Does anyone still use Literary Chinese?

[Ah-Bin]

It seems people are still a bit fuzzy on what a dialect is and what a language is. A language is something mutually intelligible.

This isn't true. Hindi and Urdu, Croatian and Serbian, Uzbek and Uighur, are all examples of mutually intelligible "languages".

The "fuzziness" terms "dialect" and "language" are not scientific, because there is no absolute way to measure what is one and what is the other. Most linguists use a different set of terms altogether, I explained here:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/93-large-type-english-to-chinese-dictionary68

I should also add that since then I've found out that the process by which one variety becomes hetenomous to another is called Verdachung (roofing)and that the prestige variety is called the Dachsprache (roof language)

[imron]

Cantonese and Mandarin are different languages. (A lot of people might argue against me on this, but frankly, they're idiots,

As are people who outright dismiss their opponents' point of view with vitriol rather than reasoned rebuttals (some people might disagree with me on this, but frankly, they're idiots ).

[Ah-Bin]

The "fuzziness" terms "dialect" and "language" are not scientific,

and that is "fuzzy" English if ever I have seen it. It should have been:

The "fuzziness" stems from the fact that the terms "dialect" and "language" are not scientific

[skylee]

Imron, thank you for your #22. That is exactly how I felt when I read the "idiots" remark in #19.

[muyongshi]

And as we all know, everyone is entitled to their own opinion... mine just happens to be right! And that makes everyone else idiots.

awww... my love of sarcasm....

[Hofmann]

Ok, sorry about the vitriol. Those who argue against me are not necessarily idiots (You guys are like hypersensitive peacocks.). My stance is this: If a language requires mutual intelligibility, then whatever is spoken in Guangzhou and whatever is spoken in Beijing are not the same language.

[Mark Yong]

Hoffman wrote:

The written form of Cantonese isn't standardized, partially because of the reasons in listed in wushijiao's post. I have a feeling that if it were standardized, I would not like the standard. The current spoken standard didn't follow the acrolect, so if the written standard does the same, the standard written Cantonese would look quite barbaric indeed. That is why I encourage people to use the correct characters when writing Cantonese.

When you say 'acrolect', I presume you are referring to the spoken (not written) language - are you referring to Cantonese or Mandarin? By definition, an 'acrolect' refers to the variety of speech that is considered the standard form. Such a 'standard spoken form' did not exist until the early-20th century, when Mandarin was chosen. So technically speaking, there would have been no acrolect to follow, per se, since all the spoken dialects were going about their own way. The only likely exception would be 官話 guanhua, the pre-cursor to Modern Mandarin, being the court language and the lingua franca of the 衙門 yamen's.

That said, in the absence of a 'standard' prior to the advent of 白話文, the only point of reference would still have been Classical/Literary Chinese (a gentle reminder to all that this is the topic of the thread ). Most of the correct characters for writing Cantonese-unique words are rooted in the Classical lexicon (the rest being regional creations outside the standard canon, and therefore not recognised as 'standard').

I agree with you about not liking any written standard for Cantonese that may have come about. My reason is simple: The only currently-available 'standard' for written Cantonese appears to be that of Hong Kong (I think we can forget about Guangzhou, as writing in dialects is forbidden in China). Even then, most of the characters used for Cantonese-specific words are wrong. To cite a few more examples other than 俾:

1. We: 我哋. This should really be 我等 (the final -ng was lost over time).
   
2. Tomorrow: 聽日. This should really be 天光日 (the two morphemes 天光 were fused over time - this is clear from the Hakka dialect, where the two morphemes are still pronounced separately).
   

*** For a more detailed study, have a look at 陳伯煇著，《論粤方言詞本字考釋》

My point is, the closest one would get to writing Cantonese 'correctly' within the confines of an acceptable 'standard' would still be to refer to the Classical/Literary Chinese model. Even if it does not mirror spoken Cantonese (and in any case, neither does written Mandarin), adhering to the Classical/Literary Chinese model as a base would maximise the possibility of a correct lexicon of characters/words, while also enjoying 2,500 years of rich Sino-linguistic culture.

