Mashi wentong 馬氏文通

Mashi wentong 馬氏文通 "Master Ma's linguistic overview" is the oldest Chinese grammar. It was compiled by Ma Jianzhong 馬建忠 (1845-1900) and was published in 1898 by the Shanghai Commercial Press (Shanghai Shangwu Yinshuguan 上海商務印書館). In 1904, a punctuated edition was published by Zhang Xichen 章錫琛 (1889-1969) which was reproduced in 1954 by the Zhonghua Shuju Press 中華書局 and in 1983 by the Commercial Press. Lü Shuxiang 呂叔湘 (1904-1998) and Wang Haifen 王海棻 (1937-2019) compiled a textbook to the Mashi wentong, published in 1986.

Figure 1. Beginning of the Mashi wentong 馬氏文通

First text page of the punctuated 1904(?) edition of the Shanghai Commercial Press, with marginalia and marks by the owner. Copy owned by the Asia-Oriental Institute, Tübingen, Germany.

The Mashi wentong is a grammar for classical Chinese. It is enriched with several thousand examples from ancient literature, including the Confucian Classics, official dynastic histories, and writings of the famous Tang-period 唐 (618-907) scholar Han Yu 韓愈 (768-824). Its grammatical concept follows structures and terms used in Western grammars and tries to adapt those to the very different grammar of Chinese. The 10-juan long book explains grammatical terms (which are often different to modern terms, like yuci 語詞 instead of weiyu 謂語 "verb" or jingzi 靜字 instead of xingrongci 形容詞 "adjective") and the grammar of Classical Chinese with the help of parts of speech or word functions, less from the aspect of syntax. The syntax is treated in the last fascicle.