论汉语四声的发现与民间歌者的关系——补论佛经转读与四声发现无关

The relationship between the discovery of the ancient Chinese four tones and folk singers: Also complementing the irrelevance of the translating reading of Buddhist sutras to the four tones

佛经转读对四声的发现并无直接影响,“吠陀三声”是诵读的声腔,而非语言的声调。它的性质与汉语四声完全不同,两者的分类原理也不一样,汉语四声的划分不可能“依据及摹拟”吠陀三声。四声是齐梁之前的民间歌者发现的,歌者在乐谱中标注文字的唱调,对于四声的发现有重要的意义。周颙是最早使用四声来系统划分汉字韵部的文人,但他并不是四声的发现者。

The translating reading of Buddhist sutras had no direct impact on the discovery of the Chinese four tones.The three Vedic sounds were intonations of reading,not the tones of language.Its nature was completely different from the Chinese four tones,and the classification principles of them were not the same either.The division of the Chinese four tones cannot be based on the three Vedic sounds.The four tones were discovered by the folk singers before Qi-Liang period.The singers marked the melody of the Chinese characters in the music score,which was of great significance to the discovery of the four tones.Zhou Yong was the first literati who used four tones to divide systematically the rhyme of Chinese characters,but he was not the discoverer of the four tones.