Edited August 6, 2009 at 03:55 PM by Mark Yong

[Hofmann]

Sorry; I said that wrong (and sorry this is so off-topic). I meant that the ones who create a standard have a continuum of references to choose from. This continuum ranges from the speech of the educated to the speech of the illiterate. The ones who standardized Cantonese seemed to choose a reference from the middle of that continuum. If someone were to standardize the written form in the same way, we'd have a lot of 哋's 俾's and 邊度's instead of 等, 畀, 焉道, and I wouldn't like it.

[Madot]

An in-joke among linguists is:

What is the difference between a dialect and a language?

The answer: A language is a dialect with an army.

Joking aside, despite obvious differences, there are also some interesting parallels between the choice of 'standard' Chinese and the choice of 'standard' Italian-- a country with a long history of dialects (some written, some not) and which was not unified until 1871.

The thread started, howwever, in regard to Classical Chinese and I'm afraid I am really a newbie here. What exactly is it? I mean, obviously, it must be Chinese as it was written by the elite at court but what I'd like to ask is how similar Classical Chinese is to modern day but very formal Chinese. AND, if there are as many differentlevels or 'registers' in modern Chinese as there are in, say, English, Italian or French. Of course there is pure slang, very low register, 'incorrect' etc., just as there is in these languages, but in English, to take one example, there is newspaper level written language, formal letter-writing level language all the way up to PhD in law level language and for many vocabulary words a native speaker could find 7 different exact synonyms the only difference among them being the register. Is this true in Chinese also? Or is there just 'ordinary' putonghua and then 'Classical Chinese'?

Sorry in advance if anyone sees this as a stupid question.

Mado

[leeyah]

No, it's not a stupid question, it's a very interesting one, but difficult to explain.

Briefly, official Putonghua as we know it today is based on Mandarin, the youngest of the Chinese 'languages', which developed as a combination of the vernacular as spoken by ordinary people and several northern dialects of the invaders, whereas for example Cantonese or Hokkien, as regional dialects are much closer to the language spoken more than two thousand years ago. What are nowadays called dialects have kept many old words and are closer to old pronunciation. The reason behind this is historical: due to the invasion of northern non-Chinese tribes the Chinese were forced to migrate to the South(east) , and these parts of China are even today considered more traditional & that's the whole thing behind the romantic idea of 江南 (jiangnan).

Basically, Classical Chinese can not be compared not even to old English or old Italian. It is an ancient language written in a unique script, language of China's court elite, very concise, with many different registers. In China's imperial past these included the use of polite expressions according to a person's status. Different levels of speech, registers, even included different expressions for exclusive use by men or women, respectively, junior members vs senior members, etc. The uniqueness of literary Chinese is that it is understood by educated speakers of all dialects.

One interesting thing about Putonghhua is it was advocated by the leader of the Chinese nationalist revolution (1911) and founder of the Republic, Dr Sun Yatsen, who was a native Cantonese (Hakka) speaker. A dialect speaker, he is the person credited with the idea of implementation of one standard vernacular language (which literary Chinese is not!), a language intelligible to all, which is precisely the meaning of the word 普通话 (putonghua). The motive was the unification of the people & the country in all aspects. That's what putonghua is all about and the latest step is the introduction of putonghua in traditionally Cantonese-only Hong Kong.

But China is so huge and the issue is so complex that even today, there are regional variations even inside the Mandarin dialect. As for slang, of course, each dialect has it's own. So, basically, yes, I guess we can say that nowadays a moderated version of Classical Chinese is the highest register of putonghua. Anyway, here are some links where you can read more about it:

Official Chinese 'languages' in history & Putonghua

History of Standard Mandarin

Standard Chinese

Classical Chinese & Hokkien

Edited August 9, 2009 at 04:16 PM by leeyah
:)

[gato]

Wikipedia has a pretty helpful explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese

Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese (文言文) is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. However, the distinction between Literary Classical and Literary Vernacular Chinese is far from clear. 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 (during various different periods) in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Among Chinese speakers, Classical Chinese has been largely replaced by Vernacular Chinese (白話), a style of writing that is similar to modern spoken Mandarin Chinese, while speakers of non-Chinese languages have largely abandoned Classical Chinese in favor of local vernaculars.

