English Rime Tables
Problem:
English and Chinese are so different from one another that recreating English following the phonological rules of the Song and Yuan Dynasties in China seems impossible.
英汉两种语言差异太大，想要用中国宋元时期的音韵规则来重构英语似乎不大可能。
Solution:
Once reduced to a vocabulary of about 3,000 monosyllabic words, English becomes similar to Classical Chinese in many ways, and can be organized by the knowledge systems of that time and place.
当简化到大约3000个单音节词时，英语在很多方面变得和古汉语相似起来，也能够用当时当地的知识体系来组织。
Problem:
“韵”是汉语的核心发音类别。它们包含了字的韵母和声调。古汉语的声调划分成两类：阳调（平声）和阴调（仄声）。诗人通过诗歌给于这些韵律以和谐的平衡。英语不是声调语言，那它将如何才能被放进韵表呢？
“Rimes” are the core sound categories of Chinese. They include a word’s vowel and also its tone. Classical Chinese tones are broken into two categories: yang or level tones (ping) and the yin or deflected tones (ze). Poets use poetry to bring these into a harmonious balance. If English is not tonal, how can it be organized into rime tables?
Solution:
在古汉语中，阴阳声调之间的主要区别可以被描述成元音长度的不同。这些不同主要是看单词的结尾有没有辅音，或是像“n”,“ng”这样的浊辅音，它们会使元音音值变长。或是像“p”,“t”,“k”,“ch”,“s”这样的清辅音，它们会使元音音值变短。“英韵镜”围绕着长短元音这一区别重新组织了整个发音体系，而且遵循的组织原理和哲学与原始的汉语韵表完全相同。
The primary difference between yin and yang tones in Classical Chinese can be described as a difference in the vowel length depending on whether words end in no consonant or voiced consonants like n or ng, which lengthen a vowel, or whether they end in p, t, or k, which shorten the vowel. English is the same as Chinese. If a monosyllabic English word ends in b, d, g, j, or z, its vowels will be longer than those of words ending in p, t, k, ch, or s. The English rime tables reorganize the entire language system around this distinction between long and short vowels and thus follow the same organization and philosophy as the original Chinese rime tables.
Problem:
The Imperial Knowledge System sought to merge a vast array of ideas covering subjects ranging from governance to cooking, from medicine to aesthetics, from architecture to alchemy into a single set of organizing principles, which could be difficult to visualize. How did the rime tables merge linguistics into this system?
科举知识体系力求涵盖最大范围的学科，包括从政务到烹饪，从医学到美学，从建筑学到炼金术等等，把它们全部融入一套相同的组织原理中，显然想要把这套原理形象化是十分困难的。那么，韵表又是如何将语言学融入这个体系的呢？
Solution:
Because the Imperial Knowledge System often broke things down into sections of fives, hand maps provided a convenient mnemonic device across various disciplines. The original Chinese rime tables used hand maps to show how its consonants mapped onto both the five elements and the five notes of the pentatonic scale. Such images reinforced the natural foundation of knowledge and reinforced its legitimacy.
由于在科举知识体系中事物通常被分解成五个部分，手形图提供了一种在应用不同法则时的便利的辅助工具。最初的汉语韵表就是使用手形图来展示汉语声母如何对应到五行和五音阶上。这个图像强化了知识的自然基础以及它的合理性。
