| Vernacular Chinese | |
|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese: | 白話 |
| Simplified Chinese: | 白话 |
| Hanyu Pinyin: | báihuà |
| Literal meaning: | "plain speech" |
Vernacular Chinese is a style or register of the written Chinese language essentially modeled after the spoken language and associated with Standard Mandarin. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use In Linguistics, a register is a subset of a Language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting Written Chinese comprises the written symbols used to represent Spoken Chinese and the rules about how they are arranged and punctuated A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Standard Mandarin, also known as Standard Spoken Chinese, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan This term is not to be confused with the various present-day vernacular spoken varieties of Chinese. Vernacular refers to the Native language of a country or a locality Spoken Chinese ( comprises many regional variants the largest of which are Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min. Since the early 1920s, Vernacular Chinese has been the most popular style of writing for speakers of all varieties of spoken Chinese throughout China, succeeding Classical Chinese, the former written standard used in China since the time of Confucius. Spoken Chinese ( comprises many regional variants the largest of which are Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of Written Chinese based on the Grammar and Vocabulary of ancient Chinese A written language is the representation of a Language by means of a Writing system. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Confucius ( lit " Master Kung " September 28, 551 BC - 479 BC) was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher The term Standard Written Chinese now often refers to Vernacular Chinese.
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History
During the Zhou Dynasty, Old Chinese was the spoken and written form of Chinese, and was used to write classical Chinese texts. The Zhou Dynasty ( POJ: Chiu Tiau 1122 BC to 256 BC was preceded by the Shang Dynasty and followed by the Qin Dynasty in China. Old Chinese ( or Archaic Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese spoken from the Shang Dynasty ( Chinese Starting from the Qin Dynasty, however, spoken Chinese began to evolve faster than the evolution of written Chinese. Not to be confused with the Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty of China The difference gradually grew larger with the passage of time. By the time of the Tang and Song dynasties, people began to write in their vernacular dialects in the form of bianwen (traditional Chinese: 變文; simplified Chinese: 变文; pinyin: biànwén; literally "altered language") and yulu (traditional Chinese: 語錄; simplified Chinese: 语录; pinyin: yǔlù; literally "language record"), and the spoken language was completely distinct from the still-maintained written standard of Classical Chinese. The Tang Dynasty ( Middle Chinese: dhɑng (June 18 618&ndashJune 4 907 was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by The Song Dynasty ( Wade-Giles: Sung Ch'ao was a ruling dynasty in China between 960&ndash1279 CE it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use Those not educated in Classical Chinese—almost the entirety of the population—could understand only very little of the language. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, vernacular dialects began to be used in novels, but were not generally used in formal writing, which continued to use Classical Chinese. The Ming Dynasty ( or Empire of the Great Ming ( was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol -led Not to be confused with Qin Dynasty, the first dynasty of Imperial China
Literature in Vernacular Chinese
Jin Shengtan, who edited several novels in vernacular Chinese, is widely regarded as the pioneer of literature in the vernacular style. Jin Shengtan ( (1610?－ 7 August 1661) former name Jin Renrui (金人瑞 also known as Jin Kui (金喟 was a Chinese editor writer and critic who A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story Literature is the Art of written works Literally translated the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter However, it was not until after the May Fourth Movement in 1919 and the promotion by scholars and intellectuals such as Columbia University educated libertarian Hu Shi, Japanese educated leftist Lu Xun, Chen Duxiu, and leftist Qian Xuantong that Vernacular Chinese, or Bai hua, gained widespread importance. The May Fourth Movement ( was an anti- imperialist, cultural and political movement in early modern China. Year 1919 ( MCMXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Scholarly method &mdash or as it is more commonly called scholarship &mdash is the body of principles and practices used by scholars to make their claims about the world as An intellectual (from the adjective meaning "involving thought and reason" is a person who tries to use his or her Intelligence and analytical thinking, Columbia University is a private University in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Hu Shih ( 17 December 1891 — 24 February 1962 born Hu Hung-hsing (胡洪騂 Hu Hongxing was a Chinese philosopher and Essayist Lu Xun ( or Lu Hsün ( Wade-Giles) was the Pen name of Zhou Shuren ( ( September 25, 1881 &ndash October 19 Chronology October 9 1879 Birth in Anqing, Anhui. 1879 to 1901 Early life and education in China Qian Xuantong ( (1887— January 17 1939) was a Chinese linguist In particular, The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun is generally accepted as the first modern work to fully utilize the vernacular language[1]. The True Story of Ah Q (Traditional Chinese 阿Q正傳 Simplified Chinese 阿Q正传 pinyin Ā Q Zhèngzhuàn is a short episodic Novella written by
