Middle Chinese (simplified Chinese: 中古汉语; traditional Chinese: 中古漢語; pinyin: zhōnggǔ Hànyǔ), formerly known as Ancient Chinese, is the historical variety of Chinese that is phonologically recorded in the Qieyun, a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The fanqie method used to indicate pronunciation in these dictionaries, though an improvement on earlier methods, proved awkward in practice.