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Home > Classical Chinese

 
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese (文言, pinyin: wényán, literal meaning: " literary language" or 古文, literal: "ancient written language") is a traditional style of written Chinese prose using grammar and vocabulary very different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Classical Chinese was used for almost all formal correspondence before the 20th century, not only in China but also in Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Among Chinese speakers, classical Chinese has been largely replaced by Vernacular Chinese (baihua), a style of writing that is much closer to modern spoken Chinese, while speakers of non-Chinese languages have largely abandoned Classical Chinese in favor of local vernaculars.

1 History

Classical Chinese stems from Old Chinese, the spoken language of the later Zhou dynasty ( 10th century BC - 256 BC), especially the Spring and Autumn Period ( 722 BC - 481 BCCenturies: 6th century BC 5th century BC 4th century BC Decades: 530s BC 520s BC 510s BC 500s BC 490s BC 480s BC 470s BC 460s BC 450s BC 440s BC 430s BC Years: 486 BC 485 BC 484 BC 483 BC 482 BC 481 BC 480 BC 479 BC 478 BC 477 BC 476 BC Births Protagoras). This language is the language used in many of China's most influential books, such as the Analects of ConfuciusAnalects ( Pinyin: Luny), or Analects of Confucius written in twenty chapters, is thought to be a composition of the late Spring and Autumn Period. It is undoubtedly the most influential text in East Asian intellectual history, collecting maxims and short, the MenciusMencius (most accepted dates: 372 BC 289 BC; other possible dates: 385 BC 303 BC or 302 BC) was born in the State of Zou , now forming the territory of the county-level city of Zoucheng , Shandong province, only 30 km (18 miles) south of Qufu, the town of, the Daodejing, etc. Starting from the Han DynastyThe Han Dynasty ( Traditional Chinese characters: , Simplified Chinese characters: , pinyin Hanchao 202 BCE 220 CE) followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. During the Han Dynasty, China officially became a Confucian state and pr ( 206 BCCenturies: 4th century BC 3rd century BC 2nd century BC Decades: 250s BC 240s BC 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC 200s BC 190s BC 180s BC 170s BC 160s BC 150s BC Years: 211 BC 210 BC 209 BC 208 BC 207 BC 206 BC 205 BC 204 BC 203 BC 202 BC 201 BC Events Second Puni - 220Events Han Xiandi abdicated, symbolizing the end of the Han Dynasty and the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period in China. Cao Pi succeeds his father Cao Cao as ruler of the Kingdom of Wei Births Deaths Cao Cao, self-appointed prime minister of the Han AD), however (the specific time and process being disputed among scholars), spoken Chinese dialects evolved further and further away from those of the Zhou Dynasty. However, people continued to use the grammar and style found in Zhou Dynasty literary works in their formal writing, even while actual spoken forms of Chinese continued to evolve further and further away. This collection of emulated Zhou Dynasty grammar, vocabulary, usage and style then assumed its own existence as Classical Chinese, the formal written language of China. For the next two thousand years, as spoken Chinese eventually evolved into the modern Chinese dialects, Classical Chinese was preserved and remained more or less static.

This situation can be compared to the coexistence of the Latin language and the Latin-derived Romance languages in Europe. (The coexistence of Classical Chinese and the native languages of Korea, Japan, and Vietnam can be compared to the use of Latin in countries that natively speak non-Latin-derived Germanic languages or Slavic languages.)

Although Classical Chinese is ideally a perfectly preserved fossil of Old Chinese usage, it was influenced by later writers who unavoidably inserted usage and features from their own native spoken dialects into their writing.



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Topics: Classical Chinese, History, Pronunciation, Grammar, Teaching...

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