The "Qieyun" did not directly record Middle Chinese as a spoken language, but rather how characters "should" be pronounced when reading the classics. Since this rime dictionary's spellings are the primary source for reconstructing Middle Chinese, linguists have disagreed over what variety of Chinese it recorded. "Much ink has been spilled concerning the nature of the language underlying the "Qieyun"," says Norman (1988: 24), who lists three points of view. Some scholars, like Bernhard Karlgren, "held to the view that the "Qieyun" represented the language of Chang'an"; some "others have supposed that it represented an amalgam of regional pronunciations," technically known as a diasystem. "At the present time most people in the field accept the views of the Chinese scholar Zhou Zumo" (周祖謨; 1914–1995) that "Qieyun" spellings were a north-south regional compromise between literary pronunciations from the Northern and Southern dynasties.