Classical Chinese became increasingly viewed as an archaic fossil hindering education and literacy, and, many suggested, social and national progress by the politically left. The works of Lu Xun and other writers of fiction and non-fiction did much to advance this view. Vernacular Chinese soon came to be viewed as mainstream by most people. Along with the growing popularity of vernacular writing in books in this period was the acceptance of punctuation, modeled after that used in Western languages (traditional Chinese literature was almost entirely unpunctuated), and the use of Arabic numerals. The term Western world, the West or the Occident ( Latin: occidens -sunset -west as distinct from the Orient) can have multiple meanings The arabic numerals (often capitalized are the ten Digits (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 which—along with the system
Since the late 1920s, nearly all Chinese newspapers, books, and official and legal documents have been written in Vernacular Chinese. A newspaper is a written Publication containing News, information and Advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called Newsprint. A Book is a set or collection of written printed illustrated or blank sheets made of Paper, Parchment, or other material usually fastened together An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it in an Organisation or Law is a system of rules enforced through a set of Institutions used as an instrument to underpin civil obedience politics economics and society However, the tone or register and the choice of vocabulary may be formal or informal, depending on the context. In Linguistics, a register is a subset of a Language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting The vocabulary of a person is defined either as the set of all Words that are understood by that person or the set of all words likely to be used by that person when constructing Generally, the more formal the register of Vernacular Chinese, the greater the resemblance to Classical Chinese. Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of Written Chinese based on the Grammar and Vocabulary of ancient Chinese Since the transition, it has been, however, extremely rare for a text to be written in predominantly Classical Chinese. Only educated speakers have full reading comprehension of Classical texts, and very few are able to write proficiently in Classical Chinese. Classical Chinese is taught throughout mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau although they operate in completely different education systems. However, proficiency differs greatly among these jurisdictions. Proficiency of Classical Chinese is higher among high school graduates in Taiwan (possibly helped by the fact that use of traditional characters has been maintained in Taiwan). Whereas in the case of Hong Kong, the proficiency is not especially high despite the use of traditional characters, it could be because the general education notion is mainly focused on English primarily.
See Chinese grammar for the grammar of the modern standard written language, which is Vernacular Chinese. This article describes the grammar of Standard Mandarin. For the grammars of other forms of Chinese see their respective articles via links on Chinese language
Other variants
Some other vernacular variants of Chinese, notably Cantonese, Shanghainese and Hokkien / Taiwanese (Min Nan), include additional and adapted characters for writing texts that reflect the language as spoken. Shanghainese (上海閒話 in Shanghainese sometimes referred to as the Shanghai dialect, is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai The Southern Min language or Min Nan ( POJ: Bân-lâm-gú or "Southern Fujian" language refers to a family of Chinese languages Dialects A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( Unlike Vernacular Chinese, these written forms have not been standardized and are used in informal contexts only. They are most commonly used in commercial advertisements and legal records to accurately record dialogue and colloquial expressions. Advertising is a form of Communication that typically attempts to persuade potential Customers to Purchase or to consume more of a particular Brand A court reporter, stenotype reporter or stenographer is a person whose occupation is to transcribe spoken or recorded speech into written
See also
References
- ^ Luo, Jing. Chinese Poetry is the most highly regarded literary genre in China. [2004] (2004). Over a Cup of Tea: An Introduction to Chinese Life and Culture. University Press of America. ISBN 0761829377
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