Sinoxenic
Encyclopedia
Sino-Xenic refers to the pronunciations given to Chinese characters in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

, and Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

 – none of which have accepted genetic relatedness to Sinitic languages
Sinitic languages
The Sinitic languages, often called the Chinese languages or the Chinese language, are a language family frequently postulated as one of two primary branches of Sino-Tibetan...

 – in the Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, and Sino-Vietnamese vocabularies. The term is used in linguistics for the use of these data in historical Chinese phonology
Historical Chinese phonology
Historical Chinese phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters, not alphabetic or syllabary, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably from those employed in, for example, Indo-European...

 – the reconstruction of pronunciations in earlier forms of Chinese, and hence earlier forms of Chinese languages.

"Sino-Xenic" is used narrowly to refer to only these three regular, large-scale borrowings of Chinese writing, language, and culture – not to smaller-scale sporadic borrowings of some words.

Background

The term was coined by linguist Samuel Martin as ‘Sino-Xenic’, and comes from Sino-xen-ic: Chinese-foreign-(adjective).

The principle of Sino-Xenic pronunciation is that when Chinese characters were introduced into other cultures, the pronunciation of the corresponding Chinese word was also borrowed, and thus some current pronunciations are descended from earlier Chinese pronunciations. The characters were also used for native words, and thus not all pronunciations in non-Chinese languages reflect Chinese pronunciations. Languages that have Sino-Xenic pronunciations are sometimes referred to as Sino-Xenic languages.

While Japanese and Ryukyuan
Ryukyuan languages
The Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the Ryukyu Islands, and make up a subgroup of the Japonic, itself controversially a subgroup of Altaic....

 belong to the Japonic
Japonic languages
Japonic languages is a term which identifies and characterises the Japanese which is spoken on the main islands of Japan and the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. This widely accepted linguistics term was coined by Leon Serafim....

 family, Vietnamese belongs to Austro-Asiatic
Austro-Asiatic languages
The Austro-Asiatic languages, in recent classifications synonymous with Mon–Khmer, are a large language family of Southeast Asia, also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The name Austro-Asiatic comes from the Latin words for "south" and "Asia", hence "South Asia"...

, Zhuang to Tai–Kadai, and Korean is a language isolate, all use extensive vocabulary from Chinese, in yet another (Sino-Tibetan) language family. Within what is known as the East Asian sprachbund
Sprachbund
A Sprachbund – also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...

, various languages that are apparently genetically unrelated share many areal features and have similar vocabularies as a result of geographic proximity and historical influence from Chinese. Hence, when referring to the vocabularies of such languages, words can be categorized as either being native to that language, or being part of a "Sino-Xenic" vocabulary.

Examples

Native examples
English Chinese
(Standard Mandarin
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....

)
Japanese
(Tokyo dialect
Tokyo dialect
refers to the Japanese dialect spoken in modern Tokyo. The dialect in modern Tokyo is often considered to equate standard Japanese, though in fact the Tokyo dialect differs from standard Japanese in a number of areas.- Overview :...

)
Korean
(Seoul dialect
Seoul dialect
The Seoul dialect is the basis of the standard language of Korean in South Korea. It is spoken in the Seoul National Capital Area, which includes Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi. The dialect does not merely mean 'a standard accent'. The exact form of the South Korea's standard accent is that of...

)
Vietnamese
(Saigon dialect)
Ryukyuan
(Okinawan dialect
Okinawan language
Central Okinawan, or simply Okinawan , is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni, and a number of smaller peripheral islands...