While the terms Classical Chinese and Literary Chinese are often used interchangeably, Sinologists generally agree that they are in fact different.[1] "Classical" Chinese (古文 "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 (220 AD). 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 Tao Te Ching. (The language of even older texts, such as the Classic of Poetry, is sometimes called Old Chinese, or pre-Classical.)

[Hofmann]

There is a continuum, or at least different levels, of register in Standard Mandarin. A certain university's Mandarin classes start with normal colloquial speech, and then start introducing what they call 書面語, which is what one might find more often in Vernacular Chinese (白話文) rather than speech (口語). It's quite a mess because what they write is apparently what they say (i.e. the whole point of the 白話文 movement) but they introduce what they call 書面語 into 白話文 and say that it's the difference between written language and spoken language. In other words, they introduced what they have overthrown into what they have used to replace what they have overthrown. How dare they still call the standard written language 白話文? I can only call it "a mess" if I could name it again.

Also, about that quote.

[leeyah]

With reference to Classical Chinese vs vernacular baihua (白话) & to add to the "mess"in the usage of the name baihua, I was surprised to hear some Cantonese referring to their dialect as 白话 & say that Yueyu (粤语) is only the literary (书面语) term for Cantonese as the official term for the language of the Yue tribe, the dialect of which should in fact be called 广州话, as is done in some Cantonese textbooks & dictionaries I bought in GZ last year.

While the terms Classical Chinese and Literary Chinese are often used interchangeably

Yes, there's a difference between Classical Chinese as 古文 vs Literary Chinese as 文言 or 白话, the formal register of modern Chinese (what I called a moderated version of Classical Chinese). I wouldn't really know what to call it, but it's definitely a more 'sophisticated' language used eg. in advanced Chinese textbooks, where explanatory passages are written in this 'style'. What I mean by 'sophisticated' is you can always translate those sentences into plain spoken Mandarin or 口语. And teachers will usually correct you if you start 'speaking' it i.e. 'inserting' literary words in your 口语 (eg:无法 is only the written form of the spoken 没办法, which can be both etc etc, but I think it's no mistake if you say 无法 in spoken Cantonese? )

Edited August 7, 2009 at 10:49 AM by leeyah

[Mark Yong]

Hofmann wrote:

If someone were to standardize the written form in the same way, we'd have a lot of 哋's 俾's and 邊度's instead of 等, 畀, 焉道, and I wouldn't like it.

Now, that is an interesting one you brought up - 焉道 as the benzi for the Cantonese biin-dou (where) - I have to admit I never knew how to write it correctly. By 'interesting', what I mean is I am keen to know how 焉 eventually developed the b- initial in Cantonese. I would have thought that dialects normally lose or fuse initials over time, rather than developing them.

[Mark Yong]

Okay, here is where I do my little bit to pull the direction of this thread back to its original premise, i.e. the use of Literary Chinese today.

Can anyone verify/refute what I read somewhere, that in general, written Chinese in Hong Kong and Taiwan lean significantly more towards Classical Chinese than Mainland China (and here, I stress the word 'significantly' - by that I mean not just the casual use of standard stock Classical Chinese phrases and couplets amidst what is generally still a Modern Standard Chinese text, but a full-bodied Literary Chinese text)?

