Chapter 14 Chapter Thirteen: The Reason for Using the Vernacular

13.1 After the classical Chinese is finalized Words originally recorded the spoken language, and the shape and sound should be consistent.If you ask why this is so, you can answer that the nature of writing is like this.This kind of written language is vernacular in nature, but it does not need to be called vernacular, because as mentioned above, there was no classical Chinese that was separated from spoken language at that time, and the writers would not think of it as vernacular, and future generations do not need to call it vernacular. .When classical Chinese gradually departed from spoken language, took shape, and became a common written language, the situation was different. Vernacular, at least before the Tang Dynasty, became an uncommon alien, and when it appeared, it would attract attention, and some people would even ask , why write like this?There are many reasons, some of the main ones are discussed below.

13.1.1 From folk In our literature inventory, there are quite a few works (or just sporadic materials) from the folk.Most of the people in the folk are not familiar with classical Chinese, and they don't have the sophistication to compose and write it. Fortunately, it has been handed down, and it has become vernacular.Notable ones such as: (1) A foot of cloth can still be sewn, a bucket of millet can still be pounded, but two brothers cannot be compatible. ("Historical Records The Biography of King Li of Huainan" quotes folk songs) (2) Who is bad, Zhai Ziwei, who eats my beans, soup and taro.Fanhufu, Beidangfu, whoever said, two yellow swans. ("Hanshu Zhai Fangjin Biography" quotes nursery rhymes)

(3) Seeking wealth through poverty, agriculture is not as good as industry, industry is not as good as business, and embroidery is not as good as relying on the gate of the market. (A proverb is quoted in "Han Shu Huo Zhi Zhuan") (4) Raised under the stove, Zhonglang general; rotten sheep stomach, riding captain; rotten sheep head, Guanneihou. ("Later Han Shu·Liu Xuan Biography" quotes slang terms) (5) Thinking about something is in Danan.Why ask Yijun?The double-bead tortoiseshell hairpin is decorated with jade.Wen Jun has other hearts, pulling miscellaneous, destroying and burning them.Destroy and burn it, when the wind blows its ashes, from now on, don't miss it again.The lovesickness and the king are gone, the chicken crows and the dog barks, brothers and sisters-in-law should know it.The concubine shouts, the autumn wind soothes the morning wind*, and the east knows it in a moment. ("Yuefu Poetry Anthology Advocating Songs and Songs Thinking")

(6) A jujube plant in front of the door, I don’t know how old it is every year.Grandma doesn't marry a daughter, so her grandson will hug her. ("Yuefu Poems·Horizontal Blowing Songs·Songs of Folding Willow Branches") (7) If I want to be happy, I will act according to my feelings.The mist and dew hide the hibiscus, but it is not clear when you see the lotus. ("Yuefu Poetry Anthology Qing and Shang Song Ci Midnight Song") Examples (1) to (4) are ballads and proverbs, and examples (5) to (7) are Yuefu poems, all written by anonymous persons in the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, which can be regarded as early vernacular.

Since the Middle Ages, since the Tang and Song Dynasties, there have been more vernacular works from the folk.The most notable ones are the Bianwen and Huaben written by the entertainers, which will be introduced in Chapter 15.There are also many folk songs, such as the tunes popular in the Tang Dynasty and various folk songs popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.This kind of folk songs are similar in nature to Yuefu poems, and they all have tunes and rhymes.Such as: (8) The moon in the sky looks like a cloud of silver in the distance.The night is long and the wind is getting tighter in the middle of the night, blowing away the clouds on the edge of the moon for the slave, and seeing the heartbroken. (Wang Chongmin's "Dunhuang Songs and Lyrics·Wang Jiangnan")

(9) Meng Jiangnv, wife of Qiliang, once went to Yanshan and never returned.No one will give you the cold clothes you made, so you can't help but send them home.The Great Wall Road is really difficult to walk, and there is snow and fog under Cheese Mountain.Eating wine is a disease every other meal, and I hope that I will return to my health soon. (Same as the above book "Dao Lianzi") (10) I have had an ominous dream in the past few nights, please ask the husband to make a fortune teller. Look at the movement of this hexagram and that line, it depends on whether the wealth is prosperous or not, and the Luma does not move at all.Think carefully, think carefully, don't fool people. ("Splitting Jade", quoted from Chapter 10 of Zheng Zhenduo's "History of Chinese Folk Literature")