)
Zhuang
(Wuming dialect)
Chinese people 中國人 zhōngguórén (Sino-Japanese 中国人 used) (Sino-Korean 中國人 used) người Trung Quốc (𠊚中國) 唐ん人 tooNchu Boux Cunghgoz (佈中国)
Nation 國家 guójiā kuni 나라 nara đất nước (𡐙渃) shima (Sinoxenic "Guekgya" used)
Mountain shān yama me núi (𡶀) mu'i bya (岜)
One ひと(つ) hito(tsu) 하나 hana một (𠬠) てぃいち tīchi nděu (刁)
Forest 森林 sēnlín mori sup rừng (𡼹) yama ndoeng (崬)
Language 語言 yǔyán (Sino-Japanese 言語 used) mal tiếng (㗂) guchi Vah
to write (past tense) xiě 書いた kaita 썼다 sseotta (Sino-Vietnamese "viết (曰)" used) 書ちゃん kachan (Sinoxenic "sij" (写) used)
Soup tāng shiru guk canh yuu
to eat chī,Common speech in Mandarin.
shíFormal writing in Mandarin; also common speech in Cantonese, Min and Hakka.
食べる taberu 먹다 meokda ăn (𩛖) 噛むん kamun gwn
mother (informal speech) 媽媽 māmā お母さん okāsan 어머니 eomeoni mẹ (媄) あんまー anmaa
personal pronoun (generic) 我 wǒ 私 watashi 나 na tôi (𪝬) 我ん wan gou (我)
Sinoxenic examples
English Chinese
(Standard Mandarin)
Sino-Japanese
(Tokyo dialect)
Sino-Korean
(Seoul dialect)
Sino-Vietnamese
(Saigon dialect)
Ryukyuan
(Okinawan dialect)
Zhuang
(Wuming dialect)
Ethnicity 民族 mínzú 民族 minzoku 民族(민족) minjok dân tộc (民族) 民族 minzuku Minzcuz (民族)
Populace 人民 rénmín 人民 jinmin 人民(인민) inmin nhân dân (人民) 御万人 umaNchu Yinzminz (人民)
Republic 共和國 gònghéguó 共和国 kyōwakoku 共和國(공화국) gonghwaguk Cộng hòa (共和) 共和国 kyoowakuku Gunghozgoz (共和国)
Chinese character 漢字 hànzì 漢字 kanji 漢字(한자) hanja hán tự (漢字) 漢字 kwanji (native "Sawgun" () used)
Telephone 電話 diànhuà 電話 denwa 電話(전화) jeonhwa điện thoại (電話) 電話 denwa
Great Wall of China 萬里長城 Wànlǐ Chángchéng 万里の長城 Banri-no-Chōjō 萬里 長城(만리 장성) malli jangseong Vạn Lý Trường Thành (萬里長城) 万里ぬ長城 manri-nu-Choojoo
Student 学生 xuéshēng 学生 gakusei 学生(학생) haksaeng học sinh (学生) 学生 gakusoo hagseng (学生)
Freedom 自由 zìyóu 自由 jiyū 自由(자유) jayu tự do (自由) cwyouz (自由)
Equality 平等 píngděng 平等 byōdō 同等(동등) dongdeung bình đẳng (平等) bingzdaengj (平等)
News(paper) 新聞 xīnwén 新聞 shinbun 新聞(신문) simmun tin tức (信息) (native 紙はぶ "kamihabu" used)
Film 電影 diànyǐng 映画 eiga 映畵(영화) yeonghwa điện ảnh (電影) 影踊 kaagaaudui,
影芝居 kaagaashibai


Native and Sino-Xenic readings of Chinese ideographs are distinguished as on'yomi (Sino-Japanese) and kunyomi (native) in Japanese, Eumhun in Korean, and in Vietnamese, native words were originally written in Chữ Nôm and Sino-Vietnamese words in Hán tự, until the writing system was supplanted by the Latin alphabet.

See also

  • Chinese family of scripts
    Chinese family of scripts
    The Chinese family of scripts are writing systems descended from the Chinese Oracle Bone Script and used for a variety of languages in East Asia...

  • Historical Chinese phonology
    Historical Chinese phonology
    Historical Chinese phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters, not alphabetic or syllabary, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably from those employed in, for example, Indo-European...

  • East Asian languages
    East Asian languages
    East Asian languages describe two notional groupings of languages in East and Southeast Asia:* Languages which have been greatly influenced by Classical Chinese and the Chinese writing system, in particular Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese .* The larger grouping of languages includes the...

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