The situation is analogous to that of some English words that are spelled differently but sound the same, such as "meet" and "meat", which were pronounced and respectively during the time of Chaucer, as shown by their spelling. However, such homophones are far more common in Literary Chinese than in English. For example, the following distinct Old Chinese words are now all pronounced "yì" in Mandarin: "*ŋjajs" 議 "discuss", "*ŋjət" 仡 "powerful", "*ʔjup" 邑 "city", "*ʔjək" 億 "100,000,000", "*ʔjəks" 意 "thought", "*ʔjek" 益 "increase", "*ʔjik" 抑 "press down", "*jak" 弈 "Chinese chess", 逸 "flee", 翼 "wing", 易 "change", 易 "easy", and 蜴 "lizard".