Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese or
Literary Chinese is a traditional style of
written Chinese based on the
grammar and
vocabulary of old forms of Chinese, making it different from any
modern spoken form of Chinese. However, the distinction between Literary and Classical, Literary and Vernacular Chinese are blurry. Classical Chinese was once used for almost all formal correspondence before and during the beginning of the
20th century, not only in
China but also in
Korea,
Japan, and
Vietnam. Among Chinese speakers, Classical Chinese has been largely replaced by
Vernacular Chinese (白話,
baihua), a style of writing that is closer to modern spoken Mandarin Chinese, while speakers of non-Chinese languages have largely abandoned Classical Chinese in favor of local vernaculars.
Literary Chinese written for a Korean audience is known as
Hanmun; for a Japanese audience, it is known as
Kanbun (in characters both are written as 漢文, meaning written language of the Han); and for a Vietnamese audience, it is
Chữ nho (字').
While the terms Classical Chinese and Literary Chinese are commonly used interchangeably, this is not strictly accurate.
Sinologists generally agree that they are in fact different things. By most academic definitions, Classical Chinese (古文,
Pinyin G"wén, "Ancient Writing"; or more literally 古典漢語 G"diǎn Hàny" "Classical Chinese") refers to the written language of China from the
Zhou Dynasty, and especially the
Spring and Autumn Period, through to the end of the
Han Dynasty. Classical Chinese is therefore the language used in many of China's most influential books, such as the
Analects of Confucius, the
Mencius and the
Daodejing. (The language of even older texts, such as the
Shijing, is sometimes called
Archaic Chinese.)
Literary Chinese (文言文, Wényánwén, "Literary Writing", or more colloquially just 文言 Wényán) is the form of written Chinese used from the end of the
Han Dynasty to the early 20th century when it was replaced by vernacular written Chinese (
Baihua). Literary Chinese diverged more and more from Classical Chinese as the dialects of China became more and more disparate and as the Classical written language became less and less representative of the
spoken language. At the same time, Literary Chinese was based largely upon the Classical language, and writers frequently borrowed Classical language into their Literary writings. Literary Chinese therefore shows a great deal of similarity to Classical Chinese, even though the similarity decreased over the centuries.
This situation, usage of Literary Chinese among China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, can be compared to the coexistence of the universal
Latin language and the more local Latin-derived
Romance languages in
Europe, as well as the position of
Classical Arabic relative to the various
regional vernaculars in Arab lands. The Romance languages continued to evolve, influencing Latin texts of the same period, so that by the
Middle Ages, Latin included many usages that would have baffled the
Romans. 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, or to the position of Arabic in
Persia and
India.
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The shape of the Seal script character for "harvest" (which later came to mean "year") probably came from the character for "person." A hypothesized pronunciation for each character may explain the resemblance. |
Chinese characters are not
alphabetic and do not reflect
sound changes, and the tentative reconstruction of
Old Chinese is an endeavour only a few centuries old. As a result, Classical Chinese is not read with a reconstruction of Old Chinese pronunciation; instead, it is either read with the pronunciations of the reader's own variety of Chinese, such as modern
Mandarin or
Cantonese; or, in varieties of Chinese (e.g.
Southern Min) that have a special set of pronunciation used for Classical Chinese or vocabulary and usage borrowed from Classical Chinese usage. (In practice, all varieties of Chinese combine these two extremes; Mandarin and Cantonese, for example, also have words that are pronounced one way in colloquial usage and another way when used in Classical Chinese or in specialized terms coming from Classical Chinese, though the system is not as extensive as that of Southern Min.)
Korean,
Japanese, or
Vietnamese readers of Classical Chinese use systems of pronunciation specific to their own languages. For example, Japanese speakers use
On'yomi and (more rarely)
Kun'yomi, which are the ways
kanji, or Chinese characters, are read when they are used to write in Japanese.
Kunten, a system that aids Japanese speakers with Classical Chinese word order, was also used.
Since the pronunciation of Old Chinese or other forms of historical Chinese (such as
Middle Chinese) have long been lost, characters which once
rhymed in poetry may no longer do (more often in Mandarin and rarely in Cantonese), or vice versa. Poetry and other rhyme-based writing thus becomes less coherent than the original reading must have been. However, some characteristics of modern
Chinese dialects adhere more closely to the original pronunciations than others, as evident by the preservation of rhyme structures. Some believe
wenyan literature, especially poetry, sounds better when read in certain dialects to be closer to ancient pronunciations, such as Cantonese or Southern Min.
Another phenomenon that is common in reading Classical Chinese is
homophony, or words that sound the same. More than 2500 years of
sound change separates Classical Chinese from any modern language or dialect, so when reading Classical Chinese in any modern variety of Chinese (especially Mandarin) or in Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese, many characters which originally had different pronunciations have become
homonyms. There is a famous Classical Chinese essay written in the early 20th-century by linguist
Y. R. Chao called the
Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den which illustrates this. It is perfectly comprehensible when read, but contains only words that are now pronounced "shi1", "shi2", "shi3" and "shi4" in
Standard Mandarin (the numbers indicate the four tones). In addition, literary Chinese, by its very nature as a
written language employing a
logographic writing system, can often get away with the use of homophones that even in oral Old Chinese would not have been distinguishable in any way.
