Preface
When Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, the first European professor ‘de Langue et de Littérature chinoises et tartares’ at the Collège de France published his Élémens de la grammaire chinoise in 1822, he optimistically predicted:
The obstacles and prejudices that have up to now prevented the progress of Chinese literature in Europe seem to diminish day by day; and one can foresee the moment when the former will have been completely removed and the latter entirely eradicated: then, the study of Chinese will become as easy as that of all other oriental languages, maybe even as easy as that of certain European languages. (Abel-Rémusat 1822, p. v)
Yet, despite some great scholarly endeavours, the obstacles in the study of Classical Chinese have by no means disappeared. While lexicography and historical phonology of Old Chinese have made significant progress, the grammar of Classical Chinese remains sadly under-studied. Georg von der Gabelentz’s Chinesische Grammatik of 1881, a landmark in Sinological scholarship, remains unsurpassed until this day. Although numerous articles devoted to specific phenomena and some short outline grammars have appeared since, there still is no comprehensive state-of-the-art grammar of Classical Chinese. The one work that would have lived up to this promise, Ulrich Unger’s Grammatik des Klassischen Chinesisch in ten volumes, was never completed.
A similar situation obtains with regard to textbooks. To be sure, there is no dearth of primers of Classical Chinese in Western languages. As early as 1857, Wilhelm Schott wrote a Chinesische Sprachlehre zum Gebrauche bei Vorlesungen und zur Selbstunterweisung; in 1968, Harold Shadick’s highly successful First Course in Literary Chinese in three volumes as well as Raymond Dawson’s succinct Introduction to Classical Chinese appeared; in 1985, Ulrich Unger published his erudite Einführung in das klassische Chinesisch; in 2005, Robert Gassmann and Wolfgang Behr completed a three-volume course of Antikchinesisch; and in 2011, Paul van Els published a delightful Dutch lesboek entitled Van orakelbot tot weblog, to name just a few. But there are many more: in European and American universities, many departments use internal compilations of material in class. Indeed, the very abundance of different primers indicates the problem: there is no single scholarly introduction to the
Classical Chinese language that fulfils all needs, providing a comprehensive grammatical outline as well as detailed analyses of Classical texts, reading strategies, fundamentals of ancient Chinese cultural history, methods for the study of ancient texts, and up-to-date references. Significantly, Endymion Wilkinson’s authoritative research guide, in the section on studying Classical Chinese, recommends: ‘Try using one of the many textbooks and readers compiled for Chinese university students’ (Wilkinson 2018, 43). Almost 200 years after Abel-Rémusat, there still is no standard textbook of Classical Chinese for Western students.
The present volume is intended to fill this gap. Such an enterprise may seem daunting, and the present author would never have undertaken it were he not standing on the shoulders of giants. The grammatical framework developed by Ulrich Unger in his Grammatik des Klassischen Chinesisch provided a solid basis for my analyses; the verb classes I propose were inspired by the work of John Cikoski; among the inventory of clause constituents, I owe the category of ‘complement’ to Derek Herforth and William G. Boltz; the description of nominalization is based on unpublished material by William G. Boltz; and finally, I followed Axel Schuessler for phonological reconstructions of Old Chinese.
Moreover, I am profoundly grateful to many people who personally assisted me in writing this book: to the late Hans Stumpfeldt for encouraging and inspiring me in countless ways; to Bill Boltz, ever enthusiastic to discuss grammatical problems, for giving me erudite guidance over many years; to Ruth Cremerius for debating all those thorny details with me over and over; to Ruth Cordes and Roland Kießling for providing me with linguistic guidance; to Joachim Gentz for valuable feedback to an early draft and inspiring the Focus on text structures; to Axel Schuessler and Eric Henry for generously supplying me with their unpublished material; to Wolfgang Behr for loading me with published material; to Yegor Grebnev and Christian Schwermann for extensive comments on parts of the manuscript; to Christoph Harbsmeier for much material and advice; to Derek Herforth for alerting me to many weaknesses in my draft; and to three reviewers for Oxford University Press for their highly stimulating comments.
But most of all, I am grateful to my students and assistants at the Asia-Africa Institute, who offered truly overwhelming support of this project for six years: to Charly Hirsch Morbey, the mistress of the glossary, who unflinchingly drafted and redrafted the first versions of this
book; Nils Wieland and Moritz Hesselmann, who tested early drafts in their tutorials; Stefan Christ, Alexandra Rohse, Marie Schierhorn, Valerie Fuhlenbrok, and Charles Schildge, who invested hours, days, and weeks helping to revise every detail of this book; and—last, but certainly not least—my second-year students, who patiently coped with all the imperfect stages of this book.
