Even as a native Mandarin Chinese speaker, I find some aspects of Chinese literature particularly difficult to understand or interpret. And no, I do not mean the 4 Great Classical Novels or the 四大名著 which are Water Margin or 水滸傳, Romance of the Three Kingdoms or 三國演義, Journey to the West or 西游記, and Dream of the Red Chamber or 紅樓夢. What I am referring to is the literary language commonly found in certain genres such as Tang poetry or 唐詩. Perhaps the one I still remember the most is the 靜夜思 or Quiet Night Thought by the poet Li Bai. The Qing dynasty version that I am most familiar with goes like:

床前明月光
疑是地上霜
舉頭望明月
低頭思故鄉

Or when translated, it roughly means (literally)

Before my bed lies a pool of moonlight
I could imagine that it’s frost on the ground
I look up and see the bright shining moon
Bowing my head I am thinking of home

As you can somewhat see, there are some instances of figurative speech used, and a rather abbreviated manner of expressing such ideas. While Classical Chinese texts are still taught and studied today, they can still be quite difficult to understand because they deviate quite heavily from the written vernacular predominantly used by speakers. So today, I want to take a little dive into the strange world of Classical Chinese, and explore what makes it so weird.

Classical Chinese dates back to the 5th century BCE during the Spring and Autumn period to around the end of the Han dynasty in 220 CE, and Literary Chinese is the form of written Chinese used thereafter before being replaced by vernacular written Chinese. While linguists, anthropologists, and sinologists prefer to distinguish these terms used because of the periods of their respective usage, many people use it interchangeably, even your trusty online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Nevertheless, over time, Classical and Literary Chinese have developed into a separate register of writing amongst a sea of regional vernacular varieties of Chinese, much like how Classical Latin had branches of vernacular varieties that later developed into the Romance languages. These separate registers is what is known as a diglossia. For purposes of this post, we will use Classical Chinese and Literary Chinese quite interchangeably, particularly to illustrate some influences of this register of Chinese in modern day contexts.

The first notable difference is how concise Classical Chinese appears. Words comprising two (or more) Chinese characters are rarely used, instead, words with only one character or syllable are preferentially used. For instance, to say “to run” in modern Chinese would be 跑步 or 奔跑, but in Classical Chinese it could be just 奔 or 走, as in 兔走觸株, 折頸而死 (literally, a rabbit runs into a tree, breaks its neck and dies), which is part of a essay by Han Fei that gave rise to the 4-word idiom 守株待兔 (waiting for a rabbit [to run into a tree]).

The primary reason for this difference is the rise of homophones among words as the sounds of Chinese evolved. There are an extremely limited number of syllables that are possible in modern Chinese, which meant that a single syllable uttered could mean many possible things. This necessitated compounding, which gives further clarity or disambiguation between otherwise identically-sounding words. In classical or literary contexts with no need for this clarity, the preference for single-syllable words still dominates. Even so, function words and particles in Classical Chinese can adopt multiple meanings, some of which we will look at later.

Secondly, you would notice that there are considerably more pronouns than what you normally encounter in everyday spoken or written Chinese. But because Classical Chinese does not distinguish number in some pronouns, this could introduce a little bit of ambiguity. Additionally, there is not really a defined way of expressing the third-person personal pronoun (he, she, it, they) as a subject in Classical Chinese. 他, 她, or 它, the counterparts in modern Chinese, were just simply not used or had different meanings and usages. For instance, 他 (but pronounced differently) and 它 have been used to mean “other”, which in modern Chinese would be translated as 其他. Take a look at the differences in personal pronouns between modern and Classical / Literary Chinese:

English	Classical / Literary Chinese	Modern Chinese
I / we	吾, 我, 余, 予, 朕, 臣 (humble)	我 (們)
you	爾, 汝/女, 而, 若, [子]	你 (們), 您
he / she / it / they	之 (accusative), 其 (genitive) 彼 (distal demonstrative) 是 (anaphoric demonstrative)	他 (們), 她 (們), 它 (們)

There also seems to be a distinction in particular honorific speech, which often takes place in master-subordinate interactions. I have seen this being uttered in some medieval Chinese drama shows, where the servant or concubine would use 臣 (servant) to mean “I” when talking to their master or superior, and 子 to mean “you” in a similar context.

Thirdly, some words, even when they exist as single character in modern Chinese, have a different way of expression in Classical Chinese. One of the most commonly used examples is the verb “to say”, which is normally 說 in modern Chinese. But many Classical or Literary Chinese texts used 曰 instead. This is not to be confused with the word 日 which means “sun” or “day”. Another example is the word for dog, 狗 in modern Chinese, but 犬 in Classical Chinese.

For some words, you might find them strangely similar to the Japanese kanji counterparts. The most prominent example is 何, which translates as “what”, “why”, and “how” in Classical Chinese. This was also the kanji adopted in Japanese for “what”, but read as nan(i) in kun’yomi and ka in on’yomi. “Why” is sometimes translated as 何故 in Japanese, read as naze. This corresponds to the Classical Chinese characters 何故 which directly translates to “what cause”, which is pretty much what “why” means. However, “why” is expressed as 何, 奚, or 胡 in Classical Chinese.

Lastly, the copula or the verb “to be” simply just does not exist the same way as in modern Chinese. In modern Chinese, the copula that sort of functions as the verb to be is 是, but was originally as a resumptive pronoun that repeats a topic in a later clause. How this copula works to express that “something is something” is with the particle 也, which comes after two noun phrases. This 也 is thus known as the “stative” particle. It states what the first noun phrase is. For example, 滕小國也 means that “Teng is a minor state”.

How else was the copula expressed? There were two additional primary patterns, which were 非 for the negative, and 為 for the positive. If these particles were used, the final particle 也 would be optional. For example, ” who are you” would be 你是誰 in modern Chinese, but, for example. 子為誰 in Classical Chinese. 子非我 would mean “you are not me”.

Today, Classical Chinese can still be regularly found every day in certain contexts such as idiomatic expressions. This includes Chengyu or 成語, a type of proverb predominantly occurring as four characters in length. It is an interesting and diverse category of idiomatic or proverbial expressions, which can number more than 5000 by the strictest of definitions.

Interestingly, Literary Chinese continued to be used in government documents in the Republic of China or Taiwan until reforms occurred in the 1970s that transitioned the written style used towards the written vernacular version. Legal jargon in Taiwan still continues to use some forms of Literary Chinese, and so people pursuing law there are still required to learn Literary Chinese.

The influence of Classical and Literary Chinese extends far beyond China’s borders. Countries that have received strong Chinese influence like Japan, the Koreas, and Vietnam have some expressions, idioms, and proverbs that derive from Classical Chinese expressions today. Some notable examples also showed the origins of some kanji used in Japanese when Chinese characters were introduced to Japan. And historically, formal documents in these countries were written using Classical or Literary Chinese. But today, apart from the idiomatic expressions, most of the historical influences of this version of Chinese is found predominantly in literature.

Overall, learning Classical Chinese felt like relearning an entire language. Not only were the methods used to express similar grammatical patterns different, the words and particles used to do so differed to some degree as well. But what I learned from it was the contexts that birthed some idiomatic and proverbial expressions, including the fable from which 守株待兔 originated. It is an interesting branch of the Chinese language that is worth learning for any literature enthusiasts or language enthusiasts, who want to explore a little bit more into the origins of some expressions, or appreciate the historical or classical poetry and literature of China.