Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den
Chinese one-syllable poem
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Key Takeaways
- " Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den " (traditional Chinese: 施氏食獅史 ; simplified Chinese: 施氏食狮史 ; lit.
- Shi Eating Lions ' ) is a short narrative poem written in Literary Chinese, with two versions composed of 92 and 94 Chinese characters respectively, which are all pronounced shi ( [ʂɻ̩] ) when read in Standard Mandarin, with only the tones differing.
- It was then refined by Yuen Ren Chao in the 1930s for demonstrative purposes in his lectures, and later used to argue the limits of the Romanization of Chinese.
- In Mandarin, the poem is incomprehensible when read aloud, since only four syllables cover all the words of the poem.
- Background Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den is an example of a one-syllable article, a form of constrained writing possible in tonal languages such as Mandarin Chinese, where tonal contours expand the range of meaning for a single syllable.
"Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den" (traditional Chinese: 施氏食獅史; simplified Chinese: 施氏食狮史; lit. 'The Story of Mr. Shi Eating Lions') is a short narrative poem written in Literary Chinese, with two versions composed of 92 and 94 Chinese characters respectively, which are all pronounced shi ([ʂɻ̩]) when read in Standard Mandarin, with only the tones differing.
The poem was originally written by Hu Mingfu (胡明复) and published by linguist Yuen Ren Chao in Volume 11 of The Chinese Students's Monthly in 1916. It was then refined by Yuen Ren Chao in the 1930s for demonstrative purposes in his lectures, and later used to argue the limits of the Romanization of Chinese. The poem is coherent and grammatical in Literary Chinese, but due to the number of Chinese homophones, it becomes difficult to understand in oral speech. In Mandarin, the poem is incomprehensible when read aloud, since only four syllables cover all the words of the poem. The poem is somewhat more comprehensible when read in other varieties such as Cantonese, in which it has 18 different syllables accounting for tone differences, or Hokkien, in which it has 15 different syllables.
Background
Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den is an example of a one-syllable article, a form of constrained writing possible in tonal languages such as Mandarin Chinese, where tonal contours expand the range of meaning for a single syllable.
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