What is Literary Chinese?

 ANSWER: It is an old form of written Chinese.

Below is the grammar book I am using to teach myself to read modern Chinese. I am currently on page 225, and the last lesson in the book ends on page 337, so I have just a little more than 100 pages to go.

The pronunciations of the Chinese characters in the book are, of course, in Chinese, but I have been adding the Korean pronunciations of the characters as I go along because, at this time, I am not interested in learning the Chinese pronunciations, and one does not need Chinese pronunciations to read Chinese writings.

There are some Chinese words that Koreans do not seem to use, such as 也許 (야허), which can translate as "perhaps" or "probably," but Koreans DO use the Chinese characters that make up the word in other words, so by learning the Chinese word 也許 (야허), I am still learning characters that will help me with my Korean.

I have been studying this book for 3 or 4 weeks straight while ignoring other things that I like to read and study. Why? Because after I get a crazy idea in my head, I need to quickly ride that wave of enthusiasm before it dies out. Surprisingly, even after three or four weeks I am still enthusiastic about learning to read modern Chinese.

I use the phrase "modern Chinese" to distinguish between the way Chinese is written today from the way it was written in the past. Today, the Chinese write pretty much the same way they speak, but in the past, the Chinese had a special way of writing Chinese, a less wordy way, that is referred to as "Literary Chinese." Literary Chinese was meant to be read, not spoken.

When a Chinese person sees an individual Chinese character, he or she usually knows what it means because each character is written differently, but when a Chinese person just hears the pronunciation of an individual character, he or she most likely will not know which character is being pronounced since many Chinese characters have the same pronunciations. That is why spoken Chinese words are typically composed of at least two characters, whose paired pronunciations help the Chinese recognize the spoken word. So, in written Chinese one can convey a meaning with just one character while in spoken Chinese it often takes at least two.

In the past, literary Chinese was a kind of shorthand for spoken Chinese. In the third photo below, you can see the difference between the old style of written Chinese, or "Literary Chinese," and the more modern style, which is based on the spoken language. Both passages are written from top-to-bottom, right-to-left, and both passages tell the same story, but the Literary Chinese version expresses it in fewer characters than the modern Chinese version. That means that in the past you saved ink, paper, and time by writing in literary Chinese. A little over a hundred years ago, many Koreans even wrote in literary Chinese. The following is an example of the difference between the old Literary Chinese style of writing and a more modern style. Notice that the Literary Chinese version is much shorter than the Modern Chinese version.

Literary Chinese 有鴉集庭樹 (유아집정수) There are (有) crows (鴉) gathered (集) [in] a courtyard (庭) tree (樹)

Modern Chinese

有些烏鴉聚在院內樹上 (유사오아취재원내수상) Some (有些) crows (烏鴉) are gathered (聚) in (在) top of a tree in a courtyard (院內樹上).

When Chinese speakers see the character 鴉 (아), they know it means either "crow" or "raven," but to clarify its meaning in spoken Chinese the character for "crow" (烏 오) apparently needs to be pronounced in front of the 鴉 (아) character, forming the word 烏鴉 (오아), which literally means "crow (烏) or raven (鴉)."

Introduction to Literary Chinese, by J. Brandt