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I know that when Chinese characters were incorporated into Japanese
writing/vocabulary their pronunciation changed to be easier for Japanese
people to pronounce, but were there any specific rules? What I mean by rules
is if there was a systematic approach where certain Chinese phonemes were
always converted to certain Japanese phonemes. If so, is this still
perceptible in Modern Chinese?
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pronunciation phonology chinese
Were there any specifics rules that were used to convert Chinese vocabulary into Japanese? Are they still perceptible in Modern Chinese?
_Phonemes_ are not really applicable to the Chinese character system, but
there was (and still is) indeed a systematic approach to convert most Chinese
characters' pronunciation into Japanese
[_on'yomi_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#On%27yomi_\(Sino-
Japanese_reading\)), based on the system known as
[_fanqie_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie) ([反切]{はんせつ}). In this system,
any character's pronunciation is reconstructed through a description from two
other characters 「Ｘ」 and 「Ｙ」, with the description expressed as 「ＸＹ切」. The
reconstruction takes the [onset](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable#Onset)
of 「Ｘ」 and the [rime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllable#Rime) of 「Ｙ」 to
form the pronunciation of the character as a single syllable.

This system is _frozen_ (not _dead_ ), as it is still sometimes applicable to
uncommon Chinese characters finding their way into a Japanese text, but it is
entirely based on the vocabulary of [Middle
Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese) (not [Old
Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese) or any variety of Modern
Chinese), which no longer characterises a living language. This is an
important point, as **_on'yomi_ specifically relates to Middle Chinese words
derived from the _fanqie_ system**, not Chinese-derived words in general. For
example, the following words are derived from Chinese and are written with the
same characters in Chinese, but are not _on'yomi_ :

  * [梅]{うめ} ([Baxter-Sagart OC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_\(2014\)): **/*C.mˤə/** )
  * [上海]{シャンハイ} (Mandarin [Pinyin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin): **Shànghǎi** )

### Worked example: _Fanqie_ reconstruction of the _on'yomi_ of 「掛」

  * The [_fanqie_ description of 「掛」 is 「古賣切」](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%8E%9B#Pronunciation)
  * _On'yomi_ of 「古」: 
    * [_Go-on_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go-on): [く]{ku}
    * [_Kan-on_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kan-on): [こ]{ko}
  * _On'yomi_ of 「賣」: 
    * _Go-on_ : [め]{me}
    * _Kan-on_ : [ばい]{bai}
  * Taking the _on'yomi_ analogy to the onset and rime components of these characters, we can get the _on'yomi_ of 「掛」 as 
    * _Go-on_ : **k** u + m **e** = **[ke]{け}**
    * _Kan-on_ : **k** o + b **ai** = **[kai]{かい}**

* * *

Ironically, due to the comparatively simplified nature of Japanese phonology
in _on'yomi_ words, _fanqie_ works the best in Japanese out of all the
languages it is applicable to (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese). You
can use _fanqie_ for Mandarin Chinese, but very likely you'll get an inexact
match for the onset or a not-so-correct tone.
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It is unlikely that a modern Chinese person can recognize a Sino-Japanese word
or name unles the 漢字 had very minimal phonetic changes and was adopted into
Japanese accurately.

A good example of it is 天才. In current Sino-Japanese, it is Tensai(てんさい). The
difference between Mandarin and Sino-Japanese is very minimal since the
Japanese had no issue adopting it and didn't change its phonology over time as
much. However, the majority of Sino-Japanese has been simplified, both when
they were first adopted into Japan and throughout Japan's history.

For example.

According to the Japanese, Mei in 名 is Tang Chinese, and they kept this
pronunciation the same as it was during the adoption from Tang Chinese.
However, the issue here is that Modern Mandarin Chinese is closer to Song
Chinese. And another issue is that during the adoption of Mei, they probably
didn't have the N(ん) Kana, so the Tang pronunciation of it could very easily
be Meing. The G gets thrown out of the window cuz Japanese still doesn't have
any equivalent of G, so the technically Song pronunciation of 名 becomes
Min(みん), but the problem is that Song pronunciation is not that popular in
Sino-Japanese. Wu and Tang pronunciations are much more common. The modern
Sino-Japanese Wu pronunciation for 名 is Myou but this is a simplified
pronunciation. During the first adoption, it was Myau, and since they don't
have G and ん wasn't a thing yet, that's what they wrote it as.

So, according to Japanese history, Old Wu Chinese for 名 would be Myaung, Tang
would be Meing, while Song is, of course, Ming, which are now Myou, Mei, and
Min respectively. However, they didn't take the Song pronunciation for 名. Song
Chinese pronunciation is more rare, and is not as common as what you usually
hear as Ming in Modern Mandarin.

Example words are:

名字 = Myouji 名作 = Meisaku 明朗 = Meirou 民衆 = Minshuu 民主 = Minshu 無名 = Mumei 瞑想 =
Meisou 冥助 = Meijo 明星 = Myoujou 名代 = Myoudai 冥利 = Myouri

So unfortunately, unless you have knowledge of how Chinese was adopted and
developed in Japan, you wouldn't understand Sino-Japanese just by sound, and
Mandarin has even more deviations from Middle Chinese than other Chinese
languages so that makes it harder for Mandarin speakers. Though learning the
pronunciation history is definitely fun and will make you remember the modern
Japanese ones easier. Since there's a decent amount that stayed the same at
the core such as 快 Which is Kuai in Mandarin, and Kai in Modern Sino-Japanese,
but it used to be Kwai in Middle Japanese. So much so that they have a
separate kana for the historic W sound for Kwa which is くゎ. That Small わ(Wa)
is only used like that, and you basically normally never see it in modern
standard Japanese.
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