<p>Firstly, you need to know that the phonetic system of Ancient Chinese is far more complicated than today. Generally, the number of syllables in Chinese decrease over the time.<br>
According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_(1981%E2%80%931995)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia</a>, Ancient Chinese have about 70 initials (including consonants and clustered consonants) and dozens of rhymes (including vowels and vowel combinations), which could resemble thousands (or tens of thousands of) syllables.<br>
In Middle Chinese, clustered consonants disappeared, and some similar finals were merged. This could reduce about a half of the total syllables. There were 36 initials and about 40 finals.<br>
In early 14th Century, there were only 25 initials and 19 finals (excluding mediums), much less than about 800 years ago.<br>
The last big merge happened in the early 20th Century, called "Jian-tuan Merge", or loosely "Alveolar-Palatal Merge". Jianyin ("sharp sounds", like [ts], [s]) merged with Tuanyin ("round sounds", like [tɕ], [ɕ]). For example,  姓(sìng, "surname") merged with 幸(xìng, "luck/happiness"). (Example: 你幸福吗？(Are you happy?) /我姓“曾”。(My surname is Zeng. ) )<br>
Therefore, modern Chinese only have about 400 syllables (according to Kahlgren, see <em>Clock</em> by Liang Shiqiu. In this article, Liang criticised superstitions related to characters with the same sound). </p>

<p>EDIT: Someone talked about the quantity and frequency of Chinese characters. I'd like to add a point. In Modern Chinese, words with two or more characters are used instead of one character. However, in ancient times, a character usually IS a word. For example, "驹" means "young horse", while in Modern Chinese, "小马"("small horse") is used more often. To express increasing things and concepts in the world, the Ancient Chinese people just invent more characters to express them. Take horse as an example, each of the following character indicate one specific kind of horse:<br>
驽 (bad horse)<br>
骁 (strong horse, now rarely used directly)<br>
骄 (horse that's about six feet tall, now this character means "proud")<br>
骐 (horse with black patterns, usually good at racing)<br>
骢 (horse with green and white skin)<br>
骃 (horse with dark grey skin and white patch)<br>
However, in Modern Chinese, when indicating horses, we just add adjectives before "马"(horse), like 白马 (white horse), 好马 (good horse, or horse good at racing). </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-28T09:45:57.553Z
2018-08-28T10:00:02.233Z
2018-08-28T10:00:02.233Z
Winfred Huang
<p>One reason is, ancient Chinese spoken language is quite different from now. During the evolution of language many sounds disappeared due to different reasons: foreign language invasion, conflicts of dialects, etc.</p>

<p>Another reason is, Chinese characters and their sounds are not tightly linked. In ancient Chinese language (文言), people use single written characters to express their meanings. So they will more or less face the problem of homophones. Now Chinese language use words (mostly combinations of two characters, also 1,3,4 or more) to express their meanings. So the numbers of homophones is not that much, I'd say at the same level of English.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T00:43:09.377Z
For the sound "ruì" there are 16 different characters https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ruì
Tomsofty33
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T00:44:18.503Z
For the sound "bó" alone there exist 98 different characters https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bó
Tomsofty33
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T00:46:04.593Z
For the sound "gé" there exist 58 different characters https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gé
Tomsofty33
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T00:47:05.940Z
Is this really something not that much to you or am I just missing something here? Or is the chinese language just has the tendency of using the exact same sound again and again to use it for different meanings?
Tomsofty33
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T01:11:30.487Z
From what I know, about 70% to 80% percent of the characters you listed are not used in common language. And to make my words clear, I'm talking about less homophones in 'words'.
Kevin. Fang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T01:12:20.050Z
So most modern Chinese 'words' are made of 2 'characters' or more. This reduces the numbers of same sound words significantly.
Kevin. Fang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T04:20:36.287Z
If what you mean is that 70% to 80% are not used AT ALL, then why are they still listed there?
Tomsofty33
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T04:43:04.337Z
Most of them are used in ancient articles, people's names (a lot of Chinese people name their children from old books), species' names, chemical elements, special phrases such as 成语. Basically, you can communicate with native Chinese people without any problem if you know around 3000-4000 characters in total.
Kevin. Fang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T04:46:03.987Z
Besides, 70-80% is my approximation in your given examples. The biggest dictionary has over 80000 characters while high school graduates are only required to master 6600 of them.
Kevin. Fang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-15T08:35:22.557Z
Kevin Fang is right. I was born and raised in Taiwan, despite the 12 years in my 30s when I live in America, I can say I can't be any more Chinese! But I only know NOT EVEN 10% of the words out there! (Which just correspond to the ratio Kevin given). AND I HAVE A MASTER DEGREE!!! Most of the words you listed from the wiktionary are probably only know by **Chinese Literature professors**! And I dare say that quite a big portion of it even THEM had never heard of! So please don't fret too much over it! Just learn what you can and you'll be fine! Good luck!!!
Pikachu620
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-14T23:58:04.243Z
2018-08-14T23:58:04.243Z
Kevin. Fang
<p>In chinese mandarin, why does Chinese language has multiple characters for the same sound? What is the reason?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-14T23:26:03.130Z
Homophones happen in many, if not all, languages: examples in English - their, there, they're/ one, won/ two, too, to/ four, for, fore ...etc
monalisa
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-28T09:47:36.273Z
Because human can make limited sounds, but can have unlimited characters
sfy
<writing>
Multiple characters for the same sound in Chinese
# Multiple characters for the same sound in Chinese

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-08-14)

In chinese mandarin, why does Chinese language has multiple characters for the same sound? What is the reason?

