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Ancient Chinese

Movement
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Early Chinese poetic corpus including the Classic of Poetry (Shijing) and Songs of Chu (Chuci)

Detailed Definition
Ancient Chinese (Shijing, Chuci) poetry encompasses the foundational works of Chinese literature: the Shijing (Classic of Poetry), with its folk-song quatrains and parallelism, and the Chuci (Songs of Chu), marked by shamanistic imagery, irregular lines, and emotional intensity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Ancient Chinese (Shijing, Chuci): The Shijing (Classic of Poetry) often uses parallelism and nature imagery, as in “Guan guan cry the ospreys / On the islet in the river. / The modest, retiring, virtuous young lady / Is a fine match for our lord” (Mao 1), demonstrating early Chinese poetic structure and moral allegory.
Additional Notes
Refers to Shijing (Book of Songs) with four-character lines and Chuci (Songs of Chu) with variable meters. Ancient Chinese verse emphasizes parallelism and natural imagery. Foundational to East Asian poetic traditions.
Also Known As
Shijing poetry Chuci verse Book of Songs Songs of Chu
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