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:
“One who speaks a foreign language just a little takes more pleasure in it than one who speaks it well. Enjoyment belongs to those who know things halfway.”
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“Language is an archeological vehicle ... the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history.”
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“The writer’s language is to some degree the product of his own action; he is both the historian and the agent of his own language.”
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