Literary Chinese

文言文

Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese(文言文）is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of Zhou Dynasty Chinese, making it very different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Classical Chinese was once used for almost all formal correspondence before the 20th century, not only in China but also in Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Among Chinese speakers, classical Chinese has been largely replaced by Vernacular¹ Chinese (白话），a style of writing that is closer to modern spoken Chinese, while speakers of non-Chinese languages have largely abandoned Classical Chinese in favor of local vernaculars².

中国古典文学或中国文言文是写中文的一个传统风格，以周代的语法和词汇为基础，与中国的任何现代口语的形式有很大不同。文言文在20世纪前曾被用于几乎所有的正式信函，不仅在中国，而且在韩国，越南和日本也是如此。在中国演讲，古文已经在很大程度上被白话文取代，写作的风格更接近现代的口语，非汉语的人已基本放弃了古文，喜欢当地的方言。

Literary Chinese is the form of written Chinese used from the end of the Han Dynasty to the early 20th century when it was replaced by vernacular written Chinese. Literary Chinese diverged³ more and more from Classical Chinese as the languages of China became more and more disparate and as the Classical written language became less and less representative of the spoken language. At the same time, Literary Chinese was based largely upon the Classical language, and writers frequently borrowed Classical language into their Literary writings. Literary Chinese therefore shows a great deal of similarity to Classical Chinese, even though the similarity decreased over the centuries.

从汉代末年到20世纪初，文言文是汉语书写的一种格式，20世纪初它被中国方言所取代。中国文学分歧越来越多，中国的语言变得越来越不同，经典的书面语言变得越来越少，以口语为代表。与此同时，中国文学主要是根据于古典语言，作者经常借用古文到他们的文学作品中。因此，文学汉语与文言文显示出极大的相似性，即使已经过了数百年相似性降低了。