User:Lda1e7/Written vernacular Chinese

Background History

During the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC), Old Chinese was the spoken and written form of Chinese, and was used to write classical Chinese texts. Starting from the Qin (221 BC), however, spoken Chinese began to evolve faster than written. The difference grew larger with the passage of time. By the time of the Tang and Song dynasties (618–1279), people began to write in their vernacular dialects in the form of biànwén and yǔlù (Chinese: 語錄; pinyin: yǔlù; lit. 'language record'),^{[citation needed]} and the spoken language was completely distinct from the still-maintained written standard of classical Chinese (wenyanwen). The majority of the population, not educated in classical Chinese, could understand very little of written or printed texts. Literacy in classical Chinese became synonymous with higher education, and because of the difficulty associated with mastering the form and writing characters themselves, reformers in the 20th Century would later go on to support language reform, such as vernacularization and simplification of characters, to make literacy and education more accessible. During the Ming and Qing (1368–1912), vernacular language began to be used in novels, but formal writing continued to use classical Chinese except for a few late Qing Baihua Newspapers were initialized either by major agencies and local pioneers.

It would not be until the 20th Century that political activists and supporters of language reform would attempt to vernacularize the Chinese language, or replace the formal written language with a spoken form (modern Mandarin, which is based off of a vernacular Beijing dialect), as part of comprehensive language reform that would include debate on replacing characters with an alphabet, simplifying characters, and expanding vernacular vocabulary with technical terms that would allow Mandarin to be used in formal contexts with a vocabulary suited to modern times, and with the theory that formal Chinese language would be more accessible to the general public, which activists hoped would increase literacy and education in China.

Foreign Influence and Controversies

Written Vernacular Chinese was also popularized in support with the western missionaries that were coming to China in the 19^th century. Missionaries wrote stories, poems, essays and other works in this new form of language in order to spread their message. This started as early as around the 1840s and lasted until 1949. This early form of Baihuawen was mainly in Europeanized vernacular written language. This was different from the old first version of Baihuawen. At first, there was a lot of confusion as to what the message was, and with most of the western ideas being presented to a Chinese audience, there was also a lot of pushback and confusion. But with more work and more popularity, Baihuawen became more and more popular and mainstream. The missionaries not only retained some of the original stylistics of the text, but included Chinese stylistics as well. In the end, this could be called a marriage between western languages and Chinese languages, making Baihuawen as known today.

Some points that have not been considered by others and that should be considered going into the future is that this western influence is often looked over, and not recorded well within history. This could be deemed due to the intentions of the New Literature Movement, who wanted to keep their movement domestic, and not have foreign influence and credit. The western missionaries should get their credit for the influence that they had on this language movement, but at the same time, this history is not entirely clear and is still being discovered, so there needs to be room for discussion.

Lower Yangtze Mandarin formed the standard for written vernacular Chinese until it was displaced by the Beijing dialect in the late Qing. This Baihua (白话) was used by writers all over China regardless of the dialect they spoke. Chinese writers who spoke other dialects had to use the grammar and vocabulary of Lower Yangtze and Beijing Mandarin to make their writing understandable to the majority of Chinese. While making it more difficult for writers who spoke other dialects to master, this standard written vernacular had the effect of standardizing written Chinese language use across the country, which had been previously, throughout Chinese history and until the 20th Century language reforms, the role played by classical Chinese, and which was also a goal of later 20th and 21st supporters of reformed language with the standardized written vernacular. After the May Fourth Movement, baihuawen (白话文) became the normal written form of Chinese. While the phonology of Modern Standard Chinese is based on that of Beijing, its grammar is officially based on the exemplary works of vernacular literature, which excludes certain colloquial or 'extreme' forms while incorporating some constructions from Classical Chinese (see below). Similarly, the vocabulary of Written Vernacular Chinese discards the majority of slang terms from the Beijing dialect while absorbing some literary and/or archaic words from Classical Chinese, as well as foreign loanwords and a small number of regionalisms from other major dialect groups.

