|
The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den (施氏食獅史 Shī Shì shí shī shǐ) is a famous example of constrained writing by Zhao Yuanren which consists of 92 characters, all with the sound shi in different tones when read in Mandarin. The text, which is written in Classical Chinese, is easily comprehensible when read by trained readers, but becomes completely incomprehensible to just about anyone when spoken or when romanized, since homophony is a very common phenomenon in Classical Chinese.
It is generally believed that in writing the essay, Zhao was attempting to argue the absurdity of Romanizing Chinese. However, Romanization advocates point out that Zhao Yuanren was the leader of the group that designed Gwoyeu Romatzyh. He knew that it could only write modern vernacular Chinese and not Classical Chinese. He was only demonstrating that point.
The text
The following is the text in Hanyu Pinyin, written according to the recommended orthography (which recommends writing numbers in Arabic numerals, so the number shí is written as 10).
- << Shī Shì shí shī shǐ >>
- Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí 10 shī.
- Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
- 10 shí, shì 10 shī shì shì.
- Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
- Shì shì shì 10 shī, shì shì shì, shǐ shì 10 shī shìshì.
- Shì shí shì 10 shī shī, shì shíshì.
- Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
- Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì 10 shī.
- Shí shí, shǐ shì shì 10 shī, shí 10 shí shī shī.
- Shì shì shì shì.
Text in Chinese Characters:
- 《施氏食獅史》
- 石室詩士施氏, 嗜獅, 誓食十獅。
- 氏時時適市視獅。
- 十時, 適十獅適市。
- 是時, 適施氏適市。
- 氏視是十獅, 恃矢勢, 使是十獅逝世。
- 氏拾是十獅屍, 適石室。
- 石室濕, 氏使侍拭石室。
- 石室拭, 氏始試食是十獅。
- 食時, 始識是十獅, 實十石獅屍。
- 試釋是事。
Meaning in English:
- In a stone den was a poet Shi Shi, who loved to eat lions, and decided to eat ten.
- He often went to the market to look for lions.
- One day at ten o'clock, ten lions just arrived at the market.
- At that time, Shi Shi just arrived at the market too.
- Seeing those ten lions, he killed them with arrows.
- He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
- The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
- After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
- When he ate, he realized that those ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
- Try to explain this.
Comment
So, how do Chinese speakers deal with so much homophones in actual speech? In fact, many characters in the passage had distinct sounds in Middle Chinese. Some distinctions are still preserved in other Chinese dialects.
For example, when the same passage is read in Min Nan or Taiwanese, there are at least six distinct syllables – se, si, su, sek, sip, sit – in seven distinct tone contours, and in Cantonese, there are seven distinct syllables – sek, sat, si, sai, sik, sap, ci – in six distinct tone contours. However, whether that will make the passage comprehensible is still debatable.
While the sound changes merged sounds that had been distinct, new ways of speaking those concepts emerged. Typically disyllabic words replaced monosyllabic ones. If the same passage is translated into modern Mandarin, it will not be that confusing. The following is an example written in Vernacular Chinese, along with its pronunciations in Pinyin.
- 《施氏吃獅子記》
- 有一位住在石室裏的詩人叫施氏，愛吃獅子，決心要吃十隻獅子。
- 他常常去市場看獅子。
- 十點鐘，剛好有十隻獅子到了市場。
- 那時候，剛好施氏也到了市場。
- 他看見那十隻獅子，便放箭，把那十隻獅子殺死了。
- 他拾起那十隻獅子的屍體，帶到石室。
- 石室濕了水，施氏叫侍從把石室擦乾。
- 石室擦乾了，他才試試吃那十隻獅子。
- 吃的時候，才發現那十隻獅子，原來是十隻石頭的獅子屍體。
- 試試解釋這件事吧。
- << Shī Shì chī shīzi jì >>
- Yǒu yi wèi zhù zài shíshì lǐ de shīrén jiào Shī Shì, ài chī shīzi, juéxīn yào chī 10 zhi shīzi.
- Tā chángcháng qù shìchǎng kàn shīzi.
- 10 diǎnzhōng, gānghǎo yǒu 10 zhi shīzi dào le shìchǎng.
- Nà shíhòu, gānghǎo Shī Shì yě dào le shìchǎng.
- Tā kànjiàn nà 10 zhi shīzi, biàn fàng jiàn, bǎ nà 10 zhi shīzi shā sǐ le.
- Tā shí qǐ nà 10 zhi shīzi de shītǐ, dài dào shíshì.
- Shíshì shī le shuǐ, Shī Shì jiào shìcóng bǎ shíshì cā gān.
- Shíshì cā gān le, tā cái shìshi chī nà 10 zhi shīzi.
- Chī de shíhòu, cái fāxiàn nà 10 zhi shīzi, yuánlái shì 10 zhi shítou de shīzi shītǐ.
- Shìshi jiěshì zhè jiàn shì ba.
External link
- The Three "NOTs" of Hanyu Pinyin (http://www.pinyin.info/readings/zyg/what_pinyin_is_not.html) has a similar but different text, and it explains that the intention of Zhao Yuanren (Yuen Ren Chao) was not to oppose Chinese Romanization.
|
