How did classical Chinese develop into vernacular?

1. How did China’s classical Chinese transition to vernacular?

Source of connection between classical Chinese and vernacular: Guangming Daily In January 1917, Hu Shi published "Literary Reform" in "New Youth" The article "A Preliminary Discussion" clearly advocates the replacement of classical Chinese with vernacular Chinese, which complies with the requirements of historical development.

In May 1918, Lu Xun published his first vernacular novel "A Madman's Diary" in "New Youth", laying the foundation for new literature. Newly launched publications such as "Weekly Review" and "New Wave" also began to publish various forms of vernacular literary creation and translation works.

Since the second half of 1919, vernacular publications have sprung up across the country, growing to hundreds. Even publications controlled by old-school literati such as "Novel Monthly" and "Oriental Magazine" have gradually switched to vernacular. . In March 1920, the Ministry of Education of the Beiyang Communist Party promulgated the vernacular as the "national language" and ordered national schools to adopt it.

At this point, vernacular became the official language. Why can classical Chinese, which has been popular for more than two thousand years, be replaced by vernacular Chinese in just a few years? This is a question well worth exploring.

First of all, Chinese characters play a very important role. Chinese characters, from oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, large seal scripts, small seal scripts to official script, are a system of writing.

Especially from Qin Li to modern writing, Chinese characters have basically not changed. From classical Chinese to vernacular, the style of language has changed, but the symbols for recording language have not.

The transcendent characteristics of Chinese characters make ancient and modern Chinese seamlessly connected in writing. Chinese dialects are very complex, and classical Chinese has been consistent for thousands of years and has a role beyond dialects; Chinese characters have a role beyond dialects, and Chinese characters can also take over this function of classical Chinese. The vernacular written in the form of Chinese characters can be used in various dialect areas across the country.

In this way, the resistance to vernacular Chinese replacing classical Chinese will be much smaller. Secondly, the vernacular has gained advantages in modern times.

Vernacular Chinese can serve the public. "I write by hand and speak by mouth." It bridges the gap between spoken language and written language. Speaking and writing are consistent, making it easy to learn and use. Classical Chinese is different from spoken language in that it is difficult to learn and use.

Vernacular writing has a strong ability to express new ideas. It uses modern language to talk about current events, which is clear and easy to understand. Classical Chinese uses ancient proverbs to talk about current affairs, and they are separated from each other, so it is inevitable to see flowers in the fog and be stretched thin.

Lyrical recording of events is the strength of classical Chinese; reflecting modern science and technology and expressing the new content of the new era are the shortcomings of classical Chinese. For example, today's "World Trade Organization" lawsuits, computer manuals, mathematics, physics and chemistry papers, there is simply no way to use classical Chinese.

Thirdly, the evolution of classical Chinese into vernacular is a gradual process, not a sudden change. During this period, it experienced the transition from ancient vernacular, which is in line with the law of language evolution.

Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the tendency of dual tone in spoken language has become increasingly obvious, and the trend of vernacular spoken language has begun to take shape. There are many spoken words in Shishuoxinyu written by Liu Yiqing, a native of the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

Later Tang Dynasty legends had the nature of storytelling, and their colloquialism became more obvious. The Dunhuang Bianwen of the Tang Dynasty that we see today was told by those who spread Buddhism to ordinary people, and of course they had to use spoken language.

Looking at the scripts of the Song and Yuan dynasties and the dramas of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, we can see that they all faced the obstacles in the market and "those who lead cars and sell pulp". Not to mention the novels of the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, which are simply vernacular.

There is no big difference between the language of "A Dream of Red Mansions" in the Qing Dynasty and modern Chinese. Nowadays, classical Chinese has been abandoned, but we still need to study classical Chinese. Why is this? The elements of classical Chinese are precipitated in modern literature.

The development of vocabulary and word meaning is cumulative. After a long period of accumulation, internal energy is gradually adjusted and exchanged, and old components are used to form a new system. Some of the monosyllabic words in Pre-Qin Chinese entered modern Chinese as basic words, and the other part served as morphemes that constitute modern bisyllabic words and accumulated in large quantities in modern Chinese vocabulary.

