Qieyin has two layer of meanings:
fanqie(反切) meaning and
pinyin(拼音) meaning. Pinyin meaning has its origin in the early Qing Dynasty and matured in the late Qing Dynasty. With the maturity of pinyin meaning, fanqie meaning was gradually replaced by pinyin meaning. The terminology of “
Qieyin Character” which firstly appeared in the late Qing Dynasty refers to any qieyin characters in the world, including qieyin characters in non-verbal
phonetic systems. This is the general reference meaning of qieyin character in the early stage. As the denotation of qieyin character becomes narrow, it only refers to those qieyin characters in Chinese Phonetic Systems that appeared in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China and the characters appeared in character systems and phonetic notation systems that especially designed for Chinese according to phonetic principles and shorthand characters. Qieyin characters in this case has got it's specific meaning and takes the place of the general reference meaning mentioned above. The academic world hasn't got a unified voice on the duration of
the Movement of Qieyin Characters. This paper indicates that we should take the year 1892 as a starting point of
Movement of Qieyin Characters when Mr LU, Gangzhang expressed his opinions on new qieyin characters, and takes the year 1911 as its terminal when the Qing Dynasty collapsed. Therefore, the movement of qieyin characters can be defined as a phonetic and alphabetic movement existed from 1892 to 1911. It totally lasted for 20 years.
More summaries about the The Connotation and Denotation of Qieyin Character (切音字)