Ancient Official Language

The official language of China today is Mandarin, which is based on Beijing dialect. This tradition of China's official language probably began in the Yuan Dynasty. But what was the official language of China before the Yuan Dynasty? We have almost no exact historical records now.

The establishment of a unified society in China began during the Qin Dynasty, but historical records show that the Qin Dynasty only unified the written language, the so-called "Book of the Same Language," but not the language. Until today, the dialects of different parts of China are very different, which is also a historical relic. Before the Qin Dynasty, we have reason to believe that the official languages of the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties should have been relatively unified, but during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, each independent kingdom basically had its own independent official language. Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, Qin, plus Wu and Yue, etc., the official languages of the various dynasties should have been different.

So what was the official language of the central court after the Qin dynasty, after the establishment of a unified centralized government? According to common sense, the official language of the Qin Dynasty should probably be some kind of language based on the Shaanxi and Xianyang dialects. Xi'an, as an ancient historical capital, was the seat of the central government for a long time in Chinese history, so it is reasonable to assume that the official language of the Chinese government before the Yuan dynasty would have been Shaanxi, or Xi'an, dialect.

The reason why I want to talk about this is because when we study ancient Chinese poetry, we come across a problem. Ancient Chinese poetry is very much about meter and leveling, so what kind of language was this meter and leveling formulated according to? In other words, in what language should Li Bai's poems be recited to be more in line with the meter and the level and oblique? Today, when we recite the poems of LI Bai and DU Fu, we use Putonghua without exception. However, in the Tang Dynasty, when LI Bai asked Gao Li Si to take off his boots for him and then recite a poem for him, what language did he use? When we pronounce the word "reading" in today's Mandarin, it is pronounced exactly the same as "chopping down a tree" in Shaanxi. So, when the Tang Dynasty people wrote down the word "chopping down trees," when we pronounce it today, should we pronounce it as "chopping down trees" or "reading books" in Mandarin? Although this distinction does not seem to make much difference to us today when we read ancient texts and poems, it is very important when we study the meter of ancient poems.

Su Dongpo of the Song Dynasty was very famous for his poetry, and Su Dongpo was a Sichuanese, and I have heard Su Dongpo's poems read in Sichuanese, and they are very flavorful, no less so than if they were read in today's Mandarin. However, can we be sure that the phonetics of Su Dongpo's poems follow the pronunciation of Sichuanese? There doesn't seem to be a good reason.

There was another poet in the Song dynasty named Zhou Dunyi, who wrote about the lotus flower, "which is not stained by mud. Historical records say that Zhou Dunyi's poetry was the best in terms of language and meter. Today, when we read Zhou Dunyi's works in Putonghua, this feeling is not obvious. By the so-called matching of language and meter, a modern example can be cited to give you an idea. The famous composer Gu Jianfen has a song called "The Little Girl in the Mushroom". Gu said that when she composed this song, she basically recited the lyrics and found the musical melody in the tone of the recitation. When we sing this song, "the little girl who picks mushrooms carries a big basket on her back" is really very close to the recitation, which is one of the reasons why this song is so catchy. It is a pity that many lyricists and composers nowadays do not quite understand this. Returning to the question of Zhou Dunyi, the ancients commented on Zhou Dunyi, saying that his poetry was the closest and most in line with the rhythm, and that it was difficult for us to feel it in today's Mandarin, so perhaps a reasonable explanation is that the most suitable language for Zhou Dunyi's poetry may not be today's Mandarin.

As an academic study of linguistics, the Chinese language has had two events in history in which standardized phonetics were formulated on a large scale, one in the Han Dynasty and one in the Song Dynasty. However, the phonetic norms of those times still seem vague today. For example, the Han Dynasty's Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字), a commentary on the sounds of words, does not seem precise enough today. For example, according to the main phonetic rules of Shuowen Jiezi, the pronunciation of the character "刘" can be annotated as "李楼切", which means that the consonant of "李" is the same as that of "楼", and the consonant of "李" is the same as that of "楼". This means that the consonant of "李" is tangent to the vowel of "楼". However, it seems that "六" can also be pronounced in this way. Of course, a more suitable pronunciation for "六" might be "李漏切", but when we don't know "李", "楼", "漏 However, when we do not know the standard pronunciation of "李", "楼" and "漏", how can we get the accurate pronunciation of "刘" and "六"? The phonetic system of Shuowen Jiezi is, to a certain extent, a cycle. You can only master the pronunciation of "李、楼、漏" before you can master the pronunciation of "刘、六", but to master the pronunciation of "李、楼、漏" you also have to master the pronunciation of "李、楼、漏" and "刘、六". However, in order to master the pronunciation of "Li, Lou, Leak", you have to master the pronunciation of other words first. This cyclical situation of phonetic notation lacks the standardized process of today's elementary school students learning phonetic symbols first. The same "Li Lou Che", when read in Putonghua, and when read in Sichuan, and when read in Cantonese, will yield different results, thus making it difficult to achieve the effect of standardizing the pronunciation of the language. As far as linguists are concerned, many of the phenomena in ancient literature that do not conform to the phonetics are often summarized by a simple explanation - the ancient pronunciation is different from today's. I think the real reason is that the ancient pronunciation is different from today's pronunciation. And I think the real reason is the difference between the official language of antiquity and the official language of today.

