General Literary Chinese from Scratch/The All-Purpose 也

thumb|200px|Stroke order for 也. Hello! If you are starting this unit, you believe you have enough super-basic character knowledge to get started with Literary Chinese. In this lesson, you are going to learn a basic dictionary entry formula using 也. An Introduction to Literary Chinese Dictionaries There are numerous dictionaries made within the medium of Literary Chinese. The Great Repository of the Four Treasuries (Siku Quanshu 四庫全書), a massive diachronic repository of Literary Chinese texts from the Qing dynasty, contains many in its Rime Book category (韻書之屬) and Dictionary category (字書之屬), all of which are very useful. Among these, I recommend the following. 説文解字 Shuowen Jiezi Discussing and Explaining Characters - Etymology of characters. 廣韻 Guangyun Broad Rimes - The Chinese phonology of characters. 玉篇 Yupian Jade Volume - The definitions of characters. Together, they make a strong combination. 集韻 and 爾雅 are also useful dictionaries, but are not among those in 四庫全書. Kroll's Dictionary of Medieval Chinese is perfectly acceptable for an English-medium experience. Kroll, P. W., Baxter, W. H., Boltz, W. G., Knechtges, D. R., Lien, Y. E., Richter, A., Richter, M. L., & Warner, D. X. (2017). A student’s dictionary of classical and medieval Chinese (S. F. Teiser, M. Kern, & T. Brook, Eds; Revised edition). Brill. The Dictionary Structure Let us pick out a random entry from 説文解字, which discusses the etymology of characters. It was written by one Xu Shen 許慎; he is wrong sometimes, but not unreliable. 杏：果也。从木，可省聲。 杏: Fruit-is. From tree, could 省 xǐng-sound. 杏 is a fruit. (It comes) from 木, and could come from the sound of 省 xǐng. When you see 也 at the end of a sentence, it essentially means "is equivalent to the topic of this sentence". This is the closest you get to is, a "copula," in Literary Chinese. However, know that it is definitive in use, unlike the is in English. Whereas is will show you something is equivalent around half of the time (e.g. light is bright; the sky is blue), it is almost always the case in Literary Chinese (光明也；天青）. If you are not being definitive, you do not need 也. Therefore: 杏：果也。 杏 is equivalent to a fruit. Even without knowing the characters, it is easy to dissect dictionaries in this way. 者 and 也 Outside of dictionaries, you may see 者 placed by the thing being defined: 孔子對曰：「政者，正也。」 Confucius replied, saying: To govern; is to rectify. Thus, the pattern X者，Y也 is crucial. Everything between those two characters will be describing X; 者 marks the topic the sentence is talking about, and 也 marks the comment on that topic.也 can occasionally be seen taking 者's role, wherein the comment-marking 也 will not be seen. Here are some more examples: 鴆者，異鳥也。 鴆 is a strange bird. 顒者，異獸也。 顒 is a strange beast. 王亥者，一名子振，字子，商國之之 is a possessive marker, but we will go over it more later.王也。 王亥, AKA 子振, family name 子, was the ruler of the Kingdom 國 of Shang 商. As you can see in this example, explanations can get quite long. Therefore, it is useful to find the 也 once 者 is seen. Fanqie system thumb|100px|What does this part mean..? When reading Chinese dictionaries, another character to look out for is 切. If we consult the Guangyun, the 也 part is fairly straightforward, but... 東：徳紅切。東方也。 東：virtue-red-cut. (It) is (the) east-place. The first part makes no sense! However, if we read that part out loud in Chinese, we get de-hong, then if we review the Pinyin for the character described...dong. Initial: 德 - dé -> d- Final: 紅 - hóng -> -óng Result: 德紅 - dóng Suddenly, the "cut" makes sense, does it not? This is called the fanqie 反切 system. It cuts out the tone, then chops the characters into initials and finals, and merges them together to show pronunciation. The more characters you know, the more effective it is. However, you do not need to learn this unless you specifically want to review Chinese phonology. If you are studying Old or Middle Chinese phonology, or want to speak using the latter, these types of rime dictionaries will be of paramount importance to you. Otherwise, it is not very useful. Therefore, if you do not care for Chinese phonology, you only need to read: 東：__切。 To know that that part is irrelevant to you. Exercise Now that you know 也, let's try making some pet correspondences. There are no right-or-wrong answers here: What do you think? What are some words you know already that are equivalent to the ones listed below? __, 木也。 __，火也。 __，水也。 __，土也。 __，果也。 __，紅也。 Next, look at these entries. Are they correct? If not, why? 畓, 田也。 貺，賜也。 民, 人也。 畑, 火也。 樹, 木也。 增，益也。 What you can do From this lesson, you can now: Define concepts with 也, and make value judgements as to where and when it is necessary to use. Write a simple declarative 甲者……乙也 structure. Filter out unnecessary information in a rime dictionary. Detect synonyms and definitions in a rime dictionary. From here, you can start slowly building out vocabulary as you see fit. It is recommended to use Browser apps like Yomitan along with the Kroll dictionary and given rime dictionaries above to get a comprehensive grasp of the information they can give you. Try it out! Cangjie Combinations It is strongly recommended that you put these characters into a flashcard deck. I personally recommend Anki, available on PC (AnkiWeb) and Android (AnkiDroid). Practice making structures with these characters as soon as possible. 也: 心木 (PD) 四: 田金 (WC) 庫: 戈十田十 (IJWJ) 全: 人一土 (OMG) 書: 中土日 (LGA) 經: 女火一女一 (VFMVM) 部: 卜口弓中 (YRNL) 韻: 卜日口月金 (YARBC) 之: 戈弓人 (INO) 屬: 尸卜卜戈 (SYYI) 字: 十弓木 (JND) 説: 卜口金口山 (YRCRU) 文: 卜大 (YK) 解: 弓月尸竹手 (NBSHQ) 廣: 戈廿一金 (ITMC) 玉: 一土戈 (MGI) 篇: 竹竹尸月 (HHSB) 集: 人土木 (OGD) 爾: 一火月大 (MFBK) 雅: 一竹人土 (MHOG) 許: 卜口人十 (YROJ) 慎: 心十月金 (PJBC) 杏: 木口 (DR) 果: 田木 (WD) 从: 人人 (OO) 木: 木 (D) 可: 一弓口 (MNR) 省: 火竹月山 (FHBU) 聲: 土水尸十 (GESJ) 者: 十大日 (JKA) 孔: 弓木山 (NDU) 子: 弓木 (ND) 對: 廿土木戈 (TGDI) 曰: 日 (A) 政: 一一人大 (MMOK) 正: 一卜中一 (MYLM) 鴆: 中山竹日火 (LUHAF) 異: 田廿金 (WTC) 鳥: 竹日卜火 (HAYF) 顒: 田月一月金 (WBMBC) 獸: 口口戈大 (RRIK) 王: 一土 (MG) 亥: 卜女竹人 (YVHO) 一: 一 (M) 名: 弓戈口 (NIR) 振: 手一一女 (QMMV) 商: 卜金月口 (YCBR) 國: 田戈口一 (WIRM) 切: 心尸竹 (PSH) 東: 木田 (DW) 徳: 難竹人十田 (XHOJW) 紅: 女火一 (VFM) 方: 卜竹尸 (YHS) 反: 竹水 (HE) 火: 火 (F) 水: 水 (E) 土: 土 (G) 畓: 水田 (EW) 田: 田 (W) 貺: 月金口竹山 (BCRHU) 賜: 月金日心竹 (BCAPH) 民: 口女心 (RVP) 人: 人 (O) 畑: 火田 (FW) 樹: 木土廿戈 (DGTI) 增: 土金田日 (GCWA) 益: 廿金月廿 (TCBT) Notes References Pulleyblank, E. G. (2000). Outline of classical Chinese grammar (Repr). UBC Press. Category:Book:General Literary Chinese from Scratch