Literary Chinese & reading Chinese in various dialects

[Mark Yong]

In the course of my recent study of Literary Chinese (文言文), I have begun to take an interest in the method of reading Chinese before the advent of modern Mandarin as the spoken standard and 白話文 as the written standard in the 20th Century.

In the past, Literary Chinese (文言文) was read with the words pronounced using the reader's dialect. I am interested to know the mechanics behind how this was achieved. As a matter of habit, I myself tend to read modern Chinese using a mixture of Cantonese (70%) and Mandarin (30%) pronunciation.

I outline below some topics and issues that come to mind (more will follow in subsequent entries as they come to mind, or as and when other forum participants provide new insights):

1. Before the advent of Mandarin as the standard, written Chinese was taught to students using Literary Chinese, and these texts were read using the dialectal pronunciation of the students' region. As such, people from various regions may not have been able to communicate verbally with people from other regions (with the exception of governtment officials who had learnt the court dialect 官話), and the standard 'neutral' written form of Literary Chinese (文言文) was the only unifying means of communication (this influence of Literary Chinese (文言文) even extended to Korea, Japan and Vietnam).

2. Many (if not all) of the dialects - including Mandarin - had dual pronunciations - the so-called literal (文讀) and colloquial (白讀) pronunciations. The proportion varies from dialect to dialect, with the Min (閩) dialects being the most notable ones.

3. Many of the non-Mandarin dialects have words that either do not have characters (漢字), or their characters have been obscured over time, particularly since Mandarin became the written standard and these characters were not formally included in the standard canon of words (or that these characters were included, but very rarely used).

4. The extent to which modern Mandarin can be (are?) intelligibly read using non-Mandarin dialectal pronunciations. The most notable current example is Cantonese in Hong Kong, where texts written using standard Mandarin grammar are read out using the local Cantonese pronunciation. Perhaps this is feasible for the special case of Cantonese, where the grammar and lexicon is very close to Mandarin. I am wondering if this is possible with the other dialects (Wu 吳, Xiang 湘, Gan 贛, Kejia 客家, etc... and particularly Min 閩, which has the greatest degree of divergence from the other dialects), especially given (3) above.

5. If the answer to (4) is 'no', does it mean that the lexicon and orthography of the various dialects have diverged to such an extent that Literary Chinese (文言文) is the only written form of Chinese that can be read intelligibly using the various dialects (including Mandarin)?

Cheers,

Mark

[Xiao Kui]

Ancient literary Chinese truly confounds me, so that's why I'm sticking to the children's condensed versions of Hong Lou Meng for now, why I prefer modern Chinese literature,and why I have nothing to contribute to this discussion except to say that the development of the Chinese language fascinates me. Thanks for sharing your research and ideas.

[zhwj]

The extent to which modern Mandarin can be (are?) intelligibly read using non-Mandarin dialectal pronunciations.

Sure, why not? Of course, China's education system has ensured that anyone able to read characters even in their own topolect has had exposure to Mandarin grammar and vocabulary - perhaps a more specific question would be: if a Mandarin text were read in a topolect to someone who had received no education in Mandarin, how much would they understand?

does it mean...Literary Chinese (文言文) is the only written form of Chinese that can be read intelligibly using the various dialects (including Mandarin)?

Once again, no substantial literary Chinese text will be intelligible to someone who has not studied the language, regardless of the pronunciation.

If I may ask, how do you split your pronunciation 70/30 - do you have a basis in one system and learn new words in another?

[Mark Yong]

Hi, ZHWJ,

Thank you for your reply. Below are my replies to your questions/comments:

...perhaps a more specific question would be: if a Mandarin text were read in a topolect to someone who had received no education in Mandarin, how much would they understand?

Yes, I think the way you have phrased the question is indeed more appropriate. Again, to cite the special case of Hong Kong, students are taught the Chinese language using standard Mandarin syntax, but using Cantonese pronunciation of the words. So, the students are technically trained in standard Mandarin grammar from the start. Also, Cantonese grammar approximates more closely to Mandarin than most of the other dialects, so this interchange is not so severe.

However, I would imagine that the situation is a little different for the other dialects, say, Min 閩 and the Shanghai dialect. Let us consider the case of Min 閩, which has a very high percentage of native speakers in Taiwan. I have read somewhere that whenever a native Min 閩 speaker attempts to read a Mandarin text using Min 閩 pronunciation, he/she would read mentally register the text in Mandarin, and then translate it on the fly. This is different from the Hong Kong scenario described above. Now, in the case of the older generation of Min 閩 speakers who may have had no formal training in standard Mandarin, how would they cope with reading contemporary Chinese texts which are now written in standard Mandarin?

(I am actually acquainted with a few native Min 閩 speakers who are now in their mid to late 80's. I am very certain that they received no formal education in Mandarin, yet they appear to be able to cope with reading the newspapers daily.)

Once again, no substantial literary Chinese text will be intelligible to someone who has not studied the language, regardless of the pronunciation.

Understood. What I actually meant was that because of the huge divergence between standard Mandarin and most of the other dialects, it would appear that Literary Chinese (文言文) would be the most 'neutral' or 'middle' form of written Chinese that could be equally understood by both Mandarin and non-Mandarin trained readers (agan, as you said, assuming that the reader has had some formal training in reading Chinese). My basis for that assumption is that a lot of the vocabulary in standard Mandarin is specific to Mandarin, whereas Literary Chinese (文言文) generally adopts a vocabulary that is common to all the dialects.

If I may ask, how do you split your pronunciation 70/30 - do you have a basis in one system and learn new words in another?