For example, the "shallow" meaning of "despicable" is retained in words such as "despicable view", "despicable slang", "despicable person", and "despicable meaning", all of which are ancient pre-Qin meanings that have directly entered modern Chinese. Illustration of phonetic words. As far as modern Chinese is concerned, these two-syllable words with ancient pre-Qin meanings have an unfree morpheme and use the ancient meaning. They are very closely combined and become a unified unit of use. Users will not go back to If we investigate the meaning of each morpheme one by one, especially the meaning of the morpheme when the word was created, the ancient meaning will be diluted.

There are also many ancient disyllabic words that have directly entered modern Chinese. The words with "book" included in "Modern Chinese Dictionary" are written classical Chinese words, such as "Chan Palace", "Danqing", "Repress one's wrist" and "look favorably"; another example is Lianmian Ci (a two-syllable word containing only one morpheme): "coy", "bright", "wandering", "Xuyu", etc. These are all examples of classical Chinese words entering modern literature. . There are elements of vernacular Chinese in classical Chinese, and there are elements of classical Chinese in vernacular Chinese. The two interpenetrate each other, and it is extremely natural.

In addition, there are many idioms in Chinese, which are difficult to match in other languages. These idioms can greatly improve the expressive ability of Chinese. They convey thoughts and feelings concisely but fully, clearly but implicitly, richly but not boring, vivid but not slick, and are the essence of Chinese.

To understand these two-syllable words and idioms, you need to dig into historical Chinese. The national spirit in classical Chinese.

Chinese people have a long tradition of attaching great importance to Chinese studies. Chinese studies are a foundation for Chinese culture, the most important ones are Confucian classics and primary school.

The basic spirit of being a human being and building a country is contained in the "Five Classics". It is the axis of Chinese culture and the cultural identification symbol of the Chinese people. The meanings of the "Five Classics" are relatively deep, and people generally start from "The Analects of Confucius" and "Mencius".

The Analects of Confucius and Mencius are actually the universal versions of the Five Classics. When ancient people read scriptures, on the one hand, they cultivated their sense of language and acquired classical Chinese skills; on the other hand, they received ideological education and established the concept of "cultivating oneself, harmonizing one's family, governing the country, and bringing peace to the world."

Gu Yanwu and Zhang Taiyan believe that only by retaining the roots of traditional culture can the soul of the nation be retained. In ancient China, children began to recite the "Four Books" and "Five Classics" from a young age. Although he did not understand the content for a while, these notes were already imprinted in his mind. When he was able to understand, these notes could Transformed into thoughts.

These traditional classics have been passed down, forming the foundation of the Chinese people's cultural and psychological structure, and influencing the aesthetic taste of Chinese people from generation to generation. When people can freely have spiritual conversations with ancient people who have profound cultural accomplishments, they can enhance their experience and understanding of life.

National spirit and language learning are mutually reinforcing and complement each other. Zhao Pu in the Song Dynasty "ruled the world with half of the Analects of Confucius." In fact, he could basically master the Analects of Confucius. 2. Under what conditions did Chinese vernacular develop?

The stylistic reform that began in the late Qing Dynasty can be divided into three stages: "new style", "vernacular" and "popular language". The "new literary style" in the late Qing Dynasty was "popular classical Chinese" mixed with spoken language. The "vernacular" during the "May 4th" period was like the "quotation style" enlarged with little feet. The "popular language" of the 1930s advocated thorough colloquialism, and stylistic reform became more mature.

As early as the Tang and Song Dynasties, some people came out to oppose the disjointed language and restricted format. Han Yu (768-824) in the Tang Dynasty advocated prose and opposed parallel prose, which is known in history as "the decline of prose in the Eight Dynasties". Eight Dynasties: Eastern Han, Wei, Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, Chen, and Sui. Parallel style originated in the Han and Wei dynasties and matured in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. It pays attention to antithesis and rhythm, with four characters and six characters alternately, which is called "four or six characters". Han Yu opposed this style of writing that focused on form and constrained thoughts, and advocated classical Chinese prose that was close to spoken language and free in expression, restoring the style to an era before it was bound by parallel prose, so it was called the "Ancient Prose Movement." The name "ancient literature" actually means "innovation".

