Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese

More about the book

Although long out of date, Bernard Karlgren’s 1957 work remains a convenient reference for Middle Chinese (ca. A.D. 600) and Old Chinese (before 200 B.C.) reconstructions of all graphs from the beginning of writing (ca. 1250 B.C.) to the third century B.C. Axel Schuessler provides a more current reconstruction of Old Chinese, focusing on post-Karlgrenian phonological features that have some consensus among modern researchers. This updated material avoids speculative theories, presenting what Schuessler terms "Minimal Old Chinese" (OCM), based on Baxter’s 1992 reconstructions with some notational changes. The OCM forms are kept simple and transcribed in straightforward notation. Some aspects of Old Chinese phonology remain unclear, leading to the inclusion of limited interpolations and proposals in this update. Karlgren’s Middle Chinese reconstructions, as revised by Li Fang-kuei, are widely referenced for historical forms of Chinese and dialects, and Schuessler includes this emended version. Additionally, he introduces an intermediate layer called "Later Han Chinese" (ca. second century A.D.), making this volume valuable for those studying Han sources, particularly poetry. This work serves as a companion to Grammata Serica Recensa, providing an accessible and user-friendly source for citing various historically reconstructed stages of Chinese without duplicating information found in the original text.