PART II
List of figures
Maps
1. The Warring States 222
2. Jin in the Chunqiu period 261
Figures
1. A page from the Jingdian shiwen 28
2. Oracle bone inscription 63
3. Bronze inscription 65
4. Confucius receives a carp from the Duke 76
5. Regional characters 189
6. A page from the Xunzi jijie 194
7. Three dictionary entries for 莊子 and 莊周 236
8. A zun tripod 247
9. Composite texts: Guanzi 251
10. Bamboo manuscript 274
11. Shuihudi tomb 275
12. Mss from Mawangdui and Guodian 277
13. Stemma codicorum 376
Abbreviated book titles
Unless noted otherwise, books are quoted by juan number. Scholarly literature is listed in the bibliography.
ChuC Chuci zhijie 楚辭直解, ed. by Chen Zizhan 陳子展. Shanghai 1996.
CQFL Chunqiu fanlu yizheng 春秋繁露義證, ed. by Su Yu 蘇輿. Beijing 2010, quoted by pian.
Erya Erya yishu 爾雅義疏, ed. by Hao Yixing 郝懿行. 2 vols. Shanghai 1983, quoted by pian.
FY Fayan yishu 法言義疏, ed. by Wang Rongbao 汪榮寶. 2 vols. Beijing 1996.
GLiang Chunqiu Guliang jingzhuan buzhu 春秋榖梁經傳補注, ed. by Zhong Wenzheng 鍾文烝. 2 vols. Beijing 2009, quoted by duke number and year.
GLong Gongsun Longzi xuanjie 公孫龍子懸解, ed. by Wang Guan 王琯. Beijing 1996.
Guan Guanzi jiaoshi 管子校釋, ed. by Yan Changyao 顏昌嶢. Changsha 1996, quoted by pian
GY Guoyu jijie 國語集解, ed. by Xu Yuangao 徐元誥. Beijing 2002, quoted by juan and paragraph.
GYang Chunqiu Gongyang zhuan zhushu 春秋公羊傳注疏, ed. by Xu Yan徐彥 [ed. Shisan jing zhushu]. Shanghai 2009, quoted by duke number and year.
HDNJ Huangdi neijing suwen: fu Lingshu jing 黃帝內經素問:附靈樞經. Shanghai 1955, quoted by pian.
HFei Han Feizi jijie 韓非子集解, ed. by Wang Xianshen 王先慎. Beijing 1998, quoted by pian
HNan Huainan zi jishi 淮南子集釋, ed. by He Ning 何寧. 3 vols. Beijing 1998.
HSWZ Hanshi waizhuan jianshu 韓詩外傳箋疏, ed. by Qu Shouyuan 屈守元. Chengdu 1996.
Lao Laozi jiaoshi 老子校釋, ed. by Zhu Qianzhi 朱謙之. Beijing 1984, quoted by zhang
Li Liji zhengyi 禮記正義, ed. by Kong Yingda 孔穎達 [ed. Shisan jing zhushu]. Shanghai 2009.
Lie Liezi jishi 列子集釋, ed. by Yang Bojun 楊伯浚. Beijing 1996.
LNZ Xinyi Lienü zhuan 新譯列女傳, ed. by Huang Qingquan黃清泉. Taipei 1996, quoted by juan and pian. xiv
titles
LT Liutao 六韜, ed. by Chen Xi 陳 曦, Beijing 2016.
Lü Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi 呂氏春秋校釋, ed. by Chen Qiyou 陳奇猷. 2 vols.
Shanghai 1984, quoted by juan and pian
LY Lunyu zhengyi 論語正義, ed. by Liu Baonan 劉寶楠. 2 vols. Beijing 1998, quoted by pian and zhang.
Meng Mengzi zhengyi 孟子正義, ed. by Jiao Xun 焦循. 2 vols. Beijing 1998, quoted by pian and zhang.
Mo Mozi xiangu 墨子閒詁, ed. by Sun Yirang 孫詒讓. 2 vols. Beijing 2001, quoted by pian
Shen Shenzi jijiao jizhu 慎子集校集注, ed. by Xu Fuhong 許富宏. Beijing 2013, quoted by pian.
