Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den

The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den is a famous example of constrained writing by Yuen Ren Chao which consists of 92 characters, all with the sound ''shi'' in different when read in .
The text, although written in Classical Chinese, can be easily comprehended by most educated readers. However, changes in pronunciation over 2,500 years resulted in a large degree of in Classical Chinese, so the poem becomes completely incomprehensible when spoken out in Standard Mandarin or when written romanized in Standard Mandarin.

linguists suggest that Yuen Ren Chao, as the leader who designed Gwoyeu Romatzyh, believed in romanization of but believed it suitable only for writing modern vernacular Chinese and not Classical Chinese. As a result, Classical Chinese should be abandoned and vernacular Chinese should be promoted. Other linguists, however, see the text as a demonstration of how absurd it could be when the Chinese language is romanized. It sometimes causes confusion rather than giving assistance for the learners.

The text

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The following is the text in and Chinese characters. Pinyin orthography recommends writing numbers in Arabic numerals, so the number ''shí'' would be written as 10. To preserve the homophony in this case, the number 10 has also been spelled out in Pinyin.



:? Shī Shì shí shī shǐ ?

:Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
:Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
:Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
:Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
:Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
:Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
:Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
:Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
:Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
:Shì shì shì shì.

:《施氏食獅史》

:石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。
:氏時時適市視獅。
:十時，適十獅適市。
:是時，適施氏適市。
:氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝世。
:氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。
:石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。
:石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。
:食時，始識是十獅，實十石獅屍。
:試釋是事。


Meaning in English:
:? Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den ?

:In a stone den was a poet Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten.
:He often went to the market to look for lions.
:At ten o'clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
:At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
:He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
:He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
:The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
:After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
:When he ate, he realized that those ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
:Try to explain this matter.

Explanation

Since the passage is written in Classical Chinese, homophony is not an issue. Classical Chinese is a written language and is very different from spoken Chinese. Different words that have the same sound when spoken aloud will have different written forms, comparable to ''deer'' and ''dear'' in English.

Also, many characters in the passage had distinct sounds in Middle Chinese. All the various Chinese spoken variants have over time merged and split different sounds. For example, when the same passage is read in , there are seven distinct syllables - ''ci'', ''sai'', ''sap'', ''sat'', ''sek'', ''si'', ''sik'' - in six distinct tone contours, leaving 22 distinct morphemes. In Min Nan or , there are six distinct syllables - ''se'', ''si'', ''su'', ''sek'', ''sip'', ''sit'' – in seven distinct tone contours, leaving 15 distinct morphemes. Even with , there are eleven distinct syllables - ''ci'', ''cik'', ''sai'', ''se'', ''sek'', ''si'', ''sip'', ''sik'', ''chap'', ''chiah'', ''chioh'' - in six distinct tone contours, leaving 22 distinct morphemes. However, it is still debatable whether the passage is any more comprehensible when read aloud in other dialects than it is in Mandarin.



:? Si¹ si⁶ sik⁹ si¹ si² ?

:Sek⁹ sat⁷ si¹ si⁶ si¹ si6, si³ si¹, sai⁶ sik⁹ sap⁹ si¹.
:Si⁶ si⁴ si⁴ sik⁷ si⁵ si⁶ si¹.
:Sap⁹ si4, sik⁷ sap⁹ si¹ sik⁷ si⁵.
:Si⁶ si4, sik⁷ si¹ si⁶ sik² si⁵.
:Si⁶ si⁶ si⁶ sap⁹ si¹, ci⁵ ci² sai3, si² si⁶ sap⁹ si¹ sai⁶ sai³.
:Si⁶ sap⁹ si⁶ sap⁹ si¹ si1, sik⁷ sek⁹ sat¹.
:Sek⁹ sat⁷ sap¹, si⁶ si² si⁶ sik⁷ sek⁹ sat¹.
:Sek⁹ sat⁷ sik¹, si⁶ ci² si³ sik⁹ si⁶ sap⁹ si¹.
:Sik⁶ si⁶, si⁶ sik⁷ si⁹ sap⁹ si¹, sat⁹ sap⁹ sek⁹ si¹ si¹.
:Si³ sik⁷ si⁶ si⁶.


