General Literary Chinese from Scratch

__notoc__ Welcome to the Wikibook for Literary Chinese (Known as 漢文 "Han Language" in East Asia or 文言 "Literary Language" in China), aimed at individuals hoping to gain a general knowledge of it before progressing into genres they wish to be acquainted with. This is not the Classical Chinese textbook, which is aimed at Chinese Zhou-Qin era texts. This text aims to shed light on post-Zhou-Qin texts across East Asia, which mimic those texts. However, as Zhou-Qin era texts served as the main body from which individuals learned, they are employed here as and when they are considered necessary or otherwise useful. It does so through a "buffet" approach, showering you, the reader, with an ocean of texts of myriad genre. Table of Contents Front matter /Introduction/ /Appendices/ Useful resources These are quick grab-bags that can be useful for vocabulary-building. /Antonym List/ /Collocation Groups/ /Colour Correspondence Table/ /Pronoun Table/ Yan Fu's Qing-era translations for modern terms Communicative Terms Useful primers Across history, many primers have been made for teaching Literary Chinese to children. These are a few that are recommended for use alongside this work, ideally in flashcards. 倉頡篇 - Cangjie's Chapters, the earliest one. It is extant, but incomplete. It contains several rare characters, and so if used, I would personally recommend doing so later, or out of interest. 三字經 - The Three Character Classic, an excellent piece for Confucian education. Pair with 弟子规 for best results. 三字經（太平天國版）- For Christians, there is a version made by Hong Xiuquan from the Taiping Rebellion. Despite the context, it is a legitimately useful primer and can be used to self-teach for the Delegate's Edition of the Christian Bible. 千字文 - The Thousand Character Classic, a remarkable piece of constrained writing that only uses each character once. Amazing for building vocabulary whilst seeing historical allusions and the like. 五字鑑 - The Five-Character Mirror, essentially the 24 Histories of China compressed into a primer. Uses 5-character couplets, the longest in this list. 龍文鞭影 - The Shadow of Longwen's Whip, a historical allusion trainer. Best paired with a context piece. Unit 0: The Han script This unit is intended for those with no familiarity of the Han script. It will prepare you for the units ahead, teaching largely pictographic characters. By the end of this unit, students will: Recognise around 50 characters. Understand how characters are composed and how this gives them meaning. Have a basic idea of how to handwrite and/or type characters using the Cangjie Input Method. Know some bare basics of Literary Chinese grammar (e.g. Basic word order, where adjectives go, lack of "is", 有...) Lessons: /An Introduction to the Han Script/ /People, Big and Small/ /How do we write Chinese?/ /What are Chinese characters, anyway?/ /The Sun, the Moon, and the Five Elements/ /Getting Familiar with Body Parts/ /Using Numbers and Using Weapons/ /Tilling the Fields with 有/ How Characters are Made with Kiyohara no Sanemoto /Cangjie Created Characters/ /The Kangxi Radical System/ Unit 1: Basic Skills This unit is intended for those with minimal familiarity with the Han script and no familiarity with Literary Chinese. There is a focus on simple structures, skills for dissecting common textual structures, and short-form poetry in this unit. Before starting this unit, students should: Recognise around ~30 characters. Can use Cangjie input. Have given Unit 0 a cursory glance. By the end of this unit, students will: Recognise around ~100 characters. Comprehend numbers, the Heavenly Stems, and the Earthly Branches, and be able to use them to quantify time and date. Intuit the basic topic -> comment idea behind Literary Chinese. "This, it is..." Understand basic function words such as 也, 而, 有, and 謂. Lessons: /The All-Purpose 也/ /An Introduction to Chinese Numbers/ /One, Two, Left, and Right with Gongsun Long/ /The Heavenly Stems/ /Tell the Time with Earthly Branches/ /How Much Time, Exactly?