Shi Xinyi Shizi duben 新譯尸子讀本, ed. by Shui Weisong 水渭松. Taipei 1997.
SHJ Xinyi Shanhai jing 新譯山海經, ed. by Yang Xipeng 楊錫彭. Taipei 2004.
SJ Shiji 史記, ed. by Sima Qian 司馬遷. Beijing 1997.
SJS Shangjun shu zhuizhi 商君書錐指, ed. by Jiang Lihong 蔣禮鴻. Beijing 1996, quoted by pian
Sun Shiyi jia zhu Sunzi bingfa jiaoli 十一家注孫子校理, ed. by Yang Bing’an 楊丙安. Beijing 1999.
SY Shuoyuan jiaozheng 說苑校證, ed. by Xiang Zonglu 向宗魯. Beijing 1987.
Wen Wenzi shuyi 文子疏義, ed. by Wang Liqi 王利器. Beijing 2000.
WLiao Wei Liaozi 尉繚子, ed. by Xu Yong 徐勇. Zhengzhou 2010.
Wu Wuzi 吳子, ed. by Xu Yong 徐勇. Zhengzhou 2010.
XJ Xinyi Xiaojing duben 新譯孝經讀本, ed. by Lai Yanyuan 賴炎元 and Huang Junlang 黃俊郎. Taipei 1992, quoted by zhang.
Xun Xunzi jijie 荀子集解, ed. by Wang Xianqian 王先謙. 2 vols. Beijing 1996.
XS Xinshu jiaozhu 新書校注, by Jia Yi 賈誼, ed. by Yan Zhenyi 閻振益 and Zhong Xia 鐘夏. Beijing 2000, quoted by juan and pian
XX Xinxu jiaoshi 新序校釋, ed. by Shi Guangying 石光瑛 and Chen Xin 陳新. 2 vols. Beijing 2001, quoted by juan and zhang.
XY Xinyu jiaozhu 新語校注, ed. by Wang Liqi 王利器. Beijing 1997, quoted by pian.
Yan Yanzi chunqiu jishi 晏子春秋集釋, ed. by Wu Zeyu 吳則虞. 2 vols. Beijing 1982, quoted by juan and pian.
YDan Xinyi Yan Danzi 新譯燕丹子, ed. by Cao Haidong 曹海東. Taipei 1995.
Yi Zhouyi zhengyi 周易正義, ed. by Kong Yingda 孔穎達 [ed. Shisan jing zhushu]. Shanghai 2009.
YTL Yantie lun jiaozhu 鹽鐵論校注, ed. by Wang Liqi 王利器. 2 vols. Beijing 1992, quoted by pian.
ZGC Zhanguo ce 戰國策. 3 vols. Shanghai 1985, quoted by juan and pian.
abbreviated book titles
ZL Zhouli zhengyi 周禮正義, ed. by Sun Yirang 孫詒讓. 14 vols. Beijing 2000.
Zhuang Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋, ed. by Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩. 4 vols. Beijing 1997, quoted by pian
Zuo Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu 春秋左傳注, ed. by Yang Bojun 楊伯峻. 4 vols. Beijing 1981, quoted by duke number and year.
Introduction
Classical Chinese is perhaps the most important language in world history. Its significance is comparable to that of Latin and English, and the extent of its impact is second to none. Although it was used as a living language only during a relatively short time span of 400 years, it was the foundation of a literary tradition which spanned two millennia, surpassing that of any other civilization. Classical Chinese has shaped thought and literature throughout the history of imperial China and up to the present day. This introduction will give an outline of how Classical Chinese may be defined, what its characteristic features are, and how it is treated in the present book.
