People in ancient China spoke ancient Chinese.

Broadly speaking, all languages ??used by the Han people before the May 4th Movement can be regarded as ancient Chinese. Ancient Chinese is divided into two forms: written language and spoken language. Since the spoken language of ancient people can no longer be heard today, the ancient Chinese we often refer to only refers to the written language. The written form of ancient Chinese has a history of more than 3,000 years from the beginning of written records to the May 4th Movement. Generally speaking, ancient Chinese can be divided into four periods: ancient times, ancient times, medieval times, and modern times. Ancient times refers to the Yin and Shang dynasties, ancient times refers to the Zhou, Qin and Han dynasties, middle antiquity refers to the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui, Tang and Song dynasties, and modern times refers to the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.

1 Historical evolution

Classical Chinese

The ancient Chinese written language formed based on the spoken language of the Pre-Qin Dynasty, as well as the works written in this kind of writing by later generations.

It is generally believed that in ancient times, spoken language and written language were very close. "Poetry" and "The Analects of Confucius" are relatively close to ancient spoken language. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, written language and spoken language gradually separated. After the ancient written language was finalized, all generations have been writing in this language. The essayists of the Tang, Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties wrote in this classical language.

Ancient Vernacular

The Ancient Vernacular is based on Northern dialect.

After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, some colloquial texts have appeared in some works, such as Liu Yiqing's "Shishuoxinyu" and so on. The real rise of ancient vernacular was in the Tang and Song Dynasties, such as the Bianwen and Zen quotations of the Tang Dynasty. The emergence of scripts in the Song Dynasty marked the formal formation of ancient vernacular. These ancient vernaculars are the source of modern Chinese.

In addition, Wu, Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka and Chaoshan dialects are known as language fossils. Even today we retain much of the same grammar and pronunciation as the ancient language.

Pingjiang dialect

Pingjiang dialect is the oldest Chinese language inheritance in China. This is the surprising discovery made by Yueyang Evening News reporter Chen Tianwei.

China's language phonology is divided into three major streams, one is Yayan, the other is Zhongyuan Zhengyin, and the third is Mandarin.

Yayan was formed in the Western Zhou Dynasty and is based on the dialect of the capital Wangji, that is, "Xiayu". It is the earliest written Chinese language and the synonym for ***, and is the common language of the ancient Chinese. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when the feudal lords were separated, Yayan became the official language for communication between the vassal states. If an official could not speak Yayan or could not speak it well, he had to bring a "Xiang Xu" (translator) who could speak standard Yayan when he went on a mission. This was not only the case in official interactions, but also in elegant Chinese when literati gave lectures. Confucius said to his students: "Poetry, writing, and etiquette are all written in elegant language." (The Analects of Confucius). Confucius used Lu dialect in daily life, but used Yayan when reciting poems and participating in sacrifices. The development of education has promoted the promotion of Yayan, making it gradually become the most common synonym for communication in all walks of life.

According to the description of Yayan in my country's first phonology monograph "Qie Yun", it can be confirmed that the main characteristics of Yayan's phonology are: a complete set of fully voiced stops and fully voiced sassafras, and tongue It has a leaf sound; there is no raised tongue sound; it has a complete set of nasal finals and stop finals; it has flat, up, going, and entering tones.

Due to the frequent civil wars and disasters in the north, and the long-term rule of ethnic minorities in the north, especially in the late Tang Dynasty to avoid war, most Han people moved south, and the Yayan phonetic system gradually moved south to Jiangxi and Hunan. When the Southern Tang Dynasty fell, They migrated to Shaoguan and the Pearl River Basin, and then continued to migrate to Guangdong and Guangxi on both sides of the Pearl River Basin in the late Song Dynasties.

In Mandarin and major northern dialects, and in the areas north of the Yangtze River Basin, the phonological characteristics of Yayan can no longer be found. Among the seven major dialects in China, Cantonese carries the most of the above Yayan. key elements in .

The conclusion that everyone in the language community agrees with is: Cantonese is the successor of Yayan, and Hakka is the successor of Zhongyuan dialect; Mandarin (Mandarin, Mandarin) mostly comes from ethnic minorities, and Xiangwu dialect is the true southern Chinese ( Inherited from Changsha dialect). Gan, Hakka, Fujian, and Cantonese are all variants of ancient northern dialects that migrated southward.

