ABSTRACT

As shown in Chapter 2, the most reliable written evidence for OJ consists of transcriptions in sinographs used for their phonetic values (i.e., phonograms). In order to interpret the phonograms of an OJ text properly, one cannot simply read the phonograms using modern Chinese, Sino-Japanese, or SinoKorean pronunciations, though I have shown on pp. 18 and 32 that one might be able to crudely approximate the pronunciation of a poem by reading its phonograms in Go-on or Kan-on. One needs to know which system of pronunciations was the basis for that text’s orthography.