Defining Classical Chinese
Simply put, Classical Chinese is the language of the Chinese classics: the language of the philosophical and historical literature that represented the greatest flowering of Chinese intellectual history. The Classical period—roughly the fourth to the first century bc—saw the ‘Hundred Schools’ (百家) of Chinese philosophy, the beginnings of Chinese historiography, and the earliest attempts at synthesizing the whole of received wisdom. It was the age in which the words of Confucius and his followers were committed to writing, contending with the teachings of Daoism, Mohism, Legalism, and many others that laid the foundations of Chinese thought. Their writings constituted a canon of acknowledged excellence for later Chinese literati who spared no effort to learn the Classical language, which was far removed from the Chinese they spoke. Just as European writers turned to Homer, Herodotus, Cicero, and Sallust, the Chinese read, emulated, and quoted the Lunyu, Mengzi, Zuozhuan, and Shiji. These and other classical works provided a model that served to embellish the style and strengthen arguments in all respectable Chinese literature well into the twentieth century. Until today, no student of Chinese culture can afford to neglect the Classical Chinese language. Even scholars dealing exclusively with modern China ignore it at their peril: not only scholarly articles, but
Box 1
Classical Chinese in the twenty-first century
From an e-mail to the author, September 2014:
尊敬的 Prof. Dr. Kai Vogelsang:
安好
百忙之中，收閱拙文，感激之情，寸言難達。
余姓張名凱*，字銘勗，乃天津市直沽人也。祖居山東平陰，高祖乃民 間中醫，活人無數，至余已第五代。幼好舊學，性喜讀書，曾入梨園 行當之四載有餘，受傳統文化之耳濡目染。少年之季，興至針灸，祖 母慈愛，授予一二。後學塾針灸推拿五年以至學士，再研讀中醫文獻 三年而獲碩士，於二零一一年畢業回津就職至今。 余攻學之外，尚 醉心於三教之學，出入於百家之言。嘗品味佛教唯識禪宗之八識定 慧，玩索道家老子莊子之無為逍遙，世行儒家中庸大學之慎獨修 身。閒暇之餘，吾常修習中華傳統武術，練陳氏太極數年有餘，解棚 捋擠按之意，思采列肘靠之法。時至今日，吾已徜徉於中國古代文化 十年有餘，僅得中醫之初道，望從三教聖賢為師，再修心正義，證天 地大道，則此生之願，足矣.
* Name changed. For other examples of CC elements in everyday communication, cf. the illustrations in van Els 2011.
Yet, despite its importance, for two millennia the Classical Chinese language had not been systematically described. The Chinese never developed a grammatical tradition like the ancient Romans did, explaining the structure of their language and the rules that govern it. Countless students, aspiring to official positions in the Chinese empire, learned the language in years of intensive reading, memorization, and recitation of classical texts. Anthologies and annotated editions were meant to inculcate students with the basic tenets of Chinese tradition and teach them the classical language by the intuitive method, as it were. The first systematic accounts of Classical Chinese were given by European scholars like Abel-Rémusat (Élémens de la grammaire chinoise, 1822) and Georg von der Gabelentz (Chinesische Grammatik, 1881), who laid the groundwork for the academic study of Classical Chinese. Earlier grammars like Martino Martini’s Grammatica sinica (1653) or Francisco Varo’s Arte de la lengua mandarina (1703) dealt with the Early Modern Chinese language. The first
xviii also literature, political speeches, and newspaper articles employ elements of Classical Chinese. In the past decades, there has been a notable revival of Classical Chinese, especially among young scholars, and several internet sites are devoted to promoting the language.
grammar written in Chinese, Ma Jianzhong’s 馬建忠 Mashi wentong 馬氏文通, heavily influenced by Latin grammar, was published in 1898 (cf. Ma Jianzhong 2007).
Arguably, the concept of ‘Classical Chinese’ is a scholarly construction of the nineteenth century—and up to the present day there is no consensus as to how it is defined. The term has been used in a variety of different ways. In Western literature it is variously understood as the Chinese language of the fifth to the third century bc (Unger 1985, 1), or ‘the language of the period from the end of the Spring and Autumn period down to the end of the Han dynasty’ (Norman 1988, 83) and beyond that, even including the literary language written until the twentieth century (Ramsey 1989, 4). In Chinese scholarly literature, on the other hand, the concept does not appear at all. The term that usually appears in text book titles, 古代漢語 gudai Hanyu, is a blanket term covering all varieties of written Chinese from the earliest texts down to the thirteenth century. Cf., for example, the classic works by Zhou Fagao 1972 and Wang Li 1981, as well as more recent textbooks such as Zhang and Yan 1990 that include prose and poetry from the Shijing (first millennium bc) to Jiang Kui (c.1155–1221).
The term 文言 wenyan (or 文言文 wenyanwen) is equally broad in scope. It refers to the language employed in all genres of texts written in imitation of classical texts, covering the two millennia from Han times to the twentieth century. Finally, the term 古文 guwen is highly ambiguous: it may refer to (1) ‘old texts’, roughly equal in meaning to gudai Hanyu; (2) texts written in the ‘old script’ used before the Qin reform as opposed to such written in ‘new script’ of Han times; and (3) to a certain literary style promoted by traditional scholars beginning in the eighth century. None of these terms corresponds to ‘Classical Chinese’: paradoxically, there is no Chinese term for ‘Classical Chinese’.