:? Si--sī Si?t-si Sú ?

:Se?k-sek si-sū Si--sī, sī su, sè si?t si?p-su.
:Sī s?-s? sek-sī sī-su.
:Si?p-s?, sek si?p-su sek-sī.
:Sī-s?, sek si--sī sek-sī.
:Sī sī sī si?p-su, sī sí sè, sú sī si?p-su sè-sè.
:Sī si?p sī si?p su-si, sek se?k-sek.
:Se?k-sek sip, sī sú sī sit se?k-sek.
:Se?k-sek sit, sī sí sì si?t sī si?p-su.
:Si?t-s?, sí sek sī si?p-su, si?t si?p se?k-su-si.
:Sī sek sī-su.

:? si¹ si⁶ ziah⁸ sai¹ se² ?

:zioh⁸sig⁴ si¹se⁶ si¹si⁶, si⁷ sai¹, si⁷ ziah⁸ zab⁸ sai¹.
:si⁶ si⁵si⁵ sêg⁴ ci⁶ si⁶ sai¹.
:zab⁸ si⁵, sêg⁴ zab⁸ sai¹ sêg⁴ ci⁶.
:si⁶ si⁵, sêg⁵ si¹si⁶ sêg⁴ ci⁶.
:si⁶ si⁶ si⁶ zab⁸ sai¹, si⁶ si² si³, sai² si⁶ zab⁸ sai¹ si⁷si³.
:si⁶ sib⁸ si⁶ zab⁸ sai¹ si¹, sêg⁴ zioh⁸sig⁴.
:zioh⁸sig⁴ sib⁴, si⁶ sai² si⁶ cig⁴ zioh⁸sig⁴.
:zioh⁸sig⁴ cig⁴, si⁶ si² ci³ ziah⁸ si⁶ zab⁸ sai¹.
:ziah⁸ si⁵, si² sêg⁴ si⁶ zab⁸ sai¹, sig⁸ zab⁸ zioh⁸ sai¹ si¹.
:ci³ sêg⁴ si⁶ se⁷.


In Cantonese, 48 of the story's 92 syllables are read ''si'' in one of six tones, 13 are read ''sik'' in one of two tones, 12 are read ''sap'' in one of two tones, 6 each are read ''sek'' or ''sat'' in one of two tones, 4 are read ''sai'' in one of two tones, and 3 are read ''ci'' in one of two tones.

Poem text in vernacular Chinese

While the sound changes merged sounds that had been distinct, new ways of speaking those concepts emerged. Typically disyllabic words replaced monosyllabic ones. If the same passage is translated into modern Mandarin, it will not be that confusing. The following is an example written in Vernacular Chinese, along with its pronunciations in Pinyin; Chinese characters with pinyin transcription added using annotations.

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《 ruby-zh-p|獅|shī 》

，
ruby-zh-p|獅|shī ，
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，
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，
。

ruby-zh-p|獅|shī ，
，
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ruby-zh-p|獅|shī ，
。

，
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。

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《施氏吃獅子記》

有一位住在石室裏的詩人叫施氏，愛吃獅子，決心要吃十隻獅子。

他常常去市場看獅子。

十點鐘，剛好有十隻獅子到了市場。

那時候，剛好施氏也到了市場。

他看見那十隻獅子，便放箭，把那十隻獅子殺死了。

他拾起那十隻獅子的屍體，帶到石室。

石室濕了水，施氏叫侍從把石室擦乾。

石室擦乾了，他才試試吃那十隻獅子。

吃的時候，才發現那十隻獅子，原來是十隻石頭的�br />

Related tongue-twisters

In certain -speaking areas of China, speakers have a similar to ''The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den'':

四是四，十是十，十四是十四，四十是四十.

This tongue-twister translates to "Four is four, ten is ten, fourteen is fourteen, forty is forty." In Standard Mandarin, it is pronounced as follows:

''sì shì sì, shí shì shí， shísì shì shísì, sìshí shì sìshí.''

In southern dialects of Mandarin, however, where speakers do not pronounce the and instead replace it with , the tongue-twister is pronounced as follows, with all the syllables except for their tones:

''sì sì sì, sí sì sí， sísì sì sísì, sìsí sì sìsí.''