Generally speaking, yes. I am not formally schooled in the Chinese language, and Cantonese is my first dialect. In my childhood and teenage days, I was taught to read Chinese by my late grandaunt, who spoke only the Cantonese (廣東話) and Hakka (客家話) dialects. Hence, I learnt my basic reading, and probably my first 1,500-odd characters using the Cantonese (and occasionally, Hakka) pronunciations. So, I guess you could call that my 'basis'.

It was only during my university days that I picked up Mandarin. My later vocabulary was developed predominantly in Mandarin a a result of work exposure requiring regular correspondences with Chinese counterparts in Beijing and Shanghai. These words and phrases were, for most part, technical and commercial terminology. I would estimate that a further 800-1,000 characters were then added to my vocabulary in Mandarin.

Hence, the 70-30 mix that I quoted. (Actually, the 70-30 is an approximation, as I did pick up a minority of common words that I first learnt the pronunciation for in Min 閩).

As a result of my rather awkward background in learning Chinese, I now read most of my words using the Cantonese pronunciation, and Mandarin whenever I encounter:

(1) technical and commercial words acquired during working life

(2) words that are more commonly-used in Mandarin than Cantonese, e.g. 沒, 那, 怎麼

[zhwj]

I am actually acquainted with a few native Min 閩 speakers who are now in their mid to late 80's. I am very certain that they received no formal education in Mandarin, yet they appear to be able to cope with reading the newspapers daily.

Though as your own interesting situation indicates, lack of a formal education does not mean that nothing has been learned. Also, there's the question of how one could learn characters without coming into contact with Mandarin - there's not exactly been a strong history of topolect-based character education. Does one start with 我你他 or 崖你佢?

My basis for that assumption is that a lot of the vocabulary in standard Mandarin is specific to Mandarin, whereas Literary Chinese (文言文) generally adopts a vocabulary that is common to all the dialects.

To say literary Chinese adopts a vocabulary that is uncommon to all dialects is probably just as accurate...even among native speakers (of whatever dialect), learning to read literary Chinese requires the acquisition of large amounts of additional vocabulary as well as an understanding of new meanings for already recognizable characters. Unless you are using "literary Chinese" in its most generic sense - a grammar and basic vocabulary into which contemporary vocabulary is incorporated seamlessly.

[Mark Yong]

Also, there's the question of how one could learn characters without coming into contact with Mandarin - there's not exactly been a strong history of topolect-based character education. Does one start with 我你他 or 崖你佢?

If we consider the group of 華僑 Chinese readers who are in the 70-80 years old age group, they would have received their Chinese education around the late 1920's to early 1930's. This would have been the transition period from the old style of written Chinese (pseudo-文言文) to vernacular written Chinese (白話文).

Having said that, I agree with you that the bulk of the years would have been the Mandarin period, from around the 1940's right up to the present day. Therefore, exposure of this older generation to texts written using standard Mandarin grammar would be inevitable today. However, since their Chinese educational foundation would likely have been in old Chinese, I am postulating that owing to this background, they would - as a matter of habitual conditioning - read contemporary Mandarin-grammer texts using the pronunciation of their own dialect. Would you agree?

And since the bulk of the years span the Mandarin period, I would guess that these readers would start with 我你他, not 崖你佢. Anyway, 崖 and 佢 are not words that are part of the standard Literary Chinese vocabulary (like 吾, 汝 and 其).

Unless you are using "literary Chinese" in its most generic sense - a grammar and basic vocabulary into which contemporary vocabulary is incorporated seamlessly.

Yes, you are right, that is what I mean in the generic sense. Not literary Chinese in the sense of Classical Chinese (古文) in the manner of the 四書五經, but probably later-style Literary Chinese which employs newer words and terminologies - but definitely not 20th century vernacular-style standard Mandarin as we know today.

[Mark Yong]

Of course, China's education system has ensured that anyone able to read characters even in their own topolect has had exposure to Mandarin grammar and vocabulary

This is interesting. Based on what I understand from my friends who are from Shanghai, most Chinese are unable to read Mandarin grammar using any other dialectal pronunciation (in this case, Shanghainese) - at best, they would find it highly awkward.

Would the situation be different, say, in the Southern provinces? I have also read that there still exist some dialect groups (I am referring to the younger generations, not the older ones) who are able, and occasionally tend to, read Mandarin grammar texts using their own dialect pronunciations. Apparently, this was one of the reasons why a previous exercise to introduce Romanised pinyin to replace 漢字 in China (similar to what Vietnam has done) did not take off so well, because of the resilience of the other dialects in reading.

[Quest]

The standardization of Mandarin certainly influenced how characters were pronounced in Cantonese. For example, 是 is pronounced "si" in Cantonese now, which is the same as 系/係 "Hai"， but from other characters such as 提, 题 both still pronounced "Tai" in Cantonese, one can see that the radical 是 adds an "ai" sound in Cantonese, and therefore 是 when used in the "yes/is" sense, should be pronounced "Hai".

[Mark Yong]

The standardization of Mandarin certainly influenced how characters were pronounced in Cantonese. For example, 是 is pronounced "si" in Cantonese now, which is the same as 系/係 "Hai"， but from other characters such as 提, 题 both still pronounced "Tai" in Cantonese, one can see that the radical 是 adds an "ai" sound in Cantonese, and therefore 是 when used in the "yes/is" sense, should be pronounced "Hai".

I agree with your theory on the "ai" phonetic for 提 and 題. However, I am not so sure about 是 being pronounced as "hai" the same way as 系 and 係. The reason is because in the Minnan 閩南 dialects, 是 (as in 'yes') is pronounced 'si'. In 文言文, 是 originally carried the meaning 'this' (which survives today in the form of 於是, i.e. 'with this...').

Unless you mean that historically, 是 had two pronunciations, i.e. 'si' for 'this, and 'hai' for 'yes' (in this case, using the Cantonese pronunciation). Then it would be plausible.