(11) I was thinner the day before yesterday, thinner today, look thinner.I sleep in the morning and in the evening, too lazy to comb my hair.Speaking of dusk, afraid of dusk, it is dusk time again.You shouldn't think about it, and it's easy to lose it when you're about to lose it.Ask your mouth to ask your heart, and ask your heart to your mouth. ("Hanging Branches", the source is the same as above) (12) Where are people now, for whom do flowers bloom, and why do geese and geese not bring books.From now on, Xin'er will hurt her thoughts again, and tears will roll down.The sky is frightening and the sky is frightening, infinitely desolate, teach slaves how to bear it. ("Parasitic Grass", quoted from Chapter 14 of Zheng Zhenduo's "History of Chinese Popular Literature")

(13) The heavy snow got lost and confused.I was afraid of wolves before, but later I was afraid of tigers, which scared me so much.Going forward, there are all uneven roads, how can we step in.Stepping back, there is no place for me, and my eyes are black.You understand in your heart, but I am confused in my heart, so I throw myself on you.Since we are good friends, I should show me a way to understand, and I will take care of you.And don't point out that the west will mistake me and my future. ("Horse Head Tune", source ibid.) This kind of folk works may not have been modified by literati, or they have been roughly preserved as they were by literati, so they are always very close to spoken language.

13.1.2 Records After classical Chinese was finalized, not only narration, but also memorization of words, and the use of classical Chinese became a habit of writing.No matter how faithful it is to write in this way, there will always be a layer of separation, which will easily turn clarity into ambiguity.There are two master historians against this approach.One is Liu Zhiji of the Tang Dynasty. He said in the article "Shi Tong·Words": "The later authors, who had no long-term knowledge and memorized their spoken language in the world, were rarely able to write from the facts, so they followed the example of the past. It shows the ancients.” The other is Zhang Xuecheng of the Qing Dynasty. He said in the article “Writing and History: Ten Disadvantages of Ancient Prose”: “The writing of the words is not the words of the author, but the quality of the writing. What people say is beyond the author's control." It is good to be true to what people say.Classical Chinese works occasionally write like this, but not many, only exceptions.Such as:

(1) Jian Wendao Wang Huaizu is neither talented nor weak in honor and profit. A little sincerity is enough to show a lot to others. ("Reward") (2) Yu Yutai, Xi's younger brother.Xizhu will kill Yutai.The daughter-in-law of Yutai, the daughter of Xuanwu's younger brother Huanhuo, also seeks to advance in vain.The girl couldn't help but said sharply, "what a villain, my uncle doesn't listen to me!" Because of breaking in, she cried and said, "Yu Yutai often has three inches short feet, so he can't be a thief if he can come back." (no)?"