/ /Lunar Dates with the Spring and Autumn Annals/ /Scanning for Major Events in Historical Annals/ /Dinner with the Daimyo/ /In Discourse with Jibong/ /How do we Write Height and Weight?/ /Eating like a Zhou Aristocrat/ Unit 2: Myths and Legends of East Asia In this unit, you will be studying some of the ancient myths and legends of East Asia, along with one of your first literary genres: Zhiguai 志怪. These texts happen to be quite easy to read and utilise skills you have already learned. By the end of this Unit, students will: Recognise around 120 more characters. Be able to use function words such as 在, 無, 不, 焉, and 于/於. Understand 里 as a measure of distance. Recognise the switch between 吾/我 in the subject-object positions and demonstrate it in usage. (Chinese speakers) Be able to differentiate 于 and 於, and understand the "interest(ed) in" meaning of 好 in most circumstances. /Exploring the World of Mountains and Seas/ /Oh, the Qilin!/ /The Poison of Zhen/ /Ultimate Justice with Xiezhi/ /The Virtue of the Fenghuang/ /The Entrapment of Hua Po/ /Nüwa Created the World/ Unit 3: Confucianism and the World This is a Confucian-themed unit with a smattering of other items. You will see the odd geography of the past, early linguistic philosophy, and terrifying breakaway states! Lessons: /A Brief Overview of Confucianism/ /Teaching the Annals in Qi/ /Is a White Horse a Horse?/ /The Three Character Classic/ /Expressing Filial Conduct with Confucius and Hara Saihin/ /Confucianism and the Environment with Sai On/ /In Debate with Mencius/ Unit 4: Women's Writing In this unit, women's writing from various areas of China will be explored. This is chiefly targeted at poetry and the themes within; from the feminine voice of the Classic of Poetry to the remonstrance towards the Khitan Emperor Tianzuo of Jin by his Consort Dasese. The role of women in courtly society is to be elucidated here! /An Unmarried Life with Heo Nansŏrhŏn/ /Responding to Lord Trần with Hồ Xuân Hương/ /Gaze into the Autumn Night with Taisei Shōan/ /Visiting a Temple with Yu Xuanji/ /Remonstrance with Dasese/ /The Love Songs of the Odes/ /Rules for Women with Ban Zhao/ /The Tragedy of Cai Wenji/ Unit 5: Food from Across the Ages /A Simple, Rich Fry/ /Song Cuisine with Chen Dasou and Lin Hong/ /Yuan Cuisine with Ni Zan/ /A Feast with Yuan Mei/ /Remembering the Food of Joseon with Hŏ Kyun/ Unit 6: An Overview of Sinitic Poetry This unit will teach you how Sinitic Poetry operates; - that is, the way individuals in the Sinosphere compose poetry in Literary Chinese. Despite this language's fall out of favour in the past century, this tradition is still remarkably alive and well, and their short length makes them more accessible than elaborate prose. In this unit, you will begin from the Classic of Poetry before travelling through poems from the Tang dynasty, Singapore, Japan, Vietnam, the Ryukyu Kingdom, and Korea. When introducing poetry, I will furthermore use the language from the nation it is from to show how it is recited by its people. After discussing the Classic of Poetry, we will also be a small detour into a discussion on Ping-Ze 平仄, the Tang dynasty system of alternating tones, so to produce rhyme on tonal and phonological levels. This had a major impact on Literary Chinese poetry as a whole! Lessons: /Across the Rivers with Emperor Puliuru Guang/ /To Study the Odes/ /A Detour into Orthodox Ping-Ze/ /The Restraint of Du Fu/ /The Longing of Li Bai/ /The Environment with Bukha Timur/ /Pillow Talk with Guan Yunshi/ /Buddhist Philosophy with Ngô