Tang Dynasty temples promoted Buddhism and used storytelling to attract the masses. Show pictures and tell stories at the same time. The picture is called "disguised form", and the original text of rap is called "bianwen". There are some that alternate between prose and verse, and there are those that are all prose. Later it developed into drum lyrics and tanci.

This is early vernacular literature.

The "Quotations" of the Song Dynasty are another early form of vernacular literature. Initially, Zen Buddhists compiled their master's talks in a colloquial style. Later, the disciples of Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, the acting scholar of the Song Dynasty, also recorded their teachers' remarks in colloquial style. "Quotation style" is a kind of vernacular, with a "half-big-footed" flavor where small feet dare not put too much pressure on it.

There was another "huaben" in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. This is the basis for the storyteller to tell the story. "Hua" refers to the story, and "Ben" refers to the original text, which is divided into two categories: novels and history telling. The former are mostly short stories in vernacular, while the latter are long stories in simple classical Chinese.

The chapter novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as "Jin Ping Mei", "A Dream of Red Mansions" and "Water Margin", were written in the vernacular of the time, making the vernacular widely spread among the people. However, the authentic literature is classical Chinese.

During the reform movement in the late Qing Dynasty, vernacular began to be consciously promoted, and "popular classical Chinese" called "new literary style" emerged. For example, Huang Zunxian introduced common sayings into poetry and opposed worshiping the ancients. The new poems he wrote in 1868 (the 7th year of Tongzhi) were the pioneers of stylistic liberation: "I write with my hand and my mouth, how can I be tied to the past? Nowadays, as the saying goes, if I Posted in the compendium, future generations of 5,000 years will be shocked by the stain of antiquity!"

Qiu Tingliang proposed in his article "On the Vernacular as the Foundation of the Reform" that "the vernacular is respected and classical Chinese is discarded." He said: Vernacular has "eight benefits", among which "saving day effort (time), avoiding wasted reading (misunderstanding), making it easier for young children to learn, training their minds (thinking), and making it easier for the poor" are advanced ideas. Chen Ronggon was the first person to advocate that newspapers switch to vernacular. Wang Zhao formulated the Mandarin alphabet, spelling "Beiren common language" instead of classical Chinese. At this time, a variety of small newspapers and periodicals in the vernacular were published in various places. Vernacular was originally a kind of folk literature, which was considered "unrefined", not a formal style, not authentic literature, and had no legal status.

Around the time of the May Fourth Movement, revolutionary thoughts surged, and the slogan of "literary revolution" was put forward. Oppose old literature and promote new literature. Old literature does not refer to the literature of the old period, but to the literature of the old nature. Its characteristics are that the style is classical Chinese, the content of vernacular literary history is outdated, and the ideas are feudal. New literature does not refer to literature in a new era, but to literature of a new nature. Its characteristics are that the style is vernacular, the content is novel, and the ideas are revolutionary.

Because the vernacular is simple and popular, in terms of language, it is vivid, pungent, rough, full of life and full of expressiveness. Looking at the "May 4th" vernacular movement, it extensively absorbed Western vocabulary resources and grammatical structures, and unfolded at multiple levels such as language, writing, and thought. This movement was not just a "self-sufficient change within language", it was related to the entire thinking concept. The reform and national modernization movements are closely linked. The contest between "vernacular" and "classical Chinese" is, to a large extent, a collision between two different value systems and social ideologies. It is a trend in the development of historical civilization.

Hanyu Pinyin was inspired by the New Culture Movement, which was the Latinization movement of Chinese launched by Qian Xuantong.

At the same time, it also refers to the ancient Chinese phonetic notation method of Fanqie. Later, during the Republic of China, Mr. Wang Yunwu, the President of the Executive Yuan, participated in the compilation of the phonetic alphabet (if you open the Xinhua Dictionary, you will find those after Hanyu Pinyin that are similar to radicals). It is Hanyu Pinyin. predecessor.