The situation is analogous with some English words that sound the same, such as "meet" and "meat". These two words were
pronounced and respectively during the time of
Chaucer, as evident by spelling. Today they sound the same, but are distinguished by spelling. English spelling is only a few centuries old and is a sound-based system that has kept pace with sound changes to an extent, so such examples are not very common; the Chinese writing system is, by contrast, several thousand years old and logographic, so such examples are more common and exist for a high proportion of characters.
Reconstruction
Some linguists have made an effort to reconstruct the pronunciation of
Old Chinese. What is known amounts to very little; however, it is generally believed that
Old Chinese, unlike
Middle Chinese or
Modern Chinese, possessed consonant clusters, such as
*dr, *zn, etc. Some also believe that Old Chinese had
Pharyngeal consonants, such as
*, *, *, and
*. However, pharyngeal consonants are rare, and only a few languages (such as a number of
Semitic and
North Caucasian languages) possess these sounds.
Wenyan is distinguished from
baihua in its style that appears extremely concise and compact to modern Chinese speakers and to some extent the use of different
lexical items (i.e., vocabulary). In terms of conciseness and compactness, for example,
wenyan rarely uses morphemes composed of two
Chinese characters; nearly all morphemes are of one
syllable only. This stands directly in contrast with modern Chinese dialects where two-syllable morphemes are more common. In terms of lexicons, Literary Chinese has more
pronouns compared to the modern vernacular. In particular, whereas Mandarin has one general character to refer to the first-person pronoun ("I"/"me"), Literary Chinese has several, many of which are used as part of 客套语 (
honorific language), and several of which have different grammatical uses (
first-person collective,
first-person possessive, etc.).
This phenomenon exists, in part, because two-syllable morphemes evolved in Chinese to represent more objects and concepts in life: an expansion of vocabulary. This evolution differs from, for example, a similar phenomenon in English like the
pen/pin merger of the American South. Because the two sound alike, a certain degree of confusion can occur unless one adds qualifiers like "writing pen" and "stick pin". Since each Chinese character is a complete unit of a morpheme, any two-character morpheme is actually understood by its 2 morphemes. In Chinese, the equivalent of the morpheme "Psychology" in the English sense is "Psychos Logos". Each character in a morpheme has its complete and independent function, not inseparable from the morpheme. For instance, wenyan is understood as "wen yan". Having wenyan in one word is a practise extended by romanization advocated by communists regime in Mainland China.
Since
wenyan is an imitation of Old Chinese, it has almost none of the two-syllable morphemes present in modern Chinese languages. For the same reason,
wenyan is much more ready to drop subjects, verbs, objects, etc. when their meaning is understood or readily inferred;
wenyan did not develop a subject inanimate pronoun ("it" used as a subject) until quite late. As a result, a sentence that may take 20 characters in
baihua can often be rendered in
wenyan in four or five.
There are also differences in lexicon, especially in
grammatical particles, as well as in
syntax.
In addition to grammar and vocabulary differences,
wenyan can be distinguished by literary and cultural differences: an effort to maintain
parallelism and rhythm, even in prose works, and its extensive use of cultural allusions, thereby also contribute to the brief style.
Classical Chinese grammar and lexicon is also significantly different from that of Literary Chinese. For example, increasing use of 是 (Modern Mandarin
shì) as a
copula ("to be") rather than as a near
demonstrative ("this"), and the appearance of 這 (Modern Mandarin
zhè) taking its place as such, is a hallmark of Literary Chinese. Literary also tends to use far more two-character combinations than Classical.
Wenyan was the only form used in Chinese literary works until the
May Fourth Movement, and was also heavily used in Japan and Korea. Ironically, Classical Chinese was used to write the
Hunmin Jeongeum in which the modern Korean alphabet (
Hangul) was promulgated and the essay by
Hu Shi in which he argued against using Classical Chinese and in favor of baihua. Exceptions to the use of
wenyan were vernacular novels such as
The Dream of the Red Chamber, which was considered low class at the time.
Today, pure
wenyan is occasionally used in formal or ceremonial occasions. The
National Anthem of the Republic of China for example, is in
wenyan. In practice there is a socially accepted continuum between
baihua and
wenyan. For example, most notices and formal letters are written with a number of stock
wenyan expressions (e.g. salutation, closing). Personal letters, on the other hand, are mostly written in
baihua, but with some
wenyan phrases sometimes, depending on the subject matter, the writer's level of education, etc. Letters (and/or essays) written completely in
wenyan today may be considered quaint, old-fashioned, or even pretentious by some, but may seem impressive to others.
Most Chinese people with at least a middle school education are able to read basic
wenyan, because the ability to read (but not write)
wenyan is part of the Chinese
middle school and
high school curricula and is part of the college entrance examination.
Wenyan is taught primarily by presenting a classical Chinese work and including a
baihua gloss that explains the meaning of phrases. Tests on classical Chinese are often essentially translation exercises that ask the student to express the meaning of a paragraph in
baihua, using multiple choice.
In addition, many works of
literature in
wenyan (such as
Tang poetry) have major
cultural influences. However, even with knowledge of grammar and vocabulary,
wenyan can be difficult to understand, even by educated native speakers of Chinese, because of its heavy use of literary
references and
allusions as well as its extremely abbreviated style.
*
Sino-Japanese*
Sino-Korean*
Sino-VietnameseNorman, Jerry. "Pharyngealization in Early Chinese."
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1994.
