Written vernacular Chinese

This article is about the vernacular Chinese languages as written. For the spoken languages, see varieties of Chinese.

Written vernacular Chinese
Traditional Chinese	白話文
Simplified Chinese	白话文
Hanyu Pinyin	báihuàwén
Literal meaning	plain speech writing
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin báihuàwén Bopomofo ㄅㄞˊㄏㄨㄚˋㄨㄣˊ Wade–Giles pai2-hua4 wen2 Wu Romanization bah入 gho去 ven Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization baahk wá màn Jyutping baak6 waa2/6 man4 Southern Min Hokkien POJ pe̍h-oē bûn

The early modern period saw the first significant development of baihua novels. Jin Shengtan, who edited several vernacular novels in the 17th century, is widely regarded as a pioneer of vernacular Chinese literature. His vernacular edition of the classic novel Water Margin greatly raised the status of vernacular novels. During the late Qing, activists like Liang Qichao argued for the simplicity of baihua and its utility for increasing literacy rates. However, it was not until after the 1919 May Fourth Movement and the promotion of vernacular writing by scholars and intellectuals such as reformer Hu Shih, writers Chen Hengzhe, Lu Xun, and Qian Xuantong, as well as the revolutionary Chen Duxiu, that vernacular Chinese gained widespread importance. In particular, Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q is generally accepted as the first modern work to fully utilize vernacular language. ^[8]

During this period, baihua literature is also considered to be ideologically progressive. ^[9] On one hand, reformers aggressively debated over the use of loanwords and the ideology of literature and public acceptance of new genres, ^[10] while the consensus became clear that the imposition of Literary Chinese was a hindrance to education and literacy, and ultimately social progress within China. The works of Lu Xun and others 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 what was used in Western languages (traditional Chinese literature used almost no punctuation), and the use of Arabic numerals. Following the 1911 Revolution, successive governments continuously carried out a progressive and national education system to include primary and secondary education. All the curricula were in vernacular Chinese. Prolific writers such as Lu Xun and Bing Xin published popular works and appeared in literary journals of the day, which also published essays and reviews providing a theoretical background for the vernacular writing, such as Lu's "Diary of a Madman", which provoked a spirited debate in contemporary journals. Systematic education, talented authors and an active scholastic community closely affiliated with the education system all contributed to the establishment of the vernacular written language in a short amount of time.

Since the late 1920s, nearly all Chinese newspapers, books, and official and legal documents have been written in vernacular Standard Chinese. However, the tone or register and the choice of vocabulary may have been formal or informal, depending on the context. Generally, the more formal the register of vernacular Chinese, the greater the resemblance to Classical Chinese; modern writing lies on a continuum between the two. Since the transition, it has been extremely rare for a text to be written predominantly in Classical Chinese. Until the 1970s, the legal code of the Republic of China was written in Classical Chinese, though in a form replete with modern expressions and constructions that would have been foreign to ancient writers. Similarly, until the end of the 20th century, men of letters, especially in Taiwan, exchanged personal letters using Classical Chinese stock phrases for openings, greetings, and closings, and using vernacular Chinese (albeit heavily influenced by the Classical language) for the body. Nevertheless, only well-educated individuals in modern times have full reading comprehension of Classical texts, and very few are able to write proficiently in Classical Chinese. Presently, the ability to read some Classical Chinese is taught using familiar character forms: simplified throughout mainland China, and traditional in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. In the latter, Tang poetry is taught starting from elementary school and classical prose taught throughout lower and upper secondary schools.^{[ citation needed ]}

Though it is rare to encounter fully Literary texts in modern times, it is just as rare to see texts of a considerable length only employ colloquial Chinese resources and exclude all Literary constructions and vocabulary. Despite initial intentions on the part of reformers to create a written language that closely mirrors the colloquial Mandarin dialects and to expunge classical influences from the language for the sake of modernization, it became clear to users of the new written standard that the admixture of a certain proportion of Literary grammatical constructions and vocabulary into baihuawen was unavoidable and serves as an important means of conveying tone and register. Thus, for the vernacular language used in official settings like academic and literary works or government communications (e.g. in academic papers, textbooks, political speeches, and legal codes), a small number of stock classical constructions and vocabulary items continue to be employed and are subject to additional related requirements relating to classical prosody and parallelism. The use of these structures is a characteristic of formal registers of baihuawen and distinguishes the formal modern language from conversational baihuawen on the one hand and fully Literary on the other hand. Though clearly dependent on context and on the personal preferences of the author, analyses of typical 20th-century essays and speeches have yielded a ratio of formal to informal expressions of around 2:3, or 40%. ^[11] Even in informal personal communications otherwise composed entirely in the vernacular, classical words and usages may still appear every so often. In particular, chengyu are used by writers and speakers of all education levels in a variety of contexts.