Yiwu said with a smile, "my son-in-law is in a hurry." Suiyuan Yutai has a gate. ("Xianyuan") (3) The language times of Huannan County and Yinjingzhou were written together.Gu Kaizhi said: "The fire burns the plains and leaves nothing behind." Huan said: "Wrap the coffin with white cloth and erect it." Yin said: "Throw fish into the abyss and let the birds fly."Huan said: "Smash the rice with the spearhead and cook with the sword head." Yin said: "The hundred-year-old man climbs the dead branches." Gu said: "The baby is lying on the pulley on the well." Yin had a soldier who joined the army and said: "A blind man rides a blind horse, and he comes at midnight. Deep pool." Yin said: "Aggressive." Zhong Kan's eyesight is also the reason. () The above is a general record, it is good if it is realistic, and it is okay if it is not realistic.There are also special records, which must be written according to the original words.Such as: (4) One day he went to the hall and said: "There is a real person without a person in the heart of all of you, who often goes in and out of the face of all people. If you don't know it, just ask the old monk." At that time, a monk asked, "What is the real person without a person ", the teacher said, "What kind of shit is a real person without a position!" The teacher asked Le Puyun: "From the top, one person can stick and the other can drink. That's a kiss?" Said: "What do you do with your relatives?" Pu Bian drank, but the master beat him.The master asked the monk Mu Kou, "What is the white cow in the open ground?" Mu Kou said, "Hum." The master said, "Dumb." Mu Kou said, "Brother, what do you do?" Chuan Deng Lu, Volume 12, Quotations of Zen Master Yixuan) (5) Ask: "In my spare time every day, I sit quietly to nourish my mind, but my mind will naturally arise, so I have to be more still." Said: "Cheng Zi said that the mind is a living thing, how can I teach him not to be calm?" Thinking? Just don’t think indiscriminately. Only when you want to be quiet, you have added a lot of thinking. And don’t force him so hard, you must have your own time to rest.” He also said: “If you want to be quiet, you will get it first, and then you will get it. If it is encouraging, it is righteous." (Volume 6 of Zhang Boxing's "Zhu Zi Yu Lei Ji Lue") (6) Someone said that knowing is the idea of ​​doing, and doing is the effort of knowing; knowing is the beginning of doing, and doing is the completion of knowing.If you get it, just say one thing, you already have your own action; just say one thing, you already have your own knowledge.The reason why the ancients talked about knowing and walking is only because there is a kind of people in the world who are ignorant and do it arbitrarily. There is also a kind of person who wanders in the air thinking about it, and refuses to practice it at all. It is just a guessing influence, so he must say something before he knows the truth. (Wang Shouren enters) The original words are all about the principles of learning the Tao and establishing oneself. If you want to understand correctly, you must rely on enlightenment, which is what is now called experience.There are depths of experience, and there are even right and wrong; if you think it is right, you must first ensure that the original words are indeed the original words, so you can only write them down in the form of "Zi said" or "I heard it like this". Records, and some are to show legal responsibilities, such as: (7) In this case, Liu Yin's wife, Fan Yitai, filed a complaint in Xiyang's internal history of Qi Gu, claiming that she was born in the Liu family for more than 20 years.Uncle Lang always wanted to hurt, invaded and robbed the former slaves, godsons, and uncles, and he has joined the crowd.He also used money as a maidservant, sister and younger brother Wen still remained as slaves.The uncle seized Yin's interest again and shied away from the green grass for his maidservants, and he didn't divide his money when he got money for private goods.Yin's second concubine, Shili, went to work on the whole field last year. After twelve days, Fan Mi Liudou was responsible for feeding.Before the rice was shown off, he suddenly came to the front of the house, punched and cursed across the foil, rushed into the room, took the car curtain from the screen, and went to the rice.On the night of February 9th, the servant girl Caiyin stole the car fence, the stick, and the dragon's lead. Fan asked what he meant by the lost property, so he paused.Six people, including the whole mother and slaves, came to Fan's house and cursed loudly.Nu Caiyin raised his hand to check Fan's arm.Ask for probation, such as a complaint. ("Selected Works" Ren Fang "Zou Tan Liu Zheng") This article is written in parallel in accordance with the style of the Southern Dynasties; in the middle, it describes the plaintiff Fan's complaint (quoted above) and investigates the confession of Liu's old slave, Hai Ha. Some (unquoted) are in the original words.Written in this way, it means that the facts are all said by the person concerned, and there is no prejudice of the author (then Yushi Zhonghan) in it. 13.1.2 Shadow and Sound Notes, written according to the original words, are often for the sake of vividness, so that readers not only understand the meaning, but also can imagine the speaker's physical and mental state.Such as: (1) Li Zhaode is the internal history, Lou Shide is the Nayan, and they entered the court together.Lou