Classical Chinese and Hokkien

[hong]

http://mfeng.51.net/wtjd14.htm The new rules by putonghua in china is not accepted by Taiwanese mandarin.

[Aurelio]

Hi everybody!

Thanks, Hong, for the examples. And yes, you're right, I meant lu2 = ru3.

I find it rather sad to see that the wen-pronunciation is disappearing in dalu China. There goes another piece of cultural sophistication ... From what I read at Sheik's Cantonese forum, Cantonese has the same distinction between bai and wen pronunciations. At the same time, they do also have the tonal distinction to differentiate two words with closely related meanings. So, in theory, you could have four pronunciations for the same character - tone I and tone II (sometimes with slightly different initials) for different meanings/ grammatical functions and then bai and wen pronunciation for each of these (guess that hardly ever happens in reality, that you'd get all four options, I mean).

I wouldn't be surprised if both these features - tonal change for word formation and bai/ wen opposition - were present in most or all Chinese fangyan ... As for the bai/ wen opposition: I find it very hard to believe that 'Classical Chinese was never spoken', a statement I've read many times, almost a staple of (popular?) sinology ... if it was never spoken, why would all the Chinese fangyan go through the trouble of preserving a 'literary pronunciation' solely created, it seems, to be able to pronounce Classical Chinese? But I'm leaving Hokkien territory here.

Regards,
Aurelio

[%sig%]

[hong]

There are books saying some smaller dialects are without baidu,so they just borrow it from bigger dialects which are nearest to them
I think all classical chinese languages are spoken in china but the phrase for thier sentences are not the same in books for each period.The vocabulary is the same as the books at that time.In Tang dynasy,the kings speak in chang an language .In eastern Han period,the kings l speak in LuoYang language

[hong]

sorry,I should some are without wendu.

[hong]

I borrow an old dict from my friend about 蜀
a 2100 years book called 方言= 蜀,一也,南楚谓之独
In fuzhou it is also mean one but the pronunciation is closer to putonghua-shuo

[hong]

In here hanzi zhi 禃 as tsit as one which is mentioned by Prod.Chiu's article.see proverb no.3
www.fjsq.gov.cn/ShowText.asp?ToBook=27&index=57&

[hong]

I just read Kalgren's book saying that Zhou and Qin period writing and daily speech are the same at that period.He used books at that period as the topic for his research 国语 and 左传
But 郭锡良 from china said we can even see that in western han period daily speech and writings are still the same

[Aurelio]

Hi Hong!

Guess that Karlgren is right. In other words, my observation is that all written languages start out as a slightly refined version of the spoken language and then become more and more separated from it over time while people change the way they speak, but not the way they write. One day, then, comes the big bang and people switch to writing the 'spoken language' again and the process starts all over. When you look e.g. at hieroglyphic Egyptian you can see this happen several times.

I wonder how Sinologists came up with this 'I believe that classical Chinese was never a spoken language' theory ... that just doesn't make sense to me ...

Regards,
Aurelio

[hong]

www.rwfd.fudan.edu.cn/xueshu/zhuanjia/gudai.html

[1234567890]

[] ai-LIN vs. simmih-LANG []

What is 'Ai-lin' in Character?

[]In here hanzi zhi 禃 as tsit as one which is mentioned by Prod.Chiu's article.see proverb no.3 []
I believe that 'tsit' is from Tibetan-like langauge..


[]I wonder how Sinologists came up with this 'I believe that classical Chinese was never a spoken language' theory ... that just doesn't make sense to me ... []

Perhaps Old Chinese did not write particles etc. that is necessary to make speeches..