A Wisdom Archive on Baihua

Wenyan was the primary form used in Chinese literary works until the May Fourth Movement, and was also heavily used in Japan and Korea. Ironically, Classical Chinese was used to write the Hunmin Jeongeum in which the modern Korean alphabet (Hangul) was promulgated and the essay by Hu Shi in which he argued against using Classical Chinese and in favor of baihua. Exceptions to the use of wenyan were vernacular novels such as The Dream of the Red Ch ...

Read more here: » Classical Chinese: Encyclopedia II - Classical Chinese - Teaching and Use

The case of Chinese is an interesting one. The spoken variants of Chinese are highly divergent, forming a continuum comparable to that of the Romance languages. However, all the variants more or less share a common written language, though there are vernacular variations in vocabulary and grammar, and also even in the characters. [citation needed] The written language originally shared by all dialects was Classical Chinese, which was in normal use up until the early 20th century. In pre-modern times, Northern baihua ...

Read more here: » Dialect continuum: Encyclopedia II - Dialect continuum - Chinese

Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of very old forms of Chinese , making it very different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Classical Chinese was once used for almost all formal correspondence before the 20th century, not only in China but also in Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Among Chinese speakers, classical Chinese has been largely replaced by Vernacular Chinese (baihua), a style of writing that is closer to modern spoken Chinese, while speakers of non-Chinese languages have largely ab ... Including:

• Classical Chinese - Definitions
• Classical Chinese - Pronunciation
• Classical Chinese - Grammar and Lexicon
• Classical Chinese - Teaching and Use

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Chen Duxiu (October 8, 1879 – May 27, 1942) played many different roles in Chinese history. Along with Li Dazhao, Chen was a co-founder of the Communist Party of China in 1921. He was its first Chairman, first General Secretary and an educator, philosopher, and politician. His ancestral home was in Anqing (安慶), Anhui, where he established the vernacular Chinese newspaper New Youth. Chen Duxiu - Biography. Chen Duxiu - Chronological life. Oct 1879 to Oct 1901: ... Including:

• Chen Duxiu - Biography
• Chen Duxiu - Chronological life
• Chen Duxiu - Early Life.
• Chen Duxiu - The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
• Chen Duxiu - A Party in Turmoil.
• Chen Duxiu - Literary Work
• Chen Duxiu - Media Experience
• Chen Duxiu - Crisis with Cai Yuanpei
• Chen Duxiu - Crisis with Hu Shih
• Chen Duxiu - Anti-Confucianism
• Chen Duxiu - Chen's contribution to Chinese journalism
• Chen Duxiu - Reference

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The Chinese written language consists of a writing system stretching back nearly 4000 years. Its logographic writing system employs a large number of symbols, known as characters, to represent individual words or morphemes. The writing system is considered to have also been a unifying force for much of Chinese history, transcending differences in spoken language. From the time of the Qin Dynasty onwards, a standard written language (at first Classical Chinese and later Vernacular Chinese) has always been in place to bridge the diverge ... Including:

• Chinese written language - Written standards
• Chinese written language - Transcending intelligibility of speech
• Chinese written language - Chinese characters
• Chinese written language - Character forms
• Chinese written language - Writing direction

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China listen ▶ (help·info) (Traditional: 中國; Simplified: 中国; Hanyu Pinyin: Zhōngguó; Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo) refers to a number of states and cultures that have existed and are viewed as having succeeded one another in continental East Asia, dating back nearly 5,000 years. Modern China has been described as both a single civilization and multiple civilizations, as a single state or multiple states, ... Including:

• China - Terminology
• China - Zhongguo
• China - China
• China - History
• China - Chinese Pre-history
• China - Political history
• China - Territory
• China - Historical overview
• China - Historical political divisions
• China - Geography and climate
• China - Society
• China - Demographics
• China - Culture
• China - Religion
• China - Arts scholarship and literature
• China - Science and technology
• China - Miscellaneous topics

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Wenyan is distinguished from baihua by the use of different lexical items (i.e., vocabulary) and a style that appears extremely concise and compact to modern Chinese speakers. For example, wenyan rarely uses words composed of two Chinese characters; nearly all words are of one syllable only. This stands directly in contrast with modern Chinese dialects where two-syllable words are normal and very common. There is also a greater number of pronouns present relative to the modern vernacular. In particular, whereas Mandarin ...

Read more here: » Classical Chinese: Encyclopedia II - Classical Chinese - Grammar and Lexicon

One can classify Chinese writing into the following basic types: Wenyan (文言) (Classical Chinese) Baihua (白話/白话) (Vernacular Chinese) Written colloquial Chinese (in particular, written colloquial Cantonese) Poems and other Chinese constrained writings The relationship between the Chinese spoken and written languages is complex. This complexity is compounded by the fact that the numerous variations of spoken Chinese have gone through centuries of evolution since at least the late-Han Dynasty. However, w ...

Read more here: » Chinese written language: Encyclopedia II - Chinese written language - Written standards

A more or less similar interaction takes place between a creole language which lacks prestige, and its more prestigious relative. The relationship between Gullah and African American Vernacular English on the one hand, and standard American English on the other, is a good example of this. Some speakers can glide throughout the continuum depending on the subject and the context. There are many other examples throughout the world. ...

Read more here: » Dialect continuum: Encyclopedia II - Dialect continuum - Creole

While the terms Classical Chinese and Literary Chinese are commonly used interchangeably, this is not strictly accurate. Sinologists generally agree that they are in fact different things. By most academic definitions, Classical Chinese (古文, Pinyin Gǔwén, "Ancient Writing"; or more literally 古典漢語 Gǔdiǎn Hànyǔ "Classical Chinese") refers to the written language of China from the Zhou Dynasty, and especially the Spring and Autumn Period, through the end of the Han Dynasty. Classical Chinese is therefore the language used in m ...

Read more here: » Classical Chinese: Encyclopedia II - Classical Chinese - Definitions

Known for centuries as pornographic material and banned officially most of the time, the book is nevertheless surreptitiously read by many of the educated class. Only quite recently is it re-evaluated as literature. The story contains a surprising number of descriptions of sexual toys and coital techniques that would be considered fetish today as well as a large amount of bawdy jokes and oblique sexual euphemisms. Structurally taut, full of classical Chinese poetry and surprisingly mature even as early fiction, it also deals with larger soci ...

Read more here: » Jin Ping Mei: Encyclopedia II - Jin Ping Mei - Evaluation