Tifei moved slowly, but Li Gu didn't arrive immediately, so he said angrily: "I can't bear to kill a farmer!" Sui and Tang Dynasties "Volume 2) (2) One day, a young woman laughed and said, "Pianpian, the little ghost head, die! Aunt Xue has a dream, when will it be done?" Nu Ying said with a smile: "Lady of Huacheng, your toe has been wading for a long time. The southwest wind is tight today, blowing Come on! Can you still hug me, little brother?" Said: "Another little servant girl." The woman laughed and said, "Wayao, lady Hua! Is that the future?" Said: "Fang Wuzhi, I'm sleeping." So Sit and drink.And Gu Sheng said: "Young Lord burns incense well." Huacheng laughed and said: "The young man of the family is very bad! If you are a jealous lady, I am afraid that you will jump into the sky." The girl also said : "Bo Xing'er, it's worth freezing to death!" Xiang Yu applauded. ("Strange Tales from a Liaozhai Studio·Pianpian") Example (1) describes one person who is impatient and the other slow-tempered. Example (2) describes two fairies, Huacheng and Pianpian, who are smart and lively. If the vernacular is not used, the effect will be worse. 13.1.4 Gracious Section 13.1.2 above said that using classical Chinese to record words is inevitably separated and not clear enough.Another result of the separation is that they are not friendly, because using the formulas in classical Chinese always seems to be a routine entertainment.In order to avoid this kind of deficiency, it can be written according to the original words, that is, in vernacular. Such as: (1) In the past, your brothers were born in Wuchuan Town, the older one was born in the year of Rat, the second one was born in the year of Rabbit, and your body was born in the year of Snake.On the day of Xianyu Xiuli, my whole family lived in Boling County first.The prime minister wanted to go to Zuorencheng, and traveled to the north of the Tang River, where he was defeated by the Dingzhou government army. ...Afterwards, I will live with you in Shouyang.Shi Yuanbao, Bodhi said to your aunt, Helan Shengluo, and four of you were classmates.The doctor's surname is Cheng, and he is a strict and vicious person. The four of you and the others conspired to harm him.I heard about it with your aunts and others, and each arrested his son and beat him.Only Shengluo has no mother, so she is not beaten alone.Later, when Erzhu Tianzhu died, Heba Aduni was in Kansai, and sent people to meet his family.At that time, Uncle Ru also sent slaves to Fufu to welcome you, Sheng Luo and others. You used to wear crimson silk robes and silver belts, and Sheng Luo wore purple woven valerian robes and yellow silk linings, and went with you on a mule.Sheng Luo is smaller than you, and you and the other three called me "Amodun". (For the letter between Yan Ji and her son Yu Wenhu, see "Book of Zhou·Jin Danggong Hu Biography") (2) This is not the case today. With just a handful of books, one wants to be promoted, become a Jinshi, become an official, how to grab money, build a big house, and buy more land.At the beginning, he took the wrong path, and then he got worse and worse, and there was no good result.Those who cannot develop, do evil in the countryside, have small heads and sharp faces, let alone be unacceptable.There is no such thing as a husband who cultivates himself to be good, and there are many people who are self-satisfied and anti-eternal, and good people are burdened by bad people, which makes us unable to speak; when we speak, people laugh and say: "You rely on scholars I always say that, but in the future the resident officials will not say so." So he swallowed his anger and had to be laughed at. (Zheng Xie's "Fan County Office's Fourth Letter to Brother Mo Mo") Both letters were addressed to family members, and they were written in vernacular, as if talking about family affairs, which was much more cordial. 13.1.5 Laissez-faire In classical Chinese, it is written exactly according to the old standard, so it will inevitably have the meaning of sitting in a state of danger.In order to show unrestrained and unkempt, sometimes some vernacular can be used. Such as: (1) That is to say, if poetry is used as a commandment, Tao Pengze did not compare the tone and rhythm, carved sentences, but he wrote it by hand, which is the first-class poem asked by the universe.why?Its character is high.Since the beginning of poetry, it has been compared with rhythm, carved sentences, the most painstaking heart and the most strict words are not as heavy as Shen Yue, but the energy of life is hard, so that people read his poems, only to see that they are bound and dirty, full of volumes, He never said a word or two.why?Its nature is humble. (Tang Shunzhi's "Reply to Maolumen Magistrate Book") (2) Mei Zihe, the wife of a scholar in Gushan, is the first kind of cheap person in the world.Just for the sake of having a wife, I got into a lot of troubles, and I can't get rid of them, and it's disgusting to be close to them.Recently, there is Yu Sengru at the foot of Leifeng Peak, who has no wife and family, and is probably the back of Gushan.Although I don't know what Yu Hejing is like for the poems on falling flowers on the stream, I can get a hundred and fifty poems in one night, which can be described as extremely fast.As for eating light and practicing Zen, Gushan will be added to the first class. There are no strange people in this generation! (Yuan Hongdao's "Lonely