The Qiyin lüe is a Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

 rime table

Rime table

A rime table or rhyme table is a syllable chart of the Chinese language, a significant advance on the fǎnqiè analysis used in earlier rime dictionaries...

 that dates prior to 1161. This reference work survived to the present largely because the Song Dynasty

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

 historian Zheng Qiao (鄭樵/郑樵; Cheng Ch'iao; 1104–1162) included it in his 1161 encyclopedia Tongzhi (通志; T'ung chih; "General Treatises").

The Qiyinlüe has a close affinity with the Yunjing

Yunjing

The Yunjing is the oldest existing Chinese rime table. Current versions of the Yunjing date back to the 1161 and 1203 editions published by Zhang Linzhi ....

. Both have tables combining rows for a particular final rime, columns for various initials, and up to four tones (see the link below for a sample). A detailed description of this native Chinese phonological system can be found at rime tables.

The Chinese linguist Luo Changpei

Luo Changpei

Luo Changpei was a Chinese linguist. He made important contributions to the study of historical Chinese phonology. He was also a pioneer of the modern studies of Chinese dialects and of non-Chinese languages in China....

wrote a definitive study (1935) of the Qiyinlüe.

External links

• Rhyme Table, Dylan W.H. Sung