I keep a couple of Hong Kong published martial arts manuals dating back to the 1980's - a little over 20 years ago. Two of the authors (陳健民 and 何立天) wrote their prefaces entirely in Literary Chinese. 何立天 even makes use of 余 as the first-person singular pronoun - this appears to be a characteristic of Cantonese-originated writers of the Classical Chinese tradition (e.g. the 19th-century novelist 蘇曼殊 uses 余 quite liberally in his essay 《斷鴻零雁記》 ).

[Ah-Bin]

I'll keep on the topic as well....

I have heard many times from better educated people from the PRC that Taiwanese writers and speakers tend to use more Classical Chinese (meaning vocabulary and grammar, not just the traditional script) than Chinese do. All anecdote of course, but I can say the the Classical particle 而已 for "only" is used a lot in ordinary speech in Taiwan, but this may have more to do with mapping Hokkien "nia-nia" on to a Mandarin vocabulary item than survival of Classical tradition.

If you compare their high school textbooks (Taiwanese 国文 vs.Chinese 语文）you will understand why. The Taiwanese books start the kids off on Classical texts years before the Chinese ones.

Also the old tradition of getting young children to memorise and recite the 千字文 and 三字经 is definitely more prevalent in Taiwan than in China.

I remember asking a class of ten-year olds in rural Taiwan if they knew the words 沽 gu (to sell) and 饕餮 taotie (a monster depicted of bronzewares) and a few of them did. Then I went back and asked some of the people in their mid 20's from northern China who were employed as teachers of Mandarin at a western university....they had no idea. That may say more about the individuals than the general level, but it made an impression on me.

[imron]

I keep a couple of Hong Kong published martial arts manuals dating back to the 1980's - a little over 20 years ago. Two of the authors (陳健民 and 何立天) wrote their prefaces entirely in Literary Chinese. 何立天 even makes use of 余 as the first-person singular pronoun - this appears to be a characteristic of Cantonese-originated writers of the Classical Chinese tradition

I have book published in 1993 by the late mainland-based Taichi master 李经梧 who also uses 余 as the first-person singular pronoun, and who was a Mandarin speaker from Shandong.

[Lu]

I guess this is off-topic by now, but

It seems people are still a bit fuzzy on what a dialect is and what a language is. A language is something mutually intelligible.

Mutually intelligible to who? Just within my own country: I can understand the Limburg fangyan, as can German speakers across the border; yet people from Amsterdam often can't understand. Language? Dialect? Of which language?

My stance is this: If a language requires mutual intelligibility, then whatever is spoken in Guangzhou and whatever is spoken in Beijing are not the same language.

And so this is also problematic. Who has laid down the law that 'a language' requires mutual intelligibility, and who determines which languages are mutually intelligible?

I don't think anyone is arguing that Cantonese and Mandarin are the same, but one'd better be very careful and even better informed before taking a stance on the language/dialect question.

[wushijiao]

As far as the “language/dialect” debate, I think that, as DeFrancis points out:

“Crucial to a resolution of this dilemma is a clear understanding that the Chinese linguistic situation is unique in the world. History has no precedent for a situation in which a single if occasionally disunited political entity has so long held together huge solid blocs of people with mutual unintelligible forms of speech in which a linguistic difference has not been compounded by profound extralinguitic differences. The 50 million or so Cantonese comprise one such bloc. Yet the linguistic difference that separates a Cantonese speaker from his compatriot in Peking is not exacerbated, as it is in Canada, by religious differences that further separate French Catholics from English Protestants. It is not aggravated, as it is in Belgium, by economic differences that further separate French-speaking Wallons from Netherlandic-speaking Flemings. It is not reinforced, as in the case of Spanish and French, by a political boundary that separates the two languages. It is not marked by an accumulation of differences, by a complex of extralinguitic forces, that in the cases just cited have contributed to the desire for political as well as linguistic separation”

Since DeFrancis wrote that, there have been some political grievances that have become intertwined with linguistic issues in Taiwan, but it’s worth pointing out, that to the best of my knowledge, Taiwan doesn’t have any sort of vibrant written Taiwanese, and apparently, most people haven’t bothered to “throw off the yoke of Standard Chinese, with its heavy reliance on Mandarin” as one could see it.

