The Digital Wenhai: A Unicode-Compliant Dataset of the Backbone of Tangut Linguistics and Philology

The Digital Wenhai, Version 1.2: Phonology is a Unicode-compliant dataset of the Tangut rhyme dictionary Wénhǎi 文海 and its phonological evidence. It provides a normalised representation of 3,085 Wénhǎi records together with the fǎnqiè data needed to reconstruct the initial and rhyme equivalences attested in the dictionary.

The release includes the main database in spreadsheet and UTF-8 CSV formats, normalised fǎnqiè groups, tables of initial and rhyme chains, and records of each chain’s members and the direct links between them. It also documents cross-category chains and unresolved sets. A Python script reconstructs both graphs and checks the results against the published data. The dataset identifies 173 initial chains and 321 rhyme chains. Eight initial chains contain members assigned to more than one initial class of the Tóngyīn 同音 (TY). Thirteen rhyme chains contain members from more than one named rhyme in the Level Tone volume of the Wénhǎi.

The Wénhǎi's fǎnqiè relations determine which nodes are connected in each graph. Once the initial chains have been established, the TY classifications of their heads and upper spellers supply the prefix of each chain identifier. The rhyme chains are numbered across the whole graph, in the Unicode order of their anchors. The dataset supports reproducible research on Tangut phonology, historical and comparative linguistics, philology, and digital humanities.