Comparing the above key elements, it can be confirmed that Pingjiang dialect and Cantonese are of the same family. This is why we find in life that Cantonese people can understand Pingjiang dialect.

It is different from the native Southern Chinese (Changsha dialect) in Hunan. Pingjiang dialect is a branch of the ancient Chinese language that was retained in Pingjiang as the Han nationality migrated south. Due to its geographical location north of the Cantonese-speaking area, according to the migration patterns of our ancestors , every time they migrate to a place that is suitable for survival, they stop leaving, and the latecomers continue to migrate. Therefore, it can be inferred that the Pingjiang group of Han people migrated earlier than the formation period of Cantonese, and they were an earlier group that migrated south. It can be proved that Pingjiang The dialect belongs to the Chinese language heritage that is closer to the ancient elegant dialect than Cantonese.

Pingjiang dialect is a precious linguistic and cultural heritage passed down from our ancestors and a living fossil of ancient Chinese in China. Chen Tianwei suggested that Yueyang City or Pingjiang County set up a relevant research group to organize efforts to further verify this conclusion and declare Pingjiang dialect as an intangible cultural heritage.

2 Start researching

No modern person has ever heard the "ancients" speak, especially the pronunciation of the ancients. Because Chinese does not have the characteristics of phonetic notation, it is difficult for us to find historical materials to infer. Ancient Chinese. But in fact, linguists can always tell you how to pronounce this word in ancient times and how to pronounce that word in ancient times. How do Chinese linguists find traces of ancient Chinese? Dialect is a good entry point. From an academic sense, dialect is indeed a "living fossil" for ancient language research. The "gene" of ancient Chinese is everywhere in the various dialects in northern and southern China.

Exotic Dialects

How the ancients spoke is a very interesting topic and a difficult question to answer. But there are ways to get closer to the "final answer." One way is to judge based on existing historical data. There are some texts that record how ancient people spoke. Through the earliest oracle bone inscriptions, scholars can access the Chinese language of 3,000 years ago. Later, the unique "pronunciation dictionary" of Chinese appeared, that is, rhyme books and rhyme pictures. This is a specialized work by the ancients on classifying Chinese phonetics, such as "Qie Yun", "Ji Yun", "Guang Yun", etc. Ancient Chinese did not have a phonetic notation system. They used fanqie method to mark the pronunciation of Chinese. For example, the word "东" can be annotated as "德红奇", which means that the pronunciation of the word "东" is made up of "德" and "红". The ancients would also arrange words with the same rhyme together to form a "rhyme". When the pronunciations of Chinese characters are plotted in a set of tables, it becomes a "rhyme map". Readers can find the words they need to check based on the initial consonants and finals. Traditional rhyme books and rhyme pictures are very important. Linguists can not only find the secrets of ancient Chinese pronunciation, but also compare them with today's language. However, rhyme books appeared after the Six Dynasties and rhyme pictures after the late Tang Dynasty, and there are not many records of spoken language.

Another important method is called "exotic dialect". In ancient China, cultural exchanges with foreign countries were very frequent, and Chinese greatly influenced the languages ??of many other countries, such as Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, these languages ??"borrowed" a large number of Chinese character pronunciations from Chinese. For example, "Yu" and "Yu", "Ying" and "Ying", "Yi" and "Yi" recorded in "Guangyun" all have different pronunciations. Today, these distinctions have disappeared in almost all Chinese dialects, but remain in Vietnamese. Through this method of "exporting to domestic sales", we can learn about the pronunciation of ancient Chinese.

Old Chinese was also influenced by "borrowed words" from foreign words. Before the Tang Dynasty, "India" was translated as "shendu" or "Tianzhu". From this, we can understand the pronunciation of the two characters "Zhu" and "Du" at that time. near. Similarly, "Buddha" was originally translated as "Buddha" and "Buddha", and later translated as "Buddha" and "Buddha". It can be seen that the concepts of "Tu" and "Tu" in the Han Dynasty were no longer used after the Tang Dynasty. Pronounce da, and change to another word "Tuo" that was pronounced da at that time.

However, without contemporary living evidence of dialects, the effectiveness of these two methods will be greatly reduced. Comparing borrowed words, the pronunciation of Mandarin, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean has undergone many changes. Only by combining it with Chinese dialects for "comparison between modern and ancient times" can we truly find the ancient pronunciation.