Chân Lưu and Taisei Shōan/ /Odes with Mō Taiei and Zheng Chengxun/ /A Golden Cup and the Fall of a Dynasty with Yan Fu/ /On a Journey with Sadula/ Unit 7: Nation Focus - Japan /An Introduction to Kanbun Kundoku/ /The Inariyama Sword/ /Entering Japan with Takeda Shingen/ /The Oldest Inscription in Japan/ /The End of a Rebellion/ /The Diary of Fujiwara no Teika/ /Reading the History of Japan with Prince Toneri/ /A Biographical Painting of Toyotomi Hideyoshi/ Unit 8: Shinto, the Nature Religion /Shinto, Questions and Answers/ /The Way of Shinto with Honda Chikaatsu/ Unit 9: Nation Focus - Korea /Feigned Surrender with Ŭlchi Mundŏk/ /A fu with Yi Kyubo/ /An Elegy to the Empress with Choe Ja/ /Language Reform with Sejong the Great/ /Fall Off Your Horse!/ /The Diary of Yi Sun-Sin/ /Tales from Mount Kumo/ /Pak Chiwŏn Tours the Qing/ /Korea's Three Kingdoms/ /Hwang Yun-seok's Essays/ Unit 10: Christian Literature /A Different Three Character Classic with Hong Xiuquan/ /Friar Juan Cobo's Veritable Record/ /The Delegate's Edition/ /Nestorian Steles during the Tang/ /Hong Xiuquan's Bible/ Unit 11: An Introduction to Daoism /Laozi Explains the Dao/ /Qingtan with Xie Daoyun/ /The Doubting Neighbour/ /Kuafu Chases the Sun/ /The Frog in a Well/ /Wu wei with King Hui of Liang/ /The Old Man that Moves the Mountains/ /Master Zhuang Dreams of Butterflies/ /Master Incapable and the Poisonous Bird/ /Transmitting the Dao with Yelü Chucai/ /The Indifferent Taoist/ Unit 12: Nation Focus - Ryukyu Kingdom /Historical Annals with Sai On/ /The Enthronement of Shō Tei/ /The Twilight of Ryukyu with Shō Ten/ /A Trip to Ryukyu with Luo Sen/ Unit 13: Nation Focus - Singapore /Three Nights in Penang with Gao Chao/ Unit 14: Literary Chinese in Medicine /The Books of the Yellow Emperor/ /Deviant Qi with Zhang Congzheng/ /Anatomy with Sugita Genpaku/ /A Lost Wu Medical Text analysed in Japan/ Unit 15: People Focus - Zhuang peoples /Zhuang poetry with Li Bi/ /The Beauty of Wuyuan with Fang Ju/ /Disaster and Society with Wei Fenghua/ /Who Deserves a Biography?/ Unit 16: People Focus - Tangut peoples Unit 17: Literary Chinese in the Military /Fū! Rin! Ka! Zan!/ /A Bilingual Stele of the Khitans/ /Going to war with Boyan/ /An Edict from the Xianbei/ /The Suppression of the Kingdom of Dongning/ /The Shunzhi Emperor vs Li Zicheng/ /The Art of War/ Unit 18: Nation Focus - Vietnam /Đỗ Pháp Thuận and the Southern Skies/ /Ancestor Veneration with the Descendants of Zhu Xi/ /Resolving a Succession Crisis with Emperor Trần Minh Tông/ /Spreading Revolutionary Consciousness with Phan Bội Châu and Liang Qichao/ /Academia in Literary Chinese between East and West/ Unit 19: Historical Annals and Encyclopediae /An Introduction to Biographical Paintings/ /The History of Liao, Jin, and Song with Toqto'a/ /Two Years in the Forbidden City with Yu Deling/ /Selected Records of the History of the Da Shun/ /Documenting the World with Terajima/ Unit 20: Buddhist Literature /Dipping your feet in with Wenyan Shu/ /Buddhism in Battle Standards/ /The Seven Tathagatas/ /Two Buddhist Temples in Shanghai/ /Foreseeing Monkhood with Yi Xing/ /A Trip to Western Xia with Zhi Guang and Hui Zhen/ /Jizang's Three Discourses/ Unit 21: People Focus - Manchu peoples /Qing dynasty Poetry with Nara Singde/ /Amassing Words with the Kangxi Emperor/ /Amassing Literature with the Qianlong Emperor/ /Paintings and Beauty with Puru Aisin-Gioro/ Unit 22: Qing-RoC Literature /Jewish Refugees in Shanghai/ /A Literary Chinese Abstract/ /Lament with Lu Ruoteng/ /Common Linguistics Knowledge in the RoC/ References used for this page Yang, B. (2016). 文言语法 [Literary Chinese Grammar] (1st ed). 中华书局 [Zhonghua Book Company]. ISBN: 978-7-101-11619-9 Priestley, K. E., & Shou-jung, C. (1962). China’s Men of Letters, Yesterday and Today. Dragonfly Books.