Have you ever wondered if those ancient people wearing robes and holding folding fans also used the solemn and elegant Chinese when they whispered and talked in the teahouse and wine shop? Is it just a play on words in ancient books, or is it the real language of the daily communication of the ancients?
If you travel back in time, will it be difficult for you to communicate with the ancients because you don't understand classical Chinese? But in reality, such concerns are unnecessary. Because in ancient times, people used not classical Chinese in their daily conversations, but vernacular Chinese, which is closer to modern colloquial language.
Classical Chinese, the term, actually refers to the official language that the ancients used specifically to write articles.
In the period before the Spring and Autumn Period, the boundary between classical Chinese and the colloquial vernacular of the time was not obvious. To some extent, classical Chinese can be seen as a simplified and standardized form of expression in the spoken language of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. With the evolution of history, especially during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, classical Chinese gradually solidified and remained largely unchanged for the next two thousand years. In contrast, colloquial vernacular is constantly evolving. After the Tang Dynasty, the differences between vernacular and classical Chinese became more and more pronounced, and there was a clear separation between everyday conversation and written expression.
Why did the ancients prefer to use classical Chinese rather than vernacular when writing? Although the vernacular is more understandable, it is relatively cumbersome to write. The same information content, if expressed in vernacular, can be several times the amount of text in classical Chinese. In ancient times, paper had not yet been invented, and people usually wrote on bronze objects, bamboo slips, or silk. These writing materials are very precious and the writing process is extremely laborious. In order to conserve resources and improve the efficiency of writing, the ancients often strive to be concise when writing. This is one of the reasons why classical Chinese was so popular in ancient times.
For most people, buying expensive writing materials is indeed a big burden. The original purpose of the ancients choosing to use classical Chinese was largely to save the number of words and control costs.
With the improvement of papermaking in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the popularization of printing in the Tang and Song dynasties, writing materials gradually became cheaper, and the writing process became relatively easy. Why is classical Chinese still in use after these technological innovations? This is mainly because of the inertia of cultural inheritance. The format of classical Chinese is stable, concise and concise, and it has unique expression advantages. For ancient intellectuals, the use of classical Chinese could also show their own cultural style, form a clear distinction from the common people, and thus reflect their own cultural superiority. For more than 2,000 years, the use of classical Chinese has been a status symbol for scholars. It was not until the New Culture Movement advocated vernacular writing that this sense of superiority of classical Chinese gradually disappeared.
It is worth mentioning that after the Song Dynasty, with the popularization of reading among the people, the number of vernacular texts in books and articles increased greatly. During the Song Dynasty, a new form of literature, the "discourse", emerged, which was actually the base book used by storytellers when performing. This kind of script blends spoken and written language to form a shallow and modern literary style, that is, vernacular**. Since then, the best-selling categories** have basically been created in the vernacular, so that readers can be closer to real life and easy to understand. The four famous books are outstanding representatives of this kind of **. In contrast, modern junior high school students will find it relatively easy to read the four great classics, while it will be more difficult to read the "Records of the Historians" in pure literary style.
It is worth mentioning that the vernacular literature after the Song Dynasty is almost the same as today's vernacular literature, and it can basically be understood by modern people. History books record a conversation between a Song Dynasty government interrogating a woman who slashed her husband. The original words of the government said: "You cut off your husband? Honestly, I won't hit you. Compared with modern speaking habits, the use of individual words sounds awkward, but it does not affect the understanding of the meaning of the whole sentence. This is further evidence of the popularity of vernacular writing after the Song dynasty and its strong connection with modern languages.
During the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, as an emperor from a poor background, did not have a high level of education. When writing his decrees, he preferred to use the vernacular in order to better convey his meaning. A well-known example is Zhu Yuanzhang's anti-Japanese order, which was intended to mobilize the people against pirates. His original words were like this: "Fengtian carrier, the emperor said: Tell the people, prepare knives, these guys are coming, kill them." Chin this. This kind of simple and straightforward vernacular can be easily understood even by today's children, without any sense of disobedience.
By the Qing Dynasty, the gap between vernacular and modern times was negligible. Emperor Yongzheng, who was known for his temperament, often mixed some vernacular texts when writing Zhu Criticism to his ministers to narrow the emotional distance between him and his ministers. For example, he once wrote: "I am such a man, such a temperament, and such an emperor." He even wrote to the minister in the colloquial language commonly used by modern people, "How are you?" "Such a greeting.
Although we know that the ancients also used the vernacular in their daily communication, this does not mean that if you travel back in time, you will be able to understand their conversations. Because even in the same vernacular, the pronunciation of the ancients is different from today's.
After in-depth research, scholars of ancient Chinese have revealed the evolution of ancient Chinese pronunciation, which can be roughly divided into three main stages: ancient pronunciation, middle pronunciation and early ancient pronunciation. Ancient pronunciation mainly refers to the pronunciation of Chinese from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Han Dynasty, and the phonetic characteristics of this period are significantly different from those of today's Mandarin. Middle pronunciation refers to the pronunciation of Chinese from the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, and the phonetic changes in this period marked the further evolution of the Chinese pronunciation system. The ancient pronunciation, that is, the pronunciation of Chinese from the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, has been relatively close to modern Mandarin, but still retains some characteristics of ancient Chinese.
Although there are different views on the staging of ancient Chinese pronunciation, the above staging method has been adopted because of its wide acceptance. It is worth noting that some dialects, such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Cantonese Hakka, and Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Wu, are considered "living fossils" of ancient Chinese pronunciation. The reason why these dialects retain the pronunciation characteristics of ancient Chinese is closely related to the phenomenon of "Yiguan Nandu" in history. At that time, in order to escape the war, the inhabitants of the Central Plains continued to migrate south, bringing the pronunciation of ancient Chinese to the south. After a long period of evolution, these pronunciation characteristics have been preserved in the southern dialects to this day.
In the case of Wu and Cantonese, for example, the pronunciation feature of intonation is still present in these dialects, whereas in today's Mandarin, intonation has disappeared. Japanese and Korean also retain some elements of Old Chinese pronunciation, which partly explains why southerners feel friendly and smooth when learning Japanese pronunciation.
As a phonetic method in ancient China, the reverse cut method has a history of more than 2,000 years. Today's scholars can reintroduce the Middle Ages phonology by studying ancient rhyme books such as the Sui Dynasty's "Cut Rhyme". It is relatively difficult to reproduce ancient sounds, and it is necessary to rely on the pronunciation rules of other relatives (such as Tibetan) to make guesses.
Although we can still feel the beauty of Tang poetry when reading it aloud in Mandarin, this does not mean that the pronunciation of Middle Ages is exactly the same as that of today's Mandarin. The finals of the Middle Ages do differ from today's finals in some ways. For those Tang poems that are dominated by Pingsheng rhyme (i.e., the rhyming word at the end of a sentence is one or two tones), these poems still rhyme in modern times because the pronunciation of Pingsheng rhyme is relatively close to that in modern Mandarin.
If we try to read the Book of Songs in Mandarin, we may find that its rhyming effect is not obvious. This is because the pronunciation of ancient sounds is quite different from that of modern Mandarin, especially in terms of initials and finals. Therefore, it is very important to understand and adapt to the phonetic characteristics of that time if you really want to integrate into that era before traveling back to ancient times.
The study of ancient Chinese pronunciation not only helps us to understand ancient literary works more deeply, but also reveals the evolution of language over time.
As appealing as it may sound to travel back in time, we must be aware of the risks involved. In addition to the fact that we may not understand the language of the time, there are many other unknowns waiting for us.
List of high-quality authors