“Linguistics is very similar to biology. The differentiation of language is like the differentiation of biology, with a close and distant relationship.” said Wang Hongzhi, a doctor of linguistics at the Linguistics Institute of Shanghai Normal University. People cannot know the true appearance of ancient languages, but they can make assumptions about ancient languages ??through research and comparison at different levels. In the world of linguistics, this is called "construction." Just as ancient creatures can be restored through fossils, linguists can also "reconstruct" lost languages ??through dialects.

Chinese Division

On the Chinese map, a straight line 3,000 kilometers long can be drawn from Harbin to Kunming. To the west and north of the straight line, there is a vast northern dialect area. Within this area, at least four regions and eight divisions can be divided (according to the "Chinese Language Atlas"). However, people born in different places in this dialect area do not have much difficulty in basic communication. The internal grammar of Northern dialect is basically the same, and the differences in vocabulary are also similar. This area accounts for three-quarters of the Chinese-speaking area and accommodates 70% of the Chinese population. Therefore, Northern dialect has become the synonym of the Han nationality and the basic dialect of Mandarin. For a long time, Northern dialect has existed as official dialect. To the east and south of this straight line, the situation suddenly becomes complicated, and the dialects vary greatly from place to place.

In the past 600 years, Chinese has developed seven major regional dialects: Northern dialect, Wu dialect, Xiang dialect, Gan dialect, Hakka dialect, Cantonese dialect, and Min dialect. The latter six dialects are mainly concentrated in southeastern China, and they all retain many elements of ancient Chinese. "Now it is assumed that the southern dialect retains more of the old sounds of the Sui and Tang Dynasties." Wang Hongzhi said.

Old Chinese in the medieval period had the entry tone, and the pronunciation of the entry tone was short. In Mandarin, the entrance tone has completely disappeared, but in Cantonese, Wu, and Hokkien, it is still completely preserved. For example, "十" is pronounced shi in Mandarin, sap in Cantonese, and sip in Hokkien. The syllables still retain the rapid occlusion. A sense of frustration.

Cantonese is a southern dialect that is relatively close to ancient Chinese, especially medieval Chinese. For example, it has many monosyllabic words, which are similar to expressions in ancient Chinese. While there are many words with the word "子" in Mandarin, there are very few words ending in "子" in Cantonese. " Shoes " means shoes, and " Box " means boxes. Hou Xingquan gave an example. In the pre-Qin Dynasty, "running" was called "walking" and "walking" was called "walking". In today's Cantonese dialect, "walking" is still called "walking". Wang Ping, a professor at the School of Liberal Arts of Suzhou University, also gave an example. There are many short entrance sounds in Song poems such as "Man Jiang Hong". If you read it in Cantonese, you can appreciate its unique style.

Southern Dialects

However, Cantonese is not the only "living fossil" of ancient Chinese. Many dialects in southern China retain the genes of ancient Chinese. "Just like the descendants passed down from an ancestor, some have noses like the ancestors and some have ears like the ancestors. Only when these characteristics are combined can it be possible to describe the general appearance of the ancestors," Wang Ping said.

Although Cantonese has the most complete preservation of the entering tone, in Wu dialect, the ancient voiced tone is the most complete. Most of the words in Wu and Fujian are monosyllabic words similar to ancient Chinese, such as "eyes", which is called "eyes" in the Fujian dialect, and "stand" in the Wu dialect is called "standing". Some ancient poems do not rhyme when read in Mandarin, but they rhyme well in Wu dialect. Wang Ping gave an example: "The stone path on the Hanshan Mountain in the distance is slanted, and the frost leaves are as red as the flowers in February. In Mandarin, 'Xie' and 'Hua' do not rhyme, but in Suzhou dialect, 'Xie' is pronounced as 'Xia', and it can rhyme." "In Changzhou dialect, the entry part of ancient Chinese is relatively intact. For example, in the ancient poem "Thousands of mountains, birds fly away, and thousands of people disappear. A lone boat and a man in a coir raincoat fishing alone fishing for snow in the cold river." Among them, "Jue", "Mie", and "Xue" all have rhymes in Changzhou dialect, so the whole The end of the sentence will appear extremely short and depressing in pronunciation, fully reflecting the author's sad and depressed mood.