In the present book, ‘Classical Chinese’ will be defined as the language represented in transmitted Chinese literature of the fourth to first centuries bc, which is roughly the time of the Warring States (戰國), Qin (秦), and Western Han (西漢). This delimitation, which differs from others cited above, was chosen for two reasons. Firstly, judging from the present state of scholarship it seems untenable to date any of the classical texts earlier than the fourth century bc. Secondly, the period beginning in the first century ad not only saw a dramatic increase in literary production and a proliferation of literary genres. More importantly, the language of the texts began to differ significantly from the language of earlier texts: the beginning of the first century ad appears to mark the end of the classical period.
Classical Chinese is thus distinguished from (1) pre-Classical Chinese, used in texts before the fourth century bc, and (2) Literary Chinese, being the written scholarly language used from the first century onward. Furthermore, Classical Chinese should be distinguished from (3) the language of texts that were not transmitted by copying but buried and or discarded more than two millennia ago.
(1) Classical Chinese is clearly distinct from pre-Classical Chinese, that is the language used in inscriptions and literature before the fourth century bc. In particular, pre-Classical Chinese is the language of Chinese canonical literature (which, unfortunately, is also often called ‘classical’), namely the Five Canonical Texts, 五經, which were written in an archaic—or in many instances: archaizing—language that differed considerably from Classical Chinese. Indeed, the vocabulary and syntax of pre-Classical Chinese was so different from the subsequent stages of Old Chinese that it apparently was no longer fully understood in the classical period. Significantly, the Five Canonical Texts ‘rarely served as a model for later writers’ (Norman 1988, 83): in this sense, too, they were not classical.
(2) On the other end of the time scale, Classical Chinese is distinguished from Literary Chinese. Whereas in the classical period the written language corresponded more or less closely to spoken language, this correlation became tenuous in the first and second centuries ad. While spoken Chinese evolved, the written language continued to be modelled on the classical language: it turned into a purely literary language, similar to Latin in mediaeval Europe. However, this literary language by no means remained true to Classical Chinese. While preserving archaisms and most syntactical structures, Literary Chinese was constantly infused with new vocabulary. Many elements of Classical Chinese grammar were no longer understood, so that they came to be used in different ways. Moreover, Literary Chinese developed an abundance of genres that each followed specific linguistic conventions. Thus Literary Chinese, while firmly based on Classical Chinese, developed in various ways that set it clearly apart from the latter.
(3) Finally, Classical Chinese should be differentiated from the language of the manuscripts on bamboo, wood, or silk that have recently been found in ancient tombs, wells, or ruins of frontier posts (cf. Focus 19). While written at the same time as the classical texts, these manuscripts are mostly legal or military documents that use administrative
language and much technical terminology that is not to be found in classical literature. The same is true for medical and mantic texts found in tombs: these are specialized texts that would require a special introduction. Moreover, these texts in tombs, having been buried for two millennia, never became models for later literature: they, too, were not classical.
Characteristics of Classical Chinese
Phonology
Classical Chinese has not been spoken for 2,000 years. We can only guess at how it may have sounded; but it must have been vastly different from Modern Standard Chinese. Linguistic change is observable even within the life-spans of individuals. Over generations and millennia its effects are tremendous. Consider, for example, the differences between the Beowulf, written in Old English about a thousand years ago, and its modern counterpart:
1 Hwæt! wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum
2 þēod-cyninga þrym gefrūnon,
3 hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.
4 Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaþena þrēatum,
5 monegum mægþum meodo-setla oftēah.
6 egsode Eorle, syððan ærest wearð
7 fēasceaft funden; hē þæs frōfre gebād:
8 wēox under wolcnum, weorð-myndum þāh,
9 oðþæt him æghwylc þāra ymb-sittendra
10 ofer hron-rāde hȳran scolde,
11 gomban gyldan: þæt wæs gōd cyning!
So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.
There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes, a wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes.
This terror of the hall-troops had come far. A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.
In the end each clan on the outlying coasts beyond the whale-road had to yield to him and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king.
Beowulf, tr. by Seamus Heaney. London and New York: Norton, 2000.