My analysis is that, because Chinese history is filled with stories of people striving to keep the empire unified while fighting off foreign invaders, people have a very deep and emotionally-sensitive “anti-splitist”, defensive mentality that pervades just about any political issue. (This is in contrast to the American mindset, which is often influenced by the discourse about the difficult struggle to maintain and expand liberty). Saying that a certain form of speech is a “language”, with the political status that languages' generally carries with it, can seem somewhat sensitive to Chinese people. That’s why people generally use regionalect 方言 to get around that issue.

I also think that the “mutual intelligibility” method of determining what is a language and what is a dialect does have its limits, despite being a good tool in general. Even though Cantonese and Mandarin, for example, have differences in pronunciation, grammar, tones, and vocabulary, if a person from one place goes to another place for a few months and puts in the effort to learn the local speech, a person can often make fairly quick progress. For example, one of my wife’s friends, a Hong Konger who knew no Mandarn, went to Beijing for an intensive course (for a few months) and he quickly became fluent in Mandarin. Many Hong Kongers in the tourism industry have pretty good Mandarin, and it seems the key factor in their ability to learn is how much exposure they have to it. The reverse situation can be true as well. My wife speaks really functional Cantonese (she can do presentations in Cantonese, and 90% of her work is in Cantonese) and she barely even studied it formally (she only rarely listened to the CDs I had bought). Another example, my wife's grandmother and grandfather, who are both from Ningbo, spoke Ningbohua and then moved to Shanghai, where they learned Shanghaihua. Then in the 50's they moved to Luoyang, and learned Putonghua fairly easily (although they speak a Henanhua-style Mandarn with a Ningbohua accent, which is kind of funny). In other words, when given the proper environment and incentives, a person who speaks Chinese speech form A can learn speech for B fairly easily. This is in contrast with the difficult and disappointing results most Chinese people end up with after spending often a good decade or more trying to learn English (which is obviously in another language family and is very different from Chinese).

So, while I wouldn’t want to minimize the differences between China’s regionalects, it does seem to me that the missing ingredient in the “mutual intelligibility” thing, when comparing two forms of speech in the same closely-related language family, is time and exposure.

[Mark Yong]

One obvious place where Literary Chinese appears to be in current use, is the Classical Chinese Wikipedia. http://zh-classical.wikipedia.org/wiki/

What I would be interested to know is:

1. The demographics and linguistic backgrounds of the contributors - I am guessing that given the articles are all in Traditional Chinese, that the writers are mainly Hong Kong and Taiwan based.
   
2. An assessment of how 'classical' the Literary Chinese grammar and lexicon used is, i.e. how faithful it is to the Literary Chinese model with minimal intrusion from Modern Chinese - while noting, of course, that there will inevitably be terminologies used that were coined in the modern era that fall outside the Classical lexicon. For instance, the late-19th century writer 梁啟超 used Literary Chinese in most of his essays, but given the relatively 'modern' nature of the subjects and contents, they are peppered with modern terminologies and compound words - the latter being atypical of Classical Chinese.
   

Point #2 is part of the reason that Latin did not survive as a living language into the modern era, as it lacked the vocabulary for describing (amongst others) modern technological innovations. So, my guess is that had history been different and had Literary Chinese continued as the written standard for Chinese today, it would have morphed into an 'ancient-grammar-but-modern-lexicon' model - somewhat like the Latin employed by Isaac Newton when it wrote his "Principia" a good 1,600 years after the Golden Era of Ciceronian Latin, and something along the lies of the梁啟超 essays written a good 2,400 years after the Confucian era.

So, I guess the relevant question to ask is not so much "Does anyone still use Literary Chinese", but to take a step back and ask "Can Literary Chinese still be used as a functional written standard for the Chinese language today"? I would like to think that the answer is 'yes'.

Edited August 8, 2009 at 04:50 PM by Mark Yong