Some of the white pronunciation elements in the Fujian language directly inherit the initial consonant system of ancient Chinese and have not experienced the phonetic evolution in the medieval period. It retains a big difference between Medieval Chinese and Ancient Chinese. It does not have the labial and dental initial consonant f. For example, the word "fen" is not pronounced "fen" in Hokkien dialect, but "pun". In addition, the southern Fujian dialect also completely retains the nasal and race-sounding endings in the ancient pronunciation.

The same sound type is aspirated in Beijing dialect, but it is pronounced as voiced in Wu dialect as in ancient times. This situation can be confirmed by the rhyme diagram of Yun Shu. There are some ancient words that have disappeared in Mandarin but are still well preserved in Wu dialect. For example, the word "bu" is still pronounced as "wu" in Wu dialect, "wash" is pronounced as "汏" or "清", and "stepmother" It is pronounced as "wanniang", "twenty" is pronounced as "twenty", and "shou" is pronounced as "a few"... Wu language still retains many elements of ancient Baiyue language.

In Xiang dialect, the ancient voiced sound system is completely preserved, such as f and hu being mixed together, and nasalization of vowels is very common.

Hakka also retains many ancient sounds. Among them, there are no voiced initial consonants such as dz, v, etc., only the affricates ts, s, etc., so "zhi" is pronounced as "low" and "worthy" is pronounced as "worthy" , there is no r pronunciation yet, so "you" is pronounced as "ru", and "ru" is pronounced as "neng". In Hakka dialect, there is a habit of retaining a large number of "ye" suffixes at the end of sentences. Ancient Chinese had a word-formation method of overlapping verbs, which can still be seen in today's Hakka language.

Different dialects in the South record different periods like the rings of a tree. "Wu dialect has the pronunciation of the early period, while Cantonese has the pronunciation of the next era. Through horizontal comparison, we can also get the historical sequence." Hou Xingquan said.

Northern dialects

Even the northern dialects, which have relatively uniform characteristics and change rapidly, also have many ancient dialects. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius preached in various places and spoke a kind of "elegant language", which was a popular Mandarin at that time. Some scholars believe that the "elegant language" spoken by Confucius was a common language used to spread knowledge at that time. The language is based on Luoyang pronunciation, because Luoyang was the core of the Central Plains region at that time. However, Wang Hongzhi said that since Zhou Gong Ji Dan established the Zhou Dynasty, Luoyang has always been considered a city in the world. Luoyang dialect has always been inherited from the same source, and was once regarded as the standard "study pronunciation" in Chinese history. However, there is a lack of historical data and it remains to be determined how different the "Luoyang sound" at that time was from other places.

Beijing dialect is also very old, but there are still many differences in the academic circles about the origin of old Beijing dialect. Some scholars believe that the bottom layer of Beijing dialect is Manchu, but more scholars agree with the view that Beijing dialect comes from the Northeast. Judging from the timeline, many scholars believe that the pronunciation of Beijing dialect is similar to that of the Central Plains during the Yuan Dynasty. Some even believe that the origin of Beijing dialect can be pushed back to the earlier Liao and Jin dynasties. Scholars from Peking University and Capital Normal University are exploring the roots of old Beijing dialect through field investigations in the Northeast region.

Among the northern dialects, Jin dialect is a relatively unique dialect. It retains many ancient factors. For example, it retains the entering tone like the Jianghuai area. In addition, there are also some ancient lexical and grammatical elements. Hou Xingquan said that there is still a lot of controversy in the study of Shanxi dialect. Some people think that it is different from Northern dialect and should be an independent dialect. But he believes that although Shanxi dialect still retains many ancient elements, it is not ancient enough to be independent.

Even Mandarin has traces of ancient pronunciation. Wang Ping introduced that in Mandarin, "jin" and "jing" are front nasal sounds and back nasal sounds respectively. Today, these two sounds are indistinguishable in the Yangtze River Basin, but Mandarin still retains the ancient characteristics. "People in every place are proud of their dialects, but we must have a comprehensive view. Every dialect is ancient, and no dialect is better." Wang Ping said.

“Every dialect has a shadow of ancient Chinese.” Wang Hongzhi said. In the system of evolutionary biology, all organisms have a common ancestor, and the process of species differentiation can be shown through an evolutionary tree. The same thing may happen with language.