Classical Chinese

Classical Chinese
In Chinese characters:	古文
Pinyin Romanization:	gǔwén
Literal Meaning:	"ancient written language"
Literary Chinese
In Chinese characters:	文言文
Pinyin Romanization:	wényánwén
Literal Meaning:	"literary language"

Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of very old forms of Chinese, making it very different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Classical Chinese was once used for almost all formal correspondence before 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 (字儒).

Definitions

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 Gǔwén, "Ancient Writing"; or more literally 古典漢語 Gǔdiǎn Hànyǔ "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 languages 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 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.

Pronunciation

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 often no longer do, 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, although no modern dialect can be said to be closer than any other to ancient pronunciations. Some Chinese speakers believe wenyan literature, especially poetry, sounds better when read in certain dialects considered by them 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, making it impossible to orally communicate using Classical Chinese. 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 commonplace and exist for nearly all 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 *ˤz, *ˤd, *ˤs, and *ˤt. However, pharyngeal consonants are very rare, and only a few languages (such as a number of Semitic and North Caucasian languages) possess these sounds.

Grammar and Lexicon

Wenyan is distinguished from baihua in its use of different lexical items (i.e., vocabulary) and a style that appears extremely concise and compact to modern Chinese speakers. For example, wenyan rarely uses words composed of two Chinese characters; nearly all words are of one syllable only. This stands directly in contrast with modern Chinese dialects where two-syllable words are normal and very common. There is also a greater number of 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 words evolved in Chinese to compensate for sound change: as sound changes occurred, words that originally sounded different begin to be pronounced in the same way, and thus had to be distinguished by other means. An example of a similar phenomenon in English is 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 wenyan is an imitation of Old Chinese, it has almost none of the two-syllable words 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 often unfamiliar to modern readers, 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.

Teaching and Use

Wenyan was the primary 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 extremely difficult to decipher, even by educated native speakers of Chinese, because of its heavy use of literary references and allusions as well as its extremely abbreviated style.

References

Norman, Jerry. "Pharyngealization in Early Chinese." Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1994.

Chinese language | Classical languages | Korean language | Logographic writing systems | Vietnamese language