Classical Chinese is more than twice as old as the Beowulf. The gulf that separates us from this language is even wider than that between Modern
xxi
English and Old English. The linguist Lü Shuxiang 呂叔湘 once remarked that if the great scholar Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200), who wrote standard commentaries on the sayings of Confucius, were to travel back in time and witness a conversation between Confucius and his disciples, he would not have understood a single sentence of what they were talking about. Much less a contemporary Chinese, being another 800 years removed from Zhu Xi. We still do not know how Classical Chinese sounded. Only its phonological structure—that is the relationships among the sounds— has been reconstructed with some degree of confidence.
The following is a phonological reconstruction of a text from Han Feizi, next to a pinyin transcription in Modern Standard Chinese. It is the famous anecdote about the peasant who sees a rabbit run against a tree stump and break its neck, whereupon he, the peasant, instead of plowing his field decides to wait for further rabbits to do the same.
1 sûŋh nin wəʔ krêŋ lîn taʔ Sòng rén you gēng tián zhě
2 lîn truŋ wəʔ tro tián zhōng you zhū
3 lhâh tsôʔ thok tro tù zou chù zhū
4 tet keŋʔ nə siʔ zhé jıng ér sı
5 ʔin lhak gə ruiʔ nə hjuʔ tro yīn shì qí lěi ér shou zhū
6 krəih bukh tə̂k lhâh jì fù dé tù
7 lhâh pəʔ khâiʔ bukh tə̂k tù bù kě fù dé
8 nə lhin wai sûŋh kwə̂k sauh ér shēn wèi sòng guó xiào
9 gə̂mʔ lok ləʔ sə̂n waŋ tə teŋh jīn yù yı xiān wáng zhī zhèng
10 drə tâŋ lhats tə min chí dāng shì zhī mín
11 krî hjuʔ tro tə rus laiʔ jiē shou zhū zhī lèi yě
These reconstructions indicate staggering differences between Old and Modern Chinese. Hardly a single syllable in the Old Chinese reconstruction looks like anything we know from Modern Standard Chinese, and a number of features are decidedly alien to it. Initial consonant clusters like in *krêŋ (l. 1) or *truŋ (l. 2) are entirely absent from Modern Standard Chinese, just like the glottal stop *ʔ that occurs in almost every line and the final consonants *-k (as in *thok, l. 3) and *-t (*tet, l. 4). Also the vowels, although we do not know their exact phonetic value, appear to be quite different from those of Modern Standard Chinese. To sum up, Old Chinese and Modern Chinese are entirely different languages. Students of Classical Chinese may rest reassured that they will not be expected to attempt pronunciation of these tongue-twisters. In fact, they are not meant to be pronounced in the first place (cf. Focus 3). The
best we can do is to read Classical Chinese words in their modern standard pronunciations. For these, pinyin transliterations are provided in the vocabulary lists in every lesson.
The glossary in the appendix includes the phonological reconstructions of Old Chinese for reference purposes. In the body of the work, however, phonology is only treated where it is relevant to the understanding of an utterance.
Writing
The differences between Classical and Modern Chinese are largely concealed by the characteristics of Chinese writing. Firstly, Chinese characters do not represent sounds nearly as closely as alphabetic script does, so the complex phonology of Classical Chinese is nowhere apparent in writing. We can easily recite a classical text in Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation without noticing that there is anything amiss about it, which would be well-nigh impossible with the Beowulf.
In fact, Japanese scholars become proficient in reading Classical Chinese in a mixture of Sino-Japanese and native Japanese pronunciations, a practice called Kanbun kundoku (漢文 訓讀). In this tradition, not only the words are pronounced in Japanese (adding grammatical suffixes), but entire sentences are read in the syntactical order called for in Japanese, inserting prepositions, conjunctions, and particles as needed. Similar methods are used in Korea for reading Hanmun (漢文) texts.
Secondly, although the character forms used in classical times, specimens of which have been found on manuscripts, differed significantly from modern Chinese writing, all classical texts have been transmitted to us in the still-current standard script (楷書 kaishu). All standard editions of Classical Chinese literature employ modern orthography, using either full-form or simplified characters. This makes classical texts look deceptively familiar at first sight.
Don’t be deceived. The anecdote from Han Feizi, reproduced in its original version on the left and in Modern Standard Chinese translation on the right, may serve to illustrate the manifold differences that lie behind the similarity of writing.
