 😢
The 10 sounds Korean. It's probably the other way about, though. The Koreans might have taken quite a lot of ancient to medieval Chinese pronunciations with the characters themselves, as the Japanese did.
haha , i am a cantonese speaking person but my grandma could only speak hakka(客家話）, i find it that the pronunciation of numbers of early middle chinese are very similar to modern hakka but less similar to modern cantonese
this should make sense considering hakka are migrants fleeing from the central and north regions and wouldve kept some of the old language.
Sounds like Burmese with some Cantonese
maybe Im wrong but It does sound like Vietnamese (northern accent) and Hokkien (Fujian/Min)
I'm thai. The name of numbers 1-99 are very similar to my language. I totally didn't expect this.
I know both Chinese and Japanese and this sounds far more similar to Japanese onyomi (sound readings) than modern Chinese
Sounded more like Vietnamese, even Thai.. Many words sounds very similar to other Chinese dialect, like; Cantonese, Hakka or Minnan..
Whose reconstruction scheme did u use for the pronunciation?
Wow as a Vietnamese i found this sounds kinda like Vietnamese Hue Accent ... and Cantonese
This is tonic fantastic.
It must be interesting to sing pop music in Middle Chinese version.
"I" & "you " are the same in Gan.
我nga已經高化成了ngo了吧
姜祐章 潮州話 還在讀著 ua. 不過不是韓語.
@@youtubedeletedmyaccountlma2263 声母脱落。
It sounds like a mixture of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Interesting
Alright, I love this early middle Chinese's phrase for "I don't know" 😆😆😆 If you take the way its written under the context of modern day Japanese, the kanji/hanzi read "empty know" 😂😂😂
I find it interesting that the Sanskrit loanwords (like Buddha, Sakyamuni) sounded more or less accurate to the original in Middle Chinese, but in modern Mandarin the pronunciation is way off.
Has a Southern Chinese language vibe. Like somewhere between Hokkien, Teochew, and Canto.
sounds like hakka, from the numbers 1 to 10 (hakka). from the words sky, earth, water, fire, mountains, river, lake, sea, gold are hakka, even the han dynasty (Hon) is hakka
As a Shanghainese who speak Wu dialect, I think it sounds like Vietnamese, especially the accent which is far away from modern mandarin.
Sound like mandarin more than vietnamese
as a native korean speaker, it sounds like korean hanja with a bunch of fricative added. Very interesting
I'm Vietnamese and I recognise a lot of words being used here
Pls I need this dynasty back
0:31 the 萬 in Early Middle Chinese sounds like the word "muôn" in Vietnamese with the same meaning and sounds different with the Sino-Vietnamese word "vạn" 萬 also with the same meaning, 10000
muôn năm = vạn niên = 萬年
or
muôn năm = vạn tuế = 萬歲
there's alot m->v in vietnamse, vụ->mù(sương mù), vũ->mưa,vạn->muôn, vãn-> muộn,... a lot of words that we thought native Vietnamese words are old or early middle Chinese.
Thank you...some words looks like North African language (Tamazight) 😍
sounds more like Vietnamese , thai, Min languages and Yue Languages than mandarin. i guess because mandarin is also influenced by the languages of the steppes
This is clearly where the Korean pronunciation came from for Sino Korean words
The numbers in this video are almost identical with Tai languages (Thai, Lao, Shan, Dai, Tay, Zhuang, etc.). Most Tai numbers are from Middle Chinese, except 1 (from Native Tai *nɯŋ), 5 and 6 (from Old Chinese *ŋaʔ and *k.ruk respectively).
I agree, it does sound similar, but then there's also so many similarities with Japanese and Korean too. It's truly fascinating.
Not really, another word for 1 "เอ็ด" (Et) is actually from Chinese.
@@Nothingbutdust_ Because Korean and Japanese also borrowed numerals from Chinese.
@@24mithuna Yes but most of Tai use เอ็ด (ʔet) only in digit not independently, for example 11 สิบเอ็ด sip.ʔet (ten + one = eleven), 21 ยี่สิบเอ็ด ji.sip.ʔet (twenty + one), 101 ร้อยเอ็ด rɔj.ʔet (hundred + one). In general counting, the native words หนึ่ง (nɯŋ) or เดียว (diaw) are used especially in colloquial speaking, mostly following the noun unlike other numbers which preceding the noun, for example คนหนึ่ง khon nɯŋ or คนเดียว khon diaw (person + one)
南和西写反了！
west＝西（si）
south＝南（nam）
Hokkien/Min speakers unité :p
Coming. Chaozhou native speaker. I always wonder why chaozhou numberd are unlike modern mandarin. But now i know where it all comes from.
Taiwanese Hokkien here!
It's Hokkien , Teochew .
@@harrylouw2511 chaozhou(teochew) is considered under the minnan family even though its in guangdong province.
People who are saying that this sounds close to Japanese... I'm wondering if we are studying the same language because I can't really understand anything except for the numbers...not a single word XD
Japanese Onyomi reading of Kanjis roughly sound similar to this language, that's why
@@BY-sh6gt I can't see it at all but for a few exceptions, they're about as similar as the modern Chinese to me. Maybe it's the matter of individual perception, too.
wow so Korean word for (I) NA, come from Middle Chinese?
Sounds like a non-homogenous mixture of all Eastern Asian languages which makes sense as a lot of them evolved from ancient Chinese
0:21 Egypt 🤣🤣 jokes aside is it just me or it kinda sounds like cantonese mixed with something.. idk vietnamese?
Oh did you use music from the Zi de Guqin Studio channel?
Make a video of the Sindarin language about! Please!!! 🇧🇷
They needs people who speak the language to send an email
The numbers is almost similar as Hakka
I heard the Korean Chinese pronounciation mainly came from Tang.
Actually, Sino-Korean pronunciation is from this period. Some phonetic features in Sino-Korean are earlier than Tang, which sits between early and late Middle Chinese.
The numbers are very familar to Thai.
Great video, but I have one question: are the symbols for West and South the wrong way round?