Book on Classical Chinese and contemporary dialects?

[nephridium]

Hi there.

Does anyone know about good books to learn about classical Chinese. Specifically I'm interested in how it compares to current dialects in terms of pronunciation and semantics. I have learned Mandarin and have a grasp of Cantonese, but I read somewhere that Shanghainese is supposed to be closer to classical Chinese than Cantonese is.

If there was a book that directly compares words and phrases of contemporary dialects with their classical counterparts that would be perfect. I guess this would have to be the work of a western linguist or at least someone who uses exact transliteration of the sounds (such as the IPA), since I have the feeling that representing exact phonology with Chinese characters is very difficult if not impossible.

If there is no such book, I'd already be quite happy with something like a good dictionary Mandarin->Cantonese, Cantonese->Shanghainese, Shanghainese->Classical or whichever other combination of dialects exists.

Any pointers welcome.

greets

[Qiuyue]

You should have a look at works of the swedish author Bernhard Karlgren.

[nephridium]

Thanks, Karlgren looks very good. He apparently uses the IPA too (albeit a slightly outdated version). I checked on amazon.com, problem is there are so many books, yet most of them seem to be out of print.

Also, are there similar (even better?) works by more recent authors?

Follow up question: which store would be the safest bet to find books like those in Beijing? The prices offered by third parties on amazon are horrendous (80$ and more!) and good old Karlgren won't even see a single penny of it..

[roddy]

I think most large bookstores will have a small section of stuff on 方言 - I know Xidan Book City does, and so does the Wangfujing Bookstore (not the Foreign Languages one, though it might also). May also be worth trying the bookstores attached to any university that specializes in linguistics / languages. With a bit (perhaps a lot) of luck you'll find something that relates back to what you are interested in.

There's also the likes of Joyo, which seems to have a fair number of potentially interesting books.

[Altair]

I have also had an interest in this topic. The little that I know, I have picked up from sections of various books or websites on classical Chinese, Cantonese, and Shanghainese. To get I real understanding, however, I fear that you would have to study classical Chinese grammar, Middle Chinese phonetics, and two or three modern dialects.

For a quick and dirty survey of some of the issues, I would suggest: Chinese by Jerry Norman. It talks about the history of Chinese, early rhyming tables, Middle Chinese reconstruction, early Mandarin, and the characteristics of the major dialect divisions.

For some convenient dictionary fun, try this link: Etymological Dictionary of Common Chinese Characters.

I hope this helps.

[malinuo]

はじめての台湾語 and はじめての上海語 have virtually the same vocabulary in Minnan and Shanghai dialects. Besides both of them have parallel text in Mandarin as well, so you do not need to read Japanese to use them.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%81%AF%E3%81%98%E3%82%81%E3%81%A6%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%E8%AA%9E-%E4%BD%90%E5%B7%9D-%E5%B9%B4%E7%A7%80/dp/475690582X/sr=8-3/qid=1168693057/ref=sr_1_3/250-9234844-5905026?ie=UTF8&s=books

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%81%AF%E3%81%98%E3%82%81%E3%81%A6%E3%81%AE%E5%8F%B0%E6%B9%BE%E8%AA%9E-%E8%B6%99-%E6%80%A1%E8%8F%AF/dp/4756906656/sr=1-1/qid=1168693156/ref=sr_1_1/503-5901444-6541556?ie=UTF8&s=books

The Languages of China spend a few chapters on dialects and classical Chinese.

http://www.amazon.com/Languages-China-S-Robert-Ramsey/dp/069101468X/sr=8-1/qid=1168693296/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-2772918-8854510?ie=UTF8&s=books

If you happen to read Italian, you could also have a look at Magda Abbiati's La lingua cinese. It is quite thin, but it is written in a style that reveals that the author knows her subject, and it may give you a slightly different view from English sources.

http://www.libreriauniversitaria.it/BIT/8885613403/La_lingua_cinese.htm

[Lugubert]

My language studies aim more at having fun than towards acquiring academic excellence, but never the less, I constantly refer to the mentioned Norman: Chinese and Ramsey: The languages of China.

Being a Swede myself, most of my Karlgren tomes are of course on Swedish. But I'll quote from the preface to Compendium of Phonetics in Ancient and Archaic Chinese:

The aim of the present article is not so much to propound new theories or new results in the field of Chinese historical phonetics. It is meant rather to be a summary of the pricipal points regarding one side only of these phonetics: the reconstruction of the sound system in Ancient and Archaic Chinese; the gradual evolution of the language from Archaic into Ancient Chinese, and from the latter into the motley modern dialects is only touched upon to a small extent but not comprehensivedly described.

[Maweilin]

You might want to check out Baxter's reconstructions. They're considered to be more accurate than Karlgren's these days. A lot of them are on line in a PDF e-book. A google should get it easily enough.

You also might find interesting the DOC Dialects of China. The database is online, run by Karlgren's successors, but it's not easy to use. The data for Chinese can be downloaded as a single file, but I don't know where.