1 宋人有耕田者。 宋國有一個種田的人。
2 田中有株。 田裏有一根樹樁子。
3 兔走，觸株。 一隻兔子跑過碰在樹樁子上，
4 折頸而死。 折斷了脖子死了。
5 因釋其耒而守株。 他因此就放下他的犁耙來守着樹樁子，
6 冀復得兔。 希望再得到兔子。
7 兔不可復得。 兔子再也得不到，
8 而身為宋國笑。 他自己卻被宋國的人笑話了。
9 今欲以先王之政， 現在假使還要用先王的政治
10 治當世之民。 來治理當代的民眾，
11 皆守株之類也。
那就無疑屬於守株待兔之類的人了。
HFei 49, adapted from Bauer 1991, 18f.
One feature that immediately meets the eye is the difference in length: the Classical Chinese text has fifty-eight characters, whereas the modern translation has 113, almost twice as many. This is partly due to lexical differences. Note how many words are monosyllabic in Classical but di- or trisyllabic in Modern Standard Chinese: 宋 – 宋國, 兔 – 兔子, 樹 –
樹樁子, 頸 – 脖子, 因 – 因此, 冀 – 希望, 身 – 自己, 笑 – 笑話, etc.
Some Classical Chinese words—like 兔 and 笑—have simply been complemented by additional syllables, others have been completely replaced.
Further points that contribute to the conciseness of Classical Chinese include the absence of measure words as in 一隻, 一個, 一根, which are mandatory in the modern translation. Although measure words do exist in Classical Chinese, they are far less frequent. Nor do verbal complements such as 跑過, 折斷了, 放下, 得到 feature in the classical text; in every case, the simple verb suffices. Moreover, it may be noted that there seems to have been no equivalent to the third person pronoun 他 in Classical Chinese (ll. 5, 8); only the pronoun 其 (l. 5) appears as a counterpart to the possessive 他的. Furthermore, the conjunction 而 (l. 4) has no equivalent in Modern Standard Chinese; the adverb 皆 (l. 11) is no longer used; and the particle 之 (ll. 9–11) has been replaced by 的. The first thing to be noted about Classical Chinese, then, is that its vocabulary differs significantly from Modern Standard Chinese.
Characters vs. words
With the above in mind, students of Classical Chinese should be wary of faux amis, i.e. words that look familiar but actually differ in meaning. For example, 走, which appears in line 3, means ‘to walk’ in Modern Standard Chinese; in Classical Chinese, however, it means ‘to run’. The rabbit did not walk against the tree stump and break its neck, it ran. Similarly, the particle 也 (l. 11) is obviously quite different from the adverb meaning ‘also’ in Modern Standard Chinese. The same character may write different words.
Students of Classical Chinese should be keenly aware of the problematic relationship between writing and language. Since Chinese characters
do not indicate sounds as precisely as alphabetic script does, it is often difficult to determine which word a given character represents. Many characters in Classical Chinese texts can be read in different ways, which means they may do service for several different words. Take, for example, the clause in line 8: the first character, 而, may represent a conjunction, meaning ‘and, but’ or a personal pronoun, meaning ‘your’; and the character 為 may express, among others, the verb ‘to make’, the copula ‘to be’, or the preposition ‘for’. It is easy to imagine how vastly different the clause may be understood, depending on how one interprets these characters. The first task when reading a Chinese text, then, is to determine which words are represented by its characters. Experienced readers may recognize this fast and accurately. But beginners are well advised to regularly look up characters in order to ascertain which words they may stand for. Besides their meaning, it is crucial to determine the lexical properties of the words in question, that is the functions they may perform in a sentence. But this is only the first step. Classical Chinese texts cannot be read merely with the help of a dictionary. In order to answer the question which word is written by a given character in a certain position within a sentence, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of Classical Chinese syntax.
Box 2 Faux amis
Classical Chinese texts are usually edited using modern characters; that is the same writing system is used for different languages. This practice conceals the fact that the words represented by characters are quite different from those associated with them in MSC, not only phonologically but often also semantically. One should beware of such faux amis, ‘false friends’ that seem familiar from MSC but are not. Some examples include:
Classical Chinese
Modern Standard Chinese
也 emphatic particle ‘also’
說 ‘explain’ or ‘persuade’ or ‘be pleased’ ‘speak’
去 ‘go away, leave’ ‘go to’
他 ‘another’ ‘he’
史 ‘commissioner, scribe’ ‘history’
Moreover, quite a few CC noun phrases have become lexicalized in later periods, and some have significantly changed their meaning over time, for example:
