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Vernacular Chinese
*** Shopping-Tip: Vernacular Chinese
'''Vernacular Chinese''' ({{zh-tspw|t=白話|s=白� |p=''báihuà ''|w=''paihua''}}, literally meaning ''"plain language"'') is a style or
register (linguistics) register of the
written Chinese language essentially modeled after the
Mandarin (linguistics) spoken language and associated with
Standard Mandarin. This term is not to be confused with the various present-day
vernacular Chinese spoken language spoken varieties of Chinese. Since the early
20th century twentieth century, Vernacular Chinese has been the standard of writing for speakers of all varieties of
Chinese spoken language spoken Chinese throughout
China, succeeding
Classical Chinese, the former
written language written standard used in
China since the time of
Confucius. The term '''Standard Written Chinese''' now often refers to Vernacular Chinese.
During the
Zhou Dynasty,
Old Chinese was the spoken and written form of Chinese, and was used to write classical Chinese texts. Starting from the
Qin Dynasty, however, spoken Chinese began to evolve away from the written standard, as is the case in the history of many languages, and the written standard, still based on the Old Chinese of the
Zhou Dynasty, was codified and fossilized into
Classical Chinese, even as the spoken language evolved further and further away. The difference gradually grew larger with the passage of time. By the time of the
Tang Dynasty Tang and
Song Dynasty Song dynasties, people began to write in their vernacular dialects in the form of ''bianwen'' (变文 [變文] ''bià nwén'', "altered language") and ''yulu'' (语录 [語錄] ''yǔlù'', "language record"), and the spoken language was completely distinct from the still-maintained written standard of Classical Chinese. Those not educated in Classical Chinese—almost the entirety of the population—could understand only very little of the language. During the
Ming Dynasty Ming and
Qing Dynasty Qing dynasties, vernacular dialects began to be used in novels, but were not generally used in formal writing, which continued to use Classical Chinese.
Jin Shengtan, who edited several
novels in vernacular Chinese, is widely regarded as the pioneering champion of
literature in the vernacular style. However, it was not until after the
May Fourth Movement in
1919 and the promotion by
scholars and
intellectuals such as
Hu Shi,
Lu Xun,
Chen Duxiu, and
Qian Xuantong that Vernacular Chinese, or ''Bai hua'', gained widespread importance. Classical Chinese became increasingly viewed as an archaic fossil hindering education and literacy, and, many suggested, social and national progress. The works of Lu Xun and other writers of fiction and non-fiction did much to advance this view. Vernacular Chinese soon came to be became 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 that used in
Western world Western languages (traditional Chinese literature was entirely unpunctuated), and the use of
Arabic numerals.
Since the late 1920s, nearly all Chinese
newspapers,
books, and
official and
legal documents have been written in Vernacular Chinese. However, the tone/
register (linguistics) register and the choice of
vocabulary may be formal or informal, depending on the context. Generally, the more formal the register of Vernacular Chinese, the greater the resemblance to
Classical Chinese. Since the transition, it has been, however, extremely rare for a text to be written in predominantly Classical Chinese. Only educated speakers have full reading comprehension of Classical texts, and very few are able to write proficiently in Classical Chinese.
See '''
Chinese grammar''' for the grammar of the modern standard written language, which is Vernacular Chinese.
Some other vernacular variants of Chinese, notably
Cantonese (linguistics) Cantonese,
Shanghai dialect Shanghainese and
Min Nan Hokkien / Taiwanese (Min Nan), utilize particular forms of the Chinese writing system, including additional and adapted
Chinese character characters, for writing texts that reflect the language as spoken. Unlike Vernacular Chinese, these written forms have not been standardized and are used in informal contexts only. They are most commonly used in
advertisement commercial advertisements and
legal records to accurately record dialogue and colloquial expressions.
{{Chinese language}}
Category:Chinese language
Category:Logographic writing systems
zh:白话文
de:Baihua
*** Shopping-Tip: Vernacular Chinese