**Tags:** writing
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Homophones happen in many, if not all, languages: examples in English - their, there, they're/ one, won/ two, too, to/ four, for, fore ...etc  
> **username_2**: Because human can make limited sounds, but can have unlimited characters  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2018-08-28. Score: 2

Firstly, you need to know that the phonetic system of Ancient Chinese is far more complicated than today. Generally, the number of syllables in Chinese decrease over the time.  
According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_(1981%E2%80%931995)), Ancient Chinese have about 70 initials (including consonants and clustered consonants) and dozens of rhymes (including vowels and vowel combinations), which could resemble thousands (or tens of thousands of) syllables.  
In Middle Chinese, clustered consonants disappeared, and some similar finals were merged. This could reduce about a half of the total syllables. There were 36 initials and about 40 finals.  
In early 14th Century, there were only 25 initials and 19 finals (excluding mediums), much less than about 800 years ago.  
The last big merge happened in the early 20th Century, called "Jian-tuan Merge", or loosely "Alveolar-Palatal Merge". Jianyin ("sharp sounds", like [ts], [s]) merged with Tuanyin ("round sounds", like [tɕ], [ɕ]). For example, 姓(sìng, "surname") merged with 幸(xìng, "luck/happiness"). (Example: 你幸福吗？(Are you happy?) /我姓“曾”。(My surname is Zeng. ) )  
Therefore, modern Chinese only have about 400 syllables (according to Kahlgren, see *Clock* by Liang Shiqiu. In this article, Liang criticised superstitions related to characters with the same sound).

EDIT: Someone talked about the quantity and frequency of Chinese characters. I'd like to add a point. In Modern Chinese, words with two or more characters are used instead of one character. However, in ancient times, a character usually IS a word. For example, "驹" means "young horse", while in Modern Chinese, "小马"("small horse") is used more often. To express increasing things and concepts in the world, the Ancient Chinese people just invent more characters to express them. Take horse as an example, each of the following character indicate one specific kind of horse:  
驽 (bad horse)  
骁 (strong horse, now rarely used directly)  
骄 (horse that's about six feet tall, now this character means "proud")  
骐 (horse with black patterns, usually good at racing)  
骢 (horse with green and white skin)  
骃 (horse with dark grey skin and white patch)  
However, in Modern Chinese, when indicating horses, we just add adjectives before "马"(horse), like 白马 (white horse), 好马 (good horse, or horse good at racing).


---

### Answer by username_4 on 2018-08-14. Score: 0

One reason is, ancient Chinese spoken language is quite different from now. During the evolution of language many sounds disappeared due to different reasons: foreign language invasion, conflicts of dialects, etc.

Another reason is, Chinese characters and their sounds are not tightly linked. In ancient Chinese language (文言), people use single written characters to express their meanings. So they will more or less face the problem of homophones. Now Chinese language use words (mostly combinations of two characters, also 1,3,4 or more) to express their meanings. So the numbers of homophones is not that much, I'd say at the same level of English.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: For the sound "ruì" there are 16 different characters https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ruì  
> **username_0**: For the sound "bó" alone there exist 98 different characters https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bó  
> **username_0**: For the sound "gé" there exist 58 different characters https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gé  
> **username_0**: Is this really something not that much to you or am I just missing something here? Or is the chinese language just has the tendency of using the exact same sound again and again to use it for different meanings?  
> **username_4**: From what I know, about 70% to 80% percent of the characters you listed are not used in common language. And to make my words clear, I'm talking about less homophones in 'words'.  
> **username_4**: So most modern Chinese 'words' are made of 2 'characters' or more. This reduces the numbers of same sound words significantly.  
> **username_0**: If what you mean is that 70% to 80% are not used AT ALL, then why are they still listed there?  
> **username_4**: Most of them are used in ancient articles, people's names (a lot of Chinese people name their children from old books), species' names, chemical elements, special phrases such as 成语. Basically, you can communicate with native Chinese people without any problem if you know around 3000-4000 characters in total.  
> **username_4**: Besides, 70-80% is my approximation in your given examples. The biggest dictionary has over 80000 characters while high school graduates are only required to master 6600 of them.  
> **username_5**: Kevin Fang is right. I was born and raised in Taiwan, despite the 12 years in my 30s when I live in America, I can say I can't be any more Chinese! But I only know NOT EVEN 10% of the words out there! (Which just correspond to the ratio Kevin given). AND I HAVE A MASTER DEGREE!!! Most of the words you listed from the wiktionary are probably only know by **Chinese Literature professors**! And I dare say that quite a big portion of it even THEM had never heard of! So please don't fret too much over it! Just learn what you can and you'll be fine! Good luck!!!  

---