Mountain") Expressing unrestrained in the vernacular is deliberately vulgar in an atmosphere that emphasizes elegance and despise vulgarity, which is rarely the case for literati who always have a straight face. 13.2 Easy to understand The above mainly talks about the reason why some vernacular words pop up from time to time in the sea of ​​classical Chinese.Although there are many reasons, they are not the most important.The most important reason is that the vast majority of ordinary people do not know classical Chinese. If you want to gain the approval of ordinary people, you have to use vernacular.We know very little about the situation before the Tang Dynasty, because apart from some Yuefu poems, almost no independent vernacular works have survived.From the Tang Dynasty onwards, the situation is different. What we can see today, apart from the melodies and words mentioned in Section 13.1.1, there are also a large number of "Bianwen".This is the knowledge of the times from the monks.Monks are disciples of Buddhist believers who want to spread Buddhist teachings.Many of the ways of life taught by the teachings are anti-worldly, the most prominent ones are things like eating and drinking.Strange, difficult, but if you want to win people's trust, you have to pay attention to technology, so you have to turn (pass "啭", which means singing) reading, singing and teaching, and Fanbai. Nice to hear.But the doctrine is always unavoidably strict. In order to prevent the audience from dozing off or leaving the meeting halfway, we have to add something that suits the taste of the masses, which becomes "vulgar teaching".From the standpoint of Buddhism, the content of common teaching is simple and interesting, and it is to accommodate ordinary people; as for the hidden purpose, Juan 2, 4, 3, and Hu Sansheng’s notes say it well, "you can’t play empty meanings, but just invite charity to please the vulgar." But as soon as the principle was abandoned in this way, the situation took a turn for the worse. At first, they still talked about "The Bianwen of Conquering the Devil", "The Bianwen of Damuganlian Underworld Rescuing the Mother" and so on. "Meng Jiangnv Bian Wen" and so on.Bianwen's "Bian" means extraordinary, referring to things like magic and supernatural powers, so Bianwen is a magical storybook.Talking about Bianwen is called "changing", that is, talking and singing miraculous stories. It was originally a monk's profession; because it can invite alms, that is, to make money, it was quickly learned by secular entertainers. , also rap, earn money.Probably in the early days, secular stories could be called Bianwen or "huaben". For example, there were "Wang Zhaojun Bianwen" and "Lushan Yuangong Talk" found in Dunhuang, which were later called Huaben.In the Tang Dynasty, there were people who used speech as a profession; in the Song Dynasty, it became more popular, not only in tiles, but also in different numbers.Transformation depends on Bianwen, what you see today is basically vernacular; speaking depends on the script, most of what you see today is pure vernacular.Why use vernacular?Because this kind of works were for people to "listen" in the early days, not for people to "watch".For ordinary people to listen to, and I hope that many people will listen to it, so naturally I can only use vernacular.This implies a competition between vernacular and classical Chinese. If we only look at the number of people who support it, vernacular should win.Take excellent classical Chinese novels as an example.The "Biography of Li Wa" written by Bai Xingjian, a legend in the Tang Dynasty, has about 4,000 characters, but the entertainer said that "the words of a flower (that is, Li Wa)" are "from Yin to Si (about eight hours), and the words are still unfinished" ( "Yuanshi Changqing Collection" Volume Ten "Reward Hanlin Bai Xueshi Daishu Baiyun" self-note).Writing fox ghost stories is superb, but the masses are willing to go to teahouses to listen to vernacular chat.This is enough to prove that if you want to win the welcome of the majority, you can only use plain language that is easy to understand. Bianwen, Huaben and other so-called vulgar literature works are written in vernacular because they are easy to understand. There are many types and a large number of them, and they are all introduced in Chapter 15. 13.3 Against Classical Chinese The above-mentioned reasons for writing in vernacular, including being easy to understand, are still peacefully coexisting with classical Chinese.Provoking the banner of vernacular and threatening not to use classical Chinese began in the early years of the Republic of China.To do so is the old mess, which has become more obvious because of the end of the absolute monarchy and the importation of the so-called Mr. De and Sai in Western culture.Worse, the way to save it is of course to remove the old and replace it with the new.The old includes many aspects. Some intellectuals saw classical Chinese, which was called "literature" at the time, and felt that the content and form of expression were bad, so they advocated switching to vernacular.In this way, the vernacular raised troops against the classical Chinese, the motivation actually has two kinds: internal and external; if it is divided into distance and near, the internal cause is far, and the external cause is near.The proximate reason, to put it bluntly, is that we feel that it is a good idea to separate Western