Classical Chinese (wenyan 文言)

Classical Chinese (wenyan 文言 or gudai Hanyu 古代漢語, meaning "old Chinese") is the written language that developed during the late Warring States period 戰國 (5th cent.-221 BCE) and remained in use as a written form until the early 20th century. Many traces of the classical language can still be observed in modern written Chinese.

The written Classical Chinese already exhibited differences from the everyday spoken language during the 4th and 5th centuries. The influence of the vernacular language altered the original classical style of Chinese in both vocabulary and grammar. It was particularly the vernacular language of northern China that impacted the written classical language. Nevertheless, as a standard written language (shumianyu 書面語), it remained relatively unchanged until 1919.

The plain language of the people was called baihua 白話, or simply kouyu 口語, meaning "spoken language". In 1919, the May Fourth Movement's (wusi yundong 五四運動) literary revolution ended the exclusive use of Classical Chinese as the written form. The difference between a language that is two thousand years old and modern Chinese (xiandai Hanyu 現代漢語) is immense, despite the ongoing changes in classical written language influenced by spoken language.

The written language of the Song 宋 (960-1279) and Tang 唐 (618-907) periods differs from that of the Han period 漢 (206 BC-220 CE), and even the latter varies from the "proper" classical language of the hundred philosophical schools. The tendency to preserve the classical language may stem from a general desire to retain features from antiquity. This is also evident in the relatively consistent pattern of state administration and the pseudo-legal fixation of all aspects under Heaven.

While the ancient simplicity in language is a feature common with spoken language, the elaborate, verse-rich, and rhythmic sentences (pianwen 駢文), which were very common during the first half of the first millennium, are entirely different from the directness of vernacular language. This style was regarded as overly elaborate and unnatural during the late Tang period, leading writers to return to the simple classical style of antiquity. From the Song period onwards, writers began using the vernacular language (gu baihua 古白話 "old plain language") for certain types of written texts, such as collections of sayings (yulu 語錄), stories (pinghua 平話), theatre plays (xiqu 戲曲), or novels (xiaoshuo 小說).

The most important differences between Classical Chinese and modern Chinese are that while modern Chinese is largely a disyllabic language, Classical Chinese is much more monosyllabic, especially during the formative "classical" period of antiquity (for example, ri 日 "sun" instead of the modern taiyang 太陽 or mu 目 "eye" instead of the modern word yanjing 眼睛). Another very common feature of Classical Chinese is that words can change their grammatical category (cilei huoyong 詞類活用), such as mu 目 "eye", which can become a verb meaning "to give somebody a glance", or the noun lin 林 "forest", which can become a predicate adjunct with the meaning of "like a forest, manyfold".

Numerative measure words (liangci 量詞), which are very common in modern Chinese, are almost absent in Classical Chinese. For example, yi che 一車 means "one cart," instead of the modern yi liang che 一輛車, meaning "one vehicle of cart." Objects can be placed before the predicate in cases of negation, as seen in bu ji zhi 不己知, meaning "[I] do not know myself," instead of bu zhi ji 不知己, where "not" (adverb), "know" (verb), and "self" (object) are separated. Sentences often omit the subject, a phenomenon known as ellipsis, such as in Confucius' phrase bu huai ren zhi bu ji zhi 不患人之不己知，患不知人也, meaning "[It is not the fact] that [I] do not fear that people do not know me, but that [I] do not know people." Within the same sentence, a noteworthy feature of Classical Chinese is the nominalisation of phrases. The markers of nominalisation are the particles zhi 之 (typically a possessive or genitive particle) and ye 也 (generally an equalising particle).

Although the use of Classical Chinese was given up after 1919, heavy traces of it can still be seen in formal written language, but also in newspaper language.