Later in the liberated areas, Xu Teli, who was in charge of cultural work, organized the compilation of Chinese Pinyin. The basic method is to convert the phonetic

letters into Latin letters. 3. How vernacular evolved from classical Chinese

Since ancient times, Chinese has been divided into classical Chinese and vernacular, and classical Chinese is the official language and the written language of officials and literati.

However, there is also a parallel set of Chinese in China, which is vernacular. This is the language used by ordinary people for conversation. Common people do not understand classical Chinese, and it is impossible to use classical Chinese for daily conversation. This vernacular is Chinese is the language that accounts for the absolute majority of speakers and frequency of use in Chinese history. But it cannot be said that vernacular Chinese is a language without words.

The number of ancient Chinese characters and the wide range of sounds far exceed the narrow range of a few thousand characters used by modern people. Modern writing evolved from this parallel Chinese.

We can see from the existing vernacular literature of the Tang and Song Dynasties, operas of the Yuan Dynasty, and literary masterpieces such as "San Yan Li Pai" of the Ming Dynasty that ancient vernacular literature is not as different from modern literature as it is from classical Chinese.

If their pronunciation cannot be verified, at least their grammar and word usage are clear on paper. The ancient vernacular has hardly changed much from the modern vernacular of May Fourth to modern vernacular, except that modern people have organized Western grammar into it and added a lot of vocabulary. 4. How did Chinese change from classical Chinese to vernacular?

Modern Chinese developed from ancient Chinese and modern Chinese. In other words, modern Chinese is the predecessor of modern Chinese, and ancient Chinese is modern Chinese. The origins of modern Chinese and ancient times are two important stages in the development of Chinese. Only with these two long and important stages of development can we have the wonderful and rich modern Chinese we have now.

The written language of the Zhou and Qin eras was classical Chinese. After a language has developed for more than two thousand years, whether it is written or spoken, it must have undergone great changes. However, classical Chinese continued to be used until the "May Fourth Movement" era. This was because rulers of all dynasties advocated the use of classical Chinese. Of course, the classical Chinese of different eras was more or less mixed with the spoken language at that time, but the basic pattern remained unchanged. The writings of literati of each era tried their best to imitate the ancients, that is, they used the articles of Zhou and Qin as models of language, and thus appeared Written language is far removed from spoken language.

After the Han and Wei dynasties, another written language appeared that was closer to spoken language, such as quotations from the Tang and Song Dynasties, Pinghua from the Song Dynasty, and opera novels from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, etc. Most of the quotations are recorded by Buddhists and recorded by Neo-Confucian disciples. They are usually in the form of questions and answers and are highly colloquial. Most of Pinghua is historical stories written in spoken language, which is convenient for preaching among the masses. Novels such as "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "A Dream of Red Mansions" and so on are familiar to people. These written languages ??that are close to spoken language are usually called ancient vernacular, or early vernacular. Some people also call it modern Chinese. It is usually thought that classical Chinese is relative to vernacular, but in fact vernacular includes ancient vernacular and contemporary vernacular. Contemporary vernacular is the modern Chinese we speak. 5. How did classical Chinese become modern literature, and why did it change? Classical Chinese

Classical Chinese and modern literature are not related to "change".

The so-called "modern literature" means "vernacular literature", which refers to articles written in the language of the society at that time. Those written in the language of ancient society are called "ancient vernacular", and later there are "modern vernacular" and "modern vernacular (modern vernacular)", all of which reflect the socio-linguistic characteristics of different historical periods.

The social language of the Pre-Qin period was the basis of the style of articles at that time. It can be said that classical Chinese was also the earliest "vernacular". After the earliest articles appeared, people recognized its language rules when studying and studying them. Later, social language continued to develop and change, but the content recorded in the early articles did not change, and "literature" and "language" gradually emerged of separation.

As for "why the change occurred", it is closely related to social development. People speak differently in each period, even in the language of the elderly and young people: the elderly say "price reduction", the young people say "discount", the young people say "stay at home", and the old people say "cat" "At home. Hundreds of years later, the words spoken by young people now are also "archaic".

It can be seen from this that classical Chinese is like an old photo, it is "unchanged", social language is like a mirror, and the image is always "changing". This is the difference between classical Chinese and modern literature. The difference lies.