Whether the ancients usually spoke white or classical Chinese 10

Vernacular Chinese, the ancients all spoke vernacular, but the words they used may be very different from those of today's people, they only use classical Chinese to write, the ancient imperial examination is very difficult, and the reason why there are fewer people who read is that they have to write in classical Chinese, so they usually speak vernacular Chinese and write articles in classical Chinese.

In the pre-Qin period, in terms of grammar and diction, spoken language was quite close to literary language. However, due to the inconvenience of manufacturing, writing, and carrying such as wooden tablets, bells, and oracle bones, the written language is relatively concise.

However, with the development of the times, the language has also changed accordingly, which is evident in the spoken language, which is the trend towards the spoken language of today.

The Song and Yuan dynasties, especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the spoken language is quite close to today, which is reflected in the words and sentences of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", etc., and now we see that there are basically no obstacles. Many slang sayings began to emerge in large numbers in ancient markets, especially during the Song Dynasty. However, even if the upper-level ** speaks elegantly, and there is no one-and-a-glance at the words and sentences of the literary language (it is not easy to communicate when used), it cannot be said to be literary language.

Chinese culture attaches great importance to tradition, and the excellent articles of the hundred schools of thought formed in the pre-Qin period have become the objects of admiration and emulation by later generations. For example, grammatical phenomena that have died out in the spoken language are still deliberately used in the written language of later generations, such as the Qing Dynasty's "Biography is Lou Ji", which is "different from the reading of the Buddha!" (Here the object of the interrogative pronoun is preposed).

This is the formative aspect of the literary language, which has a fixed vocabulary and grammar that is different from the later spoken language, that is to say, compared with the colloquial language that developed towards the vernacular, the written literary language can be said to be solidified.

However, even if the ancients spoke the vernacular, it is likely that the Sichuan people listened to Cantonese, and the modern people may not be able to understand it, because the ancient and modern pronunciation has changed greatly.

In a word, the spoken language of the early ancients was close to classical Chinese (e.g., pre-Qin prose), extended to the Qin and Han dynasties, and later developed closer to the vernacular (e.g., Song and Yuan scripts and dramas).

There's a story that goes like this.

When Ouyang Xiu was serving in the Hanlin Academy, once, on a trip with three subordinates of the same hospital, he saw a galloping horse on the side of the road trampling a dog to death. Ouyang Xiu proposed: "Please write about this matter separately." ”

I saw one person take the lead in saying, "There is a yellow dog lying on the road, the horse is frightened, galloping, and the hooves die", and the other person continued: "There is a yellow dog lying on the thoroughfare, and the horse's hooves are killed." Finally, the third person said: "There is a dog lying in the thoroughfare, and the lying dog is killed." ”

Ouyang Xiu smiled after hearing this: "If you cultivate history like this, you can't finish writing 10,000 volumes." ”

The three of them hurriedly asked, "Then what do you say?" ”

Ouyang Xiudao: "'Yima kills dogs in the road', six words are enough!" ”

The three of them blushed and laughed at each other after hearing this, comparing their own redundancy, and were deeply impressed by Ouyang Xiu's conciseness.

What does this mean.

It shows that the ancient materials we see are all compressed.

Pressed into writing, the Chinese text is short, and the meaning is many.

Therefore, based on books alone, we can only see classical Chinese in ancient times.

I thought that the ancients spoke classical Chinese.

Vernacular, but some of the words used are different.

Ancient people generally spoke in the vernacular.

"Classical Chinese" is relative to "Vernacular Language". The first "text" is the meaning of a written article. "Yan" means to write, express, record, etc.

Wenyan", that is, the written language, and "Wenyan" is relative to the "spoken language", and the "oral language" is also called the "vernacular". The last "text" is the meaning of works, articles, etc., and it refers to the genre of literature.

In ancient China, there was a difference between expressing the same thing in oral language and in written language, for example, if you want to ask someone if they have eaten, in oral language, it is "Have you eaten?" And to express it in a book and in words, it is "Rice or not?" ”。

"Rice no" is classical Chinese. In ancient times, all articles were written in written language. Therefore, now we generally refer to ancient Chinese as "classical Chinese".

The ancients spoke in the vernacular.

The Mandarin of the ancients was very different from what we have now, not only in terms of pronunciation, but also in terms of the composition and meaning of words.

The literary works of the pre-Qin period are very concise, for example, the "Spring and Autumn Period" records the history of the Lu State for 300 years and is only 18,000 words, the ancient literary writing skills are in the hands of readers, and the literacy rate in ancient times is mostly below 10%, and the pre-Qin period is about 2%, most of the common people do not understand classical Chinese at all, and they do not know classical Chinese to speak and communicate, and they use the vernacular at that time.

Later, the spoken language changed, and gradually disappeared from daily life, and became a style specially used for writing. During the Tang Dynasty, it became popular with mixed literature, so vernacular literature began to gradually enter literary works. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the text in the ** book was already relatively white.

During the period from the Western Jin Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, because the north has been ruled by foreign races, and the Han people in the south are also mixed with ethnic minorities, the accent of the Chinese began to change, especially the language of the northerners began to be Huized, and by the time of the unification of the north and south of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, although their language was still classical Chinese, it was already very difficult to learn classical Chinese.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the pronunciation of ancient Chinese and the present was very small, and the grammatical difference was not large.