Variation

Multiple regional varieties of written written vernacular Chinese exist:

• China uses Simplified Chinese and a set of lexicon and grammar associated with Putonghua, regulated by the National Language Regulating Committee  [ zh ].
• Taiwanese Mandarin has important differences from Putonghua in terms of vocabulary. It is written in Traditional Chinese characters and is regulated by the National Languages Committee.
• Hong Kong written Chinese differs from other forms of written Chinese in terms of vocabulary and grammar. It is written in Traditional characters. ^[12] It is not standardized and is associated with a phonology derived from Cantonese. ^[13]
• Singaporean Mandarin and Malaysian Mandarin are written using Simplified characters. They are regulated by Promote Mandarin Council and Chinese Language Standardisation Council, respectively.

Other Chinese varieties

Main articles: Written Cantonese and Written Hokkien

There is also literature written in Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Taiwanese Hokkien, which uses additional characters to record the different vocabulary present in these varieties. Efforts to standardize their written forms include the Taiwanese Southern Min Recommended Characters. They are most commonly used in advertisements and court records of dialogue and colloquial expressions. They are often mixed with Literary and modern Standard vocabulary.

See also

• Modern Chinese characters
• Chinese literature
• Chinese poetry

• China portal
• Language portal

References

1. "The centuries-old three-way opposition between classical written Chinese, vernacular written Chinese, and vernacular spoken Chinese represents an instance of diglossia." (Jacob Mey, Concise encyclopedia of pragmatics, Elsevier, 1998:221. ISBN   978-0-08-042992-2.)
2. Yang, Shiqun (2007). 中国新闻传播史 (in Chinese). Beijing daxue chubanshe. ISBN   978-7-301-12603-5. OCLC   214302907.
3. DeFrancis, John (March 1986). The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN   978-0-8248-4030-3. OCLC   1253313569.
4. Jin, Yuan (2009). "The origin of the Westernized vernacular Chinese baihuawen: A re-evaluation of the influence of Western missionaries on Chinese literature". Frontiers of Literary Studies in China. 3 (2): 247–269. doi:10.1007/s11702-009-0011-z. ISSN   1673-7318.
5. "Before and After the May Fourth Movement". afe.easia.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-30.
6. "One country, two systems". The Economist. ISSN   0013-0613 . Retrieved 2023-04-30.
7. Zhong, Yurou (12 November 2019). Chinese grammatology script revolution and Chinese literary modernity, 1916-1958. Columbia University Press. ISBN   978-0-231-54989-9. OCLC   1098217857.
8. Luo, Jing (2004). Over a Cup of Tea: An Introduction to Chinese Life and Culture. University Press of America. ISBN   0-7618-2937-7.
9. Deng, Wei (March 2009). 试论晚清白话文运动的文化逻辑. Dongyue Tribune. 30 (3) – via EBSCO.
10. Liu, Bannong (1 May 1917). 我之文学改良观. 新青年 (in Chinese). 3 (3) – via Dacheng Data.
11. Feng, Shengli (2009). "On Modern Written Chinese" 論现代漢語書面語. Journal of Chinese Linguistics. 37 (1): 145–162. ISSN   0091-3723. JSTOR   23753618.
12. 石, 定栩; 王, 冬梅 (2006). "香港汉语书面语的语法特点" (PDF). 中国语文. 2: 118. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
13. Lee, Siu-lun (2023). The Learning and Teaching of Cantonese as a Second Language. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. ISBN   978-1-000-88989-5.

Further reading

• Weng, Jeffrey (2020), Vernacular Language Movement, Oxford Bibliographies, Oxford University Press
• Weng, Jeffrey (2018). "What Is Mandarin? The Social Project of Language Standardization in Early Republican China". The Journal of Asian Studies. 77 (3): 611–633. doi:10.1017/S0021911818000487.