Vernacular Chinese is a style or
register of the
written Chinese language essentially modeled after the
spoken language and associated with
Standard Mandarin. This term is not to be
confused with the various present-day
vernacular spoken varieties of Chinese.
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. The term
Standard Written Chinese now often refers to
Vernacular Chinese .
History
During the
Zhou Dynasty,
Old Chinese was the spoken and written form of
Chinese, and was used to write classical Chinese texts. Starting
from the
Qin Dynasty, however, spoken
Chinese began to evolve faster than the evolution of written
Chinese. 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 ( ) and
yulu ( ), and the
spoken language was completely distinct from the still-maintained
written standard of Classical Chinese. 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.
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. However, it was not until after the
May Fourth Movement in 1919 and the
promotion by
scholars and
intellectuals such as
pragmatist reformer
Hu
Shih, leftist
Lu Xun,
Chen Duxiu, and leftist
Qian Xuantong that Vernacular Chinese, or
Bai hua, gained widespread importance. 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.
Classical Chinese became increasingly viewed by the politically
left as an archaic fossil hindering education and literacy, and,
many suggested, social and national progress. 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
Indian, or,
Arabic numerals.
Since late 1920s, nearly all Chinese
newspapers,
books, and
official and
legal
documents have been written in Vernacular Chinese. However, the
tone or
register and the
choice of
vocabulary may be formal or
informal, depending on the context. Generally, the more formal the
register of Vernacular Chinese, the greater the resemblance to
Classical 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 in Classical Chinese is higher among
high school graduates in Taiwan (possibly aided by the fact that
use of traditional characters has always been maintained in
Taiwan), whereas Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony of over 100
years prior to 1997 heavily emphasized written English than
vernacular Chinese in their education system.
Other variants
Some other vernacular variants of Chinese, notably
Cantonese,
Shanghainese, and
Taiwanese, include additional and adapted
character for writing texts that
reflect the language as spoken. 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, song lyrics sung
colloquially in native dialect, and
legal records to accurately record dialogue
and colloquial expressions. There is also a modest body of
literature for Cantonese, Taiwanese,
Wu
Chinese, and other varieties of Chinese using the respective
vernacular varieties, sometimes mixed in different proportions with
Classical Chinese and Vernacular Chinese.
See also
References
- Luo, Jing. [2004] (2004). Over a Cup of Tea: An Introduction to
Chinese Life and Culture. University Press of America. ISBN
0761829377