Classical Chinese
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Classical Chinese (古文, Pinyin: gǔ wén, "ancient text") is the language of the classic literature from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through to the end of the Han Dynasty, a written form of Old Chinese. The term is also used for Literary Chinese (文言文 wényán wén, "text of written language"), a traditional style of written Chinese modelled on the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Literary Chinese was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century, and also, during various periods, in Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Among Chinese speakers, Literary Chinese has been largely replaced by written vernacular Chinese, a style of writing that is similar to modern spoken Mandarin Chinese, while speakers of non-Chinese languages have largely abandoned Literary Chinese in favor of local vernaculars.
Literary Chinese is known as kanbun in Japanese, hanmun in Korean, and Hán văn in Vietnamese (From 漢文 in all three cases; pinyin: hànwén, "Han writing").
See also
- Chinese language
- Classical Chinese grammar
- Classical Chinese poetry
- Classical Chinese Wikipedia
- Classical Chinese writers
- Sino-Japanese vocabulary
- Sino-Korean vocabulary
- Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary
