How Chinese sounded through different Dynastys

[Overlord]

I recall research at Taiwan National University as well as Harvard where they surmised that the language circa early Tang sounded more like Min Nan dialect. Again, as with Latin, there is no way of knowing - however the poetry and couplets had better meter and rhyme with Min Nan type pronunciation than other Southern dialects. Moreover (and this is the sort of thing that gets Mainland Chinese researcher's panties in a twist) there is good evidence for northward migration of technology and language from what is now Vietnam, where ceramic and bronze technology predated China (and some of the classic Shang designs may have borrowed from there as well)

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Min Nan dialect is also called Heluo in Taiwan.
Alot of pro-Taiwan independent groups called themselves Heluo ren【河洛人】.

I was very skeptical about this until I found out the tomb in Fujian, Taiwan, Yonaguni-jima island are the same, including the tomb around pyramids underneath the ocean.

【Washi】, (I am ) in Taiwanese is Watashi in Japanese.

This implies in the early days prior to current so-call Taiwan indigenous native, Min Nan people was here. After flooding, they retracted to mainland. That was the time of Dayu 【大禹治水】， also the time of Horse Hetu and Tortoise Luoshu, 【龍馬出河圖，龜背出洛書】. The tomb Heluo people used were all in Tortoise shape.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%80%E7%94%B2%E5%A2%93

[nicklinjm]

Getting back to the original topic, there has actually been a lot of research into the pronunciation of Middle and Old Chinese. There are 3 main ways of getting at the historical pronunciation of Chinese:

1. Rhyme dictionaries by Chinese scholars (the Qieyun);
2. Pronunciation of extant conservative Chinese dialects such as Cantonese, Hakka and Min (Hokkien/Taiwanese)
3. Pronunciation of Chinese words loaned into Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese

Using the 3 methods together, you can be fairly sure of the older pronunciation of the characters but have to be careful about what period you're talking about. Simple example would be the word for iron, tieh in modern chinese but more like teet in ancient Chinese.

[Overlord]

Let the clip do the talking..

[yeniseri]

I was stationed at MCAS Futenma (1977-1978) Okinawa and as you walk up the hill to the base, left side was located stele(s) reminiscent of South China burial monuments. Interestingly the language was more Chinese than Japanese/Okinawan People may have forgotten the origin, the actual place names and meaning but the monuments are indicative of a presence of the past. They will definatel;y not understand the significance (the new generation) but they can see the impact and influence of their history! Names change over time just as the New Revolution brought in adopted/abbreviated characters to reflect the era, which in turn affects meaning and therefore understanding.

[kenneth fish]

Even more obvious in terms of flow and rhyme:

[edededed]

This is an interesting topic (for me); I don't think that we will know the exact sounds of ancient Chinese until a time machine is invented (then researchers will have to think hard about how to visit ancient China without getting killed - maybe sending a drone would be better). Still, we can learn a lot by comparing what other countries wrote about Chinese sounds at those times, etc.

I think it was in the Korean "Hunmin Jeongeum" text that I saw the then Korean pronunciation of the 中 character as 듕 (dyoong), as opposed to the modern pronunciation of 중 (joong). Later, I took a Taiwanese class, and noticed that the Taiwanese (minnan) pronunciation is tiong/diong - kind of similar to the old Korean one. But anyway, stuff like this is interesting (to me)...

As for Okinawan - apparently, they speak 3 languages in effect - old Ryukyuan, modern Japanese, and a hodge-podge mix that is considered Okinawan dialect. The old Ryukyuan language(s) are dying out - I would guess that only the old people can still speak them. Still, they are languages related to Japanese, not Chinese - although there are of course many loanwords from China (as in Japanese and Korean). It is said that aspects of ancient Japanese are preserved in the Ryukyuan languages as a result of the insularity; the same thing happened for Jeju island, where aspects of ancient Korean are preserved there, such as the "lost" vowel of "a-re-a," which was written in older hangul as a dot.