In classical 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...

 philology, shengxun (聲訓 "voice explanation") or yinxun (音訓 "sound explanation") is the practice of explaining a character

Chinese character

Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

 by using a homophone or near-homophone. The practice is ancient, and can be seen in Pre-Qin

Qin Dynasty

The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...

 texts. Xu Shen, author of the monumental Shuowen Jiezi

Shuowen Jiezi

The Shuōwén Jiězì was an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary , it was still the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them , as well as the first to use the...

, employed shengxun. For example, when Xu explained the word "ghost", he wrote:

人所歸爲鬼 (A ghost is where (the state that) human beings return to)

歸 ("to return to"; pinyin

Pinyin

Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

:guī) and 鬼("ghost"; pinyin:guǐ) are homophones. (A similar explanation of the word can be found in the earlier Erya

Erya

The Erya is the oldest extant Chinese dictionary or Chinese encyclopedia. Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from" the 3rd century BC....

.)

The ancient Chinese dictionary

Chinese dictionary

Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for Chinese, and this article will introduce some of the most important...

 Shiming

Shiming

The Shìmíng is a Chinese dictionary that employed phonological glosses, and "is believed to date from c. 200 [CE]" . Its 1502 definitions attempt to establish semantic connections based upon puns between the word being defined and the word defining it, which is often followed with an explanation...

is noted for using shengxun for most of its definitions.

Shengxun can be highly fanciful, and often results in folk etymology. However, the practice points to the idea of "cognate characters" (同源字) or what Bernhard Karlgren

Bernhard Karlgren

Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren was a Swedish sinologist and linguist who pioneered the study of Chinese historical phonology using modern comparative methods...

called "word families".