Aunt Xue - Language

Language

The novel is composed in written vernacular rather than Classical Chinese. Cao Xueqin was well versed in Chinese poetry and in Classical Chinese, having written tracts in the semi-wenyan style, while the novel's dialogue is written in the Beijing Mandarin dialect, which was to become the basis of modern spoken Chinese. In the early 20th century, lexicographers used the text to establish the vocabulary of the new standardized language and reformers used the novel to promote the written vernacular.

Read more about this topic:  Aunt Xue

Famous quotes containing the word language:

    To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive ... and impoverished.
    Roland Barthes (1915–1980)

    The reader uses his eyes as well as or instead of his ears and is in every way encouraged to take a more abstract view of the language he sees. The written or printed sentence lends itself to structural analysis as the spoken does not because the reader’s eye can play back and forth over the words, giving him time to divide the sentence into visually appreciated parts and to reflect on the grammatical function.
    J. David Bolter (b. 1951)

    “What may this mean? Language of Man pronounced
    By tongue of brute, and human sense expressed!
    The first at least of these I thought denied
    To beasts, whom God on their creation-day
    Created mute to all articulate sound;
    The latter I demur, for in their looks
    Much reason, and in their actions, oft appears.
    John Milton (1608–1674)