languages ​​and writings, and we should follow suit.For example, Hu Shi said in the article "Forty's Self-report" (see "Forty Self-Reports"): "If there is no living language of various countries as a new tool, if modern European literati still have to use the dead Latin as a tool, the modern European literature Is it possible to flourish?” Shortly thereafter, he put forward nine points, the first of which was “today’s classical Chinese is a half-dead language” and the second was “today’s vernacular is a living language.” .He said these words in America, in 1916.Almost twenty years later, he wrote the "Introduction" of "A Collection of New Chinese Literature: A Collection of Construction Theories", and mentioned three most important reasons for the vernacular literature movement. The third is: "Our sea ban has been lifted, and World cultures have come into contact, and we have reference and comparison materials, especially the history of the production of national language literature in modern European countries, so that we can understand the history of our own national language literature and make us boldly advocate the establishment of our own literary revolution." "And World cultures have come into contact" This sentence shows that the impetus for innovation is external.In fact, the uprising at that time and the subsequent victories can be clearly seen from the perspective of those who participated, because most of them had drunk foreign ink.This external impetus has the color of loathing all traditional cultures, and it is prominently expressed as opposing classical Chinese, such as the "eight noisms" proposed by Hu Shi in "On the Literary Revolution of Construction", not writing "words that have nothing to say", not writing Do not use allusions, do not use clichés, and do not emphasize duality when writing "moaning without illness"—writing must abolish parallelism, poetry must abolish rhymes, do not write ungrammatical writing, do not imitate ancients, do not avoid common sayings and vulgar characters, that is, to speak classical Chinese of. Looking at it now, the reasons for opposing classical Chinese and admiring vernacular at that time were inevitably one-sided, and the words were too extreme.This can be represented by the opinion of Hu Shi, who said in "On the Literary Revolution of Construction": "The literature produced by literati in the past two thousand years is dead, and it is all written in dead languages. Dead Words can never produce living literature." This is a negative statement, saying how bad classical Chinese is.There is also a positive side, which is how good it is to speak the vernacular: "The history of vernacular literature is the central part of the history of Chinese literature. If the history of Chinese literature removes the history of the evolution of vernacular literature, it will not be the history of Chinese literature. It can only be called the history of ancient Chinese traditions." ' That's all." ("History of Vernacular Literature Introduction") He really wore this pair of colored glasses to evaluate all the works in the literature inventory. The method is very simple: all classical Chinese works are unworthy, and all vernacular works are treasures. .Saying this, it seems that he clearly understands the value of the vernacular.In fact, this is not the case, because even if vernacular works are all excellent literary works (of course this is not the case, because vernacular can also be used to write notes and incite pirates), its ability to defeat classical Chinese is still due to its own advantages.There are at least three more.One is that it can serve the people, that is, it is easy to learn and easy to use.Classical Chinese will not work, because unlike spoken Chinese, it is difficult to learn and difficult to use.The second is economics, because we use one set of languages ​​regardless of whether we speak or write, and we cannot use two sets of languages ​​if we separate families.The third is the power to express new ideas.Classical Chinese is to use old sayings to talk about current affairs, and sometimes it is inevitable to look at the flowers in the fog and feel stretched.The vernacular uses today's language to describe today's affairs, so there will be no such problems.There are many examples of this.If the achievement is very high, but compared with it, it seems not real enough, not detailed enough, then the disadvantage is that the vernacular is not used.Translating texts is also a good example. Lin Shu's translation of "A Piece of Meat for the Rest of His Life" and Yan Fu's translation of "Fayi" both took a lot of effort. Neither faithful nor clear.More notably, classical Chinese is simply not feasible to express new content in the new era, because it cannot accommodate Boeing 747 and Coca-Cola.In short, due to various reasons, plus the new force is thousands of times stronger than the old force, so the vernacular, like Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, rose up, and soon occupied a large area, not only invading newspapers and periodicals, but also invading textbooks. In the 1930s, the written world was unified, and everyone wrote in vernacular. Classical Chinese is almost extinct, and vernacular is firmly seated on the throne. Of course, it must have political achievements, that is, so-called decent works.In this aspect, there are also many types and a large number, all of which are left to be introduced in Chapter 15.