Without recording equipment, there seems to be less of a necessary basis for exploring the pronunciation of the official languages of antiquity. Still, there are remnants of the language that are available for study today.

In linguistics, there is a phenomenon called "linguistic islands". For example, the Hangzhou dialect. People who are familiar with the dialects of Jiangsu and Zhejiang will know that Hangzhou dialect is special in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and it is quite different from the dialects of the neighboring areas, and the most notable feature is that it has a lot of "paedophonic" sounds. The most notable feature is that there are a lot of "paedophonic" sounds. "Paedophonic" sounds in Hangzhou dialect are in fact an important feature of the northern languages, and the "paedophonic" sounds in Hangzhou dialect are in fact a result of the fact that during the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou (Lin'an), as the capital city of the Southern Song Dynasty, had a large number of northern noblemen represented by the royal family. The northern language became the official language of Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty, seriously affecting the language of the local people, which made the language of Hangzhou city differ greatly from the language of the neighboring areas. Due to the tendency of tilting the language towards the official language, the "childish sounds" in Hangzhou dialect are even more prominent and emphasized than those in the northern dialect, such as "棍儿", "袋儿", etc. In Hangzhou dialect, the "childish sounds" are more prominent and emphasized than those in the northern dialect. In Hangzhou dialect, the pronunciation of the word "儿" is very prominent, which is a bit intentionally emphasized. Besides, Nanjing dialect also has this tendency. Because I believe that even after Zhu Yuanzhang ascended to the throne, he still spoke his northern Jiangsu dialect, and even many of his close ministers were from northern Jiangsu, so the official language of the court in the early Ming Dynasty should have been northern Jiangsu dialect. It was only when Zhu Di, the first Ming emperor, moved the capital to Beijing that Beijing dialect became the official language of the court. As the accompanying capital of Nanjing, the government institutions, a large number of northern officials to watch over the old age, the northern language naturally also greatly affected the local language of Nanjing.

There is another kind of Hakka and Hakka dialect, which is more common in the southern region. The so-called Hakka people are foreigners who moved into the south en masse many years ago due to the war in the north and other reasons, and to this day, the Hakka language is still very different from the local language. It is reasonable to believe that the Hakka dialect has preserved a large number of pronunciations of the northern dialect of those years. Perhaps, when studying the migration pattern of the Hakka people and the current language heritage, it is possible to find many traces of the ancient language. Even if it is not the Hakka dialect, but only the current southern dialect, the pronunciation of the ancient language is also preserved in large quantities. For example, the word "衣裳" is seldom used in modern Mandarin, but it was often used in the Tang and Song dynasties, and to this day, the word "衣服" is hardly used in the dialects of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and most of the words are still "衣裳". "The pronunciation of "衣裳" in the dialect is not the same as in Mandarin, so can we say that the pronunciation of "衣裳" in the dialect is closer to the ancient pronunciation?

Another point of reference is the languages of neighboring countries, especially Japan. The Japanese language is closely related to the Chinese language and script from the writing to the pronunciation. However, the Japanese language was formed roughly during the Tang Dynasty in China, so it is likely that the pronunciation of the Japanese language has retained some of the language of the Tang Dynasty. It has even been studied that the pronunciation of Japanese is closer to the language spoken in the area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang during the Tang Dynasty.

All in all, little research has been done on the official languages of ancient China for a long time. Although it is not a major topic, it is useful for the study of Chinese poetry and folk theater. I have an unfinished serial on my blog, A Thoughtful Mouth, the first half of which is about "eating" and the second half is about "speaking", but of course, due to time constraints, I haven't finished writing about this idle topic. When we sing the song, we basically read the lyrics and find the musical melody in the tone of the reading. When we sing this song, "the little girl who picks mushrooms carries a big basket on her back" is really very close to the recitation, which is one of the reasons why this song is so catchy. It is a pity that many lyricists and composers nowadays do not quite understand this. Returning to the question of Zhou Dunyi, the ancients commented on Zhou Dunyi, saying that his poetry was the closest and most in line with the rhythm, and that it was difficult for us to feel it in today's Mandarin, so perhaps a reasonable explanation is that the most suitable language for Zhou Dunyi's poetry may not be today's Mandarin.

