Old Chinese

Encyclopedia : O : OL : OLD : Old Chinese

Old Chinese (formerly called Archaic Chinese) (Simplified Chinese: }}}; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ), refers to the Chinese spoken during the Zhou Dynasty (10th century BC – 256 BC). The term is usually used in Historical Chinese phonology, which tries to reconstruct the way in which Old Chinese was pronounced.

Since Old Chinese was the language spoken by Chinese when classical works such as the Analects of Confucius, the Mencius, and the Tao Te Ching were written, Old Chinese was preserved for the next two millennia in the form of Classical Chinese, a style of written Chinese that emulates the grammar and vocabulary of Old Chinese as presented in those works. Classical Chinese was for two millennia the usual language used for official purposes in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. However, there is great variation within Classical Chinese, based mainly on when something was written, and the Classical Chinese of more recent writers, as well as that found outside of China, would probably be difficult for someone from Confucius's era to understand.

The phonology of Old Chinese was imperfectly preserved in Classical Chinese, because the way the Chinese writing system indicates pronunciation is much less clear than the way an alphabet shows it. As a result, the pronunciation of Old Chinese can only be tentatively reconstructed, and is unknown outside academic circles.

Phonology

For the pronunciation of Classical Chinese, see Classical Chinese: Pronunciation

There is much dispute over the precise way in which Old Chinese was pronounced. In recent decades it is generally agreed that Old Chinese had consonant clusters such as mr- and -ts, which do not occur in any modern Chinese dialect. However, whether Old Chinese was a tonal language is still a highly controversial subject: some scholars suggest that the tones of Middle Chinese (and therefore modern spoken Chinese) evolved from consonants in Old Chinese that have since changed or disappeared.

Grammar

See Classical Chinese: Grammar

Chinese: spoken varieties

Categories:

Gan | Hakka | Hui | Jin | Mandarin | Min | Ping | Xiang | Wu | Cantonese
Danzhouhua | Shaozhou Tuhua

Subcategories of Min:

Subcategories of Mandarin:

Note: The above is only one classification scheme among many.
The categories in italics are not universally acknowledged to be independent categories.

Comprehensive list of Chinese dialects

Official spoken varieties:

Standard Mandarin | Standard Cantonese

Historical phonology:

Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner

Chinese: written varieties

Official written varieties:

Classical Chinese | Vernacular Chinese

Other varieties:

Written Vernacular Cantonese

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