Some argue that the creation of one dominant written vernacular is the result of China’s strong relationship with cultural and political unity. China has had many eras of widespread unification, such as under the Mongols in the thirteenth century. This potentially laid the sociocultural groundwork for a dominant written vernacular such as baihuawen to emerge and be adopted. Similarly, the Chinese Communist Party had a vested interest in linguistic unity when it came to written vernacular. This might be seen in how part of the rationale for the divestment from western alphabets is its tendency to spur novel written vernacular.

History of Vernacular Language Reform in the 20th Century

Mandarin tone marks in pinyin. Mandarin Chinese has four tones, plus one neutral tone.

Classical Chinese writing from the 20th Century.

The turn of the century in China, which was characterized in part by events such as the overthrow of the Qing dynasty (China's last imperial dynasty) in 1911, the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, the May Fourth Movement in 1919 and New Culture Movement, and the establishment People's Republic of China in 1949, was also in large part characterized by efforts at language reform. Many of the first language reformers of this period were associated with the New Culture Movement, which began around 1916 due to anti-imperialist and anti-traditionalist sentiments which boiled over during the May Fourth Movement, and which also promoted concepts like republicanism and democracy.

"Mandarin" written in traditional Chinese, followed by simplified Chinese, followed by pinyin and other systems of phonetic romanization

These sentiments inspired a movement to democratize language and replace classical Chinese with a written vernacular. Some of the most important proponents of vernacularization were Mao Zedong and renowned writer Lu Xun. This was at first before the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, which occurred in 1921, although some of the most outspoken and radical language reform activists were communists.

There was significant debate among reformers on what steps to language reform should be taken, and how far reform should go. The central component was vernacularization, but questions such as the extent to which the written vernacular should borrow elements from classical Chinese and whether Chinese characters should be replaced by an alphabet or another kind of writing system were hotly debated.Mao, Lu, and the more radical activists at first argued for replacing characters with a phonetic writing system, which they believed would more easily facilitate a switch from classical Chinese to vernacular language in writing. However, as it became increasingly clear that the Communists were winning the Chinese Civil War and would have control over mainland China, a change occurred in thinking at the top of the Chinese Communist Party.The official goal became to first simplify characters, then to possibly transition to a romanized phonetic writing system over time. The precise history of why and how this happens remains obscure, and the extent of the role that Chairman Mao Zedong played in the change of policy is not known. However, it has been suggested that Communist leadership wanted to preserve the cultural heritage of Chinese characters, while also encouraging increased literacy among the Chinese people. It has even been suggested that Mao acted to preserve characters at the encouragement of Joseph Stalin, so that China would maintain a domestic writing system and the linguistic heritage attached to it. An eventual switch from Chinese characters to pinyin, a domestically-perfected romanized phonetic writing system, was indefinitely postponed to the point that it remains a complementary system to simplified characters, which is the dominant writing system in contemporary mainland China.

Literature in vernacular Mandarin and the modern written language[edit]

See also: Chinese grammar

The Ming and Qing dynasties first saw significant development of Baihua Novels. Jin Shengtan, who commented Baihua novel shuǐhǔ zhuàn, greatly raised the status of vernacular novels and therefore is regarded as the pioneer of literature in the vernacular style in the 17^th century.

In late Qing, some activists like Liang Qichao argued for the simpleness and utility of Baihua for raising national literacy and further legitimize that Baihua in written form. However, it was not until after the May Fourth Movement in 1919 and the promotion by scholars and intellectuals such as pragmatist reformer Hu Shih, pioneering writer Chen Hengzhe, leftist Lu Xun, Chen Duxiu, and leftist Qian Xuantong that vernacular Chinese, or Bai hua, gained widespread importance. During this period, Baihua literature is viewed as ideologically progressive in additional to the functionality claimed by Liang Qichao. On the one hand, these language reformers aggressively debate over borrowed word, ideology of literature and public acceptance of new genres; on the other hand they increasingly reached an agreement that Classical Chinese was hindering education and literacy, and, many suggested, social and national progress. The works of Lu Xun and other writers of fiction and nonfiction did much to advance this view. Vernacular Chinese soon came to be viewed as mainstream by most people.