As an academic study of linguistics, the Chinese language has had two events in history in which standardized phonetics were formulated on a large scale, one in the Han Dynasty and one in the Song Dynasty. However, the phonetic norms of those times still seem vague today. For example, the Han Dynasty's Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字), a commentary on the sounds of words, does not seem precise enough today. For example, according to the main phonetic rules of Shuowen Jiezi, the pronunciation of the character "刘" can be annotated as "李楼切", which means that the consonant of "李" is the same as that of "楼", and the consonant of "李" is the same as that of "楼". This means that the consonant of "李" is tangent to the vowel of "楼". However, it seems that "六" can also be pronounced in this way. Of course, a more suitable pronunciation for "六" might be "李漏切", but when we don't know "李", "楼", "漏 However, when we do not know the standard pronunciation of "李", "楼" and "漏", how can we get the accurate pronunciation of "刘" and "六"? The phonetic system of Shuowen Jiezi is, to a certain extent, a cycle. You can only master the pronunciation of "李、楼、漏" before you can master the pronunciation of "刘、六", but to master the pronunciation of "李、楼、漏" you also have to master the pronunciation of "李、楼、漏" and "刘、六". However, in order to master the pronunciation of "Li, Lou, Leak", you have to master the pronunciation of other words first. This cyclical situation of phonetic notation lacks the standardized process of today's elementary school students learning phonetic symbols first. The same "Li Lou Che", when read in Putonghua, and when read in Sichuan, and when read in Cantonese, will yield different results, thus making it difficult to achieve the effect of standardizing the pronunciation of the language. As far as linguists are concerned, many of the phenomena in ancient literature that do not conform to the phonetics are often summarized by a simple explanation - the ancient pronunciation is different from today's. I think the real reason is that the ancient pronunciation is different from today's pronunciation. And I think the real reason is the difference between the official language of antiquity and the official language of today.

Without recording equipment, there seems to be less of a necessary basis for exploring the pronunciation of the official languages of antiquity. Still, there are remnants of the language that are available for study today.

In linguistics, there is a phenomenon called "linguistic islands". For example, the Hangzhou dialect. People who are familiar with the dialects of Jiangsu and Zhejiang will know that Hangzhou dialect is special in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and it is quite different from the dialects of the neighboring areas, and the most notable feature is that it has a lot of "paedophonic" sounds. The most notable feature is that there are a lot of "paedophonic" sounds. "Paedophonic" sounds in Hangzhou dialect are in fact an important feature of the northern languages, and the "paedophonic" sounds in Hangzhou dialect are in fact a result of the fact that during the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou (Lin'an), as the capital city of the Southern Song Dynasty, had a large number of northern noblemen represented by the royal family. The northern language became the official language of Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty, seriously affecting the language of the local people, which made the language of Hangzhou city differ greatly from the language of the neighboring areas. Due to the tendency of tilting the language towards the official language, the "childish sounds" in Hangzhou dialect are even more prominent and emphasized than those in the northern dialect, such as "棍儿", "袋儿", etc. In Hangzhou dialect, the "childish sounds" are more prominent and emphasized than those in the northern dialect. In Hangzhou dialect, the pronunciation of the word "儿" is very prominent, which is a bit intentionally emphasized. Besides, Nanjing dialect also has this tendency. Because I believe that even after Zhu Yuanzhang ascended to the throne, he still spoke his northern Jiangsu dialect, and even many of his close ministers were from northern Jiangsu, so the official language of the court in the early Ming Dynasty should have been northern Jiangsu dialect. It was only when Zhu Di, the first Ming emperor, moved the capital to Beijing that Beijing dialect became the official language of the court. As the accompanying capital of Nanjing, government institutions, a large number of northern officials to guard the old age, the northern language naturally also greatly affected the local language of Nanjing.

There is another kind of Hakka and Hakka dialect, which is more common in the southern region. The so-called Hakka people are foreigners who moved into the south en masse many years ago due to the war in the north and other reasons, and to this day, the Hakka language is still very different from the local language. It is reasonable to believe that the Hakka dialect has preserved a large number of pronunciations of the northern dialect of those years. Perhaps, when studying the migration pattern of the Hakka people and the current language heritage, it is possible to find many traces of the ancient language. Even if it is not the Hakka dialect, but only the current southern dialect, the pronunciation of the ancient language is also preserved in large quantities. For example, the word "衣裳" is seldom used in modern Mandarin, but it was often used in the Tang and Song dynasties, and to this day, the word "衣服" is hardly used in the dialects of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and most of the words are still "衣裳". "The pronunciation of "衣裳" in the dialect is not the same as in Mandarin, so can we say that the pronunciation of "衣裳" in the dialect is closer to the ancient pronunciation?

Another point of reference is the languages of neighboring countries, especially Japan. The Japanese language is closely related to the Chinese language and script from the writing to the pronunciation. However, the Japanese language was formed roughly during the Tang Dynasty in China, so it is likely that the pronunciation of the Japanese language has retained some of the language of the Tang Dynasty. It has even been studied that the pronunciation of Japanese is closer to the language spoken in the area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang during the Tang Dynasty.

All in all, little research has been done on the official languages of ancient China for a long time. Although it is not a major topic, it is useful for the study of Chinese poetry and folk theater. I have an unfinished serial on my blog, A Thoughtful Mouth, the first half of which is about eating, and the second half is about speaking, but of course, due to time constraints, I haven't finished writing about this idle topic yet.